The Wall of Winnipeg and Me: A Novel

It was amazing how easily you could settle into a major change in your life.

Or maybe it just amazed me how easily it was for me to live with Aiden and Zac, and keep living my life in the same way I’d been doing in that month after I quit. Really, it wasn’t that life itself had changed much; I was just in a new environment, but still doing the same thing I’d done back at my apartment.

A few weeks passed in the blink of an eye, and before I knew it, I’d been at my new house for a month. I’d signed paperwork two weeks ago. The season had started for the guys last week. Basically, life was going and heading in its same old trajectory.

Except the house didn’t completely feel like my own. It reminded me of back when I was a kid, sleeping over at Diana’s, when I couldn’t walk around in my underwear or go braless because it wasn’t my house. Then again, I spent the majority of my time in my room working and no one was ever home, so I could pull off whatever outfit—or lack of an outfit and underwear—I felt like wearing, only running up the stairs like a crazy person when the garage door opened. Then there was the small issue of having to turn down the volume on my computer’s speakers when one of the guy’s was home and I was working.

I still hadn’t talked myself into spending time in the living room watching television even when the guys weren’t around. Fortunately, claustrophobia hadn’t gotten to me yet considering most of my time was spent in the same place, and that was because I made sure to go to the gym a couple times a week, to see Diana once a week or every other week, and took my time going to the grocery store. I watched Netflix on my TV when I was bored. I drew in my sketchpad when I felt like it. Sometimes I hung out with Zac, but that didn’t happen often because he’d been spending a lot of time away from the house after practices and meetings, seeing his girl of the season.

By the time I woke up each morning, both guys were already gone. They were basically the best roommates ever. Best of all, Aiden was the type of roommate who you didn’t have to pay rent to.

I’d brought it up, of course. That day that I’d moved in, I’d asked him what bills I could help him pay, and all he’d done was give me that bored face that my temper hadn’t become immune to. Then I’d asked again, and he’d just ignored me.

He’d said he would work on being my friend, but I couldn’t expect a miracle overnight, could I?

If it was strange for either one of them having me in this house, they didn’t say anything about it or make me feel like an intruder, mostly because they both had enough on their plates. Zac had passingly mentioned to me how stressed he was about another quarterback the team had picked up, and Aiden lived and breathed for his sport, never allowing himself to slack off. Not that that was anything new. He nodded at me every time we happened to be in the same room together and offered me his leftovers if there were any, which there usually wasn’t because the poor guy seemed to be surviving off smoothies, fresh fruit, sweet potatoes, canned beans, nuts, brown rice, and at least one frozen meal daily.

That wasn’t my business though, was it?

But every day, I would find the recyclable bin filled with more cardboard containers than the day before. It made me feel bad, guilty.

It also made me wonder again why Trevor hadn’t hired him someone who did all the same duties I’d been responsible for. I knew he’d hired Aiden someone to answer his e-mails because I’d logged on to his account just to see what the damage was and found that every few days there were replies, but no one ever appeared at the house, and sometimes I’d find mail from his PO Box sitting in the kitchen after he got home. Where was his Vanessa 2.0?

The problem with being friends with someone is that unless you want to be a shitty friend—or at least a fake friend because real ones shouldn’t be shitty—you couldn’t pretend you don’t notice if something is wrong with your buddy.

The biggest problem with my newfound friendship with Aiden was how complicated it was. What we’d done was technically a business transaction. But we sort of knew each other, and I knew that even if he wasn’t perfect and wasn’t truly my friend-friend who would donate a kidney if I needed one, I still cared about him anyway. I was a sucker like that. I figured, best-case scenario, he liked me enough to chip in for someone to donate whatever I needed. I mean, he’d gone running with me so that I wouldn’t go by myself when it was late out.

On top of that, we lived together. We were technically married.

Complicated was the best word to describe the situation.

So when I found Aiden in the breakfast nook with his leg propped on one of the other chairs and an icepack over his foot days after we’d gone for a run, mere weeks after the regular NFO season had started, I couldn’t pretend not to see it. Friends didn’t do that. Not people who had known each other for two years. Not when I knew Aiden well enough that I was aware he treated his body like a temple. So for him to have an icepack on his ankle?

Guilt flooded my chest. The Three Hundreds had some of the best trainers and physical therapists in the country. They had all kinds of advanced technology to get their players back in shape. The staff wouldn’t have let Aiden leave the facility until they’d done as much as they could for whatever was troubling him.

