Vegas Aces: The Wide Receiver Complete Series

CHAPTER 6 TRISTAN

I sit on the windowsill and stare across the small space separating my window from hers. Our houses are the same single-story model by the same builder, just flipped—so her bedroom mirrors mine, and this is where we meet every single night at nine fifty-seven. Sometimes it’s just to talk, while other times I jump out my window and enter through hers. Rain beats against my window, and a bolt of lightning illuminates the night sky as a loud crack of thunder follows.

I can relate.

The storm is violent and aggressive, a match to the feelings raging inside me.

I glance at the clock.

Nine fifty-eight.

She’s not there.

Nine fifty-nine.

Still not there.

Ten fifteen.

Nothing.

My heart cracks to the sound of another clap of thunder.

I wake with a jolt, sweat pouring off me and my heart racing as I sit up with a gasp.

It was as real in that dream as the day it happened, and I can’t believe it was nearly seven years ago. Time has flown at the same time it has crawled.

I left for college two months later, and I never heard from her again. I poured every ounce of my energy into working out and becoming the best physical version of myself I could possibly be as I tried as hard as I could to keep the man inside from escaping.

He’s still in there…but he’s different.

He’s indifferent where he should care. He’s quiet when he should use his voice. He lost too much. She took too much.

She took so much more than just a piece of me with her, and the only time I feel like I have it back is when I dream of the time we shared.

Except when I dream of the end of that time.

Then the crack in my chest seems to stretch wider even all these years later.

I glance at the clock. It’s four fifty-two. Too early to get up, but trying to go back to sleep after that dream is useless. I head across the hall to the home gym I’ve created for myself here, tie my shoes, and hop onto the treadmill. The real bonus is that my workout room is directly next to the guest bedroom my wife is currently sleeping in, and as I fire up the machine, I run as fast as I can—not to purposely try to wake her; if I wanted to do that, I’d simply blare the music on the sound system in here rather than through my AirPods, but to try to put some distance from myself and that dream.

In a way, it feels like I’m running away from it as my shoes slap against the belt with every step I take.

It feels like I’m always running. It used to be that I was running from Fallon Ridge. Now I’m running from Savannah. I long for the time in my life when I just feel…still.

I see the older guys on my team settling down, having kids, getting engaged or married…and I find that I want those things. Maybe that was part of my motivation in marrying Savannah. I always imagined I’d be a young husband and father. I guess that’s the kind of dream you have when you meet your other half when you’re a teenager. You dream together about the future. You imagine you’ll stay together forever.

It just didn’t exactly pan out that way.

Instead, I still have unanswered questions and I’m still broken over the mysteries of my past.

I keep thinking if I could just legally distance myself from Savannah, that’ll be the key. But I thought marrying her would be the key to something else. Look how great that worked out.

My gut instincts when it comes to my love life seem to be wrong pretty much always. At least I still trust myself on the field. At least I still have football.

It has saved me more times than I can count.

The physical exercise is the one thing that has allowed me not to fall into a deep, dark place. Having that bond with teammates—even when I don’t speak a word about my past—gives me the sense of family I crave even if it isn’t exactly the type of family I crave. They’re the brothers I always wanted but never had.

We can only play the hand we’re dealt, right?

That’s the thought lingering in my mind when Savannah appears as if from out of nowhere. She has a sour look on her face, sort of like she just sucked on a lemon—but she sort of always has that sour look. I asked her once if she made that face because she thinks it makes her look younger.

She didn’t appreciate that particular comment.

Oops.

So maybe I play on the fact that she’s a decade older than me. Maybe I rub that nugget in when I think it’ll hurt the most. Lord knows she’s done enough to hurt me in the last two years since we met.

I pull one of my AirPods out and raise my brows as I continue running, my shoes still smacking loudly against the treadmill. “What?”

“Do you have to run this early?” she whines.

“Yeah,” I grunt, and I stick my AirPod back in. Her mouth moves, and I pull it out again. “Huh?”

“Move your treadmill to a different room,” she demands.

“Move your ass to a different house,” I counter.

Here’s the thing. In the beginning, an argument like this with her would have ended with her spread out naked on the treadmill while I pounded into her. Now, it only serves as ammunition to speed along the divorce proceedings. It started out fiery, and then it went down in flames.

Live and learn. Fix your mistakes. The mantras that I’ve repeated over and over to myself.

How do you get out of a marriage when the other person won’t let you out? Common sense says the court won’t make me stay married to her forever. And yet…somehow this has gone on far longer than it should have.

She folds her arms over her chest. “Oh, my darling husband, what message would that send to the entire world if I moved out?”

“It would say this marriage is over,” I say pointedly.

“Right. But it isn’t.” Her lips curl up in a wicked smile.

“Yet.”

She laughs, and it’s maniacal and, to be perfectly honest, it’s a little terrifying. She knows things. She’s done things, things I can’t prove but things that make me look like the guilty party.

Things I have to hide.

Things that keep me married to her when I’m just trying to find a way out.

When I first met her, I thought she was gorgeous. But now that I know her, all I can see is the ugliness that resides within. She chose me because I was young and vulnerable and dumb. She said all the right things. She made promises how she could do things for me that nobody else could do at a time in my life when everybody was taking things from me. They wanted my money or my fame or my access, and she just seemed to want me . She wanted what was best for me.

I’ll make you a household name .

I saw your college tape and you’ve got real talent. I know people and I can make you a star.

Let me feature you in a column. Let me grow your social media. Let me suck your dick.

My vulnerability and my youth allowed me to fall for all of it when she was just another person trying to take something from me, and now I’m a slightly older man with a high wall I wear as armor and a wife I can’t seem to make go away.

“That’s cute, Tristan. But just know this reporter is always digging. You may reconsider your attitude.” She smirks as she turns to walk away, but I can’t let her go without one final retort.

“Reporter?” I snort. “Didn’t they fire your ass for your involvement in criminal activity?”

She glares at me before she slams the door behind her.

I have to find a way out of this marriage…I just don’t know how.