Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Brayden
Sav and I go back to our room for our luggage: our suitcases, our toiletries, the vibrator that’s sitting on the dresser in its slim charging case.
“If you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to,” I tell Sav as we’re wheeling our stuff toward the elevator, hoping not to run into my teammates so we don’t have to explain…any of this.
She fixes me with a glance, like she can see something I can’t. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
No. I’m not sure. There are a thousand reasons for not doing this, beginning with the fact that even though my teammates currently aren’t in the hallway, some of them might be spying on us through the peepholes in their hotel room doors.
Ending with…I don’t know how this ends. I’m not even sure where it starts, really.
I was raised to believe that anything outside the confines of a one man, one woman Godly marriage was surely a path to sin.
But I want to.
Maybe it starts with that.
I punch the elevator button again as if that’ll make it come faster. Not an answer to Sav’s question but answer enough.
Of course, when the elevator arrives, it’s carrying McDonald. He steps out, holding the door as we wheel in our suitcases. “Changing rooms?” he asks.
Shit. I should have thought of an excuse. Blake liked to say he and I had roles. It was my role to get us into trouble and his role to talk us out of it. Now I wish that I had paid attention to what he was saying all those times instead of just being happy not to face consequences.
“The noise,” Sav says after a second. “Bad for my migraines.”
“Ah.” McDonald nods as if that explains everything, though one of his eyebrows lifts slightly. “Well, get some good peace and quiet.”
“Thank you.” Savannah’s tone is calm, cool, collected, and she smiles sweetly as McDonald wishes us a good night and the door slides shut.
After a second, we both collapse against the elevator walls. “That was—” Savannah lets out a dramatic breath.
“You’re a good liar.”
Sav’s eyes go wide.
Fuck, she thinks I’m talking about her and Asher sneaking around. “I just mean you’re good under pressure.”
“I didn’t think I was. Before we got married.
Before this year, really. Turns out I just hadn’t been under pressure.
” She smiles; she has a dimple in her cheek that only comes out once in a while.
For weeks, I’ve wanted to be the person to make her smile like that.
I push the elevator button to the floor Asher’s room is on.
We’re about to share a bed. Maybe more than a bed.
I thought I’d be too jealous to share any part of her.
But she smiles at Asher like that too sometimes.
When we get to Asher’s room, Sav swipes the room key Asher lent us and opens the door.
Inside, the room is dim. Asher’s in bed, already passed out.
Sav and I get ready quietly. We brush our teeth side by side at the sink, change into sleep clothes in the bathroom.
I’m naked in front of two dozen or so guys in the clubhouse all the time.
Still, I somehow feel a little shy around her as I pull off my shirt.
She reaches out, hand aimed for my chest before she withdraws her arm. “You have a—”
I glance down at myself. There’s a bruise on my shoulder I don’t remember getting. By this point in the season, we’re all playing a little banged up. “Yeah.”
“Does it hurt?” she asks.
It doesn’t or it doesn’t any worse than any of the other bruises I have. “What if I told you it did?”
Her lips edge up at the corners. “As a former almost-nurse I’d prescribe a nice…long…hot….” She grins then finishes with, “…shower.”
I wind my arm around her waist, pulling her closer to me.
Even in fresh clothes with her face scrubbed clean of makeup, I can catch the rose scent of her perfume.
She presses her body against mine. We fit together.
Before yesterday morning, I wasn’t totally sure we would.
But we do like my hands were made to hold her.
“You’re still wearing your ring,” she says.
“Yeah.” Because I still have the black silicone band on my left ring finger. Lately, my hand has felt weird without it. “Does it bother you?”
“No.” That dimple flashes again. “Let’s go to sleep.”
We both slide into bed on the opposite side of where Asher is lying. The bed is big—less big after we’re all in it. Savannah lies down in the middle. We’ve shared a bed for exactly two nights and already I know that she likes to stick her feet out of the covers.
“We can switch,” I offer.
“Are you sure?”
“I can sleep anywhere.” A useful skill on minor-league buses and when I was regularly passing out on strangers’ couches.
Sav gets out and I get in bed. This position puts me close to Asher. I hold myself stiff, not wanting to disturb him. In the dark, his hair is almost black against the pillow, the tattoo on his shoulder like a spill of ink.
Sav curls herself up next to me, her back against my side. She’s warm on my bruised shoulder. Her hair tickles my nose. Asher’s hand wanders under the covers until his knuckles brush mine. I could…
I could get used to this.