His facial expression only confirmed something was wrong. His jaw was jutting out and the cords lining his thick neck were more pronounced than usual. He was in pain, or at least incredibly uncomfortable.

This man whom I’d seen walk off the field like his ribs hadn’t just been fractured two years ago, much less without crying out, “Owwie,” was in clear and visible pain.

And I couldn’t ignore it. Because friends didn’t do that, did they?

I took my time circling the kitchen island, watching him, not minding that all he’d done was lift an index finger to greet me. He was eating a sandwich and reading a book on… it had the word ‘dumb’ on the front. I opened the refrigerator door to grab ingredients to make a soup, and turned my attention back as discreetly as possible to watch the big man at the small table.

“I’m going to make some soup, do you want some?” I offered.

“What kind?” he had the nerve to ask without looking away from his hardback.

I held back my smirk. “A kind you like.”

“Okay.” There was a pause. “Thanks.”

I chopped a few vegetables while occasionally glancing up. Running through a few different scenarios in my head on how to go about approaching him to find out if he was in pain or not, I realized I was being dumb.

“Aiden?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s wrong with your foot?” I just blurted out.

“I sprained it.” That was easy, effortless, no bullshit Aiden for me.

Unfortunately, his comment didn’t help or reassure me. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had hit him with a car and the tendon wasn’t even attached to his leg any more, and he was insisting it was just a sprain.

But was I going to say that? Nope.

“High sprain or low sprain?” I asked carefully, as casually as I could.

“High,” he replied just as nonchalantly.

Between his injuries and Zac’s, I’d become familiar with the different kinds possible. High sprains tended to take less time to heal, usually a week or two. Lower ankle sprain recovery ranged from a month to two. So, it was bad but it could have been a lot worse.

“What did the trainers say?”

That had his jaw tightening. “I’m questionable for the next game.”

Not probable, questionable. Oh, brother. Questionable statuses made Aiden Graves a grumpy goose.

I lowered my gaze back down to the cutting board and the celery I had on there. “It might be a good idea for you to go see that acupuncturist you went to last year when your shoulder was bothering you.” The more I listed his past injuries, the more it made me wince. Zac had told me once that every football player he knew constantly lived with pain; it was inevitable.

“That might be a good idea,” he murmured, turning a page in his book.

“Do you want some Advil?” I suggested, glancing up, knowing damn well he never took painkillers. Then again, he rarely ever busted out the icepack.

When he said, “Two would be nice,” I had to hold back my gasp.

Early the next afternoon, the sound of the garage door opening and closing told me enough about what was going on. When the television came on a few minutes afterward, I stayed upstairs with my colored pencils and a tattoo commission I was working on for a client.

Three or four hours later, once I finished my project, started on another one, and had showered to get ready for bed, I crept down the stairs, hearing the drone of the TV on in the background. The living room was directly to the left at the bottom of the staircase, the kitchen to the right.

I peeked in and found Aiden stretched out on the couch, the foot of his injured leg propped on the armrest. He had one arm twisted behind his head as a pillow. The other one was along his side, his palm resting on his stomach. His eyes were closed. I knew he hadn’t accidentally fallen asleep on the couch. I knew it with every fiber of my being. He’d done it on purpose.

The worry that swam around my stomach didn’t surprise me. Here was this seemingly indestructible man who I believed with every cell in my body, had stayed on the couch to avoid climbing up the stairs to get to his room.

Damn it.

I went back up to the second floor and pulled the pristine white comforter from the top of his bed and grabbed his favorite pillow. Once back downstairs, I crept back into the living room and laid the comforter across his lower body, tucking it in so that it didn’t drag on the floor. I took a step back, chewing on my lip, and that was when I saw.

His eyes were open and he was watching me.

I smiled at him and held out the pillow.

A small smile cracked across his full mouth as he took it from me and stuck it under his head. “Thank you.”

Taking a step back, I nodded, feeling caught. “You’re welcome. Good night.”

“Good night.”

He’d been sitting in the garage for a while.

The fact that he hadn’t left the house to go to practice was the second thing that sent alarm bells ringing in my head. He wasn’t the suicidal type, but…

Leaving my bowl in the sink, I opened the door and stuck my head out to see what was going on. Sure enough, he was in the driver’s seat of his Range Rover with his head in one of his large hands, looking down. I walked over and knocked on the window. His head lifting, he frowned before rolling it down.

“Do you want me to drive you?” I offered, thinking about the project I’d wanted to finish working on that morning and shoving it to the back of my head.

