The Hearts We Break (The Alphaletes Book 3), page 5
“Thank fuck for that,” he smiles before limping his way up the stairs.
Slater
Mikey winces as the gun begins filling in the tattoo near the back of his neck. I can’t help but chuckle. He always gives me shit for using numbing cream, says I’m being a bitch about it, but I’m not the one in pain, am I?
He is getting a little black and white pair of Converse on his shoulder, one with Tucker’s birthday on it and the other with Rodney’s. His wife Violet is obsessed with them, has been since she was a teenager, so it’s a nice little tribute to his whole family.
I usually always have an idea of something I want to get done but when I walked into the store, I blanked. I scrolled on my phone for a few minutes until I found a cool looking hourglass. Time feels like it’s running out for me so though a bit depressing, I thought it was perfect. Since my arms are completely covered I had my guy pick a spot on my chest.
Unlike Mikey, I’ve never gotten a tattoo symbolizing my and Nikki’s relationship. I was always hesitant of what the future held for us to ink something permanently onto my body. I guess that right there should have told me everything I needed to know.
“So, when do you start PT with Scarlett?” Mikey asks as he turns his head to face me.
“Don’t know if I’m gonna,” I say as I look down and watch the needle etch the design into my skin.
“What do you mean? You have to.”
“Says who, Mikey?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.
“I mean, if you ever wanna walk normally again, it’s a good idea,” he says with an eye roll.
Yeah, I guess. Regardless, whether I retire or not, I still need to get my leg back to normal function.
“What’s going on, man? This ain’t you. I know this doesn’t all have to do with Nikki. This is your dream. Football is everything to you, and you are the last man that I know to give up on anything.”
“Everyone else has given up on me, Mikey. Just feels like maybe they see what I don’t want to.”
“Like who? I haven’t given up on you. Neither has Trev or Seb. Your parents haven’t. I know for a fact Scarlett will never give up on you.”
“Yeah…” I say as I trail off and stare at the wall behind me.
If I’m honest with myself, I’m scared. Scared that I’m going to give it one hundred and ten percent, and it still won’t be enough. I’m used to being the best of the best. Not mediocre, not average. The best. That’s a tall bar to set myself, and I know that if I don’t reach it, it’s me who is going to want to give up. Shitty attitude, I know, but still.
“She’s pretty amazing,” Mikey says lowly.
I blink away from the wall to look at him. “Who?”
“Scarlett,” he says with a deadpan look.
“Oh, yeah. Of course she is. She’s the best.”
Mikey nods. “I don’t know many grown women that would put everything to the side for their guy best friend and focus on what he needs first. From taking care of him and his best friends when they are drunk, feeding them the next morning, constantly checking in on her best friend to make sure she can’t do more.”
I smile softly and nod. “She really is the best. I don’t know how I got so lucky.”
Mikey stares at me for several seconds before blowing out a deep breath.
“Well, the choice is yours, Slate. No one can force you to get back to it, but we have a little over five and a half months until you need to report to training camp if you want to keep your spot. It’s probably gonna be really fucking hard, but you’re a tough son of a bitch. So I guess you gotta ask yourself, how badly do you want it?”
I want it. Bad.
I already failed at my marriage. I can’t fail at this too.
I know that I’ve already had a longer career than most, and I should be grateful for that. But it’s not enough. I need to decide when I’m done. Not an injury, not a doctor. Me. And I’m not fucking done yet.
After our tattoos were all wrapped up, Mikey and I went and grabbed some food before I took him to the airport. After that, I texted Scar and asked where she was. She said she was still at the training center working with Andrews. I slowly limp my way inside and down the hallway to our PT room when a voice shouts out to me.
“Santos, what are you doing here?” Coach Aberton calls out.
I slowly spin around, proud of myself for not wincing when I put too much weight on my leg.
“Just came to start a therapy plan with Scar, Coach.”
He nods approvingly as he casts a worried look down to my knee.
“How you feeling?”
“I’ll be just fine by the time practice starts, Coach.”
He raises an eyebrow at me and crosses his arms over his chest.
“You sure about that?”
My smile becomes tight, but I’m determined to not let it fall.
“I’m good, Coach. Little pain when I put pressure on it, but Scar will get me whipped into shape in no time.”
“We’ll see,” he mumbles as he runs a hand through his hair before turning into his office.
