Chapter 15
Fifteen
Aspen:
How are you?
Aspen:
Do you need anything?
Aspen:
Are you busy? You should come over if you feel up to it.
My skin feels tight from the walk over.
I adjust my tote. Hesitate with my fingers on the coarse canvas straps.
“Come on, Brielle.”
Why am I being like this? The door is right there and it’s not like I’ve shown up uninvited. Before my mind can get the better of me, I brave it. One quick rap against fibreglass, steeling my shaking hand to do so.
The knock dissolves into a murmur beyond the door, muffled voices drifting closer, closer—until suddenly Aspen’s framed by the door.
“Brielle.” My name freezes in the pause of a parted mouth.
“Brielle?” Reese echoes from somewhere behind. A beat later, he slides into view with that trademark grin, belied only by the fleeting flicker in his demeanor. “Exactly who I wanna see. Aspen, let her in.”
She does, almost absently, before heading kitchen-ward.
“Damn, girl.” Reese whistles, his attention leaving Aspen and landing squarely on me. The smirk he adds doesn’t settle right, bent at one side. “You look worse than me.”
If there were a Nobel Prize for exaggeration, Reese would have it in the bag. For my one injury, he’s sporting at least four visible ones.
A split lip. Two bruises blooming dark across his skin. Butterfly tape holding a nasty cut by his cheekbone together. That’s not even including the busted up state of knuckles.
He catches my wince. “Looks worse than it is.” But when he drops onto the couch, I see the way it costs him. He nudges a controller aside, the game frozen on a loading screen. “So. How are you really doing?”
“I’m fine.” The lie barely clears before I bury it under something flippant. “Just a shame we can’t all be beauty queens like you.”
“Beauty queen? I’m all man, darling. I’d say we both look pretty hardcore. And”—he gestures to the bruise on his cheek, nearly a mirror of mine—“twin bruises? We’re destined to be.”
My skin prickles hearing that word. I have to fumble for a reply, but thankfully Aspen gives me an out.
“Smoothie, Bri?” She tips a pitcher of something green. Her smile might be stitched together from something forced, but the care behind the offer is real.
“Sure,” I manage. “Thanks.”
Two highball glasses become three.
“You tell your ’rents what happened?” Reese asks.
“No. I didn’t want to freak them out.”
He nods like he understands, but Aspen stutters mid-pour. “They wouldn’t want to know?”
“Sure they would.” I tug at my tote straps again. “But what they don’t know can’t hurt them, right?”
“Right,” she echoes, though it’s too careful, like she’s testing a theory.
I don’t know if she pieces it together before Reese cuts back in.
“So how’d you explain the face?”
Funny he asks, since it happened right before I came over. I was still in the kitchen when my parents walked through the entryway. Where they’d spent the night, I couldn’t say, but it hadn’t been the beach house.
“I said it was a frisbee accident.” My mother’s reaction was instant distraught, my father’s shock. “Carson’s idea.” It did the job. Some light fretting from her, a few stern words from him, and that was it.
“Carson, huh?” It’s casual, but not subtle at all.
I nod. “We spoke after the whole thing.”
Code for: we’re fine. He should know that; Aspen blew up my phone the second Carson told them about the cheap shot I’m wearing.
I know he’s waiting for more, but for some reason, I don’t want to share. Carson drinking, soothing the sting of loneliness, pointing out the North Star, it all comes under a private moment. One I’ll fall back on when the emptiness presses in too hard again.
So I pivot, dropping my bag beside Aspen and pulling out the ace up my sleeve.
“Is that—”
“The blueberry sauce? Yup. I told you I’d make some.”
He grins, or at least tries to through the mess of cuts and bruises. “I swear I love you. Trust me when I say that’s gonna be polished off in no time.”
“You’d think it was liquid gold, the way the guys attacked it,” Aspen chimes in, closer to her usual self now. She slides my glass over, then hands Reese his.
Kale, kiwi, and… mango? “This is delicious. Thank you, Aspen.” I take another sip. “I wanted to ask, are you guys doing anything later?”
“Absolutely not.” It comes so matter-of-fact. “Reese is on rest mode until I decide he’s not.”
Raised brows meet crossed arms, a standoff brewing. No chance Reese is winning this one.
“Cool…” I bite back a laugh. “I’m going all out for dinner tonight. Cooking, desserts, the whole spread. Would you guys be up for me bringing it over?”
The air shifts instantly, the one-on-one they had going with it.
Reese looks at me again, heavier this time. Careful, like I’ve offered to walk on glass instead of spend a few hours doing something I actually enjoy.
“You don’t have to, Brielle.” He says it slow, the words tipping upward on a minor inflection.
“It’s no biggie. I want to, plus I—”
Before I can finish, motion blurs, and suddenly two arms are folding tight around me.
“I was worried about you,” Aspen whispers against me. I wonder if she can hear the thud in my chest. Her warmth seeps into me, almost enough to chase the cold from mine, almost enough to make me hug her back. But a draft slips in with two sets of footsteps, taking the moment before I can.
She pulls away, and I swallow hard. That was… nice. God, I didn’t realise how much I missed human contact like that.
“Hey,” she greets, turning her head with effortless grace. Then, meant only for me, “I’m here if you want to talk.”
I nod, unable to form a reply, and thankfully, I don’t have to.
