“But you are barely standing on your own feet. You are in no condition to stay with me for a complete conversation.”
“I’ll stay with you,” I said very quickly. “I am not that drunk. I will listen, I promise.” Even though I was feeling slightly better, there were chances I’d fall on my face if I moved too fast. But that wouldn’t stop me. “I can prove it. Look.” My legs pushed my body up, propelling me in a rather wobbly way. But that didn’t matter. I’d prove to Aaron I was completely fine.
I wasn’t going to let the chance slip through my slightly intoxicated fingers or legs—
A pair of big hands cut my trajectory, holding me by the waist.
“Easy there. Let’s keep the standing to a minimum,” Aaron said as he effortlessly returned me to my former position, right beside him. Perhaps a little closer to his body. Which I wouldn’t complain about. “Do you want to know that badly?”
“Yes. I want to know everything,” I confessed, following no-filter Lina’s lead again.
A humorless laugh left him. “I never planned for this to happen this way.”
My hazy brain didn’t really understand that, but before I could ask, he continued, “I always played football. That was all I knew for almost two decades. My dad was sort of a big deal in the coaching and management world back home, in Washington.” Aaron shook his head, those disheveled, short locks almost flickering under the soft light of the street. “He knew how to spot potential, had done it a million times. He was known for that. So, when he realized I had that raw talent he talked about so much, it was as if all those years of his career had been preparing him for that. For having a son he could mold into the perfect player from the very beginning.”
“He coached you since you were a kid?” I murmured.
Aaron flexed his legs and leaned his elbows on his knees. “More than that. He turned me into his own personal project. He had this kid with potential for becoming everything he had dreamed of, right at home. And he had the tools and the experience to make that possible. There was no room for failure. He worked hard on turning me into this flawless football machine, which he had carefully assembled together since the moment my legs were strong enough to run after a ball and my hands were large enough to hold one.” Aaron paused. He was facing the gloomy street in front of us, and I could see how his profile turned hard. “We both worked on that. And for the longest time, I thrived in it.”
I found myself shifting closer to him until my arm and shoulder were completely flush against him.
“How did that change?” I asked, letting my body lean a little on Aaron’s side. “When did you stop enjoying playing?”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, something softening in his expression. “That photo you mentioned earlier?” he asked, and then he faced away from me, staring into the empty street in front of us. “That was the last game I ever played.” Aaron paused, and I could tell he needed a moment to gather himself from the way his voice had sobered. “That happened exactly one year after my mom passed away.”
My heart squeezed in my chest, and I felt this urge to wrap my body around him, so I could shield him from the pain in his voice. But I limited myself to grabbing
his warm hand and slipping my fingers between his. Aaron brought our interlaced hands to his lap.
“In that moment, as I stood there, watching the crowd and my teammates celebrate a victory I couldn’t bring myself to care about, I decided I’d pull out from the draft. And I did.”
“That must have hurt so much,” I told him, my thumb caressing the warm skin on the back of his hand. “All of it, losing your mom and letting go of something you had worked all your life toward.”
“It did, yeah.” His head dipped, and I watched him look at our intertwined hands. “My dad couldn’t understand it. He wouldn’t even try.” A bitter chuckle left him. “My football career had turned into the perfect escape, following Mom’s diagnosis. Instead of that consolidating our father-and-son relationship, it turned us into coach and player instead. Nothing more than that.”
More loss. My heart broke for Aaron. I squeezed his hand and then very slowly leaned my head on his arm.
He continued, “He said I was throwing away my life. My future. That I would fail. That if I did drop an opportunity that would change my life, he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. So, I graduated and left Seattle.”
Aaron still held my hand in his lap; his fingers had tightened around mine as he talked. I kept the side of my head on him as I felt my other hand fly to his forearm. It was the only way I could express how sorry I was for what he had gone through without engulfing him in a tight hug I wasn’t sure I’d be able to let go of. At least, not for the rest of the night.
“It must have been so hard, growing up, limited by someone else’s idea of what you should and should not be.”
He absently played with my fingers, the soft caresses of his skin against mine causing tingles to crawl up my arm. “I realize that now, in hindsight. I never noticed while it happened; it was just how things were. I was given a set of goals, and I simply went with it,” he explained, his thumb trailing up my wrist. “I was never unhappy—at least, not until I realized that perhaps I wasn’t completely happy either.”
“And now? Are you completely happy now, Aaron?”
Those soft brushes of his fingers against mine came to a stop, and he didn’t hesitate when he answered, “Completely? Not yet. But I’m working my fucking hardest on getting there.”
Chapter Nineteen
For anyone witnessing my foolish attempts at reaching the bedroom, it would have been pretty obvious that I was about to face-plant on the floor. And they wouldn’t be wrong. It was a wonder I was able to move at all, considering my feet barely lifted off the ground with all the dragging they had been carrying out.
Ironically, and contrary to the story my body told, I didn’t think I had ever felt more awake than I did as I crossed the threshold of that door.
My head was working at full speed. Processing everything Aaron had told me about his past. I kept spinning and turning even the tiniest pieces of information until I was completely sure I had them pinned down securely so they wouldn’t flee my memory.
Never mind that my legs wobbled with every step I took and exhaustion throbbed through my body. Aaron’s confession—because it had felt like he was unveiling something he had kept guarded and locked away from sight—had created a little riot in my head.