by Mignon Mykel
He was going to fuck up his knee and then what would he do, when he was told he couldn’t play anymore?
I could feel the scowl on my face as Porter opened the truck door. I stared hard at him, wanting to yell at him for being so stupid, but not saying anything because really…
It wasn’t my place anymore.
And you did that.
I scoffed at the thought.
When Porter’s green eyes met mine over the seat though, it was really hard to hold the anger.
I’m sorry.
I miss you.
My breath hitched and I fought to take a deep breath, all while trying to maintain my scowl.
His eyes widened and his mouth went slack, but quickly he became closed off, turning to sit in the seat without a word.
When Nico hopped up, Porter growled at him. “Fuck you, Nico.”
My eyes burned at the realization that Porter didn’t want me here. It was one thing for his sister and friend to connive me into flying down, telling me he missed me and that he was hurting.
It was another to hear his anger.
You did that, Asher. You did it.
I sucked my lips under my teeth and looked out the window.
Yes.
I did.
I did it, and it was time to face the consequences.
I’d been under the impression that this party was being held in a hall or someone else’s suite but, nope.
Just all part of Nico’s grand-assed plan.
Not only did he manage to get Asher home—something I couldn’t even do—and talk me into going to a holiday party I didn’t want to go to, now I couldn’t even fucking leave the festivities.
Thankfully, my suite was huge.
Probably because it also listed Asher as a guest.
I stood in the kitchenette area, nursing a beer, while chatting with Popps. Turned out the kid was having a phenomenal season.
“Dude, and then there was the game against New York.”
“Your hat trick?” Just because I wasn’t playing, didn’t mean I wasn’t watching parts of the games.
“It was fucking amazing.” Popps’ grin stretched from ear to ear, and I could remember the feeling. My rookie season had been filled with more ups than downs, the best up being the one on the other side of the room.
Even though I didn’t look at her, I could feel Asher’s scowl on me.
Shortly after we arrived, her first words to me were, if I didn’t walk up to the suite with my crutches properly under my arms, she was walking back out the doors and getting on a flight home.
I took two more steps.
And damn it, but she meant what she said.
She turned on her heel and headed back out the doors. With a four-letter word echoing in the lobby, I put the crutches under my arms and raced behind her, telling her I’d use the fucking things.
Ten weeks.
Ten weeks since she took off her ring.
Sure, there had been a handful of words from her mouth in that time, but her threat was the first full sentence she spoke to me in that time, and fuck, if I wasn’t a sucker in hoping that those words could be a lead-in to more husky words from her mouth.
I was pissed at Nico for getting her here without my knowledge. I was pissed at Asher for pushing me away.
But mostly, I was pissed that all I wanted to do was get her alone and fight it all out, lay it all out, and get back to what we had. Instead, I was trapped in a suite with fifty of my closest teammates and their significant others, while the woman they all thought was still my fiancée, stood on the other side of the room, shooting daggers at me with her psychedelic eyes.
By ten, my knee was getting sore from standing on it all night.
By ten-thirty, I found myself sitting on a couch, with Nico literally pushing Asher into my lap before he and Stein stood in front of me.
She was stiff in my lap, her shoulders pulled back, but she continued her conversations as if she wasn’t uncomfortable.
Fuck, I hated that she was uncomfortable.
Muscle memory—when in doubt, blame routine—had me placing my hand on the top of her thigh, and when she flinched?
Game over.
I couldn’t do it anymore.
I was done.
I tapped Asher’s hip while addressing my teammates. “I’m exhausted. Can you guys move this party somewhere else? Or Ash and I can crash in someone else’s room?” Asher moved from my lap, but the last line had her head whipping back at me.
Where the fuck did she think she was sleeping tonight?
Nico stared down at me for a minute before clapping his hands together once, lifting his voice above the conversations. “Alright, guys. Cap needs to sleep. He’s lost his mojo.” He winked down at me, the fucker, but people started to file out.
“We’re going to see you back at the rink, right?” a new D-man, Oliver, asked.
I remembered Coach’s words and even though it killed me to be there, yet not be on the ice… “Yeah, I’ll be around.” It was time to take my title seriously and show the guys I could be their captain.
Slaps on the back and handshakes pursued, and before Nico left the room, I watched as he wrapped Asher in a hug, his head dipped low. She nodded her head against his chest and I couldn’t help but feel a wave of possessiveness—of jealousy—at the sight.
But when Nico stepped away and Asher crossed her arms over her chest, one hand sneaking up to rub under an eye, the hit in the chest was different.
Protectiveness.
Why was she crying?
I hobbled over, walking Nico to the door. I looked over my shoulder and saw Asher moving around the room, picking things up and straightening up. It would do me no good to tell her not to.
I stepped into the hall and pulled the door nearly shut behind me. “What did you tell her?”
Nico shook his head. “Just that I missed seeing her face.”
I lifted a brow, not believing that was the full truth.