“Hey, Brielle.” Dylan’s voice isn’t exactly soft, but there’s a tenor to it I haven’t heard from him before. “How’s it going? You okay?”
“Yeah.” My answer scratches out, and I have to clear my throat before adding, “Thanks. You just get back from training?”
“Yeah.”
Reese says something to him, but I’m too busy turning my head an inch to the right to catch it.
Dark eyes, the exact shade of clouds after a torrential downpour, waiting.
Well, damn. If I thought last night might’ve shifted the tides, I was wrong. I can chalk the glare up to the bruise, worse now in daylight than it was under moonlight, but when his gaze finally lifts and collides with mine, I test a small smile…
Nothing. Not a flicker. Not a twitch.
One step forward, two steps back, I guess.
When I tune back in, Reese is complaining about his coach, but what hooks me is the bit about reporting the assault. His coach wants it. Reese doesn’t.
“Not like they’d find them.”
Aspen’s erratic after that, scrubbing the counters with a little too much force to pass as casual.
Reese and Dylan trade a look before swerving to safer ground, like arguing over who’s stuck with the cursed controller.
A shadow skims my periphery, Carson crossing to the fridge.
I pay him no mind, not even when he ends up behind me with only the stretch of granite countertop separating us.
I’m too invested in the blur of movement on-screen, Reese and Dylan trading shots like their lives depend on it. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
Of course, curiosity gets the better of me and… shit. He catches my sneak because he’s watching me himself.
I try to play it off, a smile and a millisecond away from turning again, but he braces forward on forearms before I can.
The space between us shrinks, and only his lowly-spoken question fills it.
“How’s the cheek?”
“It’s fine.” Except it isn’t. Pressure throbs behind my eye, proof enough that he’s right when his expression sharpens.
I don’t even notice he’s holding anything until corded veins flex under the stretch of his arm.
I stare at the brand-new box. Arnica cream, it reads.
By the time I look up, he’s already gone, leaving the box between us and my thanks caught in my chest.
The ball rockets into the net, commentators erupt in a language I can’t follow, and laughter rolls through the room. I drop the controller in defeat.
“I don’t know how you guys play this.”
“Come on.” Dylan’s smirk is so unlike him, just itching to be knocked off. “You were doing decent there.”
“You scored ten goals. I scored one.”
“Charity work, Bri,” Reese pipes in, and I can tell he’s loving this. “It’s the first time he’s ever tasted victory. Honestly, you should feel good about giving back.”
Aspen’s eating it up too, laughing as Dylan rattles off all the times he’s annihilated Reese. His phrasing, not mine.
And me? I sit here with relief loosening the knots inside me. All that stress I carried here feels silly now. Things are still solid between us. Better, even.
Which reminds me… I need ingredients. Dinner hasn’t been mentioned again, but I’m more determined than ever to make it happen.
I push to my feet, and three pairs of eyes follow in sync.
Reese tilts his head. “Heading out?”
“Yeah.” I keep it casual. “Need ingredients. I’m cooking tonight.”
Aspen watches me for a long second, unblinking. I let her.
“Okay,” she relents finally. But not without terms. “You have to cook here, though. I know I’m not the best, but I want to help.”
Oh no, no, no. I make a face, hoping she’ll get it.
She does, but her answer is not the one I want.“It’s fine. He won’t care.”
“Who won’t care?” Reese asks.
Naturally, Carson chooses that exact second to step off the stairs.
Before I can even think of damage control, Aspen goes for it. “Hey, Carson. Brielle wants to make us dinner tonight, and I said she could cook here. Is that okay?”
I brace myself for the no that’s sure to come. Only it never does.
What does? A shrug.
A shrug, like the last time I was here he hadn’t been inwardly cursing my existence. He doesn’t falter, doesn’t even look at me, just strolls past with an almost lazy assurance. The indifference lands worse than hostility. Why does it feel like some sort of trick?
“Awesome!” Aspen exclaims, clearly not hearing the same alarm bells I do. And right there, I see the moment another bad idea takes root. “Oh, and aren’t you going to the grocery store? Brielle’s heading now.”
Oh God.
“No.” I rush out. “It’s fine.” Her heart’s in the right place, but this is too much too fast for someone who can barely tolerate me.
And I’m right; the look on his face is definitely not excitement. More like irritation smoothed into indifference. He’s probably thinking one request was fine, but two is just greedy.
“I’m fine on my own.” Lie. “Grocery shopping is therapeutic,” I tack on, softer. That one’s… not a lie, but not the truth either. It used to be. I haven’t done it in so long I doubt it’ll feel the same.
Nothing does anymore.
“You sure you won’t mind? People will stare.”
“They’ll stare anyway.” Especially if Carson’s with me. He draws attention without even trying.
“Don’t let ‘em hassle you,” Reese adds.
“I’ll be fine, guys. If I cared about all that, I’d have slapped on a pound of concealer to cover this monstrosity. I’m a big girl. It won’t faze me.”
They don’t know just how true that is. Nothing fazes me now.
I hear the clink of keys before anything else. Carson pushes off the counter.
“Forget it,” he says, sliding the fob through his finger. “I’ll come.”
I blink. “You don’t have to—”
“Bag.” Just one word, brooking no refusal.
And that’s the end of it.