Page 57 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 1

MIKEY

I must have drifted off because when I woke up, the hospital room was much darker. Only a small light over a nearby sink was on, and Tiller sat in a recliner he’d pulled alongside the bed. He was dozing with his socked feet propped up on the edge of my bed.

My heart soared as I stared at him. His hair was messy, and his beard scruff darkened his jaws.

At some point he’d removed his button-down dress shirt and suit pants and changed into a Riggers hoodie and matching track pants.

I recognized his open gym bag on the floor nearby and realized he’d probably come straight from the stadium in Buffalo.

The television played silently on the wall, and familiar sportscasters talked each other’s ears off as the day’s sports scores crawled along the bottom of the screen. I didn’t have my glasses on to read what they said, but I hoped for Tiller’s sake the Riggers had won the game against the Bills.

Actually… fuck that. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t really care.

I was tired of caring about football. I wanted Tiller to be happy.

That was all. If that meant the Riggers needed to defeat the Bills, then I hope they had.

But if he didn’t care, as he’d said earlier, then I didn’t care either.

I needed to be honest with him, though. He needed to know what I’d done, how I’d stupidly gone behind his back and made a deal with the devil.

His missing a game could have possibly been excused, but missing it to be with me?

No way. My father was going to rain down punishment on all of us for that.

Especially if he’d lost his precious game and his chance at the playoffs.

“You hurting, baby?” His voice was rough and grumbly from sleep. “Want me to call the nurse?”

He stretched and dropped his feet to the floor before reaching for my hand. His skin was warm, and his grip was gentle and familiar. My eyes smarted again. “I’m okay.” I swallowed and took a breath. “I need to tell you something.”

His body stiffened in his seat. I hoped like hell he wasn’t going to hate me for admitting how weak I’d been.

“What is it?”

“It’s about why I wasn’t answering your calls and stuff. Why I left Houston without saying goodbye.”

Tiller’s face relaxed, and he leaned in closer. “I know what happened with your dad, sweetheart. I know about the threats.”

His words surprised me. How on earth did he know what my dad had said? Had Coach threatened him, too?

“How?” I asked. “Did he say something to you?” If so, I was going to kill him even worse than I already planned.

“No. I think you accidentally texted Sam.” He held up a hand. “And before you get mad at Sam for telling me, you need to know I was beside myself with worry I’d done or said something to run you off. I was in a really bad place. That’s the only reason Sam finally caved and told me what he knew.”

I reached for his hand and brought it to my mouth for a kiss. “I don’t want you to be traded away.”

“He’s not going to trade me, Mikey. I’m the highest-rated wide receiver in the league. He needs me more than I need him, and we both know it. I wish you’d come to me about this.”

Tiller studied me for a minute while I contemplated his words.

“Mikey, are you worried about the cookbook? Because it’s a good thing for the league in general.

They’re always looking for marketing opportunities like this.

I don’t think they’re going to let your dad pull team support from the project.

And if they do, you’re still going to kick ass with it.

You have so much support already from lots of people in professional sports in Houston.

Even if the league and the team don’t endorse it, the individuals can still provide quotes for the cover, right? ”

I nodded, feeling a little clearer-headed than before. “No. The editor said they have contacts at the league and have talked to them already. I think it’s fine.”

Tiller’s grin was huge. “See? That’s great. Everything’s going to be fine.”

But it wasn’t. Not really. Because after everything that had happened with my father, I didn’t have any plans to go back to Houston anytime soon.

I simply couldn’t face him, and I honestly wanted nothing to do with the Riggers either.

The team and the game had taken too much of my family’s attention over the years, and I needed time to finally let myself process it.

I needed to mourn the loss of the father I’d never had but always wished I did.

I swallowed. “Did… did the team win in Buffalo?”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah. Thank god. Maybe the fallout of my absence will be a little better because of it. Brent and Mopellei came through with some great plays, and…”

As rude as it was, I let myself drift off while he told me about the game. I honestly didn’t care. If Tiller didn’t play in it, I no longer gave a shit about football. I cared about him , not the game, to the point I worried it might be a deal breaker between us.

