“He better not have been,” Ash says, staring at me pointedly.
“Not exactly the point I’m trying to make Ash,” I say, shaking my head.
“I get it. I get it. I will try and be nicer to him when I see him again. Which I’m assuming will be tomorrow because when I was talking to Danny earlier, he said something about it being a bar night or something,” he says, picking up his phone and spinning it in his fingers.
“Yeah, it will be. You’re talking to Danny? That’s nice that you made a friend.”
“I’m not a toddler. I know how to make friends. And the guys that you hang out with, they are alright. Everyone’s all coupled up, which I guess is why something happened with you and Cromwell,” he tells me.
I shake my head. “I don’t think that’s why it happened. It didn’t help that we were both lonely. I just think that maybe we were supposed to find our way back to each other or something sappy shit like that,” I tell him, reaching over and stealing his water bottle to take a swig.
He shakes his head when he says, “Help yourself.” I flip him off and he continues, “Yeah, maybe that’s the case. But doesn’t make me like him any more than I did. But I will try to be nicer to him.”
I stare at him for a second. “What happened tonight? I came home tonight because I thought that maybe me staying with him again would make things difficult between us…” My voice trails off and I watch him closely waiting for a reply.
He sighs. “Because I’m here visiting you and I don’t want to spend all of our time fighting over him. It’s not worth it.”
I nod. “Good, I like having you here and I don’t want to fight either. So, is this like a truce on the whole August thing?”
He shakes his head, “Something like that. I just know that I’m glad to be here with my sister, my family. We’re not fighting over it. But if he’s mean to you, I will punch that sorry motherfucker in the face again. Only this time I will break something. Got it?”
I nod. “I love having a protective older brother.” I lean over and hug him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, kiddo. Now get some rest, you have practice and in a few days, your final regular season game. It’s abig one. At least that is what Danny told me, so you should go to bed so that you are ready to rip at practice tomorrow.”
“You got it.” I get up and he joins me, switching off the TV. “Are you heading to bed too?”
“Yep, I was just waiting up for you,” he says.
“Thanks for doing that.”
“I never got to when you were younger. I wasn’t living at home when you were dating,” he reminds me.
“No, you weren’t. But it’s nice that you can do it now.”
“Sure is. Night, Henny.”
“Night, Ashy.”
“No, we’re not calling me that,” he says, turning and pointing his finger at me. “Not doing that anymore.”
I chuckle. “Okay, fine. It’s an ‘in the apartment only’ kind of name.” I close my door and hear him chuckling on the other side.
Chapter Twenty-Two
~AUGUST~
The Blaze is out there on the practice field. I know because I’ve spent at least twenty minutes staring out my window, watching her. They’ve run drills as a team and for some of it, Jase had her off to the side, warming up to take shots on goal. I want to keep on watching her, but that won’t get the mountain of work off my desk and allow me to head out with everyone tonight. Tonight, I get to take her home with me.
In front of everyone.
It’s not that the girls don’t know that we’re hanging out but the only person that I’ve told is Dex. And if there’s one thing I know about the girls that I hang out with, it’s that they talk. I’m sure when Hendrix dropped the truth bomb on them that we were hanging out, they ran right home and told their boyfriends. Well, Amelia already knew what was happening because of Dex, but it sounds like she kept a lid on that in front of the rest of them.
I turn in my chair slightly, getting ready to pull away from the desk and head back over to the window when a knock on the door stops me. I look up and Nancy is standing in my doorway, her eyes downcast.
“What’s wrong, Nancy?” I ask her. I’ve seen that look many times. Enough to know that she’s here to tell me something that I’m not going to like.
Nancy sighs. “Your father is here to see you in the conference room. He has Drew with him too.”
