Aiden shook his head, the corners of his mouth pulled tight in a smirk that eased my soul a little more. Everything in my life had worked out. “No.”

Jackass. I couldn’t help but snicker. “You’ll take one for the team then, so that can be the story we tell everyone who finds out?”

“What team?” he asked.

“You and me. Team Graves-Mazur. We signed a contract together. Sort of.” I smiled.

That bearded chin dipped to his neck, and I could see his mouth twitching. “All right. I’ll take one for the team.”

It was five minutes before we were supposed to be leaving for the airport, and Aiden wasn’t home yet.

He hadn’t answered the three times I’d called, and there was no way for him to know about the ten other times I’d picked up the phone but talked myself out of dialing. Where the hell was he?

I’d been ready all morning. I’d even made him lunch so he could eat it on the way to the airport since I’d known he’d be hungry after watching game footage for a few hours before the players were dismissed for the week.

But he wasn’t home. He wasn’t home. And we needed to leave.

I was pacing. My bag was already by the front door, and if I didn’t leave in five minutes, I would more than likely not make the flight.

The abrupt ringing of my phone from its spot in my back pocket immediately snapped me out of my freak out. Sure enough, Miranda P. appeared on the screen and a bad premonition pinched my gut.

“Hello?”

“Vanessa.” There was a noise in the background that sounded like someone laughing. “I’m not going to make it.”

Disappointment like I hadn’t known in forever—if I let myself think about it, I would realize the last time had been back when he’d let Trevor talk about me—squeezed the base of my skull. I wanted to ask him why. I wanted to ask him why he’d waited so long to call or why he hadn’t at least texted me if he’d known he wasn’t going to make it, but I couldn’t make myself do it. Chest tight, head suddenly hurting, I asked, “Are you okay?” even as anger fisted my fingers.

“Yes” was his curt, distracted response.

“Okay.” I swallowed hard and clenched my eyes closed. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Yeah, that didn’t help as much as it should have. “I’m leaving the house then. I’ll be back on Sunday.”

“Leslie is coming into town.”

That’s fine swam along my tongue, but I bit it back. It wasn’t fine. I was pissed off at him for wasting my time and making plans for him to go along with me. I was mad at myself for expecting—for getting a little, tiny bit excited—about him coming with me. I’d never taken anyone with me to El Paso before.

That only made me angrier. “I understand. I need to get my stuff in the car. I’ll see you in a few days.”

He might have said bye, but he might have not. I didn’t know because I hung up on his ass.

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

What the hell had I been thinking? I knew the only person I should blame was myself. Why had I even bothered inviting him? I should have kept my mouth shut and not said anything. I’d made him food and wasted hours of my life stressing about having to explain to him my family situation.

God, I was so, so stupid.

What had made me think he would actually cut into his bye week to go somewhere with me when the last two bye weeks he’d stayed at home to train?

I was an idiot.

I ran up the stairs to my bedroom and yanked my checkbook out of my desk drawer. I wrote out a check for the cost of my plane ticket and the entire amount for the SUV rental I’d booked with him in mind. My soul wept a little—it was ten jobs worth of money—but I signed the damn check and eyed the Hello Kitty image printed on the background with a little grumble of my own. In less than a minute, I was down in the kitchen, slapping the stupid check on the counter and flipping it off while imagining it was Aiden’s face before walking away.

I threw my bag into the backseat of my Explorer a little more forcefully than I needed to and took off, hoping to catch my flight.

“I thought you were bringing a friend,” my mom noted almost immediately after ushering me through the door.

I blew out a breath and rolled my shoulders, pasting a tight smile on my face. I took in the tall, slim, and nearly blonde woman who I used to think was so beautiful when I was a little kid and in her far and few between moments of being wonderful. Especially then. I’d loved the hell out of her before I knew better, and that thought made my heart ache for kid-Vanessa who hadn’t known any better for a while.

It was easy to forget someone so perfect looking had once been a functioning alcoholic. Then again, that’s why she’d gone so long without anyone noticing she had a problem. Luckily, she was fine now, which was why I’d come so far for her birthday.

On the flight over, I’d mentally prepared myself for this situation and what was the best way to handle it. We already had one idiot in the family thanks to Susie. We didn’t need another one. So I was going to play dumb and downplay it.

“He had something come up at the last minute,” I explained vaguely, looking around the house I’d only been in a handful of times before. It was nice. Really nice. Her husband of the last five years was a divorce attorney she’d met at AA. He seemed like a nice enough guy and my little brother had spoken very highly of him.