Page 149 of Colliding with Ten

“And I know you love her.”

His face twisted before he finally pulled her into him. Meadow rubbed a hand over his back.

I breathed a sigh. He was back to being my brother, the person who held me together when Mom died. After a while, he lifted his head. The anger was still in his eyes; nothing had been fixed, but he was back in control.

“I still need you to go.”

I nodded. “Okay.” My voice was small.

AJ reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He took out a credit card and held it toward me. “Just take the card.”

“I have money.”

“I know. But take it and get a hotel.”

My eyes burned as I crossed the room and took it. His fingers held on after mine closed around it, then he let go.

“Get a good hotel. Not some cheap place because you’re trying to prove a point.”

I nodded as Meadow pulled him toward his room. This time, he didn’t argue.

I grabbed the bag and my dead phone, then walked out the door. I didn’t remember the elevator or lobby. Standing outside in the cold, I could think of only one place to go.

Micah’s apartment was fourteen blocks south. I knew the address because AJ had dragged me there for a UFC fight watch party four months ago, before I met Lennox, when the world still made sense. By the time I reached Micah’s building, my hands were numb from the cold, and my jaw was sore from clenching it shut. I buzzed his unit several times and waited several minutes before he answered.

“Yeah?” His voice was flat.

“It’s Ayla.”

I paused, waiting for his decision. His worsened injury was what everyone faulted me for. If he turned me away, I wouldn’t have blamed him. The buzzer sounded, and I exhaled as I pushed through the door.

He was waiting in the doorway of his apartment when I got off the elevator. Leaning on the frame, he wore a compression sleeve on his injured foot, crossed it over the other, and folded his arms. The man was half-naked in sweatpants, showing the most impressive set of abs I’d ever seen.

“You look like hell,” he said, almost smiling.

“I feel like hell.”

He leveled a look at me. “What are you doing here, Ayla?”

“Can I come in, please? If, after I say what I have to say, you want me out, I’ll leave without protest.”

He thought about it, then stepped aside and gestured inside. “Come in.”

I walked past him into his minimalist living room, with a couch, a TV, and a framed jersey on the wall from a football Hall of Famer.

He closed the door, limped to the couch, and sat down.

“I know why you’re here.”

“Micah, I need you to know —”

“Sit down first. You’re swaying.”

I sat. I had been swaying. “I never told Lennox anything about your ankle. I never told him anything about a player’s injury. I need you to believe me.”

Micah looked at me for a long time, but his expression didn’t change. “I know.”

“What?”