Third Strike

by B. J. Harvey

  “Okay. You get dressed, and we’ll go. It’s going to be okay, Ash,” I say, stepping forward and wrapping her up in my arms. She jerks free, pushing me away. “It’s not going to be okay, Drew. She’s sick. Really sick. And instead of being at home with her I was here, arguing with you over stupid trivial shit when I should have been there.”

  I grab her again, running my hands down her arms and willing her to take a breath. “I’ll get you back home, sweetheart. Just take a moment and breathe.”

  “I can’t. Don’t you see? Nothing matters right now. Not you. Not us. Not anything. My mom is sick, and they don’t know what’s wrong with her, just that she’s not waking up.”

  I pull her into my arms again. This time she doesn’t fight it. She buries her face in my chest and breaks down.

  It’s not until we’re packed up and on the road that the one thing I blocked out comes slamming back into me.

  She told Millen she was with me. Millen knows I was coming to the lake house for the weekend with a girl. A girl I didn’t tell him about.

  A girl he now knows was his sister.

  Fuck!

  The drive back to San Francisco is a quiet one, thoughts of our fight and of Nina between us.

  When we arrive at the hospital, my heart is in my throat, threatening to choke me. Following Millen’s instructions on Ashley’s phone, we take the elevator to the oncology floor in silence.

  I know everything is on the line now, and the five-hour trip has done nothing to alleviate the sinking feeling in my chest that I’m about to face my worst fear.

  When we reach the nurses’ station, Millen’s voice calls out from down the hall. His expression is unreadable as we walk toward him, his eyes locked on mine as Ashley near-on collapses into his arms and bursts into tears. He’s cold, his mouth in a flat line letting me know there’s a very difficult confrontation in my future. With a sharp shake of his head, I know it won’t be happening now.

  I stand back as he takes Ashley’s hand and leads her into the hospital room.

  As strong as I try to be—for Ash and for Mills—the entire scene before me is stifling, memories making it near impossible for me to stand back and watch.

  Ashley is perched on the bed beside her mom. Her dad is at her back holding her as he explains the situation, I know it’s not my place to be here.

  Despite being welcomed into this family all those years ago, with everything going on and everything swirling around my head, my flight instinct kicks in, and I step back out of the doorway.

  “Running away so soon?” Millen asks, following me out of the room and leaning against the wall of the corridor, his eyes locked on his family in front of him.

  “I shouldn’t be here,” I say quietly.

  “You should. Where you shouldn’t have been is at the lake house with my sister. You gonna explain?” His words are flat, his shoulders squared, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

  The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. “She turned up. My date canceled. That’s all it was.”

  He turns his head, his narrowed gaze pinning me in place. “You were with Kayley at the ball. How is it she canceled?”

  “Headache. Time of the month. Who knows? She asked to be dropped home, and that was that.”

  “And Ash? She left the ball soon after you…” His insinuation is clear as fucking day. He’s skeptical as hell, and he should be. Because I’m a fucking liar.

  I shrug, returning my attention to the bed. “Do they know what’s wrong?”

  “Stage 3 liver cancer. She’s been hiding it from us for months. Didn’t want to worry us. Now she has to let us worry—it’s our fucking job,” he grinds out, his voice gruff.

  I reach over and cup my hand on his shoulder, giving him a squeeze. “If anyone can beat this, it’s your mom. She’s one of the strongest people I know, and with all of you behind her, there’s no way she can’t win this battle.”

  “You too, Drew. You’re as much a part of this family as the rest of us. I know this’ll be hard for you because you’ve been through this before.”

  Shot to the fucking heart, right there. “Whatever you need, whenever you need it, I’m here. For all of you.” I drop my hand and take another step back. “I’m going to get some air.” I turn to leave, but Millen’s hand on my arm holds me in place.

  “Don’t be the asshole I thought you were a few hours ago, Drew.” His eyes are fierce, but there is a clear-as-day plea in there. “I love you like a brother, but if you have any fucking ounce of respect for me and my family, you won’t go there. Not now. Not ever.” He leans in close to land the death blow. “Be here for me. Be here for Ash, Mom, and Dad, but that’s all. You have any fucking woman in the world, and I’ll have your back. You touch my sister, and all bets are off.” He grits his teeth. “You get one shot, Drew. That’s all you get when it comes to my sister. She’s off limits, even to you.”

  My throat constricts, making it hard to breathe. With his words bouncing around my head, all I can do is nod as I turn and walk toward the elevators.

  When I get outside the hospital, I will myself to take a deep breath, my body as tense as it’s ever been.

  I just lied to my best friend, and it wasn’t to protect the woman I care about most in the world. It was to save my own ass. To preserve my friendship, to keep my family. At no time did I think about standing up for what Ash and I have.

  Knowing that, I walk to my car and start the engine. The best place for me to be right now is far away from here. Swirling emotions and guilt weigh heavy on me. I flee, driving aimlessly and without thought. It’s not until I’m on the freeway that I realize I’m heading toward Sacramento—home.

  For the first time in a long time, I want to be away from everyone with the last name Ross. I need to be—to think, to process, and to calm the fuck down.

