by Toni Aleo
“So, how’s work?”
Nervously, I nod. “Good. Busy as ever.”
“I know you like it that way.”
“I do.”
Suddenly, Jakob stands, “Ooh, they opened the concession stand. Babe, you want anything?”
I almost cry to him not to leave. “No. I’m good,” she bites out, and he looks at me.
I shake my head. “Thanks. I’m not hungry.”
He walks off, and I realize Harper was waiting for him to leave. “You have let me down, Asher Brooks.”
Please come back, Jakob.
I close my eyes, letting my head fall back. “I let myself down, Mama Harper.”
“She loves you. You do realize that, right?”
“I know. I do. I freaked out.”
“You freaked out?” she scolds, shaking her head. “You have known her your whole life. She isn’t some girl you just met! She means something to you.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, you don’t need to apologize to me. You need to apologize to her.”
“I am. I promise. She can’t block me or ignore me here. That’s why I came.”
She shakes her head, practically vibrating with anger. “And then you give her your mom’s ring and lie to her? What did you think that ring would mean to her?”
I cringe. “Is she mad about that?”
She gives me a dry look. “I don’t know because she won’t talk to me.”
“Who? Allison? Ugh, she isn’t back with Taco again, is she?”
Harper and I look up at Jakob. “She better not be,” I say, and he fist-bumps me.
“Not that you’re making sure that never happens,” Harper says on the sly, but I ignore her as Jakob grins at me.
“That’s why you’re my favorite,” he says, sitting down and holding out his nachos to me. He’s offering some to me, but I’m stunned in place. I knew Harper would be mad at me. I get it, I’m mad at myself, but I don’t want Jakob to be when he finds everything out. I clear my throat and look over at him once more. “Hey Jakob, I need to tell you something.”
I feel Harper’s gaze on me as he wipes his teeth with his tongue before looking back at me. “What’s up?”
“I fucked up.” He scrunches up his face, and I beg my heart to be still. “I hurt Ally, and it was completely avoidable, but I was too scared of what I was feeling.”
He pauses, his eyes narrowing on mine. “Okay… Are you fixing it?”
“I’m trying,” I admit, praying that what I have planned will work and she won’t throw our relationship on the shelf to rot. “But I told her a week ago that I wanted to tell you that we are in a relationship. Things are in limbo right now, but I have every intention of spending my life with her.”
“Yet you won’t tell her you love her,” Harper says, and man, Ally is so much like her.
Jakob scoffs, shaking his head. “It’s about damn time.” I blink, and even Harper angles her head around me to look at him in shock. “What? Those two are so in love, it makes us look like we just met.” He then smacks me on the back, knocking the air out of me. I don’t know if he meant it to be so hard, but I’m pretty sure it was a warning. “No worries. You got this, bud. I trust you, and I know my baby will be good as long as she’s with you. We all make mistakes. It’s how you come back from them that matters.”
When he goes back to his nachos, I look down to the court in shock. Okay, so apparently, I am the last to know the truth. I may need to look into getting some help for my emotional issues. But that thought fades away when Ally’s name is called and she runs onto the court, waving to everyone but me, I’m sure. As she reaches her spot, she looks up, grinning. But then our eyes meet. Everything goes hot inside me, I yearn for her, and tears burn my eyes as I stare at her. I want to run down there, wrap my arms around her, and tell her how sorry I am. How fucked up I am that she won’t talk to me. But just as quickly as her eyes fall in line with mine, she looks away.
Almost unaffected.
My shoulders droop. Surely—God, please—surely, this will work. As they finish the lineup, they all turn for the National Anthem. I’m on edge as I stand, honoring our flag. I know my moment is coming, and I pray it works.
When the announcer’s voice fills the gym, I take off my coat and throw it down in my chair as everyone sits down. Harper looks up at me and then smiles. “That’s a sweet shirt.”
I try to smile, but I don’t want to smile for anyone but Ally.
“My heart is on the court,” Jakob reads, and he grins. “Sticky-sweet cute.”
“You would know,” Harper calls over to him, but I swallow hard and gaze down at Ally while I wait.
“Now, if we can have the attention of our captain, there is a message on the jumbotron just for you.”
I watch as Ally’s eyes move to the jumbotron I clean, to see my message I planned.
I’m sorry.
Her eyes move from the screen to me, and I see her read my shirt. And nothing. No smile. There is no emotion on her face. She doesn’t come running up the stairs into my arms; she stands there, looking at me. The whole gym is oohing and aahing, but Ally doesn’t move. Slowly, she shakes her head and then moves her gaze to her team as she yells, “Bring it in, Bullies!”
My heart about falls out of my ass as Jakob asks, “You got another shirt?”
I swallow hard. “Nope. This is it.”
“Got another plan?”
“Nope. I might be super screwed.”
Harper asks, “Why wouldn’t you just say it, Ash?”
“Because I wanted it to be from my heart,” I say on an exhale. “And now it may not matter.”
When she takes my hand in hers, I look at her, and she gives me a strained smile. “Don’t give up. You know how she is when her pride is hurt.”