I feel my fake ass smile fall at the disbelief in his words before I shake my head and turn back around. When I step inside the PT room, I pause as I see Andrews laying down on the massage table. His shirt is off, and Scar is massaging his shoulder, bringing her hands down his arm and towards the ends of his fingers. He groans in what I know is pleasure because on top of being an amazing athletic trainer, Scar’s hands are like fucking magic.
“Alright, Damion,” she says as she pats his back. “Remember to keep your water intake up, and I’ll see you back here next week, okay?”
“Nooo,” he fake complains as he sits up. “I think we need a couple more minutes, for my shoulders sake, don’t you?”
She lets out a laugh and rolls her eyes before walking over to her laptop and typing in a few notes.
“Nope. You look fine to me,” she says as she turns around to face him with a smile.
“Fine?” he scoffs as he begins making his way towards her. “We both know you think I look better than fine,” he teases with a wink.
To my surprise, Scar doesn’t get embarrassed. Her eyes trail down his naked torso appraisingly before making her way back up to his face.
“Meh, you’re alright.”
Andrews clutches his chest like she has just delivered a physical blow as he staggers back.
“You wound me, babe.”
“What have we talked about?” she scolds.
“Sorry. You’re right. Doctor Babe.”
Scar laughs at that and shakes her head. “Get out of here.”
I knock on the wall, making my presence known and also helping put Andrews out of his misery. It’s clear Scar isn’t interested, and the poor fucker can’t get a clue.
They both turn to face me with smiles.
“Santos! Look at you. How you doing?” Andrews asks as he makes his way over to me, bringing it in for a quick bro hug before pulling back.
“Doing good. Just about to start a therapy plan with Scar if she has the time for me?” I ask as I glance over his shoulder at her.
“I’m not the PT for this team, Slater. You need to be making a plan with Collin.”
“Nope,” I say with a shake of my head. “I told him I would only work with you. Collin and Coach gave me the go ahead to set stuff up with you.”
She huffs out a breath as she runs a hand over her ponytail.
“I was planning on heading home. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I have an early morning tomorrow. I need to get some decent sleep.”
“Please, Scar. I’ll have anything you want delivered. Half hour tops, I swear.”
“You swear?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.
I nod as I take my finger and draw an X over my chest.
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Scar was the first person to ever say that to me. I probably had only lived in the neighborhood for a week at the most, and when it got late one night, my mom said I had to come in. I told Scarlett that we would play tomorrow morning, but she didn’t believe me. She looked up at me with hesitant eyes as she twisted her fingers.
“You swear?” she asks.
I nod. “Sure. Sometimes, usually only when I get hurt or something.”
She frowns for a moment before she shakes her head.
“No, like you swear you’ll come back and play with me? You have to swear it.”
“I swear,” I say with a nod.
Her eyes roll as she practically stomps over to me and lifts my hand, grabbing my pointer finger before making it draw an X over my heart.
“You have to say, ‘cross my heart and hope to die’ otherwise it doesn’t count,” she says, as if it was common knowledge.
I roll the words over in my head before I nod my agreement and repeat the motion.
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
A small smile takes over her face as she nods and skips off back to her house.
Shaking the fog of the childhood memory away, I look to Scar, waiting for her response.
“Yeah, right,” she grumbles before pointing to the massage table. “Take a seat. We’ll do some range of motion tests.”
“Good luck, man. I’ll see you around. Doctor Babe, see you next week,” he says with a smirk before grabbing his shirt and bag next to the door as he slips out into the hallway.
“Is he always that flirty with you?” I ask as I hobble over to the table before sitting on it.
She shrugs. “He’s harmless.”
“Well if he ever makes you uncomfortable, let me know, I’ll rough him up a bit.”
Scar laughs as she types something into her laptop.
“Oh yeah? With a freshly repaired ACL? You’re gonna get into a street brawl?”
I frown at that and nod. “Good point. I’ll have Seb knock him around. No one can touch that ogre.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she smiles as she makes her way over to me. “Alright. Let’s start with the basics. Move your foot, flexing up and down.”
I do as she says, wincing when it’s too stretched either direction. She watches carefully as she speaks.
“Okay, side to side.”
Fuck. That one hurts more. A hell of a lot more. For the next ten minutes or so, Scar walks me through different tests until she tells me I can stop as she begins typing quickly on her laptop. Her brows are pinched together, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she does.
