I nodded into his hands more firmly this time, pushing a rough-sounding, “Okay,” from my lips.
This whole time, I hadn’t let go of my death grip on my bag strap, but I did then to shakily wrap my fingers around his wrists while he still held me captive with his hands.
“Thank you, Ash,” I whispered, giving his pulse points a single squeeze in an attempt to acknowledge how much it meant that he wanted to help me.
Now the next twenty-four hours, or however long I’d need to be back home, felt more bearable if Ash was going to be right there next to me.
fifteen
ASHER
The sun was peeking above the horizon in my rearview mirror, and I counted on the bright light to help me stay awake for the last leg of the drive from Belleville.
I was tired as shit.
My brain felt like a building ready to collapse, and my body wasn’t far behind. I could get by on five hours of sleep in a night, but a single hour and being jarred awake by panicked knocking at my door? Yeah, I was borderline loopy.
I glanced for the thousandth time at the man asleep in my passenger seat before looking back at the road.
There wasn’t a world in which I allowed Cade to persuade me that he should make this trip on his own. The stress of the situation aside, figuring out how to rent a car or get a bus out of Belleville would have taken him longer than me driving him myself.
I couldn’t resist looking at him, letting my gaze catalog every detail in small snatches of time.
On any given day, Cade was a stunning young man. His lush auburn curls, long enough to hide the flushed tips of his ears when he was embarrassed, lay messily around his face. It was clear he hadn’t had a haircut since before the season started.
Now hidden behind his closed eyelids, the pale green of his eyes was my new favorite color. I loved watching him concentrate intensely as he listened to Zane or one of his teammates.
And his freckles—god, his freckles—they were fainter now with the summer sun long gone, but they dusted his cheekbones and nose in a way that made me want to hold him in my arms just so I could count them. The constellation of freckles on his neck and collarbones hinted at a hidden cache of them that I would happily spend days mapping with my tongue.
Thank god I wasn’t required to be in the locker room when Zane did his whole pre-game spiel. I volunteered to do all the last-minute prep before games once I realized the depth of my attraction to Cade.
Not that I would ever violate his privacy. Even if players were always in some state of undress before or after games, that didn’t mean anyone’s body was up for consumption. I had enough to contend with while interacting with Cade when he was fully clothed.
And now, with him sleeping deeply in my passenger seat, I unwillingly had another vision of Cade to file into my book of temptation.
Asleep, his face was free of the tightness he carried around his eyes and mouth when he interacted with others. The frown line in his forehead was softened, leaving behind smooth, unmarred skin so fair that it made each gorgeous freckle stand out like a work of art. Every inch of his unblemished skin was creamy and smooth, with the exception of the small pink scar on his right eyebrow.
Seeing Cade like this made me ache to have a place in his life where I could make sure he always slept as peacefully as he did now.
The past five hours, with the scent of Cade’s laundry detergent and deodorant or body wash surrounding me, had awoken a deeper need in me to take care of Cade in a way I didn’t fully understand.
It was frustrating to know that I wouldn’t be able to really make anything meaningful easy for him with the situation he was about to deal with.
A message popped up on my dashboard’s screen. I’d sent Zane a text to let him know the situation with Cade and how I’d chosen to handle it, emphasizing that it was my choice to help out and nothing Cade had encouraged.
Zane: What the hell, Ace? I go visit friends for a damn night and my offensive coach goes rogue! There are fucking protocols to follow, man.
My lips turned down at the thought of getting Zane in trouble. He’d gone through a hell of a lot of pain and rehab with his injury. I didn’t want to add to his struggles, but how could I have let Cade go alone?
Keeping my voice as quiet as possible, I had Siri send a reply.
Asher: I’m driving, man. So, I can’t say much right now. I’m really not trying to cause trouble for you. But my conscience wouldn’t let me send Cade off into the night on his own without a plan, you know? I’ll message or give you a call when we get to the hospital in Sudbury and I know more about timing. Just outside the city now.
I stopped short of telling Zane that he would have done the exact same thing in my situation. It wasn’t fair to put that on hisconscience. I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure I knew how Zane would have reacted in the moment.
I based my assumptions on the Zane I knew back when we played together, not on the man whose reputation and livelihood now depended on his role as head coach of the Hammerheads.
The nagging sense of guilt I felt about semi-lying to Zane made it harder to defend my actions.
