Fifteen
Porter
I’d been under the impression that this party was being held in a hall or someone else’s suite but, nope.
Just all part of Nico’s grand-assed plan.
Not only did he manage to get Asher home—something I couldn’t even do—and talk me into going to a holiday party I didn’t want to go to, now I couldn’t even fucking leave the festivities.
Thankfully, my suite was huge.
Probably because it also listed Asher as a guest.
I stood in the kitchenette area, nursing a beer, while chatting with Popps. Turned out the kid was having a phenomenal season.
“Dude, and then there was the game against New York.”
“Your hat trick?” Just because I wasn’t playing, didn’t mean I wasn’t watching parts of the games.
“It was fucking amazing.” Popps’ grin stretched from ear to ear, and I could remember the feeling. My rookie season had been filled with more ups than downs, the best up being the one on the other side of the room.
Even though I didn’t look at her, I could feel Asher’s scowl on me.
Shortly after we arrived, her first words to me were, if I didn’t walk up to the suite with my crutches properly under my arms, she was walking back out the doors and getting on a flight home.
I took two more steps.
And damn it, but she meant what she said.
She turned on her heel and headed back out the doors. With a four-letter word echoing in the lobby, I put the crutches under my arms and raced behind her, telling her I’d use the fucking things.
Ten weeks.
Ten weeks since she took off her ring.
Sure, there had been a handful of words from her mouth in that time, but her threat was the first full sentence she spoke to me in that time, and fuck, if I wasn’t a sucker in hoping that those words could be a lead-in to more husky words from her mouth.
I was pissed at Nico for getting her here without my knowledge. I was pissed at Asher for pushing me away.
But mostly, I was pissed that all I wanted to do was get her alone and fight it all out, lay it all out, and get back to what we had. Instead, I was trapped in a suite with fifty of my closest teammates and their significant others, while the woman they all thought was still my fiancée, stood on the other side of the room, shooting daggers at me with her psychedelic eyes.
By ten, my knee was getting sore from standing on it all night.
By ten-thirty, I found myself sitting on a couch, with Nico literally pushing Asher into my lap before he and Stein stood in front of me.
She was stiff in my lap, her shoulders pulled back, but she continued her conversations as if she wasn’t uncomfortable.
Fuck, I hated that she was uncomfortable.
Muscle memory—when in doubt, blame routine—had me placing my hand on the top of her thigh, but when she flinched?
Game over.
I couldn’t do it anymore.
I was done.
I tapped Asher’s hip while addressing my teammates. “I’m exhausted. Can you guys move this party somewhere else? Or Ash and I can crash in someone else’s room?” Asher moved from my lap, but the last line had her head whipping back at me.
Where the fuck did she think she was sleeping tonight?
Nico stared down at me for a minute before clapping his hands together once, lifting his voice above the conversations. “Alright, guys. Cap needs to sleep. He’s lost his mojo.” He winked down at me, the fucker, but people started to file out.
“We’re going to see you back at the rink, right?” a new D-man, Oliver, asked.
I remembered Coach’s words and even though it killed me to be there, yet not be on the ice… “Yeah, I’ll be around.” It was time to take my title seriously and show the guys I could be their captain.
Slaps on the back and handshakes pursued, and before Nico left the room, I watched as he wrapped Asher in a hug, his head dipped low. She nodded her head against his chest and I couldn’t help but feel a wave of possessiveness—of jealousy—at the sight.
But when Nico stepped away and Asher crossed her arms over her chest, one hand sneaking up to rub under an eye, the hit in the chest was different.
Protectiveness.
Why was she crying?
I hobbled over, walking Nico to the door. I looked over my shoulder and saw Asher moving around the room, picking things up and straightening up. It would do me no good to tell her not to.
I stepped into the hall and pulled the door nearly shut behind me. “What did you tell her?”
Nico shook his head. “Just that I missed seeing her face.”
I lifted a brow, not believing that was the full truth.
Nico shrugged. “And that I was sorry I conned her into coming. Dude, you were on the other side of the room all fucking night. Go hug that woman.”
“She doesn’t want it.”