Football was his life, his gift. It was my albatross. It was the thing that had taken my father from me my whole life and had almost taken Tiller from me, might still take Tiller from me.

His hand was warm on my forehead as he began to stroke my face and hair. “Sleep, baby.”

But I couldn’t. I knew tomorrow was going to bring a heapload of trouble.

My father, Tiller’s agent, and whatever other doses of reality I wasn’t lucid enough to think of at the moment.

I needed to find a way to let Tiller know I understood how important his job was and I’d do anything in my power not to stand in the way of it.

When I woke up again, Tiller was talking to the nurse about discharge instructions.

They did the whole wheelchair routine, and Moose was out front waiting for us in Jill’s minivan.

The drive to the lodge was fairly easy, and when I entered the house, I felt the bittersweet realization this would be one of my last times “coming home” to it.

“They took the lodge off the market,” I told Tiller. “I found out earlier this week.” I’d texted him about the Civettis having a family emergency, but I hadn’t explained about any of the rest of it.

“I know,” he said, helping me down the hall with an arm around my back. I noticed the door to the locked bedroom wing on the far side of the entryway was open, and light flooded in from big windows looking out of the front of the house.

“Oh. That’s nice. How’d you open that? Did Stacy come by?” I wondered if I’d have the energy to snoop once I took a nap.

“C’mere,” Tiller murmured, steering me down the sunny hallway. We passed several bedrooms with sturdy four-poster beds and cozy furnishings. It gave me mixed feelings about losing out on the opportunity to live here and run it for the Civettis. But I had a plan.

“I found a place I want you to look at,” I told Tiller, following him past a small wood-paneled office and into what looked like a large solarium at the end of the hallway. “It needs some work, but I think I can get Sam to come help.”

I stopped in place and stared at the room we’d stepped into. It was completely made of glass and shaped in a large oval off the end of the house. I hadn’t seen it from the outside because of the angle of the room and some overgrown trees in front of it.

“Holy fuck,” I breathed, walking through the sun-filled space.

It was the perfect breakfast room for my dream bed-and-breakfast. The room was empty except for a small conversational grouping of two love seats on either side of a coffee table, but I could picture it filled with a hodgepodge of dining tables surrounded by comfortable chairs.

“I thought this would make a good breakfast room,” Tiller said, guiding me over to sit on one of the love seats.

“Yeah. It would. For sure. It’s lovely.”

Tiller sat next to me and reached for my good hand. “Can you picture it?”

I let out a short laugh. “Yeah, but it hurts, you know? It’s hard to imagine someone else here. I’ve totally fallen in love with the place. That’s selfish, I know. Besides, the place I found has an awesome screened-in porch. It’s a little small, but?—”

He cut me off. “Okay, don’t be mad,” he blurted. “Now I’m worried I did the wrong thing. Fuck.” He looked out the wall of windows, down at the honeyed wooden floor, and back at me before taking a breath.

“What’s happening?” I asked carefully, beginning to get an idea.

“I bought this place for us,” he said before wincing.

“What place?”

“This place. Rockley Lodge. I bought it. Out from under the Civettis.”

I stared at him. “You what?”

“Please don’t be mad. Please. Am I a controlling asshole? Do you hate me for being heavy-handed?”

Lightness and laughter bubbled up in my chest. “You bought Rockley Lodge?”

He nodded. “Kinda? I mean. Yes. I did. I bought it. It’s ours. Well… technically it’s yours. In a trust for you. My attorney did it. Just in case you don’t want me invol?—”

“ Oh my god !” I lurched at him and crashed my lips against him, throwing my arms around his neck and trying not to feel the pain of the stretch in my shoulder and upper arm.

Tiller’s strong arms banded around my back and held me tight. I laughed against his mouth as his words continued to sink in.

“It’s okay?” he asked, pulling back to meet my eyes.

“You’re asking if it’s okay that you bought us a multimillion-dollar dream home in our new favorite place? That you invested in our future together?”