Jakob laughs. “Yup, she’s a hard nut to crack when she’s in her feelings. Just ask her mom.”
“In her feelings? Who are you?” Harper yells at him, and he grins.
“I coach thirty young hockey players. I listen to more Drake than I care to admit.”
As they argue, I feel the emptiness inside me grow.
I hate the feeling, but I know I won’t give up.
Not when she chases away that emptiness in the way only she can do.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ally
I wait as long as I can before heading into the gym. I’m praying Asher isn’t there. I’m not ready to face him, and I can’t believe what he did. It’s so unlike him. I really hope he wasn’t trying to tell me he loves me by what he wrote on his shirt. If so, I might just burn the shirt. I don’t want to know that way, and I sure as hell don’t want an apology. What is he apologizing for? Not loving me? Or admitting that he loves me? That’s silly. I don’t want that; I want him to look at me and tell me he feels what I feel. I want his forever.
I slide his mom’s ring down onto my finger, and my heart aches. I don’t even know what to think about it. He lied about the ring, and for what? It all makes no sense, and I’m unsure what to do. Do I face him, get some answers, and then decide how to proceed? Or do I wait it out? What am I waiting out, though? I’m just so confused, and I don’t want to act based on the fact that I miss him. That I love him and want to be with him. I want to know I’m as important to him as he is to me.
I must be different because I don’t want his actions—I want his truth.
I head out, my heart in my throat, and decide I’m hoping he is with my parents. We need to talk; I can’t do this anymore. When I get out in the gym, though, he’s not there. Just my mom and dad. Disappointment chokes me as I go into my dad’s arms, hugging him tightly. “Great game, sweetheart.”
I nod against his chest. “Thanks, Daddy.”
He lifts my chin, grinning down at me. “You okay?”
I search his eyes. “Did Asher tell you?”
He nods. “Told me that he was in a relationship with you, but things are in limbo and he’s tr
ying to fix it, but you shut that down very quickly.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat as my mom says, “I think you two need to talk.”
“Did he leave?”
“Yeah, before the game started.”
That hurts, but I made sure not to look up in the stands. I wasn’t sure I could handle looking into those wounded eyes. “Oh. Okay.”
“Maybe call him?”
I nod. “Yeah, maybe.” Though I say that, I don’t know if I will. I’ve probably hurt his feelings with the way I handled his grand gesture, but nobody has ever done that. I didn’t know how to act or even what to do. I know what they do in the movies, but this isn’t a college romantic comedy; this is my life, and I gotta figure this shit out. “I’ve got an early morning. I’m going to head back to the dorm. Get some sleep.”
Mom wants to argue, but Dad squeezes my shoulders. “Sounds good, honey. Call if you need anything.”
“Swallow your pride, Allison. He’s hurting.”
I don’t respond to my mom or even acknowledge what she says. I know he’s hurting—hell, I’m hurting, but I don’t know if space or his declaration can fix this. I don’t even know if it is fixable. I don’t want to believe my toxic thoughts, but I’m terrified they’re right. I need to sleep on this. Or go to his place and kiss him.
I’m so confused.
I head out with tears filling my eyes, and I cuddle deeper in my jacket once I’m outside. The walk to my dorm is quick, thankfully, but on cold nights like these, after games, Asher would keep me warm. The same could be true tonight, but my impatience, pride, and need for three words may have ruined that. I really didn’t think crossing that line with Asher would be this complicated, but then, is it? Or did we—or, really, did I—make it complicated? This very well may be my fault, and I don’t know how to handle that.
But seeing him made me recognize how badly I missed him.
I take out my phone and stare at my wallpaper. It’s a photo of Asher and me on our “first” date. We’re lying in front of the fireplace, my mouth is full of s’mores, and he’s kissing my cheek. It reminds me so much of when we were younger at camp, minus the kissing part. Some of my greatest memories are with him. Not just at camp, but everywhere.
Just being with him made for amazing memories, no matter what we were doing.
Without really thinking, I hit his contact in my phone. When his voice comes over the line, my whole body catches on fire.
“Hey.”
I hold back my sob. I’ve missed him so much. I hold my student ID to my dorm’s entrance keypad and push the door open as I say, “Hey, um… You left.”
“Er, yeah. I was embarrassed.” His voice is rough, low. “The romantic movies of the world set me up for failure. If I had done that in a movie, you would have run up the stairs and kissed me.”
I can’t help it, I grin. I should have done that. “You caught me off guard. I didn’t know what to do.”
“I understand. It was very out of my norm,” he says as I head up the stairs to my room.
“Very much so. But it got my attention.”
He scoffs as I hit the floor I live on. “Usually I don’t need to do all that to get your attention,” he says, and I nod, even though he doesn’t see me. I push my door open, unsure what to say next, but then I’m frozen in place.
“But if you hadn’t noticed, I’ll do anything to get and keep your attention, Ally.”
Asher’s voice isn’t in my ear because he’s standing before me, his gruff voice filling the room. I gasp as I drop my phone down to my side as I take him in. Not only is he dreamy, clean-shaven, and with messy hair, but he’s squeezed his big body into his Camp Kewanee yellow tee. It doesn’t even reach his jeans, leaving a little strip of his skin and hair between the hem and the waistband. I cover my mouth, in awe of him, before I notice he has set up a fire pit grill and has a tray of s’mores fixings. I choke on a sob as he holds up his hands, a can in each one with a string between them.
