Page 106 of Lessons in Heartbreak

This wasn’t anything a doctor could fix. So I took another deep breath, reminded myself that I was fine and I was an adult who could handle the end of a casual relationship that was never meant to be anything more. The days would pass, and my life would continue, whether I participated or not. Griffin’s life would pass on a bigger stage, with more eyes watching, and I knew he wasn’t sitting around moping. Neither would I.

With a false display of bravado, I notched my chin up and got back to work.

Griffin

“Quit moping.”

I glared at Marcus, feeding another football into the JUGS machine. It zipped through the spinning wheels and shot toward him. He caught it with ease, tossing it off to the side, where a Denver staff member caught it and added it back into the bin I was pulling from.

“I’m not moping,” I managed through gritted teeth. “I’m here helping you, aren’t I?”

He caught another one, part of his pre-workout routine to catch two hundred and fifty balls before he touched any weights. Normally, one of the training staff helped him, but I was done with weights already and had an hour to kill before I met with the defensive-coaching staff.

“Why don’t you just go back there? It can’t be that far of a drive from your new place.”

An hour and forty-two minutes, depending on the time of day. But I kept that little tidbit right the hell in my own brain.

“Go back for what? To borrow some library books?”

My neck felt hot at the satisfied gleam in his eyes, because it was more of an admission than I’d meant to make.

“Sure,” he said easily, tossing the next ball away and setting up for the next catch. “Or for sex. Can’t imagine she’d kick your ass out.”

“Oh sure, I’m gonna do just that.” I mimicked his stupid voice. “’Sup, girl, you want to keep being my easy side piece when I’m bored?”

He pointed a football in my direction. “I do not sound like that, and that’s not what you’d be doing. You don’t have to go back for sex. Go for a walk. Watch a movie. Tell her you want to fucking date her. Whatever, man. She liked you too.”

His words caused a tight clench in my throat. “It doesn’t matter if she liked me or not. She won’t let herself get in any deeper with someone.”

Marcus sighed. “That doesn’t make sense. Why not?”

I jerked my chin at the employee, some bright-eyed kid whose name I didn’t know. “Can you give us a minute?”

He nodded easily. “Sure thing.”

Marcus motioned for another ball, and I fed one into the machine. “She had a heart transplant a few years ago.”

His head reared back and he dropped his hands. The ball zipped straight into his stomach, and he doubled over with a loud groan. “Fucking hell, that hurt.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re supposed to catch it, asshole.”

Marcus straightened, rubbing at his stomach. “You’re serious? About Ruby?”

After a deep breath, I nodded. He walked over and flipped off the machine. The whirring sound disappeared, and as serious as I’d ever seen him, Marcus listened while I explained what had happened.

His eyes were huge. “And she could just ... reject the heart at any time?”

“Seems like it,” I said lightly. More than once in the past week and a half, I’d found myself sitting up in the middle of the night, researching heart transplant survival rates on my phone. “There’s a guy in Europe right now, he’s lived like ... forty years. Longest of any heart transplant recipient. He had the same condition as Ruby, actually. Got his new heart at seventeen.”

Marcus perked up. “That’s good, right?”

“Yeah.” I swallowed around the rock wedged in my throat, but the fucker wouldn’t budge. “Yeah, that’s good.”

His face filled with understanding. “That’s why you were helping her with the weights and the training. Help her stay healthy.”

I nodded.

“And she doesn’t want to be a burden to anyone because she knows what a heavy load it is to carry,” he continued.

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