The next day, when I get back to the room after our game, Asher’s sitting up, reading a paperback book. His hair is damp at the ends—clearly, he’s feeling well enough to shower—and he seems brighter somehow, less pinched around his forehead and mouth.
He sets the book down when I come in. “Good game,” he says.
“Did you watch?”
He shakes his head. “Head’s better, but screens are kinda suspect today. I listened to the radio broadcast.”
I don’t know why, but I like something about that image: Asher lying in bed, listening to our game. My game. “Yeah?”
“You’re hitting better.”
“Have you been looking up my stats?” I tease.
“I might have paid attention to you before I got traded.”
“Might have?”
He smiles, that familiar smirk that used to make me want to grab his hair and tug and now—
Now it makes me want to do the exact same thing.
I go over to him, kicking off my shoes. I slide my hand under his jaw. He looks up at me, eyes dark, lips slightly parted. I want to kiss him, a want that hums under my skin. Something that’s been there for a long time that I’m only now admitting.
“Where’s Sav?” he asks.
That makes me drop my hand. “She went to get drinks with Lexi.” Though from the look on Sav’s face when she told me, it was possible drinks meant interrogation about our new rooming situation.
“I brought you food from the clubhouse.” I point to the stack of team-provided takeout boxes I carried in with me.
I’m about to bring them over when Asher catches my wrist.
“We just need…” He scrunches his forehead like he’s searching for the correct word. “Ground rules for all of this.”
“Ground rules?”
“If we’re together without Sav—if that’s okay.”
Oh. So he’s not saying no, but he’s not saying yes either. “You were with her without me,” I say, unable to keep the slight bitterness out of my voice.
“I could say the same to you.”
“I’m her husband.”
“And I’m…?” He trails off, eyebrows up.
Her boyfriend. My boyfriend. Something. “You’re a fucking problem.”
That makes Asher laugh. He tips his head back, and I watch the long line of his neck, the slight movement of his tattoo as his muscles shift.
Two nights ago, I only felt it briefly under my fingertips.
The skin was rough, like the scar I got when I partially flipped an ATV and dragged myself across gravel until Blake intervened.
“If Sav is okay with it, can I touch your neck?” My words come out in a rush, awkward and strange.
This time, Asher doesn’t laugh, just gives me a long look through his eyelashes. “And if I’m okay with it, right?”
“Are you?” The question feels bigger than those two words.
Asher lifts an eyebrow. “Text Sav and find out.”
The last message Sav sent me was from an hour ago, a picture of something pink she was drinking, decorated with a bright curlicue of lemon peel and three glistening cherries. Check out this fancy Shirley Temple.
I didn’t ask her to quit drinking, didn’t ask Asher to order a club soda when we were out at the restaurant.
But they did and they didn’t make a big deal about it.
Growing up, Blake sometimes did stuff like that: checked over my math homework, brought me food at practice when I forgot mine at home.
No one but him has done that for a long time—possibly ever.
I type a message to Sav.
Me: Asher’s in bed resting
Sav: Good!!
I screw up my courage, send another text before I can think twice about it.
Me: I was gonna join him but wanted to check with you first.
Dots appear as Sav types and erases something.
Sav: resting or “resting” [wink emoji]
Me: the second one
Sav: I’ll be back soon. You two have fun!
I study the message for a minute, searching it for any hint of disapproval. Any hint of surprise, really. Maybe they both know more about me than I want to admit. Maybe I’m not as good at hiding things as I thought I was.
“Does Sav want us to wait for her?” Asher’s tone has his normal flat inflection, but with a hint of disappointment if Sav told us to wait.
I swallow around the strange nerves in my throat, the kind I spent the past few years trying to drown in dark liquor. Then slowly I shake my head.
Asher smiles and motions for me. I shake my head again, go and get the food containers. “You should eat something,” I tell him, then hand him the first container and sit next to him on the bed.
“You’re—” He smiles again as if that’s the end of the sentence.
For a while, we sit together while he eats. He starts with the chicken, moves to the vegetables, avoids the pasta laden in cream sauce.
“I didn’t know what you like so I got some of everything,” I say.
Asher takes another forkful. “I like everything.”
Which would go against his clubhouse reputation for liking stuff—music, art, books, whatever—the rest of the guys on the team either hate or haven’t heard of. “Not pasta though.”