Ashton

BROOKE

Colin’s been busy with his family visiting, so it’s been a week since I last saw him. Now, it’s Friday afternoon, and Colin is my last client of the day before I leave to pick up Sydney from school.

Colin and I haven’t talked since I left his house last Friday, and I feel nervous and unsure as I contemplate where we stand now.

Of course, the hothead that I am, I screamed at him about carrying me up to bed, and then ran away before we could talk about it more.

I did come back to the house after Luna’s training session, and showed Colin some exercises and stretches while his brother Andy and Andy’s wife Holly watched and chatted.

They held most of his attention during our hour of therapy, so I left pretty quickly after that without resolving anything.

I really hope a week is long enough for Colin to forget about me yelling at him. I really don’t want to rehash that fight now.

My 2 p.m. appointment runs a bit late, so when I walk into the exercise room Colin is already there, doing some straight-leg raises while he waits.

“Hey,” I say, trying not to look directly at him.

“Hi.”

“How was your time with your family?”

“Great,” he says vaguely. So much for Colin forgiving and forgetting about our fight. You could slice the tension in this room with a knife.

“Look,” he starts, “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about staying off my foot. I—”

I interrupt him. “No, Colin…I’m sorry,” I say, sighing. “Sorry for yelling at you. You were just being…hospitable.”

Hospitable, right! That doesn’t imply he was being sweet, or incredibly romantic and gentlemanly…you know, like the kind of man I only dream about, praying a man like that really exists!

I mentally slap myself. “I just got upset, because I don’t want to see you re-injuring yourself.” He opens his mouth to speak, but I stop him. If I don’t finish what I want to say, I don’t know if I’ll be able to say it later.

“I—umm, despite what you may think, I want you to get better. And I do want you to be able to return to football; since that is what you want, I want that for you too.”

I can see the shock resonating in his eyes. “So…I’ll do everything I can to get you there,” I add with a warm, sincere smile.

He takes a moment to respond. I’m sure this wasn’t what he expected from this conversation. “Wow! Th-that really means a lot. Thank you.”

“But!” I point my finger, making a face to try and lighten the mood. It looks like he could cry, he’s so touched by what I said, and I am in no way prepared to handle tears. “You HAVE to listen to me!”

“Yes, Doctor,” he says, doing an army salute.

“DOCTOR?” a voice shouts from behind us. “The last time I saw her, she had bubble gum stuck in her hair and she was drooling on her anatomy book. True story!”

I don’t even have to turn around to know who it is. I’d recognize his voice anywhere—even if it has been thirteen years since we were together.

“Ashton! What on earth are you doing here?” I shout, getting off the floor.

“What? Can’t I stop in once in a while and check on my favorite physical therapist? Or, wait. Doctor physical therapist?” he corrects himself.

I laugh and roll my eyes, but Ashton extends his arms out for a hug, looking like a giant teddy bear.

I sink into his embrace as he scoops me up off my feet like a crane. “You don’t have to lie to me!” I say. “What are you really doing here?” Ashton looks behind me and sees Colin.

Of course, I’m an idiot! Of course Colin and Ashton are friends. Around the same time Scholtz took over for John, Ashton got traded to the Atlanta Falcons.

Being in the same division, the teams play each other frequently—and like Colin said, he’s friends with Ashton, Bradshaw, and Jacobs. I guess Ashton must’ve stopped in to see Colin since he missed playing against him in the Thanksgiving Day game.

“He’s just here to say hi to an old friend,” Colin chimes in, standing to walk gingerly over on his unbooted foot. He and Ashton immediately start slapping each other on their backs.

“Yeah, man,” Ashton repeats, though weirdly he doesn’t sound sure. “Umm, only here to see an old friend while I’m in town.”

We all take a moment to reminisce about old times, and both guys throw each other under the bus a bit. “This guy,” says Ashton, gesturing at Colin, “once hid behind a potted plant so he didn’t have to talk to the press.”

Colin snorts. “Oh yeah? Well, at least I didn’t get so drunk that night that I ended up puking in an alley behind a karaoke bar.”

“Boys,” I say, laughing, “you’re both very manly. Let’s leave it at that.”

Ashton throws up his hands. “Fine, fine. Hey, we’re meeting up at Verdi’s Bar tonight. You should join us!”

I’m tempted, but… “Oh, please, you guys don’t want a woman hanging around. I know how you all are!”

“Actually, my fiancée Katie will be with us.”

That kills the joking mood for me, fast. “Y-your fiancée?” I’m shocked! How did I miss that in the tabloids?

“Yeah, I’d love for you to meet her,” Ashton says with a shy smile.

