Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Asher
I frown as I sort through a box of old knickknacks and photos—dusty stuff that probably hasn’t been thought of once since my dad brought it down to store it in his basement.
I’ve been at his place a lot over the past three days, needing to stay busy.
Needing to distract myself from the constant ache in my chest that won’t go away no matter what I do.
I’ve kept up with the bare minimum of what I need to do for my upcoming contract.
Had a few calls with Aces staff about training schedules and team meetings.
Talked to my agent about logistics and timelines, about when I need to be in Denver.
But I can barely eat or sleep. My stomach is in a constant knot that makes it hard to get anything down, and when I do manage to force something down, it just sits there like a rock, making me feel sick.
I glance at my wrist, where I’ve got the hair tie I found in my jacket pocket.
The one Kat was wearing that day we went skating, the one she took off and I shoved into my pocket without thinking.
I found it the other day while looking for my keys and slipped it on without really thinking about it.
Just wanting some part of her close to me.
But it’s not enough. It’s just a piece of elastic and fabric. It’s not the real thing.
It’s not Kat.
I keep going through the box of photos, my hands moving on autopilot while my mind is elsewhere.
Then I come across some from a long time ago.
Pictures of me and my mom and my dad. All three of us together, smiling at the camera like we’re a normal, happy family.
Me as a little kid, maybe six or seven. Gap-toothed grin, messy hair.
Before everything fell apart and our family imploded.
I go still, looking down at them. A mess of emotions jumbles up inside me that I don’t know how to sort through.
Anger at what was lost. Sadness for that kid who didn’t know what was coming.
Confusion about who to blame. Loss for the years that could have been different.
All of it tangled together until I can’t tell where one feeling ends and another begins.
I stare for a long time, frozen in place with the photos in my hands. Not really seeing the basement around me anymore. Just lost in memories and what ifs.
My dad’s voice startles me out of it. “You haven’t moved in several minutes.”
I look up to find him watching me from the bottom of the stairs. Murphy is winding around his legs, meowing for attention. There’s concern on my dad’s face, his brows furrowed.
“And you look…” He trails off, clearly trying to find a diplomatic way to say it. Then finishes carefully, “Not great.”
I try to brush it off, setting the photos back in the box with hands that aren’t quite steady. “I’m fine.”
He gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe me for a second.
He’s been giving me space the past few days, clearly noticing something was off but not knowing if it was his place to ask.
Not wanting to overstep when our relationship is still so new, still so fragile. But apparently he’s done waiting.
“What’s going on, Asher?” His voice is gentle but firm.
I blow out a breath, running a hand through my hair. I can’t really hide that I’m in rough shape. Haven’t shaved in days, probably look like hell. “It’s nothing. Just tired.”
“That’s not nothing.” He comes closer, his movements careful on the uneven basement floor. “You’ve been here every day, working yourself to exhaustion. Something’s eating at you. Talk to me.”
I hesitate, my fingers finding Kat’s hair tie again, twisting it around my wrist before letting it snap back. Then the words come out before I can stop them. “Kat ended things three days ago.”
My dad’s eyebrows shoot upward. “What? But you two seemed so happy together. Every time I saw you, you couldn’t take your eyes off her.”
My heart clenches at that, and at the memories it brings up. “I thought we were happy.”
He moves closer, lowering himself onto an old wooden crate and setting his crutches aside. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
I should say no. Should keep it to myself like I always do, like I’ve learned to do over years of not trusting people with the vulnerable parts of myself. But suddenly, I’m tired of carrying it alone. Tired of pretending I’m fine when I’m falling apart.
So I tell him. The whole messy story.
How our relationship started as a fake arrangement, just a favor to help her save face in front of her ex and her hometown.
How it was supposed to be simple, uncomplicated, temporary.
But how somewhere along the way it became real for me.
How I started to feel things I never expected to feel, things I’d convinced myself I wasn’t capable of feeling.
“I thought she felt something for me too,” I finish. “But then she ended it out of nowhere the other day, saying we should stick to the original agreement of it being temporary.”
