by Ali Parker
"I'm assuming this we you're talking about is you and the other coaches." I chuckled. "If you were to ask my professors from last semester how well I'm holding up, they'd laugh you out of the room. I failed Chemistry... again."
"Oh shit. Did you drop it in time?"
"Yeah, but I'm going to have to figure out what has to go this semester, coach. I can't keep juggling both sports and flunking out of college. It's my last semester and I gotta have this Chemistry credit."
"Why not choose an easier science?"
"Because I can do this. I just need to find more time in the day."
"Get up earlier?" He smiled.
"I get up at four, coach."
"Go to bed later."
"Midnight is when I usually hit the sack. I'm running on empty." I shrugged and repositioned my bag on my shoulder. "I'll let you know what I decide."
"All right, son, but we think you're doing great. Maybe what you need is a Chemistry tutor. I don't think dropping one of your sports is a good idea, but only you can truly answer that question for yourself."
I nodded, turned and walked down the long hallway to the exit. It was funny how our coaches seemed to truly care about the players until the players didn't perform or couldn't hold up their end of the bargain. I couldn't help but wonder how quickly my relationship with Coach Billows would change if I dropped hockey.
Did I really care? No, not in the slightest.
I jogged toward the baseball field, almost slipping on ice and snow more times than I could count. By the time I got there, I was winded, tired and wanted to go home. Unfortunately, I had no other choice than to put on my facade of being the strong leader everyone wanted me to be, and kicking ass for the next three hours.
*
A groan left me as I reached for the door to my apartment. Everything hurt, and a night of sitting in the bathtub with the water as hot as I could get it sounded great. I paused before opening the door as the sound of my sister's voice spilled out from under the door.
Why was Aubrey in my apartment?
I walked in to find her dancing around the kitchen with her headphones in.
"Hey." I reached out and grabbed her arm from behind. She swung around and threw a punch. I ducked just in time to miss her attack.
"Jayce! You scared the shit out of me." She gave me a hard look. "You could have warned someone."
"What are you doing?" I let my bag slide off my shoulder.
"Cleaning up. Layla said she was planning on moving in on Monday. I just wanted to make sure the apartment was super clean for her. She's a bit of a clean freak." She shrugged and turned back to cleaning.
"Okay..." I grabbed my bag and half-dragged it into my bedroom. I was tired, but I needed a release from my stress. Where my sports used to be that release, now they only seemed to pile the stress on thicker, faster. I had to find something to do before my head exploded.
Boxing. Will was boxing and he seemed almost like a different man the other day.
"Where's Lucas?" I walked back into the kitchen and stopped at the opening. No getting my ass whooped by a crazy woman with a spatula.
"Dance, dance, dance all night with me," Aubrey sang off key and loud.
I pressed my fingers to my ears and moved into her line of sight.
"That bad?" She gave me a cute look.
"Worse. Where is Lucas?"
"Talking with his parents."
"About?" I moved toward the small dining room table my mom and dad had dropped off the week before.
"About the wedding. We want to have it in March."
"March?" I almost came up out of my chair. "Isn't that a little fast, sis?"
"Yeah, but I'm ready to have it out of the way. I know most little girls dream of their wedding day and stuff, but I don't. I just want family and friends there. So... why not do it soon and that way Lucas and I can move on with our lives."
"Move on how? You're taking this semester off, but you're making it up in Washington, right?"
"I think so. I want my degree, obviously."
"I thought you were trying to get the attention of some major dance company." I brushed my hand down my face, confused.
"I don't know what I want to do with my future right now." She walked toward me and sat down in the chair closest to mine. "I just want to be with him. I miss him so much when we're not together. As his wife, I have the right to be beside him everywhere. You know what I mean?"
"Yeah. I get that, but March?" I groaned internally. I had two sports to manage, classes to not fail and mid-terms around that time. Life couldn't get more complicated. It could get worse, no doubt, but it was about as complex as it could get.