“Oh, come on,” I plead, and he quirks his lips.
“I figured we should try to take it back to simpler times, to the best times, back before I got scared of feelings.”
“Asher,” I say softly, shaking my head as the tears slowly slide down my face. “What are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer me. Instead, he says, “Come sit with me.”
I drop my bag and my phone, locking the door behind me. Thankfully, Angie went to dinner with her family so this can happen with no distractions… Then something dawns on me. “Did you tell Angie not to come back?”
He nods as he turns down the fire a bit before loading a s’more maker stick. “Yeah, I wanted to talk to you. Just me and you.”
I lower myself down across from him, the fire between us. I don’t trust myself to sit next to him. I’ll probably end up in his lap. He hands me the stick and then the can. “I don’t need this.”
“Yeah, I think we do,” he says, exhaling hard. “It’s like a security blanket.”
My lips curve. “We need that?”
“I know I do. It’s about to get really deep in here.” He taps his fingers along the can as his eyes hold mine. Such pain and yearning swim in those gray eyes. I’ve missed them so much.
“I know you know about the ring.”
I examine the can, and it looks just like the ones he made when we were kids. “Yup, that was a shock.”
He holds his s’more maker over the fire. “I’m sorry you found out like that.”
“Did you plan on telling me?”
He swallows hard as he nods. “One day.”
“When?”
“When I asked you to marry me.” He looks up then to find me breathless.
I bite my lip as our eyes stay locked. “Why now? Why even give me the ring?”
He licks his lips, and I hate how unsure of himself he is. “It’s always been your ring,” he says with a shrug. “With the resumes going out and my confused feelings, I wanted to give you something to reassure you that you had me. Completely.”
I look away, inhaling sharply through my nose. “Is it true you didn’t give it to Jasmine?”
“Like I said, it’s always been yours.” I look up to find him still watching me. “When I was younger and I’d read the A.A., I would always think, It isn’t Aiden and Asher. It’s Allison and Asher. It reminded me of you, which was why I tried to get Aiden’s ring because I didn’t want to buy Jasmine one.”
I shake my head as I take a bite of my freshly made s’more. “Such a gentleman.”
“Hey now. I bought her a nice ring, and I was good to her.”
“You were.”
“Not as good as I am to you, though.” Our eyes meet once more. “I actually try with you.”
“You do.”
Silence fills the space between us as we hold each other’s gaze. “These last six days have been absolute shit, Ally. I’ve missed you so damn much.”
I swallow past the lump that is forming in my throat. “I’ve missed you too. A lot.”
“I don’t like fighting with you like this. It’s not fun.”
I scoff, nodding. “It shouldn’t have been a fight. I just felt played.”
“And I shouldn’t have made you feel like that,” he says. “I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t.”
“I know. But you know me, always in my head.” I put the s’more on my knee and twirl the can in my hands, wrapping the string around my finger. “I’m sorry I blew the whole situation out of proportion.”
He shrugs. “I wouldn’t say that you did. You had valid feelings. I mean, I said thanks when you told me you loved me for the first time instead of saying what I felt, and ultimately making you feel unworthy.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I think it hurt my pride more than anything. I wanted so much to be loved by you.”
“Wanted?”
I look up. “Huh?”
“You said, you wanted so much to be loved by me. Has that changed?” His eyes
are clouded with pain, and my stomach hurts at the sight of it.
“No, it hasn’t changed at all.”
He looks down at his can, his glasses sliding down his nose a little bit. “That’s good. Really good.”
“I’d hope so.”
His lips turn up as he nods. When he looks at me, his heart is in his eyes. “I was so terrified to say the same thing back that I didn’t even get to enjoy how you made me feel with those three words. How you made me feel that whole night. Like I was the luckiest man on earth.”
I continue to wrap the string around my finger nervously as he holds my gaze. “It was the best night of my life.”
“Good. That’s what I wanted. I wanted you to feel loved.”
“You did?”
“I know now that I did. I may have fought that, though.”
“A little bit,” I say teasingly, and he grins as his eyes move along my face.
“I think we both fucked up here.”
“We did, but I don’t want it to ruin us.”
“No, it hasn’t. At least not for me.”
“Same.” My heart starts to flutter in my chest, knowing we’re both on the same page. Then I remember something. “I listened to the song.”
He furrows his brow. “The song?”
“The one you picked for me,” I say as my eyes start to fill with tears. “‘Falling in Love’?”
He lets his head fall back, groaning. “The girls told you.”
“They did.”
Asher brings his head back up, and he’s grinning. “Sorry, it wasn’t a Jonas Brothers song.”
I grin back. “It’s actually better.”
He eyes me. “Liar.”
“No, really. Every word is how I feel about you.”
“Me too,” he admits, his eyes searching mine. “We’ve always been together, Ally. And one thing I realized while we were apart, I don’t like who I am without you.”