Aiden’s nostrils flared, but he nodded. To give him credit, he only slightly limped around the car, but it was more than enough to worry me. I’d been thinking about him since the night before when I’d found him on the couch, but I knew better than to baby him. Instead, I ran back in the house, grabbed my purse and set the alarm before going back to the garage and getting behind the wheel.

It wasn’t the first time I’d driven his car, except the last time I’d been behind the wheel it was to take it to get an oil change and a wash. “Where are we going?”

“To the acupuncturist.”

“Did you put the address into the navigation?” I asked as I backed out of the garage, extra careful, incredibly self-conscious about my driving skills.

“Yes.”

I nodded and followed the gentle female voice all the way to the acupuncturist’s office, though after a while of driving, I remembered exactly where we were going. Just like every other time I’d ever taken Aiden, what seemed like all of the female employees at the homeopathic clinic seemed to find their way to the front desk while he was signing in. I took a seat and, with a smirk on my face, watched as one woman after another approached the counter, asking the big guy for an autograph or a picture. Aiden spoke with a low, calm voice, his movements measured, and his entire body tense the way it always was around people he didn’t know.

He didn’t even get a chance to sit down before the door leading to the main part of the clinic opened and another employee called his name. Aiden glanced back at me and tipped his head toward the door before disappearing. The crowd of women disbanded too. I hadn’t really been thinking straight before we rushed to leave, so I’d forgotten to bring something along to keep me entertained. I grabbed one of the magazines on the table and started flipping through it, trying to tell myself that Aiden was fine.

An hour later, the door Aiden had gone through opened again and his bulky frame slowly crept out, one obviously pained step at a time. A man in a short white coat behind him at the doorway shook his head. “Get crutches or a cane.”

Aiden simply lifted a hand before approaching the window where only two employees were waiting at that point. I dropped the magazine on the table and got up. The Wall of Winnipeg hunched over the counter, signing something.

“It’s such a pleasure to see you again,” the receptionist crooned just as I stopped right behind Aiden. Was she batting her eyelashes?

If she was, he didn’t notice. His attention was on what looked like the invoice in front of him.

“I’m such a huge fan of yours,” she added.

A fan of that ass, more than likely, I figured.

She kept going. “We all hope you get better soon.”

Yeah, she was definitely batting her eyelashes. Huh.

That had Aiden responding with one of those indecipherable noises of his as he straightened and slid the paperwork over to her.

“Mr. Graves, I can settle your visit with your assistant if you’d like to take a seat,” the receptionist said in a sugary sweet voice, her green eyes flicking to my direction briefly.

Aiden settled for shrugging a shoulder as he turned his body to face me. Nothing about his expression or body language gave me a warning. “She’s my wife.”

Time stopped.

What the hell did he just say?

“Handle it for me, would you, Muffin?” Aiden asked casually, digging into his back pocket and handing over his wallet like he hadn’t just said the freaking ‘W’ word in front of strangers.

And wait a second, did he just call me Muffin? Muffin?

My mouth went dry and my face went hot, but somehow I managed to smile when the woman’s curious and slightly shocked attention slid over to me, more than extremely aware of the weight of Aiden’s gaze on me.

His wife.

I was his freaking wife and he’d just said so aloud.

What the fuck?

There were words for everything, and I understood that a lot of times, they meant nothing. In this case, I recognized that yeah, ‘wife’ didn’t mean crap, but still, it was weird. It was really, really weird to acknowledge the title for a hundred different reasons.

It was even weirder to hear the word out of Aiden’s mouth, especially when it was me he was talking about.

The Muffin thing was its own beast, something I definitely wasn’t prepared to deal with in that moment.

Picking Aiden’s wallet from his hand, I turned my hopefully not-so-shocked face to the receptionist and handed over Aiden’s debit card. With a fake, strained smile that was more of a grimace, she took it from me and swiped it. After she handed a receipt over, I found Aiden waiting for me at the door and walked out alongside him. I resisted the urge to ask if he wanted to use me as a crutch for support. Once we were in the car and before I did anything else, I turned to him in the seat, acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

“Aiden… uh…” I scratched at my forehead, trying to keep my features even. First things first. “Did you just call me Muffin?”

He looked at me. His blink was so delayed, I started thinking maybe I’d imagined it. “I figured it was too soon to call you Dinner Roll.”

I stared at him, and as I did, my mouth might have been open at the same time. Slowly, eventually, I nodded at him dumbly, attempting to absorb what I realized was a joke he’d just made. A joke he’d made aimed at me.

“You were right. It would have been too soon,” I muttered.

He made this face that irritatingly said, ‘I told you so.’

