The Wall of Winnipeg and Me (5 page)

He leaned his entire upper body forward to rest against the length of his leg in a deep stretch. “Did you bring my breakfast?”

I tried to be patient. I really did. For the most part, I had patience on lockdown. There was no sense of “this is mine” when you had three older sisters who didn’t respect anyone’s boundaries, and one little brother. Needless to say, I didn’t get my feelings hurt particularly easily, and I didn’t hold 99 percent of things against my brothers or sisters when they said something they wouldn’t mean later on.

But that was the problem, Aiden wasn’t my brother. He wasn’t even my friend.

I could take a lot, but I wasn’t obligated to take anything from him.

In that moment, I realized how over this shit I was. I was done.
Done
.

Maybe I was scared as hell of quitting, but I would rather take a gamble on myself than stay there and get insulted by someone who wasn’t any better than me.

Calmly, calmly, calmly, despite the angry ringing in my ears, I made myself focus on his question and answered, my voice stony, “Yes.” I held up the bag he clearly would have seen when I walked up to him.

He grunted.

As much as I could respect Aiden for being so determined, focused, and logical, sometimes…

It grated on me just how blind he was to everything else in his life. In all the time I’d worked for him, he still couldn’t grace me with more than an occasional “thank you” or “good lunch.” Sure, I knew that you shouldn’t expect someone’s gratitude for doing things just because it was good manners, but still. I could count the number of times he’d smiled at me or asked me how I was doing on one hand.
One freaking hand
. I was a person who filled a role, but I could have been any person filling this role and it wouldn’t have mattered.

I did a good job, hardly ever complained, and always did what needed to be accomplished even if I didn’t want to do it. I tried to be nice to him, to mess with him even though he definitely didn’t care for it, because what was life if you took it too seriously?

But he’d pretty much just told me to “shoo” in front of other people.

“Is that all?” Aiden’s rough voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “I have a workout I need to finish.”

It was an oddly relieving sensation that pierced through my chest right then. I felt… like I could breathe. Standing there, I felt
right
. “Yeah, that’s all, boss.” I swallowed, forced a smile on my face, and walked out of there with my head held high, thinking,
I’m done. I’m so done.

What was wrong with him?

I’d been around Aiden dozens of times when he was having a bad day. Bad days with Aiden Graves were nothing new or anything to particularly hold on to. Even practices with the Three Hundreds were serious business for him. Every mistake he made was like a strike against his soul that he dwelled on. He’d said so in interviews plenty of times in the past, how he lay in bed going over plays until he went to sleep.

He was cranky on days that the sun was out and he was cranky on cloudy days too. I could handle grouchy men who preferred their own company. Usually he just glared and maybe snarled a bit.

No big deal. He didn’t throw things or yell.

But acting like an asshole with me in public? Saying that kind of stuff? That was new even for him, and that was probably why I was handling it so badly. Sometimes the worst things you could ever hear were wrapped in sweet tones and calm voices.

I walked out of the facility distracted. I even drove my car muttering to myself under my breath. Twenty minutes later, I pulled into Aiden’s subdivision and parked on the street like usual. When I opened the front door, I realized something was wrong when the alarm system wasn’t beeping.

The alarm wasn’t beeping.

“Zac?” I yelled, reaching into my purse for my pepper spray at the same time I made my way through the kitchen, toward the door that led into the garage, to see if there was a car in there.

I didn’t make it that far.

Sitting on the onyx countertop right next to the refrigerator were dangling long legs stuffed into brown leather cowboy boots. I didn’t need to look at the upper body above them. I knew what I would see: a threadbare T-shirt, a narrow, handsome face, and light-brown hair hidden beneath that black Stetson he’d owned for years.

Zachary James Travis was draped across the counter with a bag of chips in his lap. At six foot three, Zac was the second string quarterback of the Dallas Three Hundreds. Plagued by one injury after another, Austin, Texas’s once-upon-a-time star had stumbled through the last six years of his career. Or so the sports analysts said.

But that wasn’t how I knew Zac. With a twang in his accent, clothes that told everyone the only thing he worried about was them being clean and comfortable, and a smile that made most women swoon, he was my buddy. My confidant where his roommate was not.

And I hadn’t seen him in almost three months since he’d left to go back home for part of the offseason.

In that instant though, I didn’t miss him that much. “You almost got sprayed in the face! I thought you were coming next week.” I panted with my hand on my chest, the other hand clutching my pepper spray.

