Chapter Twenty Four
EVA
The hum of the cabin on my dad’s private plane during the flight from SFO to JFK usually served as a sensory-deprivation chamber, a rare pocket of absolute silence where I could turn off the network logistics and just breathe. But today, the white noise feels like a drill pressing into my temples.
I stared out the small oval window, watching the snow-capped line of the Rockies give way to the flat of the Midwest. Below me, the country is a grid of winter earth with white patches scattered across the land.
My phone buzzes again on the table, just like it’s done eleven times since we cleared ten thousand feet. Eleven banners slide across the screen with the same name.
Aston.
I don’t bother listening to his voicemails. I don’t need to. Because the thing is, this is my life. My career.
My thumb drags across my tablet screen, clearing out the final production sheets from the awards broadcast. The ratings were astronomical—a twelve percent bump in the primary demographic, with a flawless feed from the red carpet, and not a single camera drop during the live acceptance speeches. Including one from Ace Griffith.
On paper, I had just executed a flawless weekend.
Inside my chest, though, everything feels hollow.
Great for my brand. Sponsorships.
His excuse for not showing up was absolute, unmitigated bullshit. He couldn't care less about that kind of stuff.
You don’t spend three months dodging your agent with those same offers, only to blow off a definitive moment of our relationship for a shoe or sports drink contract.
Not Aston Griffith. The man lives by an unwritten code of absolute integrity.
If he wasn’t on that plane, it wasn’t for a contract.
It was because he had chosen not to be by my side.
The worst part—the part that made my throat tighten until it felt raw—was my father. He was ready to back us up. Let us be a normal couple in a controlled drop, but normal for our world.
And then Aston didn’t show up. But my dad did.
I had to look my father in the eye and tell him that Aston couldn’t make it. I considered sharing the same tale Aston told me, but my father’s too smart. His knowing look and the simple matter of reading my face told him everything he needed to know anyway.
“We’re beginning our descent, Ms. Carrington.” The flight attendant clears my untouched water, her voice soft.
“Thank you,” I respond, my voice void of emotion, taken over by fatigue.
I pick up my phone and switch it off. I don’t want to see another notification. I want the cold, grey pavement of New York, my loft, and enough distance to figure out what the hell happened.
The winter wind comes off the Hudson River, howling through the cobblestone alleys as I make my way to the front door to my loft, cutting through my winter coat like a knife.
As I reach the landing to the entry, I see him.
Aston is leaning against the building, his massive frame hunched forward, his head down. He’s only wearing a hoodie, and his eyes are closed, but the second he hears my approach, his head snaps up.
He looks … ruined. The stubble along his jawline is thick, shadowed by purple arcs of exhaustion under his eyes. He doesn’t look like an NFL player right now. He looks like a man who knows he fucked up.
“Eva,” he breathes, standing up so fast his shoulder clips the call box next to the door.
I freeze, my hands locking around the keys in my pocket, the metal biting into my palms. “What are you doing here?”
“I had to see you.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve seen me. Now go.” I push past him and put my key in the door.
“Please,” he rasps, his voice rough. “Just give me five minutes.”
“That’s all you need, huh?” A sharp, humorless laugh cuts through my throat. “Because you bailed on me, and I also had to look at my father and lie for you, but you only need five minutes?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, his chest expanding with a ragged, heavy breath. “More than you’ll ever know.”
“You’re sorry?” I step forward, the distance between us closing, the heat of my anger breaking through the icy cold air.
I look up at him, my eyes burning with the threat of tears that I refuse to let drop.
“You think that’s all it takes? I put my entire professional status on the line for you.
For us. And you text me, not call me, with some sorry excuse for not wanting to stand by my side. ”
“I know,” he chokes out, his jaw tight. “I know I blew it, Eva. Just … let me explain. Take a walk with me? Then if you want me to never call your number again after that, I’ll do it. But give me a chance to explain.”
I stare at him, my heart hammering against my ribs. I should open the door and walk inside without another word. But the look in his eyes and his stupid pretty face tear through my defenses.