“What’s that look for?”
“Huh?” she asks as she looks up.
“That look? You’re nervous, or maybe worried. What is it?”
She shakes her head. “It’s nothing, Slater. I deal with stuff like this literally every day. Remember Hughes tore his ACL last year and I worked with him-”
“Just before he retired because the coaches benched him?” I fill in.
Her shoulders drop slightly at that as she looks at my knee before up to me.
“Over two weeks post op you should be able to do more than you can right now. No doubt probably due to the fact you took it too easy after surgery. But it’s okay. That just means we are about a week or so behind schedule. We have plenty of time. We will start easy. Get you walking, some mobility stretches every day, and go from there. Do you want to do our sessions at your house or here?”
“Here, for sure. I don’t want to spend any more time at the house than I have to. Do you think you can get me to one hundred percent by July?” I ask, not liking that the normal confidence Scar has when it comes to things like this seems to be missing in her words.
“Slate, I’ll be honest. I’m not sure if you were at one hundred percent before the injury. You’re getting older, your body is getting older, and as you know, being a pro-athlete puts a lot of strain on it.”
Her words weigh heavy on my chest. Fuck. I knew this wasn’t going to work. I’m fucked. I’m-
“But,” she continues. “If you dedicate yourself, buckle down and work for it, I’m gonna get you ready for your starting spot again. I can’t guarantee you’ll be the same Slater, that part is up to you.”
“I’m all in,” I nod seriously.
She smiles proudly as she shuts her laptop. “Alright, let’s go to work then.”
Slater
The first day of PT with Scar is turning out to be a lot less productive than I was anticipating. When she said, ‘Let’s go to work,’ I was expecting some light weightlifting, maybe some time on the treadmill or something, but what I got was stretching exercises. Yeah, she has me basically doing a yoga routine. I love Scar, but I’m starting to question her credibility right about now.
“Scar, we’ve been at this for almost an hour, and you haven’t had me do more than sit up and down from a chair and stretch. How am I supposed to get my mobility back if this is the hardest you are going to push me?”
She looks at me like I’m dumb before shaking her head.
“Slater, you just barely gave up crutches. What did you expect? To be deadlifting? Maybe hit the stair master?”
I roll my eyes at her sass before running a frustrated hand through my hair as I walk over to the bench and grab my water bottle. Scar wordlessly follows me, sitting down beside me before she speaks.
“Do you want to try this at your house instead? Maybe you’ll feel less pressure and therefore less stressed if you are in your own environment, without all of this looming over you,” she says as she gestures around the room.
“Can’t say I feel less stressed at home, probably the opposite. It’s just a big empty house filled with too many fucking memories that I thought meant forever. I can hardly even go into my own bedroom, Scar. Because all I think when I step in there is how Nik insisted that we paint the walls the ice cold gray because it was ‘in.’ Or I look at the bed frame, how it cost ten grand because Nik insisted it was essential, and I just wanted her to be happy. Every piece of furniture in that house was handpicked by her. Her fingerprints are everywhere, and it’s fucking suffocating.”
I don’t talk about my feelings with others usually, I’m not that kind of guy. At least not with anyone that isn’t Scar. She has this way of listening that makes me feel like I’m not a little bitch for feeling the way I do. She always sits quietly, letting me rant or vent out anything I need to with zero judgment. One of the many reasons I love the girl.
“What if you change it?” she asks.
“Change what?”
“Everything, I guess. You’re stupid rich. Hire an interior designer and get the place gutted. New paint, new carpet in the bedrooms. New furniture everywhere. Make the house yours. I mean, it is yours, it always has been.”
Honestly? Not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin. That stuff was Nik’s thing, not mine.”
Scar nods, pulling out her phone as she begins typing on it before holding out her hand.
“Hand me your credit card, the black one.”
I raise my eyebrows at her like she’s crazy but reach for my wallet anyways.
“Pretty sure the Crusaders pay you to work with me, Scar. Don’t know that you are going to get away with charging me personally on top of that,” I say as I pull out the card and hand it to her.
She takes it from me as she puts the phone up to her ear.
“Hi, yes. I’d like to schedule a consultation for a full re-decoration,” Scar says before waiting. “You’re booked for two weeks?” she says with a sigh. “Alright, I’ll let Mr. Santos know. With the offseason only lasting so long before the Crusaders’ practice begins I’m not sure we will have the time to wait that long.”