I pull out my regular excuse. “Umm, I’m not sure if I can make it. Hard to find a last-minute babysitter for Syd. But I’ll try.”

“All right,” says Ashton, “well, I’ll let you get back to your session, but I hope you can make it. If not, it was really great seeing you, Brooke.”

“You too, Ashton.”

“You get this guy back in shape so I can whoop his ass on the field!”

“Yeah, you wish!” Colin laughs as Ashton heads out.

I play along. “You heard him! Back to work. Would you like him to stay and watch you be a ballerina?”

“No,” he says with a face, and I laugh again.

“Well, you’ll at least be happy to hear that we’re finally going to be putting some weight-bearing into your sessions. We’ll start slow, of course, with toe raises. This helps strengthen your toes and calf muscles.”

I instruct him to hold onto the wall for balance and raise up on his tiptoes as far as he can without pain. “Hold for ten seconds, and repeat with three sets. Each week we’ll progress with the amount of time.

“As you get stronger, you can start doing single-leg raises, which puts additional weight on the leg.”

He does as instructed. “Next up will be entertaining for me, to say the least.” I smirk as I reach my hand out, handing him a palm full of marbles. His face is priceless.

“What am I supposed to do with these?”

“Pick them up…with your toes,” I say with a giant Cheshire cat smile.

“What?” He looks like he thinks I’m joking, but I just take the marbles and scatter them on the floor.

“It helps strengthen your toes and improve their flexibility. Believe it or not, the muscles in your toes are easily affected by an ankle injury. So, use your toes to pick up the marbles and move them to a pile on the floor.

“Three sets of this three times a day, tough guy.” He reluctantly does the exercise, staying quiet as I notice the strain in his face.

He must be surprised by the resistance his foot is giving, since he hasn’t been using the muscles for more than two months.

“I was going to start some weight shifting today,” I say when he’s done, “but I think we should wait until next week.”

“Why? I can do it.”

I shake my head. “You’ve already put a lot of strain on the muscles in your foot today. Plus, you’re going out tonight. You’ll probably be standing most of the night, putting more weight and increasing blood flow to the foot.”

He sets his jaw. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not. I’ll guarantee your foot will be sore and swollen by the end of the night.”

He opens his mouth to argue once more, but I stop him by raising my finger to his mouth. “You promised me you were going to listen!”

“I will if you come out with me tonight,” he throws back as he takes my finger away, not letting go of my hand.

“That’s not going to work on me again. You can’t use following instructions during physical therapy as a bribe to get me to spend time with you.” I take my hand out of his grasp and head to the corner of the gym, to the mini-fridge.

I come back with the bottle of water I stuck in the freezer this morning when I was preparing Colin’s session for today. “Here, put this under your foot and roll for five minutes. Always keep the foot moving, don’t let it sit feeling the cold.”

He does so while I type, recording the changes from today’s session and how it went before shutting down my computer and walking him out.

“You should plan to do this again tonight. Put a water bottle in the freezer to use at the end of your guys’ night out,” I explain as we reach the front desk.

“You’ve already decided you’re not going?” He sounds disappointed, and I shake my head.

“I can never get the sitter to watch Sydney when it’s last minute.”

“I didn’t see you try to call your sitter and ask,” he challenges.

“Call the sitter for what?” Julie’s ears perk up as usual at the mention of me having a social life.

“I’m trying to get Brooke to come out tonight,” Colin responds, blowing my cover.

“OH! I’ll watch Sydney!” Julie suggests.

“What? Julie, you don’t hav—”

“I’d love to! She can come over to my house and we’ll order pizza and watch a movie! She can even sleep over if she wants to,” Julie insists, giving me a wink. I want to kill her.

“Julie!” I try to beg.

“It’s no bother at all, Brooke. I love Syd! We’ll have a great time, and so will you. Finally going out somewhere!” she says with wide eyes.

I can’t argue with Julie any more without looking like a psychotic in front of Colin. I guess I’m going out tonight. “All right then, thank you.” Julie’s smile grows bigger as she looks at Colin standing next to me.

“When do you finish your day?” he asks me.

“You were her last patient,” Julie chimes in, resting her chin in her hands and staring at Colin and me.

“Great! I’ll pick you up at your place and we can take my car,” he offers. Apparently I can’t argue with him either.

“O-OK.”

“Here’s your mail from today, Brooke.” Julie handed me a stack of letters and bills.

I glance at Colin and tell him I’ll be right back as I head to my office to grab my coat. On my walk there, I look through the pile of mail and see one envelope with no stamp or address. It simply says, ~John~.

…Oh, that’s never a good sign.