“You sure you don’t need to get that?”
“Definitely not. It’s not important.”
“How do you know it’s not important if you don’t answer the phone?”
He tosses me a grin. “I know everything.”
I smile back but unease curls into my stomach. Four missed calls in an hour from the same number when his phone has barely made a sound in the three days we’ve been on the road unless it’s his family or the group chat he has with Ben, Jeremy, and Jordan feels like it might be important.
“Hey, want anything from the gas station convenience store? I need to fill up.”
He signals and pulls off the highway, turning into a gas station and pulling up at one of the pumps.
“No, I’m good.”
He looks at me strangely. “This is the first time since we stopped that you didn’t tell me to get you more caffeine or look for some insane potato chip flavor.”
I just shrug, trying to act casually when my mind is starting to race with all the potential explanations for the four phone calls. Like maybe he’s seeing someone else. Someone who isn’t me. The thought turns my stomach.
“Guess there’s a first time foreverything.”
He holds his gaze on me for a second before opening the car door. “Sit tight, Juliette. I’ll be right back.”
He doesn’t take his phone with him, and as soon as he gets out of the car, it rings again. Same number. And again. And again. With every call, the knot in my stomach tightens. I try and breathe against it and force my brain out of worst-case scenario mode. Because right now, it’s trying very hard to go to that place. The place where the things he’s been saying to me aren’t real. They feel real. God, do they ever feel real. But what if they’re not? My fingers scratch at my wrist as my mind races.
His phone buzzes again, this time with a text. I look down at his phone in the cup holder and see the message preview on the screen. As I look, the messages keep coming.
Unknown
Ash, where are you?
Everyone is saying you left town. You didn’t want to come see me before you left?
You know I can give you what you need. I always do.
You need me just as much as I need you.
Call me.
Tears prick at my eyes as the messages finally stop coming through. I lean my head back against my seat and will myself to calm down. My breathing to slow. My fingers to stop scratching my wrist. There may be some reasonable explanation for this, but I curse my analytical, lawyer mind for abandoning me in my moment of need.
I can’t grab hold of logic. All I can grab on to are images of Asher and some faceless woman who probably has a perfect body and perfect hair and a perfect brain that never gets anxiety and never needs to be calmed down and who neverneeds to hear things like “you’re safe with me” because she never feels unsafe and she can probably have an orgasm on command through penetration alone. I hate her and I try to hate him, but I can’t summon it because what I feel for him is the opposite of that, and when the fuck didthathappen?
Because the hell of it is, I didn’t realize just how much I wanted every single part of him—body and mind and soul—until right this minute, when it seems like he’s not mine to have.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Asher
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to dinner?”
“I’m sure.” Julie is curled into a ball against the passenger door, sitting as far away from me as she can get. I don’t understand what’s going on, and it’s freaking me the fuck out. One minute we were talking about my medical career that wasn’t, laughing and holding hands. It felt so good to talk to her. To open up in that way. She seemed to understand why it was so important to me to keep my options open, and the way she was looking at me. It was…different. It wasn’t fondness for the cheerful quarterback who plans fun road trip games. It was something else. Something deeper. It was a look I have been waiting for. It felt likemore.
When she asked me about going to medical school after I retired, I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her everything. About the post-traumatic arthritis and the anti-inflammatory shots and the pain that won’t go away even in the offseason and my paralyzing fear that I might not be able to play anymore and who I am if I don’t have football.
Every instinct I have is telling me that she is a safe place tolay my truths, but five years is a long time to keep a secret, and silence is a hard habit to break. I will. Just not quite yet. I hope I get the chance.
Because when we stopped for gas, by the time I got back into the car her mood had shifted completely. She turned quiet on me in a way she hasn’t been in days. She didn’t crack a smile when I handed her a bag of the most bizarrely flavored potato chips I could find and didn’t respond when I told her it was her turn to pick the music.
