Forty-Two
Asher
When I woke in the morning, I was alone, but I figured I would be.
By the time Porter and I went to sleep, it was nearly two in the morning. I didn’t have anything to do today, but he had camp at nine.
I reached in front of me, my hand resting on his pillow. It was still indented but the clock beyond his pillow showed the time being ten.
In front of his clock, was a framed picture. I stretched my body long, reaching for the small three-by-three square all-glass frame. I rolled to my back and lifted the picture in front of my face to see it.
It was a picture of the two of us, but I was sleeping against his chest. It was a picture I didn’t recognize, but could tell it was from a few years ago, as Porter’s plugs were still in his earlobes. I ran my finger down the glass, over his face, smiling lightly at his choice of a picture to put out. How did I not know about this picture?
I returned the frame to its spot before sitting up, turning to reach for my phone. I checked for text messages; one, from Porter.
Morning, beautiful. I’ll be home around noon. Be ready. Love you.
I lifted my brows. What did he have planned for today?
Shaking my head, I put my phone down and climbed out of bed. I walked naked—after clothes were shed and connection was made last night, there was no energy to find a sleep shirt—to the bathroom, grabbing a quick shower.
Clean and clothed, I made the bed and grabbed for my phone again.
I opened up the new Facebook app. Carter wouldn’t let me leave her place until I downloaded some type of social media. I now joined the rest of the world, by having a Facebook account and an Instagram account.
I didn’t know the first thing about them, but one thing I did know was that I didn’t necessarily want random people finding me.
Or people from my past.
A person from your past.
Porter had showed me how to make everything as private as possible, telling Carter it was because of his family, but I knew he did it just as much for me, as he did for him.
There were a bunch of notifications saying people accepted my friend request—Porter’s doing. But I also had notifications from Carter and…Avery?
I grinned as I opened Avery’s, first.
It was just a note on my page—wall—that said she missed me. I clicked on her profile picture and thumbed through her photos as I went into the kitchen to put together a bowl of cereal.
I somehow ended up on Instagram, where I moved through Porter’s page. Most of his shots were of hockey, or random pictures from the lake house of a bonfire or the beach. There were a few pictures of his family, but every picture that had me in it, was cropped so you couldn’t really tell it was me, but all surprisingly artistic in the crop.
A picture of me laughing, that was cut off over my smile.
The picture he had on his nightstand, but a different shot where my hair covered my face.
I was reminded of Avery’s words a few months ago, about how Porter tried to protect me from social media. I chuckled lightly to myself at this man who chose to love me.
There were a few comments on this sleeping picture and, curiously, I scrolled through them.
Mostly family.
McKenna’s response was “OMG!!!!!!!! <3” and I don’t know why, but that made me smile wider.
Mykaela’s was, “Knew it.”
Even Sydney had joined in, posting, “She’s too good for you ;)”
God, I loved his family.
There was a more recent comment from a naysayer, and as I thumbed through Porter’s pictures, I saw this girl posted on most of his pictures. She even added a link to one of them.
It took me a minute, but I figured out that I couldn’t highlight the text but, because I was curious, I copied each letter in the link, into the address bar.
The address pulled up that WAGs site. It had been a long time since I’d been on it.
The picture the page opened to, was from the previous weekend—yesterday, in fact—in North Carolina. It was Porter hugging me, my head buried in his chest.
He and I stopped at the shoreline just after leaving Carter’s, on our way back home. Porter had just told me he wanted to add a yellow ribbon to his XI, for Bri. And that he wanted to tattoo his bracelet, because he was afraid of it fraying off.
I was crying into his chest, at the absolute sweetness of it all.
I clenched my jaw together, hating that someone saw that moment. It wasn’t meant for anyone else.
The comments below weren’t very nice, either. There were a few that were against the haters, but it was a bunch of negative fuckers who got high on bringing others down.
I quickly swiped the browser closed, not wanting to read any more.
Before I could put my phone down though, it was ringing.
Porter.
I glanced at the time as I swiped the call open, bringing it to my ear. “Aren’t you supposed to be practicing?”
His chuckle through the line brought me more comfort than he’d realize.
The picture didn’t matter.
“Between lifting and ice. Wanted to be sure you got my text.”
“I did. I just woke up.”
“Lucky.”
I smiled, moving around the kitchen with my phone to my ear. “Sometimes.”
“Make sure you’re ready. I have a surprise for you.” He sounded excited. In the background, I could hear Nico harping on Porter, and it made me miss the guy.
“Tell Nico to stop by for dinner. We can grill out or something.”
“’Kay. Oh. Call that tattoo place and schedule something for me, please?”
“I suppose I have nothing better to do.”
“Smartass.”
“Love you.”
His chuckle made my grin wider. “Love you too, beautiful. See you soon.”