Playing to Win

“How could I be, knowing what she did to us?” I shook my head. “I’ve talked to Shari about it. My mom was sick. She had untreated depression. That’s part of the reason she left us. And I think Dad knows that, he just still struggles with his own issues. I wish he’d go to counseling. He has a lot of pent up anger at my mom he needs to deal with. But he won’t.” I turned to Jordan. “I don’t want to be like either of them.”

“I think that means you won’t be.”

We sat silent for a few moments. I enjoyed being with Jordan. I felt closer to her than anyone. I knew she had no idea how much it meant to me to be able to share my past with her and for her to accept me for me.

“So, what happened to your mom? Did she ever make it with her music?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jordan

I didn’t get a straight answer to my question about Asher’s mom. He’d already revealed more than he probably wanted about his family drama so I let it go. If he wanted me to know more, he’d tell me. That didn’t mean I wasn’t tempted to Google famous people with the last name Sloane, but I held myself back. She likely didn’t use that name anyway.

The night in the park changed things between us. I understood Asher better. Understanding brought compassion. And a fierce protectiveness. I knew Asher loved his dad and respected him, but I wanted to scream at him for creating this conflict in his son.

Of course, I couldn’t do that.

Over the next few weeks, life settled into a pattern. Asher began picking me up in the mornings. It gave us another ten minutes to be together and apparently we were at the point in our relationship where every moment counted. I asked him to not park in my spot and eventually it filled each day with a different car. I realized I’d been holding onto something trivial and decided to fill the void in my life from my brothers moving out by reaching out more through phone calls and group texts. It’s made a difference.

Some days, I’d sit with Natalie and Kelly during lunch, but others I followed Asher to the practice room and listened to him and the guys practice. They were really good and I liked hanging out with Jarom, Adam, and Bash. It took a while to get them to loosen up around me, but I liked to think we were becoming friends. I even helped them come up with a new band name. The original name before Asher came along had been Three Fold, but since they added a fourth member, that name didn’t make sense anymore. They’d been throwing names around while I just listened, skirting around a theme but not quite finding the right name. Finally, it came to me and when I blurted it out, they’d all stopped to stare before each head nodded. That’s how they became Breakout.

After school each day we had practice, and after practice, Asher insisted we work for thirty minutes on speed training. He taught me how to use exercise bands to build explosive power and I couldn’t believe the difference it made on the ice.

“Hey, babe?” Asher rolled over to face me. We were laying side by side on the grass, completely spent after our workout.

“Yeah.” My muscles ached. I didn’t want to move for the next week. Maybe someone would bring me a blanket and I could sleep right there.

“I need to tell you something.”

Oh, that didn’t sound good. I rolled onto my side so we faced each other. “What?”

For a split second, I panicked. What if he wanted to tell me he didn’t like me anymore? Or he wanted to take a break or something? We’d been spending a ton of time together. I didn’t mind but what if he’d grown tired of me?

Then, he reached out, a tiny smile lighting his face as he brushed his fingertips down my cheek. “How can you still be so pretty after the workout we just did?”

“Stop it.” I batted his hand away, but couldn’t hold back my grin.

He laughed. “Okay, here goes. Jarom got us a gig.”

My eyes widened. “Really? Where?”

“It’s nothing big. But there’s this thing they do in the park once a month.”

I nodded because I knew about those. Apparently, Natalie had kissed Finn at one over the summer. I didn’t get into indie bands very much so they weren’t my thing, but I knew people did.