Dropping his boot-clad feet to the floor, I finally let my eyes go up to find that he was standing there with his arms open, smiling wide. He was fresh faced, tanner than usual, and, eyeing his middle section, maybe a little thicker. “I missed ya too, darlin’.”

Temporarily pushing aside the veil Aiden’s crappy mood had put over my head, I couldn’t help but smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I figured it wasn’t gonna kill me to come back a little early,” he explained as he rounded the kitchen island and came to stand in front of me, pretty much towering over my five-foot-seven frame. Before either one of us could say another word, his arms were around me.

I hugged him back. “The only person that might be getting killed soon is you-know-who. I’ve almost poisoned him a few times these last couple of months.” I took a sniff of him and almost laughed at the scent of Old Spice he insisted on wearing.

“Is he still alive?” he drawled the question lazily but seriously.

Thinking about his comment at the facility had me scowling into his shirt. “Barely.”

Pulling back, the smile Zac had on his face withered, his eyes narrowing as he studied my features. “You look like hell, sugar. You’re not sleepin’?” he asked as he kept eyeballing what I was sure were the circles under my eyes.

I shrugged beneath his palms. What was the point in lying? “Not enough.”

He knew better than to give me shit; instead, he simply shook his head. For a second, I thought about how Aiden would react to the four or five hours I usually squeezed in. He was even more religious about getting anywhere from eight to ten hours of snooze time daily. That was also part of the reason why he didn’t have any friends. Thinking about Aiden reminded me of the conversations I’d had recently and how I hadn’t talked to Zac in two weeks.

“I finally told Aiden,” I blurted out.

His thin mouth fell open, those milky-blue eyes going wide “You did?”

Zac had known what my plans were. Soon after we started getting to know each other, he’d seen me working on my tablet while I was having lunch one afternoon, and asked me what I was doing. So I’d told him.

He’d simply grinned at me back then and replied, “No shit, Van. You got a website or somethin’?”

Since then, I’d redone the logo for his personal website—after I’d insisted how much of a good idea they were for branding himself—and done various banners for his media pages. As a result, he’d gotten me more work through a couple of the other players on the team.

I threw my hands up and put a smile on my face at the same time I wiggled my fingers. “I did it. I told him,” I practically sang.

“What he say?” the most unapologetically nosey man I’d ever known asked.

I fought and lost the urge to grimace at the memory of how much Aiden hadn’t said. “Nothing. He just told me to let Trevor know.”

One of Zac’s light-brown eyebrows twitched. “Huh.”

I ignored it. It didn’t matter if Zac thought the same thing I did:
What a dick thing to do.
“Yay,” I muttered, still giving him spirit fingers because even memories of Aiden weren’t going to rain on my parade of quitting soon.

He eyed me speculatively for a moment before the emotion was wiped off, and he slapped me on the shoulder hard enough to make me go
Oof
. “It’s about damn time.”

I rubbed my arm. “I know. I’m relieved I finally sucked it up. But between you and me, I still want to hurl when I think about it.”

He watched my hand for a second before making his way back around the island. With his back to me, he said, “Aww, you’ll be fine. I’m gonna miss the hell out of your meatloaf when you’re gone, but not all of us get to do what we love for a livin’. I’m glad you finally get to join the club, darlin’.”

Some days, I didn’t completely understand why I wasn’t madly in love with Zac. He was a little full of himself, but he was a pro football player, so it wasn’t exactly a surprising trait. Plus, he was tall, and I loved tall guys. In the end though, all I felt and had ever felt toward Zac was friendship. The fact that I’d gone out to buy him hemorrhoid cream a couple of times probably helped solidify the lines in our friend zone.

“I’ll make you meatloaf anytime you want,” I told him.

“You said it.” Zac grabbed a banana from the metal tree next to the fridge. “I’m so damn happy to hear you did it.”

I shrugged, happy but still a tiny bit nervous about the situation despite knowing it was mostly unreasonable. “Me too.”

For a second, I thought about telling him how Aiden had been acting an hour ago, but what was the point? They had polar-opposite personalities as it was, and I knew they got fed up with each other at times. Really, when I thought about it, I wondered how or why they still lived together. They didn’t spend much time together or go out and do stuff that friends did.

But with one guy who felt so uncertain with his position on the team that he didn’t want to buy a house, and another who wasn’t even an American resident, I guess they both found themselves in weird situations.

“How much longer are you—?” Zac started to ask just as his phone rang. With a wink, he pulled it out of his pocket and said, “Gimme a sec it’s—damn, it’s Trevor.”

