Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Asher
T he knock on the door startles me out of my misery.
I’m sitting on the sunroom couch, laying back against the cushions. The ice in the Dr. Pepper Julie brought me when she was here has long since melted, and the cup now sits in a puddle of condensation that’s probably ruining my coffee table but I can’t make myself care. Every time I turn my head, I catch Julie’s scent from where she was leaning back against the cushions next to me, compounding my misery.
I shouldn’t have asked her for space. Space from her is the last thing I want right now, but I also didn’t want her to be around for whatever was going to happen tonight. It occurred to me when she walked through the door earlier that the worst thing has never happened to me before and now that it has, I have no idea how to react. I’m angry and sad and so many other things I can’t name, and I don’t know how to feel all of this at once. Especially the anger. I’m never angry. Every time I opened my mouth, I had no idea what would come out, and that scared the shit out of me. I would die before I hurt her, so I asked her to leave when what I really want more than anything is for her to be here right now. I want her and her arms around me and her plans and her spreadsheets and her organized brain to counteract my chaos.
I’m a fucking disaster.
I haul myself up off the couch to answer the door. My body feels like it weighs a million pounds, and the only thing propelling me to the door is the thought that maybe it’s Julie on the other side. I throw open the door, ready to wrap myself around her and beg her to never leave again, a fucked-up thought since I was the one who asked her to leave in the first place, but I can’t be logical right now.
But it’s not her.
“We heard you’re wallowing.”
Jeremy strolls into my house, followed by Ben and Jordan, each of them holding a six-pack of beer and what looks like a take-out bag, and they head straight back to the kitchen. I follow them, wondering for a second how they knew to come here and then it hits me. Julie . She somehow knew I didn’t actually want to be alone, so she made sure I wasn’t. My love for her cuts through the misery like a knife.
“She sent you, didn’t she?”
Ben sets his beer and bag on the counter and hugs me. An actual two-armed hug that immediately lowers my blood pressure and has me taking what feels like my first deep breath since I left the stadium earlier today.
“She did. Well, she actually called him.” He gestures to Jeremy, who is busy unpacking what looks like a hundred different take-out containers. “She thought maybe it would help to talk to someone who knows what it’s like to leave the game because of an injury. He called us because he thought you could use some extra friends.”
“And we brought food because I’m assuming you haven’t eaten all day,” Jordan says, while opening all my cabinets looking for plates. “We didn’t know what you would want so we brought everything. There’s Chinese, burgers, and Mexican. There’s beer too, obviously, but you’re not allowed to drink until you eat. I deal with enough puke in my day job. I don’t want to deal with yours.”
I stand there, a little bewildered at the three men making themselves at home in my kitchen. I’m an extrovert. I love people. But aside from the times my family has been in town, I think this is the most people who have ever been in my house at one time since I moved in nine years ago. That, combined with my current angsty state, has me frozen in place, not sure what to do.
“Come sit with me.” Jeremy’s voice is gentle, and he presses a bottle of water into my hand before pushing me towards the same sunroom couch I’ve made my home on today. I sit down and take a long sip of the water, realizing that it’s the first thing I’ve had to drink all day. I’m a mess.
“I won’t even ask if you want to talk about it because of course you don’t, but you’re going to, okay?”
“How do you know I don’t want to talk about it?”
“Do you?”
“Well, no, not exactly.” I sigh, coherent enough to know that what I want and what’s best for me probably aren’t the same thing. “But I think talking about it will help.”
“It will, even if it feels like you’re slicing yourself open and pulling your guts out.”
I give Jeremy a deadpan look. “Thank you so much for that delightful visual.”
He shrugs, taking a sip of the beer he brought in with him. “I’ve been where you are. I know how it feels.” His delivery is matter of fact, but I can hear the emotion trembling beneath his words. It should probably depress me that he is more than a decade out from his abrupt retirement and is still emotional about it, but for some weird reason it makes me feel better. Like the careers we loved mattered enough to still be mourning their loss in some way.
“I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what happens next. I left the stadium before I could talk to anyone, and I haven’t answered my phone.”
“It’s February. You don’t need to know what happens next yet.”
“I kind of do though. If I can’t play, they’re going to need a quarterback, and that will change their draft considerations. And the combine is coming up, so if they need a quarterback that’s going to change who they’re watching, and I should tell them so they can plan what to do. If I have to leave, I want to leave the team in the best place I can and to do that I have to know what to do so I can tell them so they can decide what to do and…” I break off, my chest heaving and my heart pounding as I try to take in air after spilling out all those words in one giant rush.