His body sagged. “Well, when you put it like that…”

“Of course I want you involved. How can you think otherwise?”

Tiller leaned in and pressed a kiss against the edge of my lips. “I need you to know, no matter what happens, you running this inn is a sure thing. Even if you decided to leave me one day—please don’t, by the way—this place would continue to be yours. It’s not contingent on?—”

I shut him up with a kiss. My eyes smarted with happy tears. “I can’t believe it was you. You’re the one who bought it.”

He shrugged. “Honestly, part of it was selfish. If we own the inn, we can run it the way you want. And maybe that means we can hire someone else to manage it when we’re in Houston?”

The way he asked it as a question made it clear he was floating the idea of splitting our time between Houston and Aster Valley based on the season.

He quickly continued. “Only for a few more years until my contract is up. After that, we can move here full-time, but I’m obligated to stay right now.

It doesn’t mean you have to stay with me, but…

” Tiller swallowed. “But I don’t want to be apart from you. ”

“I don’t want to be apart from you either. I was going to buy a little place for us where I could run my catering business in the off-season and we could still spend the season in Houston. It sounds like we had the same idea, only… I don’t want to go back right away.”

“Whatever you want is fine with me,” he murmured, dropping a kiss against my temple. “Is it because of your dad?”

I turned my face into the familiar warmth of his neck.

“My mom called to ask if I could water her plants while the family was in Galveston, I’d told her I was in the hospital in Colorado, and she’d said that was fine, she could ask Mrs. Nesbit, and she hoped I felt better soon.

My father didn’t get on the phone at all. ”

Tiller leaned back and pulled me into his chest. “Oh, baby. I’m so, so sorry. You deserve a better family than that.”

I thought of Moose and Jill, who’d already made themselves at home in the lodge and had gone above and beyond making me feel loved and cared for. “Maybe I can have yours one day,” I said softly.

I felt the huge grin against my head before the deep rumble of his voice hit me. “Only if one day is today. What’s mine is yours. I hope you know that. This… this is it for me, Mikey. You and me. This place. Our dreams. Together.”

My heart felt like I was going to overflow. “It’s going to be amazing. I can’t believe we own our very own lodge in Aster Valley.”

“And, ah… and the ski resort.”

I craned my neck to look up at him. “What do you mean?”

“The slopes. And the lifts. They were all part of the deal. So… congratulations? We are now the proud owners of Rockley Mountain and Aster Valley Ski Resort.” He reached his arm out toward the pristine slopes that were barely visible from this angle.

I sat up and stared at him. “You had to buy a ski resort to get this place?” My voice sounded ten times higher than I’d intended.

“I didn’t have to. But wanted to. I figured one day, when I retire, it’d be nice to have my very own place to snowboard.

And I want to teach you to ski and bring our nieces and nephews here to learn, too.

And between us and our new friends, I thought it would be a nice challenge for us in the next few years when we don’t have to be in Houston.

While you get this place up and running, I’ll work on the ski resort.

I thought we might make an attractive offer to Sam to come help us.

What do you think? Want to bring the alpine industry back to Aster Valley? ”

I thought of this gorgeous and cozy lodge, the impeccable commercial kitchen, the new friends who’d already welcomed us with open arms, and the old friend who’d jump into this with us in a heartbeat.

I thought of being closer to Moose and Jill and having Steph and Luke’s family in our lives.

I thought of keeping the house in Houston and still being able to have Tiller’s teammates over for dinner during the season.

I clapped a hand in front of my mouth to keep from squealing in excitement. Happy tears slid out of the edges of my eyes.

“Oh hell yes,” I whispered. “So much.”

Tiller’s hands cupped my face, and the expression of love on his face overwhelmed me. “We’re going to have an amazing life together, Michael Vining. You with me?”

I remembered the night we first got together in this house. The night we finally crossed the boundaries we’d tried to keep between us. “Mm-hm. Yeah. Yep. Yes. That,” I said, teasing him with my silly babbled words from that night. “I would like that. Please. Yes, please.”