Ugh. He and Aiden had the same manager; it was how they ended up living together.

“He knows?” he asked, pointing down at the illuminated screen of his phone.

I scrunched up my nose. “He hung up on me.”

That earned me a laugh. “Lemme see what he wants. Then you can tell me what he said.”

I nodded again and watched as he answered the call and headed toward the living room. Setting my bag on the counter, I started cleaning up the kitchen, remembering at the last minute that it was trash day. Pulling the bag out, I put another one in there and then headed into the garage to grab the city-issued can.

I slapped the button to open the garage door. I held my breath before opening the bin lid, throwing the bag in, and then dragging the can down the driveway toward the curb. Just as I was setting it in place, a woman ran by across the street in a steady pace, heading in the direction of where one of the subdivision’s walking trails started.

Something, which was as close to jealousy as I thought I could get, panged through my stomach. I eyed my knee and flexed it a little, knowing I could jog if I wanted to, but most of the time I was too tired. Years of physical therapy had done a lot and I knew my knee would ache less if I actually exercised regularly, but I just didn’t have the time… and when I did have the time, I spent it doing other things.

What a bunch of excuses
,
weren’t they?

I wanted all these things out of my life…

I had finally put in my notice to quit and everything seemed to be going okay. Or at least, things could have been a lot worse than they were. Maybe it was time to start working on other things I wanted to do. I’d been so focused on building up my business the last few years that I’d put off doing a hundred other things I could remember wanting to do when I was a kid.

Screw it.

I only had this one life to live, and I didn’t really want to sit back and not accomplish the things I wanted.

It was time, damn it.

T
he thing
with having a terrible day is that a lot of times, you don’t know it’s going to be a bad one until it’s too late; it isn’t until your clothes are on, you’ve eaten breakfast, and you’re out of the house, so it’s too late to go back to request a sick day… and bam! The signs stare you right in the eye, and you know your day has instantly gone into the shitter.

I woke up that morning at five o’clock, slightly earlier than usual because it was going to be a busy day of running around, to the smell of my coffee machine going, and my alarm clock blaring the most obnoxious tone in its programming. I showered, slipped a thick headband on to keep the hair out of my face, and threw on a pair of slim, red, cropped pants, a short-sleeved blouse, flats, and my glasses. My two cell phones, tablet, and laptop were all sitting together on the counter in the kitchen. I grabbed my things, poured a travel mug with coffee, and hauled ass out of my apartment when the sky was still sleepier than it was awake.

I managed to make it all the way to the parking lot when things started to go wrong. I had a freaking flat. My apartment complex was too cheap for working outside lights, so it took me three times as long to change the tire than it would have usually taken me, and I stained my pants in the process. I was running late, so I didn’t go back to change.

Luckily, the rest of the drive went by fine. There wasn’t a single light on at any of the other houses surrounding my boss’s, so my usual spot in front of the 4000-square-foot home was empty. I went inside through the front door, disarmed the security panel, and headed straight to the kitchen just as the pipes began humming with use upstairs.

I put on the apron hanging from a hook in the corner of the kitchen because one stain was enough for only having been up two hours. I pulled fruit out of the freezer, the kale and carrots I’d washed and prepped the day before out of the fridge, measured a cup of pumpkin seeds out of a glass container on the counter, and dumped it all into the five-hundred-dollar blender on the countertop. On the mornings when he didn’t leave the house to go to training first thing, he had a big smoothie, worked out a little at home, and afterward had a ‘normal’ breakfast. As if a sixty-four-ounce beverage could be considered a snack.

When I was done blending the ingredients, I poured the mixture into four big glasses and placed Aiden’s portion in front of his favorite spot on the kitchen island. Two apples out of the fridge later, I set it all right next to the glasses of smoothie. Like clockwork, the sound of thunder on the steps warned me The Wall of Winnipeg was on his way down.

We had this routine set up that didn’t require words to get through it.

The second sign I’d been given that today wasn’t going to be my day was the scowl Aiden had on his face, but my attention had been too focused on washing the blender to notice it. “Good morning,” I said without glancing up.

Nothing. I still hadn’t been able to give up greeting him even though I knew he wouldn’t respond; my manners wouldn’t let me.

So I went on like always, washing dirty dishes as the man sitting on the stool in front of me drank his breakfast. Then, once he was ready, he finally cracked the silence with a low, sleep-stained and hoarse-voiced, “What’s the plan for today?”

“You have a radio interview at nine.”

