“Did you call the office?”
“I didn’t want to go that far yet,” I admit.
“Why not?”
I laugh tightly. “Calling her there felt a bit extreme, given . . .”
“That you’re fucking?”
“Not completely the reason, but yes. I guess so. It’s more complicated than that.” I rub my palms over the steering wheel. “I’m starting to think that I should have called, anyway.”
It was fear of looking desperate that kept me from calling when I first began to worry. I’ve felt like an asshole all afternoon while I was sitting in the dugout, watching the game. After the amazing morning we had, I didn’t want to ruin anything by pushing her too much, too fast. It’s not the first time she’s been too busy with work to reply to a text or call me back, but maybe I should have taken what’s going on between us as a sign that today is different.
What if something’s wrong and I’ve wasted my day worrying instead of taking care of it?
“I can call,” Asher offers tightly.
I click my tongue to the roof of my mouth as I eye the time. “No. It’s too late now. Her assistant will be gone. If Aubrey’s stillthere now and isn’t picking up her phone, I want to go there myself. Do you mind if we stop by on the way to your place?”
“I won’t be able to let it go until I know where she is.”
Jerking into the turn lane without bothering with my signal light, I say, “I need to ask you something.”
“Go for it.”
“Your interest in her isn’t romantic, right?”
His lack of response draws my eyes. The tick in his jaw does little to settle me.
“No.” It’s firm, final.
I absorb that. “She hasn’t told me why you’re so much more comfortable around her than the rest of us. I figured you’d do it eventually.”
He raises a hand and scratches his throat. The tension beating off him is concerning. I keep quiet, giving him the room to decide if he wants to open up to me or tell me to back off.
“She saw me sitting in the hospital a while back. We were there for the same reason. I guess I decided that I didn’t want to keep everything to myself for a few minutes and told her more than I should have.”
“Because of her grandmother,” I say, answering the question bouncing around in my head.
Aubrey spent plenty of hours on the oncology floor of the hospital, sitting beside her grandmother while she went through chemo for stage two colon cancer. She had it successfully removed and has since entered remission, but I remember driving up to join them both every few weeks with a new edition of Monopoly to keep her entertained.
“We sat together a few times while we waited. I asked her not to say anything to you,” he admits.
“I’m sorry, Asher.”
He shrugs it off and taps his fingers to the window. “That’s life. My mom’s better now.”
“Do you see her often?”
“I was gone in Chicago for too long before getting traded here. She was diagnosed a few months before I found out because she didn’t want to tell me while I was playing out of the country. When I heard that I was on the move, I forced her to sell my childhood house in Hamilton and bought her somewhere here so I could keep her close. Things get put into perspective when you watch someone you love fight for their life.”
I take the turn down the street leading to Aubrey’s office. “I’m glad you’re here, man. The Havoc are a family, so whether you tell the rest of the guys this or not, we’ll take care of you. Your mom, too, if you ever needed us to.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
The emotion in his voice is obvious before he clears his throat and looks out the window. I keep my mouth shut and let the conversation drop before I push too far and make him jump out of the moving car to escape me. He knows that I meant what I said, and that’s good enough for me.
Asher waitsin the car while I take the elevator up to Aubrey’s floor and head down the dimly lit hall to her office.