  “You’re an idiot,” Kayley states without hesitation.

  “Don’t hold back,” I mutter. She rolls her eyes at me, lifting a beer bottle to her lips.

  “You know I’m right. You could’ve just fronted up then and there, and said you had to talk to him. Told him that you liked his sister and wanted to date her. He doesn’t need to know all the ins and outs of it all.”

  “Ins and outs?” I ask, my mouth twitching. “Really?”

  “What?” She feigns ignorance. “I mean, you could tell him you took her virginity and have been defiling her regularly whenever you’ve been in the same zip code, but I bet that conversation would end a hell of a lot worse than ‘keep your filthy hands off my sister.’”

  My mouth drops open, my eyes bugging out of my head.

  “You’ll catch flies like that,” she teases. I grumble under my breath and take a long swig of my drink. “You know I’m right.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Yeah, you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have knocked on my door and disturbed my much-anticipated Sunday night bath time.”

  “TMI.”

  She scoffs. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

  She’s got me there.

  “Seriously though, how long did you think this could go on for before one of you tripped up? You’re lucky today was the first time.”

  “It’s kind of not.”

  She sits up straight, leaning forward to rest her arms on her knees. “Say what now?”

  “Last year in Boston. I told you about it. We ran into one of Millen’s friends.”

  “That’s right. You shut him down from talking about your boys’ weekend shenanigans by reminding him he got the clap. Because heaven forbid Ashley should know you’re not living the life of a monk in between visits.”

  “It’s not like that between us.”

  She laughs and shakes her head. “You really don’t think she’s getting dick in Boston? I’ve seen her; she’s fucking smoking. There’s no way the guys aren’t crawling all over her.”

  “Not fucking helping, Kayley.”

  Her expression straighten
s, her eyes narrowing on mine. “Again, it’s my job to tell you you’re a fucking idiot.”

  “What have I done now?” I feel like throwing my hands up in the air.

  “Today should have been a wake-up call for you. Can’t you see what all this sneaking around is doing?”

  “We’re not together.”

  “And you never have been, probably never will be either because you’ve both made this so much harder for each other.”

  “How?” I ask, getting irritated, mainly because I know Kayley is about to drop a truth bomb and slap me with a dose of reality.

  “Okay, Drew Peters. You asked for it. I don’t think you and Ash will ever get together for real because you’re both in this dream world where you think eventually Millen may find out and maybe he’ll be absolutely fine with it. News flash: he never will be. You kissed her when she was jailbait. You took her virginity at eighteen, and you’ve been bumping uglies with her, building up frequent flier miles for years all the while still hitting the town, going to Vegas and Mexico and everywhere else with him. Not once have you picked your balls up, sat him down, and laid it all out.”

  My gut twists, but she doesn’t stop there.

  Reaching out, she rests her hand on my knee, giving me a gentle squeeze. “Look, I know you guys have this intense, out-of-this-world thing going on. Believe me, I can see it every time you’re together. I see the way your entire mood lifts when she calls or texts you. As hard as you guys try to hide it, anyone looking close enough would totally be able to see it too.”

  She’s not fucking wrong, but it’s difficult to hear it said out loud.

  “The thing is, if you’re not going to be together, why hold each other back with all this to and fro?” Her suggestion feels like a sucker punch with enough force to wind me. “Yes, you get to stay in each other’s lives, she gets to be in love with you, you feeling the same but still unable to say it out loud, and you both are almost using that as an excuse not to get on with your lives.”

  This is the problem when you have a woman as one of your closest friends: they’re all seeing and all knowing.

  “But if all these years of being together but not being together have proven anything, it’s that neither of you are willing to risk losing Millen, or the relationship with his parents and everything that entails. It’s been so long, I’m starting to think that neither of you want it to come into the light because you like it too much in the shadows.”

  As always, she hits the nail squarely on the head—it’s just this time she’s using a giant heavy sledgehammer and ramming that nail home.

  By the time I pull into my driveway an hour, two missed calls from Ash and a few text messages later, I resolve to do exactly what Millen said. Right now, it seems like the best thing for everyone. Especially Ash.

  I’ll be there for all of them, but that’s all it’ll be. As much as I like being with her, it was never meant to be. Kayley was right—if it was, it would’ve happened already.

  With Millen’s warning and everything else we’re going to need to focus on with her mom’s diagnosis, it’s like the universe has made it easy and made the decision for us both.

  I have to face facts. There can’t be an us. There can’t be.

  And we were stupid to think there ever could.

  Drew 26, Ashley 24

  Millen keeps me updated on how his mom is doing. The collapse was a side-effect to her chemo regime, and his parents have since sat both him and Ash down to tell them the full story and how her prognosis is actually good.

  The one time we’ve caught up in the two weeks since then, things started off weird between us. I was nervous; he was awkward and aloof. We never talked about his warning at the hospital, but it still felt like it was a giant mountain between us for the first half of our meal. He did explain to me a lot of things he’d found out from his father, one of them being that the cost of his mom’s treatment had put a bit of a strain on cash flow, and a few deals had fallen through for the company. It meant he’d be needing to step up and take on more responsibility. I could tell he didn’t relish the idea, but for his mom—and, by default, his dad—he’d do anything. By the end of the night, things were thankfully back to normal between us.