My dad seems genuinely surprised by the revelation of the fake dating thing. His eyebrows have migrated even higher, and he blinks a few times like he’s trying to keep up with all the twists and turns of my story. “Wow. And did she say why?”
“Not really. Just that it was getting too complicated, and she didn’t want it to get messy or for either of us to get hurt.”
Murphy jumps onto my lap without warning, his considerable weight settling across my thighs as he makes himself at home like he always does.
I look down at the big cat, petting him automatically as I admit, “I never wanted a relationship. Never wanted to fall in love. I saw what it did to you and Mom, saw how it all fell apart and destroyed everything. But then this whole crazy thing happened with Kat, and I started to feel differently about all of that. Started to think maybe I was wrong.”
My jaw clenches, and I blow out another breath, sliding my fingers through Murphy’s fur. “I don’t know what to do. Maybe it is better to just let it end before things get more complicated. Before someone gets hurt worse than they already are.”
Even as I say it, part of me rejects the words, fighting against them, but I forge ahead anyway.
“If she wants to walk away, if she doesn’t want me, I’m not going to chase after her.
” I keep petting Murphy, focusing on his rumbling purr.
“I made the same promise to myself when you left all those years ago. That if you didn’t want me in your life, I wasn’t going to keep torturing myself by hoping for more, by waiting for something that was never going to happen. ”
My dad blinks. Something shifts in his expression, his face going pale as his head jerks back slightly. “Is that what you think? That I didn’t want you in my life?”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Come on, Dad. You made that pretty obvious when you left and never came back.” I shake my head, not wanting to dredge up old resentments.
I’ve put a lot of that behind me by now, the sharp edge of anger fading.
“I guess the upside of it was that it taught me to protect myself. Not to put my heart out there too much. Not to risk getting hurt like that again. Because if your own father can walk away and never look back, then why should you trust anyone else to stay?”
Edward gazes at me for a long moment, the corners of his mouth tight. He reaches up to scrub a hand over his jaw, a deep sadness reflecting in his eyes. Finally, he shakes his head. “That’s not true. That’s not what happened at all. I never wanted to leave you, Asher.”
I frown, finally shifting my attention fully from Murphy to him. “What do you mean?”
He hesitates, closing his eyes for a second. Then he sits up straighter, seeming to steel himself. “When you were little, about seven years old, I found out your mother had been cheating on me.”
That was not what I was expecting him to say. I go still, my hand freezing on Murphy’s fur.
“I came home early from a work trip one day,” he continues, his voice steady but pained, as if he’s reliving something awful. “And found her with him. A coworker from her office. They were in our bedroom.”
I can’t speak, my jaw dropping open a little as my brain struggles to process what he’s saying. My entire understanding of my childhood is tilting sideways.
“I confronted her that night, and she cried, begging me to forgive her. She said it was a mistake, that it would never happen again. That she loved me, loved you, loved our family.” He’s looking at his hands now, not at me.
“So we tried to work through it. Went to counseling, tried to put the pieces back together for your sake. I wanted to believe we could fix it.”
He pauses, his jaw working. “But then six months later, she did it again. Different man this time. After that, I learned that there had been other indiscretions as well, and I realized she wasn’t going to stop. That our marriage was over.”
Silence falls in the dusty basement for a long moment, but I don’t fill it. I still don’t know what to say, so I just wait for my father to continue.
“When we divorced, your mother fought me on custody. Fought hard.” His hands clench together.
“She had a better lawyer, and she convinced the judge that I traveled too much for work, that I couldn’t provide a stable home.
She got sole custody, and the visitation agreement was…
minimal. Every other weekend, supervised for the first year. ”
He looks up at me now, and there are actual tears in his eyes. “But then she started making excuses. You were sick, you had plans with friends, it wasn’t a good time. She didn’t want to let me spend any time with you.”
“That’s not… I didn’t—" I break off, pressing my lips together. “She told me you left us because you didn’t want to be a father anymore. That you chose your freedom over us. Over me.”