Pausing for another minute, she smirks before shooting me a wink.
“Oh my gosh, really? An opening just became available? Fantastic. How does six o’clock sound? Perfect. I’ll email you the address right now. See you then,” she says before hanging up and turning to me.
“Well, that went over better than I expected. I thought for sure they’d ask for a deposit or something. C’mon. We have an appointment to get to,” Scar says as she begins typing on her phone again.
“Wait, what?” I say as I stand and follow her over to her purse.
She grabs it before turning the lights off in the room and holding the door open to the hallway.
“C’mon. Let’s go make sure we scrub away every memory possible of that spoiled gold digger from your house.”
I’m a little stunned at first. Mainly because though I knew Scar never overly liked Nik, I have never heard her actually call her a name, I guess apart from the other day. The wounded hurt part of me wants to laugh at that, revel in the fact that my best friend is so fiercely loyal to me. The other side, the one who still loves and cares for the woman I spent the last near decade with, wants to come to Nik’s defense. What would I say, though? That Scar is wrong? She isn’t. They say hindsight is 20/20. From the moment Nik walked out, I saw everything in a new light, and every day I start to realize more and more it’s a miracle we lasted this long.
“What are you thinking for color scheme?” Bethany, the interior designer, rushed over to the house at the drop of my name thanks to Scar.
“Uh, I don’t know. Just different. Maybe white?”
Her smile crinkles at the edges like she wants to sneer but remembers she needs to keep it in check.
“All white and it’ll feel like a hospital,” Scar intervenes with a shake of her head before turning to face Bethany. “I think he needs some warm neutral colors. He wants this place to feel like a home, not a house. It needs to be less modern and more traditional.”
Bethany is writing quickly on her iPad as she nods her understanding. I sling an arm around Scar as I smile.
“Since when did you know all about this stuff?”
She laughs. “This stuff? Slate, it’s kinda common sense. Cool colors make a room feel cold, warm colors make it feel warm. You are the opposite of a cold person. I always thought this house never fit your personality.”
“Your girlfriend is right. Though the home is beautifully designed, I wouldn’t choose it for you after meeting you,” Bethany says.
Slater
Mikey winces as the gun begins filling in the tattoo near the back of his neck. I can’t help but chuckle. He always gives me shit for using numbing cream, says I’m being a bitch about it, but I’m not the one in pain, am I?
He is getting a little black and white pair of Converse on his shoulder, one with Tucker’s birthday on it and the other with Rodney’s. His wife Violet is obsessed with them, has been since she was a teenager, so it’s a nice little tribute to his whole family.
I usually always have an idea of something I want to get done but when I walked into the store, I blanked. I scrolled on my phone for a few minutes until I found a cool looking hourglass. Time feels like it’s running out for me so though a bit depressing, I thought it was perfect. Since my arms are completely covered I had my guy pick a spot on my chest.
Unlike Mikey, I’ve never gotten a tattoo symbolizing my and Nikki’s relationship. I was always hesitant of what the future held for us to ink something permanently onto my body. I guess that right there should have told me everything I needed to know.
“So, when do you start PT with Scarlett?” Mikey asks as he turns his head to face me.
“Don’t know if I’m gonna,” I say as I look down and watch the needle etch the design into my skin.
“What do you mean? You have to.”
“Says who, Mikey?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.
“I mean, if you ever wanna walk normally again, it’s a good idea,” he says with an eye roll.
Yeah, I guess. Regardless, whether I retire or not, I still need to get my leg back to normal function.
“What’s going on, man? This ain’t you. I know this doesn’t all have to do with Nikki. This is your dream. Football is everything to you, and you are the last man that I know to give up on anything.”
“Everyone else has given up on me, Mikey. Just feels like maybe they see what I don’t want to.”
“Like who? I haven’t given up on you. Neither has Trev or Seb. Your parents haven’t. I know for a fact Scarlett will never give up on you.”
“Yeah…” I say as I trail off and stare at the wall behind me.
If I’m honest with myself, I’m scared. Scared that I’m going to give it one hundred and ten percent, and it still won’t be enough. I’m used to being the best of the best. Not mediocre, not average. The best. That’s a tall bar to set myself, and I know that if I don’t reach it, it’s me who is going to want to give up. Shitty attitude, I know, but still.