Nico shrugged. “And that I was sorry I conned her into coming. Dude, you were on the other side of the room all fucking night. Go hug that woman.”
“She doesn’t want it.”
“I think you’d be surprised, man.” He slapped my shoulder. “I’m not saying she wasn’t in the wrong, pushing you away. But you two are so fucking stubborn. Go talk to your woman, Portsy.”
“Yeah, we’ll see,” I mumbled. Nico just chuckled at me before stepping down the hall. I went back into the suite, locking the door behind me.
I stood at the door, watching as Asher moved around the room, picking up bottles and Solo cups. Her eyes never met mine, but I did catch them glaring at my crutches—which were currently leaning against the kitchenette counter.
“You sleeping on the couch?” I lifted a brow, trying really hard to keep the indifference in place but dammit, I wanted her in my bed with me.
Asher grunted, but didn’t answer.
If that was how she was going to play…
Shaking my head, I hobbled past her and toward the bedroom. “Whatever.” There wasn’t a chance in hell I was getting this girl to open up, and it equal parts pissed me off, and physically hurt.
Four years of my life, gone.
We were officially at a stalemate, and it was time for me to just accept it.
Really? Asking me if I was sleeping on the couch?
Where else was I going to sleep? His bed?
He hadn’t said a damn word to me all night, and he had the audacity to think I’d sleep in his bed? I’d sleep on the damn couch if I wanted to!
My temper gradually climbed until I was physically shaking. I threw the last of the cups into the garbage can with more force than necessary.
Why the hell did I come? He didn’t need a fucking babysitter. He needed a fucking crutch—literally. He needed someone to put the fucking things under his arms and glue them to his fucking body, because he wasn’t going to listen to a word anyone fucking told him and he was going to fuck u
p his knee.
Thoroughly pissed at him and his disregard for his body, I stormed into the bedroom—dumbass didn’t lock the door—and let the door slam open into the wall. Whatever words I was going to yell, promptly died on my tongue.
Porter stood beside the bed, down to just his boxer briefs, with his fingers hooked into the band. He looked over his shoulder and I could see him contemplating being a dick and taking them off.
A part of me, albeit a much larger part than I wanted to admit, wanted him to take them off.
Wanted to see his beautiful body again.
But the other part of me…
He stared at me for a moment and, instead of pulling the cotton down, he released the top with a snap and pulled down the covers, slipping between the sheets.
His brace was still on.
He should take it off to sleep, give it some air.
Hell, he should do range-of-motion before bed.
What the hell, Asher?
I shouldn’t care.
I…I didn’t care!
But I did. I really did care, and it was messing with my head.
Ten weeks. Ten weeks, and I still longed for this man.
You’re dirty and disgusting.
There’s no way he could love you anymore.
I swallowed past the sadness, trying to let the anger still simmer at the surface.
Porter sat in the bed, covers up to his waist as he leaned against the leather headboard, his arms crossed over his muscular chest. He said nothing though; he simply stared at me from across the room.
I could see the muscle in his jaw tick.
“I know you didn’t want me here. But letting them all think we were still together? You didn’t do a very convincing job of it, being on the other side of the room all night.”
Still, he said nothing. No, he just cocked that fucking scarred eyebrow of his.
“You know what? I’m done.” Maybe the words were meant more for me. I mean, after all, he did send me back my things. Apparently, he was done too. “I’m just done,” I said, my voice cracking before I could get the last statement out. I turned to leave, to go sleep on the couch he so kindly pointed out, but his voice stopped me.
“And here I thought you were done weeks ago,” he finally said. “Tell me one thing.” There was enough curiosity in his words that I turned to face him again. “Why’d you push me away? What was so wrong with what I had to offer you, that you couldn’t let down your guard enough to accept what I had to give?” His words were hard and his body closed off. We were at an impasse, both closed off and both pissed at the other.
He thought this was about him? That there was something wrong with him?
My eyes filled with sadness that this perfect man, the man who I didn’t deserve at seventeen, and sure as hell didn’t deserve now, thought there was something wrong with him.
Every pent-up emotion from the last two months, from the last four years, exploded in my body. My blood ran too fast. My heart pounded too hard.
And my eyes filled with too many tears.
With a shaking hand, I pointed at myself and even though I couldn’t see him through the haze of tears, I told him in broken words, “Because I’m fucking disgusting.”
The room echoed with her answer.
She stood there, feet away from me, her body tight with an emotional pain, her face closed off. She uttered those words, so fucking broken, and squeezed her eyes shut, sending rolling tears down her cheeks, and all I wanted to do was wrap her up in her arms and hold her through this storm—exactly what I’ve wanted to do since the moment she walked away from the horrors she endured in that hotel room.
Exactly what I’ve wanted to do since the moment I met her, one September day four years ago.
Before I could contemplate it, I was up and out of the bed, limping my way toward her. The pain in my knee was nowhere near the pain that Asher was emitting in waves around her. Fuck my knee. My girl came first.
Shit, she’d always come first.
