Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Asher
Savannah asked if this was my first concussion. It’s not. Not my second, either. But it’s been a decade since I’ve had one and this is the first one that I can tell people was an accident and actually mean it.
I’d forgotten how they feel—my head is throbbing, sure, but the nausea is worse, along with the feeling like I got up with my body put back on wrong.
The team doctor said to lie here. So I lie in the medical suite room—Savannah’s hand in mine—until noise starts coming from the rest of the clubhouse.
The game must be over if the team is coming back.
Savannah drops my hand. Already I miss her fingers against mine. It must be the head injury. But the ache is much lower, right in the middle of my chest.
“I’m gonna talk to the doctor,” she says, but she stops when someone appears in the doorway.
Brayden in his street clothes, hair wet from the shower, as if he barely took the time to dry himself off before coming to see me. He shifts from foot to foot and doesn’t enter.
“Hey, B.” I don’t know why I started calling him that, but every time I do, he gets this look as if he likes it and doesn’t want to admit it.
He takes a cautious step into the room. “Early bus’ll be out in a few minutes.” Because the team has a series of buses back to our hotel.
I sit up on my elbows, then immediately regret it when my stomach turns over.
That must be obvious, because Sav grabs a trashcan and foists it at me. “If you’re gonna throw up, do that in here,” she says.
“You don’t have to do this.”
She and Brayden exchange a look—a couple-ish look—then both turn to me. “What do you need from your stall?” Brayden asks then glares at me when I start to refuse.
I tell him and he stomps off, then comes back a few minutes later with a duffle holding my stuff.
I’m still in my game uniform. I need to change to give it to the clubhouse workers so they can do the laundry.
I sit up, try to undo my jersey; my fingers stumble over the buttons.
I stop, exhausted from even that effort.
“Here.” Brayden drops the duffle, runs his hand up my chest, doesn’t look me in the eye as he undoes my jersey. Once it’s off, he tosses on the floor.
I’m still wearing a compression shirt. Brayden grips the hem at my waist. “Close your eyes,” he breathes, then tugs off the shirt, ruffling my hair in the process.
I can get my pants off myself—gravity does most of that.
Midway through, I realize Savannah has turned around and is studying the trim of the doorway as if she’s preserving my modesty.
“Let me know when you’re done,” she says, overly loud.
Right. This isn’t for her; it’s for anyone else on the team who might see her in here and assume… the truth.
I pull on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt Brayden hands me, then start to gather my uniform from the floor. Brayden puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me, then points to the table. “Sit your ass down.”
“Are you being nice to me so you can order me around?” I ask.
Two spots of color appear on his cheekbones. “No.” But he grabs my uniform and takes it out into the hallway, presumably to the laundry cart, before he comes back. “Great, let’s go.” As if the two of them are just going to walk me right out of here, which they just might.
“My head is fine.” It’s not, but that’s not either of their problems.
“Yeah,” Brayden says, “so here’s the thing about trying to lie to someone who’s done a lot of it. You can’t.”
I think of every time Brayden came stumbling into the clubhouse after a night out, claiming he didn’t have a hangover. “You’re not that good a liar.”
Savannah rolls her eyes fondly. “I’m better at it than both of you. Brayden, get his bag. Asher, stop being stubborn.”
And it’s not until we’re loading ourselves onto the team bus that the question hits me: What, exactly, is Savannah lying about?
I survive the short ride on the team bus, the loud jostling pile-off that always accompanies the team as we’re going back to the hotel.
On my way down the stairs, I’m already dreaming of a quiet hotel room, of turning off every light and going the hell back to sleep, when the Peaches travel secretary stops me.
“Adler.” His voice echoes off the concrete parking lot floor, and I squeeze my eyes shut as a stab of pain goes through my head. I need to suck it up. Sav deals with this all the time.
“We changed your room to one in a quieter wing of the hotel.” He hands me a hotel key card in a paper sleeve. “We already had your stuff transferred. Enjoy the honeymoon suite.”
Which means I’ll be away from the clatter of the team.
Probably for the best, since the doctor said they were going to give me a day to rest before the team determines if I should be on the injured list. I thank him, then start into the hotel lobby, the din adding to the mounting pressure in my head.
“Hey”—Brayden jogs up to me—“where are you going?”