“I think you’d be surprised, man.” He slapped my shoulder. “I’m not saying she wasn’t in the wrong, pushing you away. But you two are so fucking stubborn. Go talk to your woman, Portsy.”
“Yeah, we’ll see,” I mumbled. Nico just chuckled at me before stepping down the hall. I went back into the suite, locking the door behind me.
I stood at the door, watching as Asher moved around the room, picking up bottles and Solo cups. Her eyes never met mine, but I did catch them glaring at my crutches—which were currently leaning against the kitchenette counter.
“You sleeping on the couch?” I lifted a brow, trying really hard to keep the indifference in place but dammit, I wanted her in my bed with me.
Asher grunted, but didn’t answer.
If that was how she was going to play…
Shaking my head, I hobbled past her and toward the bedroom. “Whatever.” There wasn’t a chance in hell I was getting this girl to open up, and it equal parts pissed me off, and physically hurt.
Four years of my life, gone.
We were officially at a stalemate, and it was time for me to just accept it.
Asher
Really? Asking me if I was sleeping on the couch?
Where else was I going to sleep? His bed?
He hadn’t said a damn word to me all night, and he had the audacity to think I’d sleep in his bed? I’d sleep on the damn couch if I wanted to!
My temper gradually climbed until I was physically shaking. I threw the last of the cups into the garbage can with more force than necessary.
Why the hell did I come? He didn’t need a fucking babysitter. He needed a fucking crutch—literally. He needed someone to put the fucking things under his arms and glue them to his fucking body, because he wasn’t going to listen to a word anyone fucking told him and he was going to fuck up his knee.
Thoroughly pissed at him and his disregard for his body, I stormed into the bedroom—dumbass didn’t lock the door—and let the door slam open into the wall. Whatever words I was going to yell, promptly died on my tongue.
Porter stood beside the bed, down to just his boxer briefs, with his fingers hooked into the band. He looked over his shoulder and I could see him contemplating being a dick and taking them off.
A part of me, albeit a much larger part than I wanted to admit, wanted him to take them off.
Wanted to see his beautiful body again.
But the other part of me…
He stared at me for a moment and, instead of pulling the cotton down, he released the top with a snap and pulled down the covers, slipping between the sheets.
His brace was still on.
He should take it off to sleep, give it some air.
Hell, he should do range-of-motion before bed.
What the hell, Asher?
I shouldn’t care.
I…I didn’t care!
But I did. I really did care, and it was messing with my head.
Ten weeks. Ten weeks, and I still longed for this man.
You’re dirty and disgusting.
There’s no way he could love you anymore.
I swallowed past the sadness, trying to let the anger still simmer at the surface.
Porter sat in the bed, covers up to his waist as he leaned against the leather headboard, his arms crossed over his muscular chest. He said nothing though; he simply stared at me from across the room.
I could see the muscle in his jaw tick.
“I know you didn’t want me here. But letting them all think we were still together? You didn’t do a very convincing job of it, being on the other side of the room all night.”
Still, he said nothing. No, he just cocked that fucking scarred eyebrow of his.
“You know what? I’m done.” Maybe the words were meant more for me. I mean, after all, he did send me back my things. Apparently, he was done too. “I’m just done,” I said, my voice cracking before I could get the last statement out. I turned to leave, to go sleep on the couch he so kindly pointed out, but his voice stopped me.
“And here I thought you were done weeks ago,” he finally said. “Tell me one thing.” There was enough curiosity in his words that I turned to face him again. “Why’d you push me away? What was so wrong with what I had to offer you, that you couldn’t let down your guard enough to accept what I had to give?” His words were hard and his body closed off. We were at an impasse, both closed off and both pissed at the other.
He thought this was about him? That there was something wrong with him?
My eyes filled with sadness that this perfect man, the man who I didn’t deserve at seventeen, and sure as hell didn’t deserve now, thought there was something wrong with him.
Every pent-up emotion from the last two months, from the last four years, exploded in my body. My blood ran too fast. My heart pounded too hard.
And my eyes filled with too many tears.
With a shaking hand, I pointed at myself and even though I couldn’t see him through the haze of tears, I told him in broken words, “Because I’m fucking disgusting.”