Rebound (Seattle Steelheads #1)(25)

Better this than giving him an opportunity to control them, I thought with a shudder.

When dinner was over, I was probably as relieved as they were. An evening with my kids should not have left me this exhausted, but what could I say? We had a lot of baggage to work through, and while we took our sweet time working through it, things were going to be like this.

Things were better. I couldn’t deny that. We’d gone from nightly battles to more of a cold war. Conversation at the dinner table was sparse and tense, but it happened. That gave me hope. If we’d come this far in three months, we’d be in an even better spot in three more, right?

God, I hoped so.

After dinner, we all kind of scattered. That had become a thing after everything with Marcus, and I didn’t try to fight it tonight.

While the kids did their homework in their bedrooms, I reclined on my bed with my phone and texted Asher: Everything ok tonight?

I still felt kind of weird staying in contact with him, but I couldn’t help it. I was worried about the guy. Last night had been rough for him, and I hadn’t heard from him all day today. Couldn’t hurt to check in and be sure he was all right, could it?

The response came in under a minute: Not too bad. Working things out w/Mercer P.D. to move Nathan out.

Good. Any idea when?

Before the end of the week, probably.

Offer’s still open if you want me there.

He started typing. Stopped. Started again.

Finally he sent, I’d really appreciate it if it’s not too much trouble for you.

No trouble at all. Let me know the day/time. I’ll be there.

Thanks. :) It’ll be a lot less stressful with you there.

Happy to help. See you then.

We didn’t text after that. I perused Facebook and checked my email, then started scrolling through the Seattle Steelheads’ Twitter feed. They were amping up their fans for the upcoming start of the regular season, and they’d tweeted photos and stats of the various players in between GIFs and video clips of some amazing plays from last season.

As always, there were tons of photos of Asher. Some were of him out on the ice, and there were also candids of him in a suit en route to an away game. He rocked both a three-piece suit and his silver and green jersey. He was sexy as hell whether he was strolling through an airport like something out of GQ or frozen in motion on the ice, drenched in sweat with his features twisted up from concentration, fury, exertion, or some combination thereof.

One photo was a close-up of his face while he was concentrating on something off-camera. He had a shiner that was at that stage where it was starting to fade, leaving behind a fragmented purple ring around his eye. I’d never questioned where a mark like that had come from before now. Hockey fisticuffs? Or domestic violence? It wasn’t like Asher had ever been one to shy away from fighting on the ice, so it was entirely possible it had been another player. But it was also possible it was his ex.

He insisted his team didn’t know, but I wondered. Abuse victims seemed to run the gamut. Some suffered in silence. For others, it was an open secret—people knew, and some even tried to get them away from the abuser. Sometimes the people around them knew but didn’t acknowledge it.

Then there were those who thought the abuse was made up, or who encouraged the victim not to leave the abuser because that would cause too much upheaval. I fucking hated those people, and it took everything I had to stay professional when I encountered them.

His team at least had to know about the damage to Asher’s car. Which really made me wonder—How would a hockey team respond if they knew their teammate was being abused by his partner? I wanted to believe they’d be horrified and rally around the victim. I’d also spent too much time in the military and as a cop to believe that was a guarantee. Being the victim of domestic violence wasn’t considered “manly,” and peers sometimes responded accordingly. Tragic but true.

As I scrolled, I stopped on a candid that I’d seen before. It was him and Grady, one of the defensemen, sitting on the bench during a game. They were laughing about something, and Jesus, Asher looked so relaxed and carefree. It was a home game, so Nathan was most likely in his usual seat, but for that moment, Asher was laughing and joking with a teammate while they waited to return to the ice. He had a hell of a smile. Didn’t hurt that he’d managed to hang on to his teeth, but either way, his smile could light up the whole stadium. It was that free, easy smile of someone who was loving life.

I shivered. Yeah, I’d had a crush on Asher before I’d responded to that call the other night. Who wouldn’t? The man was ridiculously hot. And I supposed if I’d met him at a game or in some other less fraught situation, I’d think he was even hotter. He certainly wasn’t hard on the eyes, but I felt weird thinking about him being attractive after how we’d met. He’d gone from a superstar athlete with a gorgeous face and a sexy body to a victim of domestic violence. That didn’t make him unattractive. I just…didn’t know what I thought when I looked at him. I still saw the hot man in the hockey uniform. I also saw the scared, vulnerable guy who’d needed my help. They didn’t cancel each other out. It was just a weird dichotomy that didn’t quite fit into my head.

I suspected he was ashamed and embarrassed after last night. He’d obviously not been thrilled about me seeing him when he was shaken up, and he’d tried so hard not to cry in front of me.