Page 61 of Friends with Benefits

There was nothing else to add, so Layla left. I dumped my duffle on the small couch in the room, then took Layla’s place in the chair by the hospital bed. Ember’s hand looked so limp and pale when I took it into my own. She was the strongest woman I knew, but in the bed, hooked up to a half-dozen machines, she seemed fragile. The fear that I could have lost her at any moment, too, was overpowering.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ember

“Areyou sure you don’t mind having a girl’s night while we pack up? I hope I’m not killing your fun.”

Charlie lifted a beer. “You provided sustenance. It doesn’t matter where we’re at, as long as we’re together.”

“Don’t make me cry,” Layla said, then hefted the box she was carrying onto a stack of them at the front door. “I can’t believe we’re all leaving this place. It won’t be the same.”

Charlie nodded. “It was fun while it lasted.”

It was, I thought, as I looked around the apartment, which was in various stages of disarray. I’d had a lot of hard times here, but there were a lot of good times, too. The girls had lived here their whole lives. They’d said their first words and taken their first steps here. It was bittersweet, but time for a change.

In the weeks since my stay at the hospital, I’d recovered. It hadn’t been easy, but Layla and Charlie had helped. Charlie had taken time off work to be my own personal nurse for a few days. Layla had stopped by after school to take care of the girls when Tripp’s parents weren’t watching them. School and my own work had been understanding. Within two weeks, I had been back in the swing of things. It was almost like it had never happened.

Except it had, and I was forever changed.

“End of an era,” Layla agreed. “How is the new place? Do the girls like it?”

Since I was finishing the program at school and was going to be making more money, I thought it was time we left the apartment for something with a little more room to grow. The girls needed something closer to school, and they needed their own rooms. While I had been taking it easy on bed rest, I had scanned the classifieds and found a nice, albeit older, three-bedroom, two-bathroom home with a bit of land and a fenced-in backyard. It was on the girls’ school route, so they could get on the bus right in front of the house. What they loved most of all was that they got their own space. Of course, more often than not, I found them curled up asleep together, but they were happy, and that was all that mattered.

“They love it. They’re trying to convince me to get a puppy now that we have a backyard.”

“A puppy!” Layla squealed. “I want a puppy.”

“Don’t gang up with them. It’s already hard enough to resist their charms. They’ve been doing all sorts of extra chores all week trying to get in my good graces.”

“It’s working, isn’t it?” Charlie asked with a big grin. She shoved back the dirty blonde hair that was falling out of her long braid.

I groaned and grabbed my own beer. I’d provided a couple of six-packs and snacks in exchange for their help. “Yes. They’ve even made their own chore chart of how they’d divvy up the extra chores for a puppy. Down to who will walk it on which day and whose room it gets to sleep in. That one caused a bit of an argument.”

Layla munched on a handful of chips and salsa before asking, “Have you heard from Tripp at all?”

The smile fell from my face. I sucked down half of my beer before I answered. “He texts every now and then when he can. He’s been practicing nonstop and traveling to games. The hope is he can still participate in this year’s draft, but we won’t know until August for sure.”

To think of Tripp not playing ball...the thought simply didn’t compute. He was meant to play. I couldn’t picture him doing anything else. God knows, he must be feeling horrible. I couldn’t even imagine. Having him show up at the hospital during the most important game of his life to be with me was exactly what I was afraid he’d do. Give up his dreams for me. I wouldn’t allow him to make the same mistake twice.

Charlie grunted, her eyes on the dishes she was packing into a box. “I’m just saying, if he was willing to leave that game to be with you, girl, he’s a keeper.”

“Let’s not talk about it for a while. Thinking about it too much makes my heart hurt.”

Which was exactly my problem. This whole arrangement was supposed to be so that feelingsdidn’tget involved. We were supposed to come out on the other side unscathed, without any strings. Somehow everything had gotten so tangled that we were both at risk for getting hurt.

They were both annoyed with me but acquiesced to my request. For the next few hours, we finished boxing up the rest of the kitchen and moved to the bedrooms. By the time the moon was high in the sky, we were all a little dusty, drunk, and exhausted, but the apartment was finally all in boxes. There were surprisingly few of them, considering the four years I’d lived there.

Charlie and Layla tried to convince me to let them stay, but I shooed them away. The weeks after the miscarriage had been hard, and I found that I often needed space to deal with my feelings. Tripp had stayed with me in the hospital until I was released forty-eight hours later. To be honest, I wouldn’t have made it without him. He hadn’t pushed, hadn’t demanded. He had simply been there to help. When I had learned that he’d left the game for me, I’d been furious, but he’d stubbornly insisted I was more important.

I hadn’t known whether to be flattered or supremely pissed off. Anger was easier, so I had gone with that. While I had healed, he had given me space to work through my feelings. Which had only pissed me off more. I hated that he knew what I wanted without me even having to request it. Who was he to think he knew what I needed?

That’s why, when he knocked on my door after the girls left, I was fuming. If it weren’t for the glass of wine I’d been refilling after we ran out of beer, I’d have answered the door with shouts. Instead, I opened it and lifted a brow.

He looked good. Too good. He must have flown in straight after the championship game on a red-eye instead of staying with the team. I’d already heard from various sources on social media that they’d won.

“Hey, Ember,” he said and shifted from foot to foot. He was still carrying his backpack and luggage, so he hadn’t even gone back to his own apartment yet. I refused to let that soften me toward him.

I took a long swallow of wine for courage. It hurt so good to see him. If he’d wanted to prove how much I needed him in my life, he’d done a damn good job of it. That didn’t mean I had to be happy about any of it.