Jeremy puts a hand on my back and waits for me to catch my breath. I scrub over my face with shaking hands.
“I’m a mess, Jeremy,” I admit. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Right now, what you should do is eat.” Jordan walks into the sunroom and puts a plate down in front of me. Ben follows with an armload of beers, which he hands out to everyone except for me.
“Eat,” he orders. “Then you can drink.”
I look down at the plate Jordan delivered and laugh for the first time all day. “Why tacos and french fries?”
“Chinese food and even burgers can be eaten cold,” Jordan explains. “But tortillas get soggy and french fries are terrible cold and even worse when you reheat them, so we’re starting with those. ”
“Don’t argue with him,” Ben advises. “Jordan takes food very seriously.”
“Listen asshole, I’m saving you from having to decide between cold fries and reheated fries, and both of those are gross fries.”
While they bicker, I pick up a taco and take a bite because it turns out I’m starving. I chew, and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to eat a taco again without thinking of Julie and eating tacos with her in every city between Pittsburgh and Boulder, and her hysterical laughter when I took her to see the sixteen foot taco in Casey, Illinois. While I think about her, something hits the side of my face and falls to the floor.
“What the fuck?”
I look down and there are ketchup packets scattered at my feet. When I lift my head Jordan is smirking at me. “Thought you might need ketchup.”
“You couldn’t just hand it to me like an adult?”
He shrugs. “I just finished a twenty-four hour shift at the hospital, and I’m tired. I didn’t want to get up.”
“So why are you here instead of at home sleeping?”
“Because you needed us,” Ben says.
My throat swells with emotion at his simple statement and I look down, trying to compose myself so I don’t lose it completely.
“I don’t know what to do.” I quietly repeat my words from earlier, putting my taco down and pushing my plate away, appetite suddenly gone.
“It helps to talk about what you know,” Jeremy says. “So, what do you know? Just facts. No feelings.”
I take a deep breath and shove my feelings aside for now. “I have arthritis in my throwing shoulder. It’s about as bad as it can get, and it’s not going to get better.”
Jeremy nods. “What else? ”
“The doctor won’t clear me to play. Now or ever. I need to do PT to help with the pain. I’ll probably need surgery down the road. A complete shoulder replacement isn’t out of the question.”
“Anything else?”
“I can’t…” I stop, not able to force out the words.
“Just say it fast,” Jeremy advises, echoing Julie’s words from earlier.
“I can’t play football anymore. That playoff game was my last game.” I clench my hands into fists, digging my fingernails into my palms to distract myself from the pain lancing through my chest at those words.
“No, you can’t,” says Jeremy. “And it’s completely fucking unfair to have your sport taken away from you instead of being able to leave on your own terms.” He rubs at his knee in that unconscious gesture of his, and I know he’s thinking of his own experience being forced out of hockey before his time. “But it gets better. You can’t see that now. But it does. You’ll find your place.”
“Have you found yours?” I ask, curious about his answer.
He blows out a breath. “I have my place at the bar and with these two idiots.” He gestures to Ben and Jordan. “And you’re one of us now, so don’t even try and fight it.”
My chest warms at his words, because I would never try and fight it. Most things are horrible right now, but I have my girl, and she gave me all of her people too. I love my sisters and never really wished for brothers, but it seems like maybe I found some right here.
“I have my place at the foundation too, which I love, so I guess I have a lot of places.”
“You know, if you tell Emma straight-up that you like her instead of dancing around it all the time, you could really find your place.” At first, I think Ben is joking, but when I look at his face, it’s deadly serious. It’s the first time I’ve heard one of them refer to Jeremy’s feelings for Emma in such a direct way.
“It’s complicated,” Jeremy mutters.
“So be an adult and uncomplicate it.” Jordan takes the last swig of his beer and puts the empty bottle on the coffee table, picking up another full one.
“I fucked it up too badly.”
“You know, if you ever tell us what it is that you fucked up, we could help you,” Ben says.
“No.” The single word is final, and Jeremy turns back to me.
“Real talk, Ash. I’m not going to put a silver lining on this, because that’s not what you want and there really isn’t one. At least not right now. Leaving in this way is fucking painful, and it will be for a while, especially while you sort through all the logistics, and especially once the public gets involved and you have to see it over and over again in the media and talk about it a million times a day with fans. But having a plan for what to do next makes it a little easier, and taking it one step at a time, one day at a time, is the only thing that will keep you from going insane. So, what are you going to do first?”
Somehow, having him lay it all out like that steadies me, and I can think clearly for the first time all day. I open my mouth to tell him I need to call my coach, but instead what comes out is, “I need to talk to Julie.”