My chest tightened and the air seemed so hard to breathe all of a sudden.
"Yeah. If it's too much..." Her smile faded.
"No. It's great. I'll be there. You know that." I got up and stretched, ignoring the budding pain in my chest. "I gotta piss."
"Ewww gross." She crinkled up her nose at me. I pulled at her ponytail as I walked languidly to the bathroom.
I'm having a heart attack. Call her in here. Get help.
"March?" I shut the door behind me, pressed my back against it and slid toward the ground. I realized a moment later that I was panting loudly. "March?"
There was too much going on, too many things spinning around my life that were almost outside of my control. If I didn't stay in my sports, what kind of leader was I? What kind of man was I? Why couldn't I handle something so simple?
If I flunked college, what would happen to me getting a job somewhere? I wouldn't get one. No one would marry me and I'd be alone forever.
I pressed my hands to my chest as sweat dripped down my face. I was going to die if I couldn't get my heart to stop racing, my pulse to slow, my chest to stop aching.
Closing my eyes, I pressed my head against the door and focused on my breathing. I let the image of Layla brush through the torrent of fear playing with my mind. Peace. She wanted peace in her life. No, she needed it.
I breathed in deeply and let myself go, trying hard to just focus on her and nothing else. A few minutes later, I moved onto my knees and pulled myself up off the floor. I pressed my hands against the cool tile of the sink and leaned forward to stare at my flushed face.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? Get it together. Now. They all expect you to have it together. Don't let them down. Don't do it. Without them you'll be alone. Forever alone."
Chapter 6
Layla
"I'm still not sure this is a good idea." I glanced over at Aubrey and gave her a look. We'd worked all morning to pack up my stuff from the dorm. Living with Jayce sounded like a dream come true, but dreams had a way of looking very different when forced into the mold of reality.
"It's a great idea. I'm worried about my brother being alone while I'm gone. I'm a little worried about you too." She glanced over at me and gave me a warm smile. "You guys can take care of each other for me."
"I think this is something that makes you feel better about leaving us. It has nothing to do with this move being good for me or him. I know you, you selfish turd." I tugged at my seatbelt and let out a long sigh. "I just don't want this to be a mistake. I'm looking for peace in my life, remember? Choking out some girl I find in the kitchen in her panties tomorrow morning because she slept with Jayce isn't my idea of peace."
"What's going on with your mom?"
"You suck at changing the topic. You know that?"
"Yep. Lucas tells me all the time." She slowed down at a red light. "Seriously though, tell me about your mom and dad. Don't worry about Jayce bringing someone home. He's dated a small handful of girls his whole life. He's not like most of the guys around campus, Lay. He wants to find the right woman and settle down."
"I've known him my whole life." I chuckled. "I’m well aware of every girl he's dated. I hated all three of them."
She glanced over at me and smiled. "What if this living together thing turns into the greatest adventure of your life? What if
it's the push you both need to stop dancing around the elephant in the room and actually get together? Both of you are interested. One of you just needs to take a step forward."
I glanced out my window to watch the snow fall. Providence was beautiful that time of year, so peaceful and calm. There had to be some way to usher in that same feeling into the center of my life. I wasn't going to last much longer chugging along like everything was fine. It wasn't. A ticking time bomb had moved into the center of my parents’ world, and it was set to go off soon.
"If you don't want to talk about your parents, we don't have to. You know that."
"I honestly don't know what to say." I kept my face turned away from her. She'd know how much I was hurting if I let her see my eyes. I could hide it from strangers, but not from my best friend. She knew everything about me and had been stuck to my side for twenty years.
"Have you thought about whether it's time to get your dad some help?"
"I don't know, Aubrey. I just keep running into destruction no matter which turn I make in my mind. If I don't say anything, he could really hurt my mom. More than a smack to the face or a bruise on her arm." I closed my eyes tightly and pressed my cheek to my shoulder. "Maybe moving in with Jayce is a mistake."
"You said that already."