If she’d have me.
Standing in front of her, I put a hand on her cheek and tried lifting her face up to mine. “Baby, no,” I whispered down to her. She flinched under my hand and I almost let that be enough to storm back to the bed. She wouldn’t let me in past that last guard.
But I was done with this game.
One way or another, we were working past this hurdle tonight.
And whether that meant I was going to hold her the rest of my days or not, was up to her. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t let her push me away again.
“Talk to me, Asher,” I pleaded with her, my voice still low. Even though the room was dark, the only light coming in from the main room behind Asher, I could make out every tear as they fell down her face. I could make out the dimpled scar from where her Monroe piercing once graced her upper lip. I could count her eyelashes as they rested on her cheeks.
No matter how hard she pushed, I was a sucker for wanting—needing—to be her rock. She intrigued me from the very moment we met.
I’d been lost to her since nineteen.
Asher was shaking her head against my hand, her lips between her teeth. Whatever it was she was holding back, whatever reason she thought she was disgusting and not worthy of us, must have been weighing on her heavily.
What was it that held her back? Was it the kidnapping? Her foster father being her abuser when she was seventeen? What was it?
In all honesty, it didn’t matter. I just wish she knew that.
Nothing she’d tell me, was going to change how I felt about her.
No matter how hard she pushed, my feelings weren’t going to change.
Even if she left tomorrow, leaving my family behind, I would worry about her. I would track her down. I may have given her back her things, but I wasn’t going to let her go that easily.
“Then lay with me,” I whispered, my eyes still trained on her face. I watched as her wet eyelashes lifted and she looked straight into my eyes, the swirl of colors in her own incredibly fierce and bold from her tears.
“Please.”
Her breath hiccupped and another tear fell. I lifted my thumb to swipe it away.
Finally, she nodded and I had to stop myself from jumping in victory.
We were getting somewhere.
I also had to stop myself from pressing my lips to her forehead—I was pretty sure she wasn’t ready for that yet. Instead, I stepped back from her and headed toward the bed, but when she didn’t follow me, turning toward the door even, I frowned. “Where you going?”
She regarded me for three full beats before answering. “Turning off the lights.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
I finished my limp to the bed—damn fucking knee—and got back in under the covers, reaching over to turn on the lamp to give Asher light when she came back in. I sat in the bed far longer than turning off a light in the main room should have taken.
Soon, I heard the sounds of the bathroom.
Shit, she’d better not shower.
I mean, she could, but Asher all fresh and smelling like body wash was not something I could deal with right now, especially if she used mine again…
Not when there was still a very real wall between us.
I knew better than to think that her agreeing to lay with me dissolved that wall.
Asher and her feelings—as absurd as they were—were going to take more than a hug to move past.
I couldn’t believe that was what she thought of herself. ‘Disgusting’ was the very last word I would ever attach to Asher.
What part of her past, of her rape, of her kidnapping, had her thinking that? I would never, ever, in a million years be disgusted with that woman. In my eyes, she was a fucking hero for pushing through the shit hand she’d been given, and turning out to be the amazing woman I knew she was.
Asher was my light in darkness.
Asher was my color in a black and white world.
Asher was the brilliance that sparked everyt
hing in my life.
She came into my life when I was fighting so damn hard to be my own person, and because of her, with her, I found a reason to fight. A reason to hold on to everything I knew. There was a time in my life that being compared to my brothers had me fighting harder to prove who I was. Back then, the thought of being compared to one of my brothers or father would have me angry, but now? If I pulled up that fucking WAGs site and saw another comparison to how much mine and Asher’s relationship mimicked my mom and dad’s?
I’d fucking welcome it.
If we could get past this hurdle, I would be the luckiest son of a bitch on this earth to have Asher in my life, the way my parents had one another.
I heard the bathroom door click open before the main room darkened.
No shower, then.
Shortly after, Asher walked into the bedroom. I took in the sleep shirt that fell to her thighs—it wasn’t one of mine and I wasn’t surprised at how much that shit hurt—and as badly as I wanted to believe she had little on underneath, I knew she had bike shorts on.
Her hair was loose from its earlier braid and hung down her back in crazy waves. She stalked into the room like a woman on a mission, or maybe it was just so she didn’t convince herself to walk back out. Without even looking at me, she issued, “You really ought to take off your brace. You should have stopped sleeping with it on last week.”
I lifted my brow but kept quiet.
Didn’t want to scare her away.
She pulled back the covers on the opposite side of the king bed, and slipped in, still not letting her eyes meet mine. “Did you do your range-of-motion today? Probably not.”
I couldn’t stop the grin if I tried, and of course, her eyes moved and actually met mine this time.
“It’s not funny, Porter! Do you want to play the end of the season, or no?”
“Just lay down, Ash,” I told her, shaking my head while my grin refused to leave. For as badly as she tried to prove she didn’t care…
My girl cared.
I reached back behind me to turn off the lamp, the room once again going dark.
