CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ashton
Los Angeles Avalanche’s Ashton Carmichael needs to figure out who he is as a football player.
“Hello?” Beau’s voice was sleep-roughened, gritty, telling me he’d either just woken up, or that I’d awakened him with my phone call.
“You’re still in bed? Get up, lazy-ass,” I teased. The tone of his voice still sort of echoed in my head, which obviously was weird as shit. “You sound like you just finished smoking two packs of cigarettes.”
“Gee, thanks. Nothing I enjoy waking up to more than a critique of my morning voice.”
“Morning voice…I like that. I’ve never heard it before. You’re husky. Is this always your morning voice, or is it some blend of sleepiness and Ashton-annoyance?”
Beau groaned. He hadn’t been doing that to me as much in the two weeks since the night we had pizza after Kenny’s game, and we’d hung out quite a bit. We’d had dinner at Fever Pitch again, jogged in the park, and had gone bowling with Kenny. Besides that, I’d fallen into the habit of sugar for breakfast at Campbell’s Confections, which I often shared just with Kenny. Beau also let me tag along to a couple of Kenny’s practices, and the first time I’d hung around and signed autographs for everyone afterward. Beau had apologized, but I hadn’t minded. They’d been some of the most respectful fans I’d met, and hell, I’d explained to him that it wasn’t as though I didn’t enjoy meeting fans, because I did, but sometimes I just wanted to be Ash and not Ashton Carmichael, ex-quarterback for the Avalanche. Most of the time, I didn’t want to be reminded of my off-field antics, but this happened more than one might think. Why did people believe it was okay to throw people’s mistakes at them?
Luckily, that hadn’t happened there, and it had been fun…almost as enjoyable as watching Beau coach. His passion for it shone through, and he was good, though I thought Beau was good at more things than he gave himself credit for.
Beau’s voice shook me out of my reverie. “I haven’t been annoyed with you lately.” He sounded as if he’d moved, maybe sat up, and I wondered what he was doing.
“Oh, come on. Even when we’re getting along, you can’t pretend there isn’t always a little bit of annoyance there.”
“Are you really arguing with me when I said you weren’t annoying?”
“Annoying, right?” I countered, and he laughed. A flicker of pride lit up in my chest. I liked making Beau laugh.
“Okay, so you’re still annoying, but why are you so interested in my morning voice?”
Hmm. He had a point there. “Because it’s ten, which feels too late for a morning voice. You wanna hang out this afternoon?”
“I can’t.” Beau yawned. “I have to pick up an extra shift. I’m going in for a swing.”
“You’re such a grown-up. I try to adult as little as possible…but then, I’m not a hero.”
“I guess you were right; you are still annoying.”
It was fun irritating Beau. It had always been one of my favorite things to do. “That’s because I’m always right.”
“You’re fucking weird.” There was a smile in Beau’s voice. Before I could reply, he added, “I gotta go.”
“Oh yeah. Adulting,” I teased.
“No, I actually have to take a piss. Someone woke me up, and I haven’t gotten to go yet, so unless you’d like to accompany me into the bathroom, we should probably hang up.”
My pulse accelerated before dropping quickly. My mouth felt dry, and as I tried to think of a joke, some kind of wisecrack, my brain went blank.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” Beau asked.
“Please don’t tell me you’re peeing right now, Campbell.”
It didn’t matter that we were on the phone, I knew Beau rolled his eyes.
“I’m not going to try and be nice to you anymore,” he joked.
“I was thinking about doing some work around the house. The old shed out back needs to be torn down, and I’m thinking the patio cover too. A few things like that.”
“You need some help?” Beau asked. I was both surprised and not surprised. It was in Beau’s nature to help people, but it was also typically me who initiated things when we hung out. Apparently, I was suddenly a needy fuck. Oh shit. Not a fuck, fuck. A person, a needy person.
“Yeah, that’d be great, if you don’t mind. I’ll supply the beer and food.”
“I’ll supply the muscle,” Beau countered.