“Fine,” I say, my voice dropping to a whisper. “But Aston, if you lie to me or give me some fucked up excuse, I’m done.”
“Fair.” He holds his hand out to me on instinct, but when he sees my face staring at his hand, he lets it fall.
“Let me drop my bag inside at least so I don’t have to carry it around.” I open the door and drop my bag in the foyer of the building. There’s only one other person who lives here, and he won’t touch my bag, so I’m not worried about taking it upstairs.
I walk back outside, and Aston’s hands are in the pocket of his hoodie, and he looks up when he sees me walking back down the steps. Like he’s surprised I came back out.
We walk to Washington Market Park, the cold cutting through my coat sharp enough to cut. Aston walks beside me, his shoulders hunched, and his focus on the grey stones we walk on.
I stop in the middle of the path, under the skeletal branches of a tree. The distance between us is barely two feet, but the air is vibrating with days of suffocating pressure.
“Talk,” I demand. My hands are shoved deep into the pockets of my wool coat, my chin tucked hard behind my collar to keep my voice from shaking from both the cold and my anger.
Aston doesn’t answer right away. Then he lets out a long, ragged breath that dissolves in the cold air.
“Ace called me,” he starts, his voice rough.
“The day you invited me to go with you. He told me about his nomination and wanted me to go with him. He was running on pure adrenaline, and I should have just told him right then, but I didn’t.
Then he texted me a few days later and saw your name on the schedule and knew you would be there. ”
I turn my head, keeping my gaze on the empty benches ahead of us. “And?”
“Eva … ” Aston says, my name falling heavy between us. “He saw you would be there and he thought it was a sign. Just like when he ran into you at my game.”
I whip my head toward him, the wind catching my hair and covering my face. I pull it back with a gloved hand, turning to look at him, immediately confused. “A sign? What the hell are you talking about?”
Aston steps into me. The cold has turned the tips of his ears red, but his face was pale, and his eyes look tormented.
“Remember how I told you he was going to take his shot with you after he saw you at my game?”
I nod. “Yeah, but I never answered him.”
“I know, and he didn’t bring it up to me again. But then when he saw your name for the awards, he said it was like a sign that you were his or some shit. He fired off texts back to back about it.” He huffs.
I sigh and shake my head. The sheer absurdity of what is being said is baffling.
“Ace thought …” I trail off. “Are you messing with me? You can’t be serious. It’s been years since we’ve been together. And I only spoke to him for maybe ten minutes at your game. He thought my name on a production schedule was a sign for him?”
“He, uh. Doesn’t know about us.” He steps closer, blocking the wind, creating a pocket of heat between us.
“That’s the biggest fuck up of all of this.
He doesn’t know about us. I hadn’t told him yet.
And then this happened, and I didn’t want to tell him before the awards, especially after his texts.
I kept that wall up, then it backfired on me. ”
“So, instead of telling him the truth,” I say, the tears finally breaking through, hot and stinging my cheeks, “instead of standing on the line and saying—oh, I don’t know—Ace, Eva and I are together, you just ditched us both?”
“I froze, Eva!” Aston roars, the sound of his voice cutting through the wind, raw and desperate.
“I felt trapped between two of the most important people in my life. And I had had a conversation with Archie and the bonds of blood, and that fucked with my head too. Although Archie didn’t know it was you I was talking about.
But he talked about family coming first and not letting anyone get between that.
So I felt like telling Ace before wasn’t the right time. ”
“You should have talked to me!” I cry, my hands clenching at my sides, my body shaking with anger, but also …
grief. “You should have called me, Aston! I thought this was something special. That we were all in. If you had just told me what he said and given me the respect I deserve, we could have figured it out together. But you didn’t trust that I could handle it. You didn’t trust us.”
“I was trying to protect his night,” Aston whispers.
“He’s worked hard for that trophy, and I just thought telling him before the show was a bad move.
It would have gotten him all up in his head.
So instead, I took myself completely off the board.
I thought if I just took the hit, I could keep the peace until after the weekend was over. ”