On top of that, we lived together. We were technically married.
Complicated was the best word to describe the situation.
So when I found Aiden in the breakfast nook with his leg propped on one of the other chairs and an icepack over his foot days after we’d gone for a run, mere weeks after the regular NFO season had started, I couldn’t pretend not to see it. Friends didn’t do that. Not people who had known each other for two years. Not when I knew Aiden well enough that I was aware he treated his body like a temple. So for him to have an icepack on his ankle?
Guilt flooded my chest. The Three Hundreds had some of the best trainers and physical therapists in the country. They had all kinds of advanced technology to get their players back in shape. The staff wouldn’t have let Aiden leave the facility until they’d done as much as they could for whatever was troubling him.
His facial expression only confirmed something was wrong. His jaw was jutting out and the cords lining his thick neck were more pronounced than usual. He was in pain, or at least incredibly uncomfortable.
This man whom I’d seen walk off the field like his ribs hadn’t just been fractured two years ago, much less without crying out, “Owwie,” was in clear and visible pain.
And I couldn’t ignore it. Because friends didn’t do that, did they?
I took my time circling the kitchen island, watching him, not minding that all he’d done was lift an index finger to greet me. He was eating a sandwich and reading a book on… it had the word ‘dumb’ on the front. I opened the refrigerator door to grab ingredients to make a soup, and turned my attention back as discreetly as possible to watch the big man at the small table.
“I’m going to make some soup, do you want some?” I offered.
“What kind?” he had the nerve to ask without looking away from his hardback.
I held back my smirk. “A kind you like.”
“Okay.” There was a pause. “Thanks.”
I chopped a few vegetables while occasionally glancing up. Running through a few different scenarios in my head on how to go about approaching him to find out if he was in pain or not, I realized I was being dumb.
“Aiden?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s wrong with your foot?” I just blurted out.
“I sprained it.” That was easy, effortless, no bullshit Aiden for me.
Unfortunately, his comment didn’t help or reassure me. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had hit him with a car and the tendon wasn’t even attached to his leg any more, and he was insisting it was just a sprain.
But was I going to say that? Nope.
“High sprain or low sprain?” I asked carefully, as casually as I could.
“High,” he replied just as nonchalantly.
Between his injuries and Zac’s, I’d become familiar with the different kinds possible. High sprains tended to take less time to heal, usually a week or two. Lower ankle sprain recovery ranged from a month to two. So, it was bad but it could have been a lot worse.
“What did the trainers say?”
That had his jaw tightening. “I’m questionable for the next game.”
Not probable, questionable. Oh, brother. Questionable statuses made Aiden Graves a grumpy goose.
I lowered my gaze back down to the cutting board and the celery I had on there. “It might be a good idea for you to go see that acupuncturist you went to last year when your shoulder was bothering you.” The more I listed his past injuries, the more it made me wince. Zac had told me once that every football player he knew constantly lived with pain; it was inevitable.
“That might be a good idea,” he murmured, turning a page in his book.
“Do you want some Advil?” I suggested, glancing up, knowing damn well he never took painkillers. Then again, he rarely ever busted out the icepack.
When he said, “Two would be nice,” I had to hold back my gasp.
* * *
Early the next afternoon, the sound of the garage door opening and closing told me enough about what was going on. When the television came on a few minutes afterward, I stayed upstairs with my colored pencils and a tattoo commission I was working on for a client.
Three or four hours later, once I finished my project, started on another one, and had showered to get ready for bed, I crept down the stairs, hearing the drone of the TV on in the background. The living room was directly to the left at the bottom of the staircase, the kitchen to the right.
I peeked in and found Aiden stretched out on the couch, the foot of his injured leg propped on the armrest. He had one arm twisted behind his head as a pillow. The other one was along his side, his palm resting on his stomach. His eyes were closed. I knew he hadn’t accidentally fallen asleep on the couch. I knew it with every fiber of my being. He’d done it on purpose.
The worry that swam around my stomach didn’t surprise me. Here was this seemingly indestructible man who I believed with every cell in my body, had stayed on the couch to avoid climbing up the stairs to get to his room.
Damn it.
I went back up to the second floor and pulled the pristine white comforter from the top of his bed and grabbed his favorite pillow. Once back downstairs, I crept back into the living room and laid the comforter across his lower body, tucking it in so that it didn’t drag on the floor. I took a step back, chewing on my lip, and that was when I saw.
His eyes were open and he was watching me.
I smiled at him and held out the pillow.
A small smile cracked across his full mouth as he took it from me and stuck it under his head. “Thank you.”
Taking a step back, I nodded, feeling caught. “You’re welcome. Good night.”
“Good night.”
* * *
He’d been sitting in the garage for a while.
The fact that he hadn’t left the house to go to practice was the second thing that sent alarm bells ringing in my head. He wasn’t the suicidal type, but…
Leaving my bowl in the sink, I opened the door and stuck my head out to see what was going on. Sure enough, he was in the driver’s seat of his Range Rover with his head in one of his large hands, looking down. I walked over and knocked on the window. His head lifting, he frowned before rolling it down.
“Do you want me to drive you?” I offered, thinking about the project I’d wanted to finish working on that morning and shoving it to the back of my head.
Aiden’s nostrils flared, but he nodded. To give him credit, he only slightly limped around the car, but it was more than enough to worry me. I’d been thinking about him since the night before when I’d found him on the couch, but I knew better than to baby him. Instead, I ran back in the house, grabbed my purse and set the alarm before going back to the garage and getting behind the wheel.
It wasn’t the first time I’d driven his car, except the last time I’d been behind the wheel it was to take it to get an oil change and a wash. “Where are we going?”
“To the acupuncturist.”
“Did you put the address into the navigation?” I asked as I backed out of the garage, extra careful, incredibly self-conscious about my driving skills.
“Yes.”
I nodded and followed the gentle female voice all the way to the acupuncturist’s office, though after a while of driving, I remembered exactly where we were going. Just like every other time I’d ever taken Aiden, what seemed like all of the female employees at the homeopathic clinic seemed to find their way to the front desk while he was signing in. I took a seat and, with a smirk on my face, watched as one woman after another approached the counter, asking the big guy for an autograph or a picture. Aiden spoke with a low, calm voice, his movements measured, and his entire body tense the way it always was around people he didn’t know.