“Oh, fuck you very much. I have some of that too.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
I grinned. “Go pee, asshole. I’ll see you in the morning.” I heard Beau laughing as I hung up the phone.
Well, shit. Now I didn’t know what to do, which was sad, yeah, but true. Sure, it had only been a couple of weeks, but I’d gotten used to the time I spent with Beau and Kenny.
I decided, though, if Beau was going to be an adult, I was going to be one too. I could keep myself busy without Beau or without calling Wyatt to see what he was up to.
The first thing I did was get up, clean the house, and wash my sheets. If Beau was coming over the following day, the house should be presentable. Not that he’d be seeing my sheets, but I figured those should be washed too.
Once that was done, I tortured myself with a few articles on the Internet about myself. I scanned some of the ones about the orgy, because I was a glutton for punishment. Beau obviously knew about it, and I wondered what he thought…if the details of it would matter. Shoving those thoughts from my head, I called and caught up with Andrea, and got a small amount of joy from the fact that the Avalanche weren’t having a great season. Maybe that made me an asshole, but I was okay with that.
It was such a dichotomy…the way I felt when I thought about football. There was the part of me that missed it, that felt like a piece of my soul was gone without it, while another part of me didn’t miss it at all. That second part maybe even wondered if the first was there because it was true, or because it felt like what I should feel.
But how could that be when it was something I’d lived and breathed? When it had been the thing that brought me the greatest joy? When it had made me feel good.
And…that was enough of that. I definitely wasn’t in the mood to go that deep, so I closed my laptop and decided to go do some grocery shopping.
On my way out the door, I grabbed my baseball cap, which felt like my invisibility cloak or something.
It was a short drive into downtown Fever Falls. There were a hundred grocery stores in town, but for some reason, I chose one at the corner of Fever Street and Onyx Drive.
There was a slight buzzing feeling at the base of my spine as I wondered if anyone would recognize me. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I wanted them to or not. I liked the anonymity of my life at the moment, but I sure as shit didn’t want to be forgotten either.
I made it down a couple of aisles when I heard, “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Sexy Football Player.”
I turned around at the sound of Lincoln’s voice. “You recognized me from the back?” It wasn’t as if I knew him well…or as if we’d spent a lot of time together.
“Football players have nice asses.”
My stomach did this odd somersault thing.
“Oh, you’re blushing. Isn’t that cute. But I promised Beau I wouldn’t flirt with you.”
Well, this was interesting. I sort of forgot I was supposed to feel uncomfortable for a moment and said, “Beau asked you not to flirt with me? Why?”
“Um…because you’re straight…?”
Oh…that would make sense. Christ, what was wrong with me?
“Probably because he has a secret crush on you too, but I don’t have hard evidence on that yet.”
This time it was as if my damn gut was in the Olympics—swoops and flips and all sorts of annoying feelings. “Who could blame him? Most people do,” I teased, and Lincoln laughed.
“Yeah, I assume they do. Come on, let’s have a little fun with him. Lower your hat and put your head down so I can’t see your face.”
I did that, and Lincoln got close to me, held his phone out, and snapped a selfie.
“Is this okay?” he asked. He showed me the photo on his Instagram account—my face covered with the hat and Lincoln with a big-ass smile on his face. The caption read: Wonder what kind of trouble we can get into…
Okay, so I had to admit, I was maybe curious about Beau’s reaction. Not that he had a reason to react any certain way, but obviously, I liked to get under Beau’s skin, and I thought this might do it. “Yeah, go for it.” I glanced at Lincoln’s username as he posted it.
We spoke for a little longer, and then a woman came down the aisle, stared at me, swooped around, and came right back. There was a spark of recognition in her eyes that made my discomfort ride the dips and curves of my spine. “I think I better go,” I told him.
I was surprised when Lincoln hugged me, my arms plastered against my sides because I wasn’t really used to hugging people goodbye and grocery-store stalker-lady still had me in her sights.
From there I went straight to the registers, paid, and left. That was enough adulting for the day.