Page 48 of Very Unlikely
20
Lennox
Istand from my seat when the team doctor enters the suite’s living room I share with Summer. Despite Summer’s multiple assurances to Desiree on the drive home that she’s fine and doesn’t need to see a doctor, I still wanted her checked over. She swallowed a lot of water when she sunk to the bottom of the ocean like a submarine, and I’m well aware of the struggles a near-drowning places on your lungs. I learned the hard way when my father taught me how to swim by throwing me into his two-million-dollar pool when I was four.
If it weren’t for his butler, I’d be dead.
Dr. Cameron places a set of stethoscopes into her medical bag before spinning around to face me. Before I can fire off any of the hundreds of questions that have been swirling in my head the past hour, she advises, “Her lungs sound clear. There is no crackling or wheeziness associated with her breaths, and although she is a little jittery, her shivers are more to do with what she went through than her body temperature.” After pacing closer to me, she fans her hands across her cocked hip. “But I must say… taking her out in the ocean like that at this time of night was senseless, Jamison. She can’t swim, and if it weren’t for a full moon, you might not have found her in time.”
“I know that. I wasn’t thinking,” I murmur, issuing her the same excuse I’ve given Holden and Desiree multiple times the past hour. “She just…”
“Frustrates you and makes you want to pull your hair out?” Holden pipes up when words elude me. When I lift my chin, he says with a chuckle, “Welcome to the club, Jamison.”
I’m lost to what he means, but it appears as if Desiree has no issues. She rams her elbow into his ribs before standing and hoisting him off the armchair his backside has been hogging since I sheepishly entered the room two steps behind Summer so she’d have no reason to whack into me again.
I’m giving her the space she so desperately craves, and it’s fucking killing me.
Her retreat was the last thing I was anticipating. She didn’t even do it last night when I was deserving of her wrath. We watched a movie together before she did a cute little stretch that lifted my Morrison training shirt to the base of her panties, then said she was going to bed. Since she didn’t specifically invite me to share her room, I stayed put on the couch, where I eventually fell asleep several tedious hours later.
While scrubbing a hand across my tired eyes, Itskmyself.
Coach Randall was right when he said Summer makes me weak. I’m just not yet as convinced as him that it’s the good type of weakness. After placing almost half his team on suspension for personal misconduct after our game yesterday, he explained the difference between a bad distraction, AKA, my father, and a good one, AKA, Summer.
He thinks Summer brings out the best in me. That I’m not just looking at the game through the eyes of a baller. I want the crowd to enjoy the experience as much as my team. He reckons that’s what brings the spectators in by the droves, and comments like the one I made during my impromptu press conference will gain me as many male fans as it will females.
I told him what I said was honest. I wasn’t pitching for endorsements. I doubt he believed me, but his smile as he showed me out of his office wasn’t one I had seen before.
Just like Rye, Coach Randall is one of the rare good ones in this competitive industry.
I lift my chin in thanks when Desiree says, “Call us if you need anything.”
While they exit via the patio doors, I show Dr. Cameron out through the front entrance. “Is there anything I can do to help Summer overcome this?”
I already feel like a right royal prick, but I’d honestly coat myself in tar and feathers and make a fool out of myself at next week’s game as the team mascot if it would guarantee Summer won’t hate me. I’ve been acting like an ass because I’m doing everything in my power to keep her in my life, yet I almost lost her in the process.
It makes no sense, and the shit needs to stop now.
“Just make sure she understands that she’s safe and protected.”
When I nod, Dr. Cameron runs her hand down my arm in a comforting manner before muttering that she’ll see me at training tomorrow.
Her placement at Ravenshoe Ravens was broadcasted across the country only a couple of months back. No one believed she had achieved her position without getting her knees scuffed, and they had no shame saying it out loud, but she has more than proven herself the past couple of weeks. The players reach out to her for a range of issues, and not all of them relate to sports. She’s a good egg, and I’m sure once Summer stops summarizing how the ocean tried to swallow her whole, I can see her forming a kinship with her as easily as I did.
I breathe out the nerves burdening my chest with weight when I close the door with Dr. Cameron on the other side. With everyone gone, it’s super quiet. So quiet, I can hear the shakes rattling every inch of Summer’s body.
“Sum…” I call out softly from the doorway of her room, not wanting to wake her if the sedative Dr. Cameron gave her at the start of their booking knocked her out. “Are you awake?”
I wait and wait and wait for her to answer me. Just when I am about to give up in defeat, the faintest, “Yes,” comes from Summer’s half of the room.
“Can I come in?”
“Yes,” she repeats, her reply fainter the second time around.
Initially, I move to her side of the bed, but my direction alters when I notice how hard she’s shaking. She’s a tiny little thing in both stature and height, so she shouldn’t be able to make a king-size bed move the way it is.
When I slip underneath the bedding hugging her body, her breaths come out as quivers. Acting ignorant, I shimmy to her side of the mattress before cocooning her with my body. Her hair is still damp from the shower she had when we arrived home, but its weightiness makes it easy to pull to one side so I can press my lips to the shell of her ear. I don’t talk. I just comfort her in silence until the heat of my body dulls the shakes hindering her.
Within minutes, she’s no longer scared and far too forgiving than she should be. “I’m sorry I hit you and yelled at you in front of everyone. What happened wasn’t your fault.”