“She’s pretty amazing,” Mikey says lowly.
I blink away from the wall to look at him. “Who?”
“Scarlett,” he says with a deadpan look.
“Oh, yeah. Of course she is. She’s the best.”
Mikey nods. “I don’t know many grown women that would put everything to the side for their guy best friend and focus on what he needs first. From taking care of him and his best friends when they are drunk, feeding them the next morning, constantly checking in on her best friend to make sure she can’t do more.”
I smile softly and nod. “She really is the best. I don’t know how I got so lucky.”
Mikey stares at me for several seconds before blowing out a deep breath.
“Well, the choice is yours, Slate. No one can force you to get back to it, but we have a little over five and a half months until you need to report to training camp if you want to keep your spot. It’s probably gonna be really fucking hard, but you’re a tough son of a bitch. So I guess you gotta ask yourself, how badly do you want it?”
I want it. Bad.
I already failed at my marriage. I can’t fail at this too.
I know that I’ve already had a longer career than most, and I should be grateful for that. But it’s not enough. I need to decide when I’m done. Not an injury, not a doctor. Me. And I’m not fucking done yet.
After our tattoos were all wrapped up, Mikey and I went and grabbed some food before I took him to the airport. After that, I texted Scar and asked where she was. She said she was still at the training center working with Andrews. I slowly limp my way inside and down the hallway to our PT room when a voice shouts out to me.
“Santos, what are you doing here?” Coach Aberton calls out.
I slowly spin around, proud of myself for not wincing when I put too much weight on my leg.
“Just came to start a therapy plan with Scar, Coach.”
He nods approvingly as he casts a worried look down to my knee.
“How you feeling?”
“I’ll be just fine by the time practice starts, Coach.”
He raises an eyebrow at me and crosses his arms over his chest.
“You sure about that?”
My smile becomes tight, but I’m determined to not let it fall.
“I’m good, Coach. Little pain when I put pressure on it, but Scar will get me whipped into shape in no time.”
“We’ll see,” he mumbles as he runs a hand through his hair before turning into his office.
I feel my fake ass smile fall at the disbelief in his words before I shake my head and turn back around. When I step inside the PT room, I pause as I see Andrews laying down on the massage table. His shirt is off, and Scar is massaging his shoulder, bringing her hands down his arm and towards the ends of his fingers. He groans in what I know is pleasure because on top of being an amazing athletic trainer, Scar’s hands are like fucking magic.
“Alright, Damion,” she says as she pats his back. “Remember to keep your water intake up, and I’ll see you back here next week, okay?”
“Nooo,” he fake complains as he sits up. “I think we need a couple more minutes, for my shoulders sake, don’t you?”
She lets out a laugh and rolls her eyes before walking over to her laptop and typing in a few notes.
“Nope. You look fine to me,” she says as she turns around to face him with a smile.
“Fine?” he scoffs as he begins making his way towards her. “We both know you think I look better than fine,” he teases with a wink.
To my surprise, Scar doesn’t get embarrassed. Her eyes trail down his naked torso appraisingly before making her way back up to his face.
“Meh, you’re alright.”
Andrews clutches his chest like she has just delivered a physical blow as he staggers back.
“You wound me, babe.”
“What have we talked about?” she scolds.
“Sorry. You’re right. Doctor Babe.”
Scar laughs at that and shakes her head. “Get out of here.”
I knock on the wall, making my presence known and also helping put Andrews out of his misery. It’s clear Scar isn’t interested, and the poor fucker can’t get a clue.
They both turn to face me with smiles.
“Santos! Look at you. How you doing?” Andrews asks as he makes his way over to me, bringing it in for a quick bro hug before pulling back.
“Doing good. Just about to start a therapy plan with Scar if she has the time for me?” I ask as I glance over his shoulder at her.
“I’m not the PT for this team, Slater. You need to be making a plan with Collin.”
“Nope,” I say with a shake of my head. “I told him I would only work with you. Collin and Coach gave me the go ahead to set stuff up with you.”
She huffs out a breath as she runs a hand over her ponytail.
“I was planning on heading home. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I have an early morning tomorrow. I need to get some decent sleep.”
“Please, Scar. I’ll have anything you want delivered. Half hour tops, I swear.”
“You swear?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.
I nod as I take my finger and draw an X over my chest.