“Room got reassigned.”
“Huh.” Brayden looks around, possibly for Savannah, who said she was taking an Uber over with the other WAGs. “You want some company?” he asks.
“I’m not supposed to.” What they actually said was, Sleep until you get bored of sleeping. Being alone isn’t new for me. Complaining about a suite in a luxury hotel is rich asshole behavior anyway.
Brayden nudges my shoulder gently. “You afraid of breaking a few rules?”
“You trying to get an invitation, B?” I ask, mostly to watch his cheeks flame with color again.
He gives a half shrug. “Maybe. You might wake up in a coma.”
“That doesn’t—” Happen. Because the doctors had said it was a myth, and Savannah had said the same.
I’m about to tell him just that when there’s another burst of noise from behind us.
The throbbing in my brain goes from fireworks to supernova.
I pinch the bridge of my nose hoping it will help. It doesn’t.
Brayden seizes me by the arm. “Yeah, c’mon.” He drags me toward the elevator, punches the button for my new floor. When we arrive, he shuffles me up the hallway then scans the card on the room key reader. Even the snick of the lock is too loud.
Inside, Brayden keeps herding me—past my suitcases that the team piled in one corner, past the small living area with two couches, a coffee table, and a TV, over to an enormous bed.
A Texas king? An Alaska? One that’s made for something more exciting than what I’m doing.
I pull off my shirt, push down my pants, crawl into it and spend a moment breathing raggedly on the white comforter.
A second later, something damp makes contact with my arm. Brayden with a can of ginger ale that must have come from the minibar. “That shit’s expensive,” I say reflexively, even if the team’ll pay for it.
“Asher”—Brayden taps my arm again with the can—“quit fucking arguing and drink this.”
I take the can and sip it slowly. My stomach settles. My head throbs a little less. “Thanks.”
Brayden cups his hand mockingly by his ear. “What was that?” But he says it quietly. “I let Sav know where we are.”
“You two don’t have to—”
“So you keep saying.” He rolls his eyes. “Move over.” He settles on the bed next to me, shower shoes kicked off, sock clad feet almost touching mine. Last night, we were naked and gasping in each other’s grips. Tonight…this is something different. Closer, somehow.
After a few minutes, there’s a knock on the door. Brayden hops up, opens it, admits Savannah. She’s holding several bags. “I brought dinner,” she says.
Brayden takes the bags from her, presses a kiss to her cheek. I figured they would just get me settled here and then leave to go do whatever someplace else. Be married without you.
“You feel like eating?” Savannah asks me.
“No.” Because my stomach is still clenched even if I know I’ll feel worse if I don’t.
Savannah lifts an eyebrow at me, then turns to Brayden. “You’re right, he is being more difficult than usual.” As if they’d been talking about me with one another.
Brayden makes a told you gesture, then begins to unpack the bags on the coffee table, including a container of soup that starts gently steaming when Brayden pries it open.
I pull myself up, manage to carry myself over to the couch as Savannah watches me like I might collapse. When I get there, she hands me a plastic spoon and a package of crackers, our fingers brushing casually.
We shouldn’t do this. What Brayden had said. That whatever happened needed to stay the hell out of the clubhouse.
And yet, they’re here. Maybe the boundaries of whatever this is extend to rooms with lockable doors.
I could ask—could argue. It doesn’t take much to rile either of them up.
That’s why you like them. Something that had taken about five seconds of knowing Sav to confirm and weeks of being around Brayden to admit.
That ache returns to my chest: the ache of wanting something impossible.
Something I’d drive all night just to have the chance at.
So I don’t argue. I eat the soup Sav brought—chicken—along with the crackers and the ginger ale Brayden wordlessly brings over so I don’t have to get it from the nightstand.
After I eat, I dig my toothbrush out of my suitcase, make it as far as brushing my teeth when fatigue hits me.
I check the time. Hours until I can even take more pain meds.
No way out but through. I make it back to the couch.
Collapse with a sigh. “I’m just gonna—” I don’t remember if I get the words entirely out before I fall asleep.
When I wake up, Brayden and Sav are still there, Brayden’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, watching a reality show on the muted TV: Stable of Love with lagging, inaccurate subtitles.