“That is…not what I thought you would say,” Jeremy says.
“Makes sense though,” Ben says.
“How could that possibly make sense?”
“Because she’s his person. Right?” Jordan looks at me.
I nod at him. “She is. I thought I needed space from her tonight to work this through and maybe I did a little, but I need her. It doesn’t feel right talking about my future—even what happens in the next couple of weeks—without talking to her first.”
Even the thought of sitting down next to her and having this conversation has all my angst and nerves quieting. As long as I have her, I can get through anything.
Ben lifts his beer bottle in a toast. “You know, you’re not at all who I pictured whenever I thought about who my sister would end up with, but I’m really glad it’s you.”
“Same,” Jordan says. “Some of those guys she used to bring around?” He shudders dramatically. “None of them would ever sit around on a weeknight and eat tacos and french fries, that’s for damn sure.”
“Yeah, I’m going to need details about those guys,” I say, realizing for the first time that we never really had the who did you used to date conversation beyond Julie telling me that they sucked in bed, leaving me feeling superior because I unequivocally do not suck in bed.
“Fuck no,” Jordan and Jeremy say at the same time.
“You think I want to incur Julie Parker’s wrath for spilling her dating history to you?” Jordan shakes his head. “You want to know, you ask her yourself.”
“You know what, I don’t even want to know. It doesn’t matter. I’ve got her now.”
“You sure do,” Ben says. “I’ve never seen her with anyone the way she is with you. She’s happier. Lighter. There’s no one who deserves that more than Julie.”
I’m not sure how a conversation about the abrupt end to my football career turned into this, but I’m feeling a little better so I’m willing to roll with it.
“I’ll be good to her. No one will ever love her the way I do. She’s safe with me. She’s my whole fucking world.”
Ben tosses me a beer, which I catch one-handed. “Well then welcome to the family, brother. Happy to have you. ”
“I wasn’t going to say this tonight because tonight is for wallowing, not decision making. And that whole one step at a time thing. But when you’re ready to decide on what to do next, consider working with me.” Jeremy has an earnest look I’m not used to seeing on the cocky, confident former hockey player.
“I’m already working with you.”
“In the offseason, sure. But…” Jeremy stops abruptly, probably realizing what he was about to say. “Fuck, sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. We can talk about it another time.”
“No, it’s fine.” I realize it is fine. Or, maybe not fine, but at least, in this moment, not gut wrenchingly terrible. “You can say it.”
“You sure?”
“I’m not sure about anything, but I won’t fall apart, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You could fall apart, you know,” Jeremy says.
“I might. Probably will. But not right now.” I can only think of one person I want to fall apart in front of, and she isn’t in this room.
“Good enough. Well, if you find yourself in a position where you’re looking for something to do full time, come work with me at the foundation. Emma keeps telling me I can’t run the sports camps solo. She says I need a full-time program director, and she’s usually right about this kind of thing.”
“Usually?” Jordan smirks at Jeremy.
“Always, dude. She keeps your ass in line.” Ben leans back in his chair and kicks his feet out in front of him.
“I fucking wish,” Jeremy mutters.
Jordan tosses a beer cap that hits Jeremy square in the chest. “If you’re not planning on sharing with the class, you should probably stop muttering like that. It’s making you look pathetic. ”
“Fuck off. I’m talking to Asher now.” He turns to me, his face serious. “It’s simple, really. I need someone to run the sports camps full-time. With all my other responsibilities at the foundation and at the bar, I can’t give them the time and attention they deserve, and there’s no one I trust to run them more than you. You’re incredible with kids, and you have a really good head for this work. There’s no rush; I’m not filling the position until you tell me you definitely don’t want it. Take all the time you need.”
I consider what he said, and my first thought is standing on a frozen high school football field in Boulder teaching a freshman third string quarterback a new way to throw a football and the smile that lit up his face when he finally got it. I don’t hate the idea.
“I’ll think about it,” is all I say. My brain is too jumbled to offer much beyond that, and I don’t want to think about anything else until I hug my girl.
“Good enough.” Jeremy salutes me with his beer as Jordan gets up to grab the rest of the takeout from the kitchen. My football career is over, and there are going to be some big decisions and hard days ahead while I work out how to end it officially and what’s next for me. Today was a fucking disaster, but sitting here with these three guys, beers, and an eclectic mix of takeout isn’t such a terrible way to end it. I take a sip of my beer and then set it on the coffee table, knowing that I’m going to be driving later. Because there is no way I’m ending this day without finding Julie. I want to be wherever she is, and hopefully we can figure out all of these next steps together.