Who the hell was this human being? He looked like Aiden. He smelled like Aiden. He sounded like Aiden, but he wasn’t the same Aiden I knew. This was the Aiden who had sought me out in Vegas and told me to shut up when I was teasing him. Okay. I swallowed and nodded, accepting that this was what I’d wanted from him. And I’d finally gotten it.

I liked this version more, even though he seemed like a completely different person. Messing with the leg of my glasses, I sniffed and floundered around for the other thing bouncing around in my head. “Why did you call me your wife in there?” My voice sounded all weird.

That heavy-lidded, smart-ass gaze was as cool as a damn cucumber. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I thought we were going to keep this under wraps for as long as possible.” And he could have at least warned me he was going to do it so I could have mentally prepared.

The Wall of Winnipeg didn’t look remotely apologetic. “You are my wife, and I don’t have patience for flirts,” he said in that calm, detached voice that made me want to club him. “You’re not my assistant. Did you want me to deny it?”

“I just…” My nostrils flared on their own. Did I want him to? I wasn’t sure. But it wasn’t like he’d called me his bitch or anything. “It’s fine that you did it. You caught me off guard, that’s all.”

Stretching that long body out in his seat, Aiden didn’t add anything else. I sat there for a moment thinking about what he’d done and thinking about this unconventional fake marriage we had and this new, oddly shaped, blossoming friendship. And it was when I was thinking about those things that I remembered what Aiden had said to me in Vegas. How we’d made promises to each other and how he was going—in his own strange way—to keep up with them.

With my hands wrapped around the steering wheel, I looked at him over my shoulder and asked outright, with a choppy exhale, “What’s it going to be? Crutches or a cane?”

He went with nothing.

“Crutches or a cane, big guy,” I repeated.

Aiden shifted in his seat. “Give me a break.”

Give me a break. I had to count to five. Turning the ignition, I reminded myself that he’d called me what I was: his friend and, weirdly, his wife. He knew me. He’d missed the Vanessa I’d been back when things had been okay between us.

“I’ll find you a walker if you don’t make a choice by the time I get on the freeway,” I threatened, keeping my attention forward. “The faster you heal, the better. Don’t be a pain in the butt more than you need to be.”

He sighed. “Crutches.”

That was way too easy, and I wasn’t dumb enough to bring it up more than necessary so that he wouldn’t change his mind. I didn’t say anything else as I drove to the pharmacy and parked. Aiden stayed silent too when I hopped out of his SUV. In no time, I found crutches and bought a new bottle of over-the-counter anti-inflammatory pills.

The ride home was pretty quiet. I made sure not to watch as he slowly hobbled inside and made his way to the couch where the comforter I’d brought downstairs the night before was neatly folded, stacked under his pillow. Leaving the crutches I’d bought propped against the couch, I hesitated for a second by the stairs as I watched him settle in.

“I’ll be upstairs,” I said.

He nodded stiffly, palming the remote in one of his hands, his head turned toward me. “Thanks for taking me.”

“Yeah.” I shuffled my feet. “What are friends for?” I teased him in a small voice, unsure of how he’d react.

“For that, Van.”

The man I’d seen kind of, sort of, maybe smile a couple of times, had a tentative grin crack across his mouth. The expression on his face completely caught me off guard. For a man who never, ever physically reacted even when he won a game, his smile…

Heaven help me.

It was beautiful. There was no other word to describe it. It was like a double rainbow. Better than a double rainbow.

I felt stunned. Rooted in place forever.

His features didn’t necessarily soften, but the way his entire face seemed to lighten…

I touched my mouth to make sure it was closed and not wide open.

I couldn’t respond. I could only stand there nodding in place with something that was pretty close to a deranged smile making an appearance on my face.

“Holler if you need me. I, uh, have work to do.” Yeah, I tucked my imaginary tail in and ran upstairs.

Good lord. My heart pounded as I sat at the chair behind my desk, and I set my palm over it. What the hell was that? That smile was like a nuclear bomb he had within his reach. I mean, I knew Aiden was attractive, obviously, but when he smiled, there was nothing to prepare you for that weapon of mass destruction.

Hello, I had eyes. Even if I had become mostly desensitized to those muscles on top of carefully sculpted muscles, I knew they were there. I knew his face was handsome despite how unyielding it usually was.

I sucked in a breath and let it out, trying to clear my head. But it wasn’t as easy as it should have been. When I was looking for photographs of male models for an e-book cover, I thought about Aiden one or two times more than necessary.

Good grief, he needed to keep that thing in check.