To be fair, it had been a lot of fun.
A loud, rough snore ripped through the air and the sharp, sudden rumble of Zac snoring had me glancing over my shoulder. “I need to go grab something. I’m sorry if I woke you. “
Before he could say anything else—or not say anything else—I hauled ass upstairs and into Zac’s room, internally cringing at the mess he’d made since he began locking himself in, and the smell, it was bad. Real bad.
Grabbing the corner of the wrinkled comforter on the bed and his pillow, I ran down the stairs and found Aiden standing next to the couch talking to Zac in a low voice and…
Was he patting the armrest?
“Here.” I handed over the pillow.
Aiden took it, his attention still on Zac, and set it alongside the armrest I’m pretty sure he’d been petting a second ago. “Lay down,” he ordered the drunk one in a quiet, no-nonsense voice that obviously left no room for argument to even someone who was mostly out of it.
Sure enough, Zac lay down without opening his eyes. His arms crossed over his chest, one shoulder cocooned into the couch cushions. I tossed the comforter over his long body and smiled at Aiden who was still standing over the couch, looking extremely, ridiculously serious at what was essentially us tucking a grown man in.
Zac made some funny kind of puttering sound that made his lips flutter, and I snorted. “He looks like a little kid, doesn’t he?” I whispered.
“He acts like a little kid,” Aiden grunted, shaking his head in total disapproval.
“What is he going to do now?” I found myself blurting the question out.
The big guy hummed. “What he should do is quit acting like the world has ended and get back to training so another team will pick him up later on in the season,” he stated. “What he’s going to do—I don’t know. If he waits too long, it’ll hurt his chances of getting another opportunity in the future. Every day we get older and our bodies can’t…” Aiden tipped his chin to the side and cast me a long look. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“That’s a good idea. I think he’ll listen to you.”
“He’d probably listen to you more.”
That had me frowning at him at the same time I shoved my glasses further up my nose. “You think?”
His attention didn’t stray from the couch as he answered. “I know.”
I didn’t necessarily believe that was true, but okay. “I’ll try, I guess. The worse he’ll do is not listen to me, and it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened.”
That had his head turning. “Are you talking about me?”
I pressed my lips together. “I wasn’t talking about you, but…”
“But?”
I kept my gaze on the wall away from Aiden. “You haven’t listened to me before, if you want to get technical.”
Aiden didn’t respond.
“A lot of times,” I added in a mutter.
Nothing. Okay.
I tipped my head toward the kitchen. “I was going to make a sandwich before I went to bed. Do you want one?”
“What kind?” he asked, like I’d offer him a turkey club.
Chapter Fourteen
“So how’s it going, living in sin?”
I gave an awkward laugh, shaking the wok in my hand at the same time. Uncomfortable laughs were what you got when you felt guilty. I still hadn’t told Diana that Aiden and I had gone to Las Vegas.
It was a damn miracle. She usually knew I started my period ten minutes after I did. We liked to celebrate another month of not being pregnant.
I could only think about two other things I’d ever lied to her about. Apparently, I liked to live life on the edge because I knew I was in for a reckoning the likes of which I’d never seen when she found out the truth. Because, at this point, I was in too deep and there was no way in hell I was going to admit what I’d done.
The biggest problem with lying to your closest friend was finding the right line to straddle. Enough truth to be believable but not enough of a lie so they could notice you were full of shit, which was exactly what I needed to find, so I went with diverting her attention by going for middle ground. “It’s going fine.”
“Fine? That’s it?”
“Yeah. Fine.” What the hell else could I say? While things between Aiden and I were better than they ever were, nothing amazing had happened. He lived his life and I lived mine. He was a busy guy; I’d always known that and nothing had changed. “The most exciting thing I’ve found out was that Aiden gets his groceries delivered once a week, and that he hired some lady who lives in Washington to answer his e-mails. Crazy stuff, huh?”
She went “hmm,” paused, and then asked, “Why does it feel like you’re lying to me?”
She could already tell. What the hell? And why was I surprised? “Because you’re crazy?” I offered, making a face into the phone in panic.
“Doubtful.”
“It’s more like a fact, but anyway, there’s nothing to tell you. We don’t see each other that much. The most he does is wave at me.” Sometimes he talked to me, but we didn’t have to be technical, did we?
“B-o-r-i-n-g.”
I groaned. “S-o-r-r-y.”
“Really? You don’t have anything juicy to tell me?”
“Nope.” I’d already worked for him for two years, if there was something bad to tell her, I couldn’t have told her anyway. I’d signed a non-disclosure agreement.
The disgruntled sound out of her mouth made me grin. “Fine. Are you going to El Paso this weekend after all?” she asked, already moving on, knowing if I hadn’t already told her something, I probably wouldn’t.
“Yes,” I confirmed with only the smallest bit of anxiety going through my stomach.
I was going to El Paso for my mom’s birthday.
Did I know I was more than likely going to regret taking the trip hours after I got there? Yes. Nine times out of ten, that had been the case.
But it was her fiftieth birthday, and her husband was planning a party for her. She’d love to see me there, he’d said to me. Lay on the guilt-trip, why didn’t he? I talked to her once a month. I figured that wasn’t too shabby to begin with considering everything.
From the way he’d made me feel, one call every four weeks wasn’t good enough. At least enough for me to feel obligated to go, even though my gut said it was a stupid idea.
“Where are you staying?”
“At a hotel,” I responded. I could stay with my mom if I wanted to, but I didn’t. The last time I’d stayed with her had ended terribly. There was also my two oldest sisters, but I’d rather camp out under a bridge than do that. Finally, there were my foster parents who I was planning on dropping by and visiting while I was in town, but I didn’t want to impose on them.
“Is Oscar going?” she asked about my little brother.
“No. He already started school.”
“Are you going by yourself?”
“Of course I’m going by myself,” I answered before thinking about just what I was saying.
Wasn’t the Three Hundreds’ bye week coming up? That was the week they got off a season to let the players rest. Should I go by myself? Would it be a good idea to take Aiden around my mom? My sisters? That idea had me cringing.
But I could have him around to break the news. Now that idea seemed like the only one that could have convinced me. There was no chance of my family members telling Diana or her family, so I wasn’t worried about it getting around that way. “Actually, maybe I won’t.”
The nosey broad took a swift intake of breath. “Really?”
“I might ask Aiden, so keep your mouth shut.”
“I will.” She was such a damn liar. I didn’t believe her at all. I didn’t believe she hadn’t told at least her brother that I was living with Aiden, but since no one had accused me of being a prostitute yet, I had started believing she’d actually kept her mouth shut for once in her life about why I’d moved in with him. She knew it was illegal, and we’d always joked that if one of us went to jail, we would both go, so we could pretend to be each other’s lovers.