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Scar was the first person to ever say that to me. I probably had only lived in the neighborhood for a week at the most, and when it got late one night, my mom said I had to come in. I told Scarlett that we would play tomorrow morning, but she didn’t believe me. She looked up at me with hesitant eyes as she twisted her fingers.
“You swear?” she asks.
I nod. “Sure. Sometimes, usually only when I get hurt or something.”
She frowns for a moment before she shakes her head.
“No, like you swear you’ll come back and play with me? You have to swear it.”
“I swear,” I say with a nod.
Her eyes roll as she practically stomps over to me and lifts my hand, grabbing my pointer finger before making it draw an X over my heart.
“You have to say, ‘cross my heart and hope to die’ otherwise it doesn’t count,” she says, as if it was common knowledge.
I roll the words over in my head before I nod my agreement and repeat the motion.
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
A small smile takes over her face as she nods and skips off back to her house.
Shaking the fog of the childhood memory away, I look to Scar, waiting for her response.
“Yeah, right,” she grumbles before pointing to the massage table. “Take a seat. We’ll do some range of motion tests.”
“Good luck, man. I’ll see you around. Doctor Babe, see you next week,” he says with a smirk before grabbing his shirt and bag next to the door as he slips out into the hallway.
“Is he always that flirty with you?” I ask as I hobble over to the table before sitting on it.
She shrugs. “He’s harmless.”
“Well if he ever makes you uncomfortable, let me know, I’ll rough him up a bit.”
Scar laughs as she types something into her laptop.
“Oh yeah? With a freshly repaired ACL? You’re gonna get into a street brawl?”
I frown at that and nod. “Good point. I’ll have Seb knock him around. No one can touch that ogre.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she smiles as she makes her way over to me. “Alright. Let’s start with the basics. Move your foot, flexing up and down.”
I do as she says, wincing when it’s too stretched either direction. She watches carefully as she speaks.
“Okay, side to side.”
Fuck. That one hurts more. A hell of a lot more. For the next ten minutes or so, Scar walks me through different tests until she tells me I can stop as she begins typing quickly on her laptop. Her brows are pinched together, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she does.
“What’s that look for?”
“Huh?” she asks as she looks up.
“That look? You’re nervous, or maybe worried. What is it?”
She shakes her head. “It’s nothing, Slater. I deal with stuff like this literally every day. Remember Hughes tore his ACL last year and I worked with him-”
“Just before he retired because the coaches benched him?” I fill in.
Her shoulders drop slightly at that as she looks at my knee before up to me.
“Over two weeks post op you should be able to do more than you can right now. No doubt probably due to the fact you took it too easy after surgery. But it’s okay. That just means we are about a week or so behind schedule. We have plenty of time. We will start easy. Get you walking, some mobility stretches every day, and go from there. Do you want to do our sessions at your house or here?”
“Here, for sure. I don’t want to spend any more time at the house than I have to. Do you think you can get me to one hundred percent by July?” I ask, not liking that the normal confidence Scar has when it comes to things like this seems to be missing in her words.
“Slate, I’ll be honest. I’m not sure if you were at one hundred percent before the injury. You’re getting older, your body is getting older, and as you know, being a pro-athlete puts a lot of strain on it.”
Her words weigh heavy on my chest. Fuck. I knew this wasn’t going to work. I’m fucked. I’m-
“But,” she continues. “If you dedicate yourself, buckle down and work for it, I’m gonna get you ready for your starting spot again. I can’t guarantee you’ll be the same Slater, that part is up to you.”
“I’m all in,” I nod seriously.
She smiles proudly as she shuts her laptop. “Alright, let’s go to work then.”
Slater
The first day of PT with Scar is turning out to be a lot less productive than I was anticipating. When she said, ‘Let’s go to work,’ I was expecting some light weightlifting, maybe some time on the treadmill or something, but what I got was stretching exercises. Yeah, she has me basically doing a yoga routine. I love Scar, but I’m starting to question her credibility right about now.
“Scar, we’ve been at this for almost an hour, and you haven’t had me do more than sit up and down from a chair and stretch. How am I supposed to get my mobility back if this is the hardest you are going to push me?”
She looks at me like I’m dumb before shaking her head.
“Slater, you just barely gave up crutches. What did you expect? To be deadlifting? Maybe hit the stair master?”