"Did I?" I glanced over at her. "Because it's true. What if I break down in front of him? It's been a long six months since my father changed jobs and became an alcoholic."
"Then break down in front of him. He loves you, Layla. If not like a woman loves a man, then certainly as a brother loves a sister. You know that." She reached over and brushed my hair off my shoulder. "Maybe there is a way to get your dad some help without having to involve the police."
"Yeah. Maybe." I reached up to turn the heater down. "I need to figure things out soon, I just don't want to deal with it. I don't know the answer to solve it."
"I can tell you that doing nothing isn't going to help anyone. If you want me to help you before I leave for Washington, I can. My dad probably knows someone who can help your dad with his addiction."
I nodded. "I don't want to talk about it anymore. Okay?"
"Okay. I'm here if you do." She released me and pulled up to Lucas’s old apartment complex. "Let's go see if Jayce is up there. If he is, he can help us carry stuff up."
"I like the sound of that." I unbuckled and got out of the car, trying hard not to let the sickness that was swirling in my stomach rush up my chest. Living with Jayce Moore? Just me and him.
It was too much.
"You all right? You got pale all of a sudden." Aubrey reached for me and pulled me into an awkward side hug.
"I'm good." I leaned against her as we paused at the bottom of the stairs. "I just hope this doesn't turn into another nightmare."
"Just think... if it does, you just tell Jayce and he'll help you move out. If you were stuck with a nightmare roommate in the dorm, you're just stuck. Plain and simple. There would be no fixing that. You know the school isn't going to help you out."
"I'd never tell Jayce that living with him was a nightmare." I rolled my eyes and pulled out of her hold. "I'm going to miss you. It hurts to even think about it."
"Don't start that." Her eyes filled with tears. "I don't want to feel like I'm choosing Lucas over you and Jayce. I can't or I won't go."
I nodded, biting my tongue and bounding up the stairs in front of her. I was due in the gym later that day to work with the softball girls on a weight room routine that we'd all be using for the start of the season. Where I normally hated the gym, I was looking forward to losing myself in the pain of pumping iron. I needed something to drag me from my thoughts.
Aubrey was leaving me and Jayce for Lucas. Where I understood it completely, it still hurt like a bitch to think about not having her with me every day.
"You glad to be back in school?" She moved up beside me as we walked toward Jayce's apartment.
"Hell yeah. Last semester was so hard. Between trying to help my mom, practicing ball on my own and doing correspondence classes, I was a hot mess. It's weird being alone most of the time." I shivered at the thought and reached up to knock on the door.
Aubrey reached around me and opened it. "Well, you're not alone now and you really weren't then."
"Aubrey. Shit." I reached for the door, but she'd already pushed it open.
"What?"
"What if your brother was naked in the living room?" I stopped in the kitchen as Jayce walked around the corner wearing a pair of sleeping pants and nothing else. The beautiful swell of his chest and stomach stole my thoughts and left my mouth hanging open a little.
"Hey girls." He moved toward me and gave me a quick hug before hugging his sister. Did he always hug us? I had to think back on it, but quickly realized that he did. Of all the men I knew, he was the most affectionate.
"Layla was worried you might be naked." Aubrey winked at me and walked toward the fridge.
"You just missed it. Sorry." He leaned against the counter and watched me closely. "When are you moving in?"
"My stuff is in the U-Haul downstairs." I ignored their teasing. I'd been putting up with it all my life.
"Let me throw on a shirt and I'll help bring it up." He got a cup of coffee before walking back down the hallway. I watched him go, letting my eyes rest on his rear. It looked good no matter what he was wearing, but in his baseball uniform... I stifled a groan and turned to walk back out of the apartment.
"Wait up." Aubrey jogged up to walk beside me. "There is nothing in that fridge. You're going to have to go shopping."
"I'll go later tonight. After we get my stuff upstairs, I need to get over to the weight room. I have a practice scheduled this afternoon." I walked to the back of the U-Haul and tried to calm my frazzled nerves. Was this what living with Jayce was going to be like? Me feeling crazy all the time?