I pull myself up. My mouth and eyes are still clouded with sleep, but my head feels better. A bottle of water sits on the coffee table. I take a few deep swallows.
“Did we wake you?” Savannah asks.
“You’re good.” Even if I avert my eyes from the TV’s glare. “Is this the one where they all work on a ranch?”
Brayden’s eyebrows shoot up. “I thought you’d be into weird artistic shit.”
“I only watch it ironically,” I deadpan, then turn to Sav. “Is Sonya still on it or did she have to hang up her spurs?”
Savannah laughs. “Nah, she’s still looking to get hitched.”
“Oh, good.” I settle facing away from the TV, though I can see its flickering reflection on various framed paintings.
“You big into ranching?” Brayden asks me.
I snort. “Do you think people watch this show for the horses?”
“I grew up riding,” Savannah says, while Brayden nods like that’s normal.
“Oh same,” I say sarcastically. My head only hurts slightly as I laugh.
“No horses in—” Brayden pauses like he’s trying to remember where I’m from.
“Pittsburgh. And yeah, some people had them. My mom’s a reporter. Not exactly horse money.”
“And your dad?” Brayden asks.
Despite being tired, my shoulders go involuntarily stiff.
“He was mostly a piece of shit.” I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, counting down until my chest loosens.
“I haven’t seen him since I was sixteen.
” Not since I sat outside my parents’ house—my mom’s house—with a metal baseball bat and told him that if he set foot inside again, that’d be the last thing he’d ever do.
For a moment, neither of them says anything, though Savannah is looking at me, unsurprised, forehead pinched in sympathy.
She’s smart. I don’t know why I thought I was getting anything by her.
I might as well be wearing a sign on my forehead that tells my life story.
You can drive all night and still not escape who you are.
“Yeah,” Brayden says after a minute, “I feel that.”
I only saw his parents briefly at that party—mostly, my eyes were on Savannah in that dress and on Brayden seemingly not appreciating her in that dress.
They’d seemed normal enough, but growing up with a father like mine teaches you that normal is a suit some people can put on in the morning and take off just as easily when they come home at night. “Anyway, he’s gone.”
“Dead?” Brayden asks.
“I wish.” I shift around, trying to get settled, finding that I can’t. Agitation—at myself for getting hurt, at this concussion for putting me on a shelf for the next few days. I pull out my phone, cue up my meditation app, then immediately clench my eyes shut at its brightness.
“No screen time,” Savannah says.
Of course she’s not wrong. I open my eyes, darken my phone screen. I don’t want them seeing me like this. Tightness returns to my chest. “You should go.”
Savannah gets up. Sits on the couch I’m currently occupying. Places her hand on my cheek.
“We should leave because you don’t want us here?” Sav asks. “Or because you don’t think we want to be here?”
I turn away, scrunching my face into the nearest couch cushion.
“Asher, hey.” Savannah says my name softly, the way I’ve fantasized about her saying it for what feels like an eternity. Just not like this.
I wish I hadn’t said anything about my dad—that whatever was happening between us didn’t feel so much like someone had dug into my body with a sharp spoon. It was one thing to fuck. Another to talk about the things I keep buried inside myself, hoping they never wake up.
Savannah leans, kisses my cheek softly. “If we want to sleep here tonight, is that okay with you?”
We shouldn’t. Mostly because if I say yes now, it’ll be worse when they inevitably pull away. “What makes today different from yesterday?” I ask.
She turns to Brayden, who looks like he might be panicking as he decides whether or not to flee. Go back to your room, to your marriage. To your straight lives together without me.
“If you leave now,” I say, “you were just checking on your teammate.” That’s what we’ll be. All that we get to be. Teammates. Possibly friends.
“Yeah.” Brayden gets up. For a moment I think he’s going to gather his things and go. Then he stops in front of the couch Savannah and I are on. He squares his shoulders, plants his feet, and I can’t tell if he’s forcing himself to stay here or working up to forcing himself out the door.
“Last night,” he says. “We shouldn’t have…” He trails off.
Here it comes. He’s going to tell me all the reasons we shouldn’t want what we want.
“We shouldn’t have left like that,” he says, instead, and holds out his hand. “Think we’ll all fit in that bed?”
I slide my palm across his. “Only one way to be sure.”