  It was a huge relief, but there was still the issue of Ash and me to deal with. Ash will soon return to spend time with her mom. We swap text messages back and forth like we always do, but when she suggests driving up to spend a night with me, I instead offer to go to San Francisco so she won’t have to travel and lose time with her family.

  Surprisingly, she doesn’t question it, but in the days leading up to her arrival, there’s radio silence between us. For me, it makes it easier to be rational and remember exactly why we need to end things. I don’t want to lose her, and she’ll always be one of the most important people in my life, but Kayley’s words are valuable in keeping me focused on the two most important reasons why it has to be like this. This thing between us is holding her back. She’s not once been in a relationship with another guy since the douchebag and prom night, and the fact that after more than six years, neither one of us have made the decision to tell Millen must mean we just weren’t meant to be.

  It’s a long time to keep a secret. It’s a hell of a long time to hold a big part of yourself from your best friend. And I’ve had to accept that if I haven’t done anything about it by now, I’m not sure I ever will.

  I make reservations for dinner at a small hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant in Nob Hill and offer to pick her up, knowing that Millen is out of town for a conference in San Diego. The car ride is quiet. We swap niceties, but there’s this weird vibe between us, her hands not leaving her lap for the entire drive.

  Leading her into the restaurant, I ask the hostess for a private table near the back of the room, a force of habit from other times we’ve gone out and not wanted to be seen. It’s then the final part of me that was still resisting what I’m about to do—what I need to do—disappears.

  For the first time, the fact I automatically asked to be hidden grates on me. Any man should be proud as fuck to have a woman like Ash on his arm. She shouldn’t be a dirty secret for anyone, least of all me. I wonder whether my dad had similar thoughts when he was seeing my mom

  Once we’ve finished our meals, Ash tilts her head and watches me, as if I’m a puzzle she can’t solve. “You’re acting weird.” Her small smile is half-hearted at best, her fingers gripped tight around the stem of her glass.

  “No, I’m—” I stop myself, not willing to start lying to her now. We vowed right in the beginning to always be honest with each other. I just don’t know how to say what I need to say. What I have to say.

  She reaches over, placing her hand on one of mine that’s resting on the table. “Drew, you can tell me anything. I know things have been hard with Mom and me having to go back to Boston. We never got to talk about our fight at the lake, and—”

  “We need to talk about a lot of things, Ash.” I don’t miss the hitch in her breath nor the message being sent when she slowly pulls her hand back from mine, her fingers moving to toy with the bracelet I gave her the night of her twenty-first birthday. A bracelet she never takes off. Her eyes drop to her wrist, and an uncomfortable silence stretches between us. Not once does she look back up at me.

  “Ash…” I say softly, covering the bracelet and stilling her movements until she lifts her head to meet my gaze.

  “You’re going to have to say it because I can’t.”

  My head jerks back. “Say what?”

  She tugs at her arm to escape my touch, but I hold her in place. “You’ve met someone, haven’t you? Is it Kayley?” she spits out. “That’s why you didn’t want me coming to Sacramento. That’s why you brought me to this restaurant. This is the break-up speech.”

  “Kayley is a friend. There is no one else. . .”

  Her shoulders slump, a sigh of relief escaping her lips. “Oh, thank god. I don’t think I could handle that right now.”

&
nbsp; I’d rather rip my own heart open to save her the pain of what I have to do next. “We do need to stop what we’re doing though.”

  Her face pales, and this time I do let her pull her hand away. “You brought me here to end this?” she gasps. “We have one fight, and suddenly we’re done?” Her voice gets louder and more high-pitched as she goes.

  I don’t want to upset Ash any more than I have to, but I have to make her see why we have to end this. “I need you to understand where I’m coming from. We both know that this was bound to happen eventually.”

  She jerks back, her mouth dropping open. “No, we didn’t—or at least I didn’t. I thought we were both on the same page.” Shaking her head, she reaches out for my hand again, her tone soft as she continues. “Look, I know we had that fight, and it was probably a long time coming, but nothing has changed about the way I feel, Drew. I love you, and you’ve never said the words back to me, but I know you feel the same way. We wouldn’t have lasted this long if you weren’t in love with me too.”

  A huge lump in my throat threatens to choke me. I try to swallow it down, but it feels like it just keeps getting bigger. “I will always care about you. But things are going to keep getting harder for us. You’ve got your mom’s cancer, and your last year of your master’s coming up. My work is getting busier, and I’m due to be promoted soon…”

  “And my brother?” Her expression is tight and unreadable. That light in her eyes that has always shone so bright is now dimmed. Will I forever mourn that loss?

  “He’s a big reason too. He always has been. We both know that. When you told him you were with me at the lake house, he had a talk to me—”

  “And? He talked to me too. He apologized for not telling me he’d let you use it that weekend, and how he’d spoken to you about it.”

  I lift my wine glass to my lips, taking a long, slow drink, my throat tight and parched. Lowering it back to the table, I take a deep breath, knowing I need to get this done and I need to do it with care.