"You girls take the small stuff and I'll get the big items." Jayce jogged down the stairs, looking so much different than the boy I'd grown up with. He was still very much that guy, but he'd matured, filled out, grown intensely sexy sometime during the course of ten years.
"There's not too much," I mumbled and kept my eyes adverted from him. I could do this. I would just leave before he got up and go to bed before he got home.
"You all right?" He slipped his hands onto my shoulders and rubbed up to my neck, squeezing firmly.
I wanted to melt into him. "Yeah. Just got a lot on my mind."
"Anything I can help with?" He rubbed back down to my shoulders.
"No. You helping me carry this stuff is a lifesaver. Be careful you don't throw out your back." I snorted as Aubrey chuckled beside me.
"Yeah, Providence would lose their hockey captain and their baseball captain. Talk about messing up the athletic department’s roster." She smiled and picked up a few picture albums.
Jayce rolled his eyes and snagged one of the picture albums. "Am I in any of these?"
"Give me that." I reached for it, hoping like hell it wasn't one of the ones where I'd drawn hearts all around his face like a class-A ten-year-old stalker.
"Oh my God. I forgot about this Halloween." He jerked away from me and turned the book, showing me a page of pictures with me, him and Aubrey dressed up like three blind mice.
I pressed my hands to my face. "The embarrassment."
"You're telling me. How did you guys talk me into this shit all the time?"
"You wanted to belong to a friend group, remember?" Aubrey walked back down the stairs. "Grab something and stop playing around."
I snatched the album from him and tried to ignore the look on his handsome face. He wanted a family of his own eventually, but he sort of already had one. The three of us had built a life together. My heart ached as I tossed the album in a box and picked up the box. Aubrey was our third musketeer, our third blind mouse, our third stooge.
By the time I got to the kitchen tears were streaming down my face. I set the box down and wiped at my face.
"Layla..
. what's going on?" He wrapped his arms around my shoulders.
Without thinking, I turned to face him and buried my face against his chest. "I'm going to miss her so fucking much."
"Me too." He tightened his hold on me and pressed his cheek against the top of my head. "Me too."
Chapter 7
Jayce
I finished getting the rest of Layla's stuff out of the U-Haul and left the girls to unpack it. I knew exactly how my pretty blond roommate felt. Losing Aubrey felt wrong, and yet it was time to move on. Layla and I only had five months left before we'd be saying goodbye too.
The thought made me feel more sick than I cared to analyze.
I walked up to the indoor track with far too much on my mind. My sister’s situation was just the cherry on the shit sundae of my life. I had a few too many things to concern myself with to let losing Aubrey take over my thoughts. I wasn't losing her. She was getting married and starting her life. She was my twin sister. I'd see her at holidays and big family events.
"And that's it," I grumbled and walked toward Thomas Hammond and Micah.
"Hey buddy. How are ya?" Thomas extended his hand to me and smiled. We'd been playing baseball together since junior high. The rail-thin catcher with a mop of brown hair and a huge smile had quickly become one of my favorite people. He was open, friendly and would give the shirt off his back.
"I'm good, man. Lot going on, but what else is new." I shook his hand.
"You know Micah Sanders? He's-"
"Oh yeah. We know each other." Micah smiled and extended his hand to me. "How's it going, man? Lucas still in town?"
"No, he headed back, but I think he's going to be running the road back and forth for the next little bit. My sister is trying to wrap everything up and move up there with him, I guess."
"Oh shit. Aubrey's leaving Providence?" Thomas lifted his eyebrow.
"Let's jog and talk guys. I gotta be on the courts tonight for a three on three." Micah nodded toward the track.
"Yeah, sure." I tucked my phone into my pocket and started to jog at a comfortable pace. Micah forced us to go a little fast, but it was for the better. My aching muscles protested a little, but there was no way in hell I was going to let anyone know it.