He grunted his acknowledgment.

“Today is the day the Channel 2 news people are coming by.”

Another grunt, but that one was especially unenthusiastic.

I didn’t blame him; at the same time, I didn’t understand why his manager had even gotten him that kind of publicity with the local news. It was one thing for him to get through an interview in a hotel room in the pressroom after a game, or in the locker room, but one at his house? I’d spent the day before dusting the hell out of the living room and kitchen in preparation for it.

“Then you have that luncheon the senior center you donated money to invited you to. Last month, you had me confirm with them.” I kind of eyed him after I said it, half expecting him to say he’d changed his mind and wasn’t going.

He didn’t. He nodded that tiny baby nod that could have been easy to miss.

“Did you want me to go with you?” I asked just to be sure. Most of the time, I accompanied him anywhere he went in Dallas, but if I could get out of it, I would.

“Yes,” he grumbled his sleepy reply.

Damn. “All right. We should get going by eight just to be on the safe side.”

He lifted a couple of fingers in acknowledgment or agreement, whatever. Five chugs of smoothie later, he got up and handed over the empty glasses. “I’ll be in the gym. Get me fifteen minutes before we need to leave so I can shower.”

“You got it, boss.”

“
V
anessa
!”

I peeked my head into the green room Aiden was waiting in until his radio interview, and hit send on the message I’d been sending my little brother, before slipping my personal phone into the back pocket of my jeans.

“Yes, sir?” I called out.

“I want more water,” he replied. He sat on the edge of the couch, busy doing whatever it was he did on his phone. It wasn’t like he responded to any fan mail unless I insisted, and he didn’t pay his own bills, or do his own posts on his social media websites. That was my job. What exactly he did was beyond me.

I didn’t care enough to snoop.

“Okay, I’ll be back,” I replied, trying to remember where I’d seen the break room.

It took me a lot longer than I expected to find the vending machines because, of course, no radio station employee happened to be roaming the hallways in my time of need. But I bought two bottles with the cash I had on hand, and found my way back to the green room.

“Did you go all the way to Fiji to get the water?” Aiden asked abruptly when I entered.

Umm.

What?

I frowned and then blinked. I focused in on my boss and the fact there were two women sitting on the couch perpendicular to him now, catching a glimpse of boobs in a low-cut blouse, and too much makeup. I wasn’t worried about them. The only thing I was paying attention to was my boss. My temporary boss.
My temporary boss,
I reminded myself.

“Is something wrong?” I made myself ask carefully as I stood there, staring him right in the eye even as the two women seemed to squirm in their seats, like when you’re a kid and your friend’s parents scold them right in front of you; it was that awkward.

He watched me right back, his answer more of a pop than a statement. “No.”

No
.

Why did I bother asking stupid questions? Really. For a moment, I thought about keeping my mouth closed, but this moody crap was getting old real quick. His usual grumpiness was one thing, but this was a total other. The fact he was being an asshole
again
in public hummed a quiet song that was too easy to ignore and push away before mulling over because I didn’t know the women in the room, and I would never see them again. What he’d said in front of Christian had been a different story.

Picking at the material covering my headband, I glared at that whiskered face and that whiskered face alone. “I know it’s not my position to say anything, but if there’s something you want to talk about…” My voice was rough, anger tinting each syllable.

His sole focus was on me. The big guy straightened his spine and set his phone on top of one of his thighs. He wore his usual baggy shorts and T-shirt. “You’re right. I don’t pay you for your opinion.”

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

I balled up the sensation burning my esophagus and willed myself to keep it together. I knew what it was like to be picked on. I knew what it was like to be treated like crap by the people you were supposed to care about.

I wasn’t going to cry over Aiden. I didn’t cry over people who didn’t deserve my tears, and Aiden—especially not fucking Aiden—wouldn’t be the person to break me. Not now, not ever.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

He was right. I was his PA, and that was what he paid me for no matter how hard I grit my teeth. I was leaving soon. He wouldn’t be my business any longer. Biting the inside of my cheek, I made myself let the moment go even though I would later on look back on it, and realize it was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

In a calm, even voice, I set the bottles of water on the table, maybe slightly breathing like a dragon. “Do you need anything else right now?”

“No,” the rude bastard muttered.

I smiled at him even though I was positive my nostrils were flaring, and kept right on ignoring the women who had gotten to their feet. I didn’t need to ask to know that they had invited themselves in, and were now regretting that decision. Good. “I’ll be out here then.”