I roll my eyes at her sass before running a frustrated hand through my hair as I walk over to the bench and grab my water bottle. Scar wordlessly follows me, sitting down beside me before she speaks.
“Do you want to try this at your house instead? Maybe you’ll feel less pressure and therefore less stressed if you are in your own environment, without all of this looming over you,” she says as she gestures around the room.
“Can’t say I feel less stressed at home, probably the opposite. It’s just a big empty house filled with too many fucking memories that I thought meant forever. I can hardly even go into my own bedroom, Scar. Because all I think when I step in there is how Nik insisted that we paint the walls the ice cold gray because it was ‘in.’ Or I look at the bed frame, how it cost ten grand because Nik insisted it was essential, and I just wanted her to be happy. Every piece of furniture in that house was handpicked by her. Her fingerprints are everywhere, and it’s fucking suffocating.”
I don’t talk about my feelings with others usually, I’m not that kind of guy. At least not with anyone that isn’t Scar. She has this way of listening that makes me feel like I’m not a little bitch for feeling the way I do. She always sits quietly, letting me rant or vent out anything I need to with zero judgment. One of the many reasons I love the girl.
“What if you change it?” she asks.
“Change what?”
“Everything, I guess. You’re stupid rich. Hire an interior designer and get the place gutted. New paint, new carpet in the bedrooms. New furniture everywhere. Make the house yours. I mean, it is yours, it always has been.”
Honestly? Not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin. That stuff was Nik’s thing, not mine.”
Scar nods, pulling out her phone as she begins typing on it before holding out her hand.
“Hand me your credit card, the black one.”
I raise my eyebrows at her like she’s crazy but reach for my wallet anyways.
“Pretty sure the Crusaders pay you to work with me, Scar. Don’t know that you are going to get away with charging me personally on top of that,” I say as I pull out the card and hand it to her.
She takes it from me as she puts the phone up to her ear.
“Hi, yes. I’d like to schedule a consultation for a full re-decoration,” Scar says before waiting. “You’re booked for two weeks?” she says with a sigh. “Alright, I’ll let Mr. Santos know. With the offseason only lasting so long before the Crusaders’ practice begins I’m not sure we will have the time to wait that long.”
Pausing for another minute, she smirks before shooting me a wink.
“Oh my gosh, really? An opening just became available? Fantastic. How does six o’clock sound? Perfect. I’ll email you the address right now. See you then,” she says before hanging up and turning to me.
“Well, that went over better than I expected. I thought for sure they’d ask for a deposit or something. C’mon. We have an appointment to get to,” Scar says as she begins typing on her phone again.
“Wait, what?” I say as I stand and follow her over to her purse.
She grabs it before turning the lights off in the room and holding the door open to the hallway.
“C’mon. Let’s go make sure we scrub away every memory possible of that spoiled gold digger from your house.”
I’m a little stunned at first. Mainly because though I knew Scar never overly liked Nik, I have never heard her actually call her a name, I guess apart from the other day. The wounded hurt part of me wants to laugh at that, revel in the fact that my best friend is so fiercely loyal to me. The other side, the one who still loves and cares for the woman I spent the last near decade with, wants to come to Nik’s defense. What would I say, though? That Scar is wrong? She isn’t. They say hindsight is 20/20. From the moment Nik walked out, I saw everything in a new light, and every day I start to realize more and more it’s a miracle we lasted this long.
“What are you thinking for color scheme?” Bethany, the interior designer, rushed over to the house at the drop of my name thanks to Scar.
“Uh, I don’t know. Just different. Maybe white?”
Her smile crinkles at the edges like she wants to sneer but remembers she needs to keep it in check.
“All white and it’ll feel like a hospital,” Scar intervenes with a shake of her head before turning to face Bethany. “I think he needs some warm neutral colors. He wants this place to feel like a home, not a house. It needs to be less modern and more traditional.”
Bethany is writing quickly on her iPad as she nods her understanding. I sling an arm around Scar as I smile.
“Since when did you know all about this stuff?”
She laughs. “This stuff? Slate, it’s kinda common sense. Cool colors make a room feel cold, warm colors make it feel warm. You are the opposite of a cold person. I always thought this house never fit your personality.”
“Your girlfriend is right. Though the home is beautifully designed, I wouldn’t choose it for you after meeting you,” Bethany says.