I got out of there and leaned my back against the wall right next to the door, my fists clenching at my sides. A second later, the two strangers who had magically appeared, were out of the room, two dark heads pressed together as they walked down the hall and out of sight. It wasn’t the first time women had tried to approach Aiden and gotten shut down immediately; either way, it wasn’t like I even cared. I was too pissed off to give a crap about anything other than the asswipe in the green room.

What the hell was his deal?

I hadn’t told him about the multiple e-mails he’d gotten from angry fans in San Antonio over the cancelled signing—he wouldn’t have given a crap about them either way. Trevor and Rob hadn’t been blowing up my phone or his about anything lately. He didn’t seem to be having any issues with his tendon either. What was it then? He had everything and anything he wanted.

What the hell could possibly be wrong in his nearly perfect little world?

This was the last year of his contract and he’d been putting off talking about what he wanted to do after it was over, but he had options. Probably too many options, if that was possible. Getting bent out of shape over that didn’t make sense, at least this early. Aiden focused on the now. I could see him worrying about the future once the season was at least halfway over.

So what else could it be?

“Hi, miss,” a voice called out from down the hallway with a wave. “We’re ready for Mr. Graves,” the radio station employee said.

I forced a smile on my face and nodded. “Okay.” I dropped the smile before peeking into the room and giving Miranda a flat, expressionless look, as everything in me raged at the sight of his face. “They’re ready for you.”

A
fter the interview
, the ride back to Aiden’s place had been quiet and tense. As soon as we arrived, he disappeared into his gym without a single word. I raged to myself as I swept and mopped the living room and kitchen floor again, angrily, in anticipation of the camera crew coming. I knew what Aiden had done hadn’t been the floor’s fault, but it was the only thing I had around that I could take my frustrations out on.

I had just started working on the hallway that led from the front of the house to the half bathroom and the gym when I overheard Aiden.

“I’m about sick and tired of hearing what you think is best for me. I know what’s best for me,”
Aiden’s familiar voice spat.

Uhh, what?

“No, you listen to me. Maybe I’ll re-sign with them, maybe I won’t, but don’t make promises I have no intention of keeping,” Aiden kept going with venom in every vowel.

Was he contemplating leaving Dallas?

“Don’t glorify what you’ve done. I have what I have because of my hard work, no one else’s,” Aiden added after a brief pause.

Who was he talking to? Trevor? Rob?

“I don’t care,” Aiden growled a moment later.

The silence after that was heavy, almost ominous and extremely alarming.

“All I’m asking is for you to do what’s best for me. That’s what you’re supposed to do. You work for me, not the team.”

Well, someone wasn’t just being bitchy to me today. That should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.

“I don’t need to remember anything,”
Aiden said carefully, his tone controlled and cool. “Don’t open your mouth; it’s that easy. Don’t promise them anything. Don’t even talk to them. I’m telling you to listen to what I want. That’s what I pay you to do, isn’t it?”

Then, just like that, it was over.

I must have stood completely still for at least five minutes, listening, but there was nothing else said. I stayed rooted in place, breathing as quietly as possible until I figured enough time had passed to not make a suspicious sound.

“Slackin’ on the job?” Zac asked, his head hanging over from the top of stair rail.

I froze. What if Aiden thought I might have overheard his conversation? Damn it. I coughed and smiled innocently up. “You’re barely waking up?” I tried to play it cool.

“It’s my day off,” he explained as he jogged down the steps.

“Hasn’t every day been your day off?” I teased, not waiting for him to answer. “Ask me what time I woke up this morning,” I said, putting my chin on the top of the Swiffer handle.

“I don’t wanna know, darlin’.” He patted my shoulder as he walked by me into the kitchen. “I don’t wanna know.”

I snorted and pushed the dusting device around the hardwood floor as the sounds of Zac messing around in the kitchen kept me company while I thought about Aiden’s conversation. He had never said anything about leaving the team, and I guess I hadn’t assumed he would. From the digits in his bank account—at least the account I had access to—his contract extension a few years ago had been more than lucrative. Plus, he’d only improved. He was the face of the Three Hundreds. They would give him anything he asked for, but who the hell actually knew what that was? I sure didn’t.

Aiden should be singing praises for the Three Hundreds all day every day for what they’d given him in exchange for his skills.

“The house is lookin’ good,
Cinderella
,” Zac snorted as he held a bowl to his chest and snuck by me before I could whack him with the handle. He dashed through the doorway that led into the living room. The television was turned on a moment later.