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Chapter Sixteen
Graham
“This is sloppy, Graham!” My father slams a tabloid magazine onto the table between us. “She’s a team doctor, an employee,” he continues, driving his finger into the grainy image of me at the airport from a week ago. The photo shows me cradling Ana’s face in a moment of affection.
What it doesn’t show is the knife being driven into my chest, carving out what remained of the withered muscle behind my ribcage. It doesn’t capture the pain in her eyes or the shock in mine.
It looks romantic. Intimate.
But in reality, it’s the single worst moment of my life, captured in grainy pixels and publicized forever.
I can’t even bring myself to read the headline printed above it. My throat tightens as my eyes glance over the magazine and back up to my father.
“She’s half your age, son! What were you thinking?” he leans back and folds his arms across his chest.
“I wasn’t,” I whisper and drop into a chair, my body too heavy to remain upright any longer. “I can’t think when I’m around her.”
He sighs and pulls out the chair across from me. “How long has this been going on?” he asks, probing me for details that I haven’t shared with anyone. I’ve kept them tucked safely away inside myself because the truth is, I don’t know what to make of them.
“I met her in Cape Town,” I mutter, tapping my fingertips nervously on the table. “The night mom died.” My heart clenches in my chest and my throat goes dry as a pulse of grief I’d been bottling up overtakes me. “I was in South Africa while my mother was withering away on her deathbed.”
“Graham,” my father sighs heavily and puts his hand on my forearm, squeezing gently. “Your mother wanted you to go. She urged you to go. I know you feel guilty about that, but please don’t do that to yourself. She was happy you went.” His voice was quiet but full of emotion. “How is she here now?” he asks, turning the conversation back to Ana.
“A bit of a coincidence if you could believe it,” I chuckle bitterly, remembering the moment I saw her in the conference room. “I spent one night with her in Cape Town,” I explain with a vague wave of my hand. “We didn’t exchange numbers or last names. We didn’t tell the other person where we were from. It was meant to be a distraction. An outlet. Nothing more.”
My father raises an eyebrow but does not comment on my poor choices. I’m a grown-ass man, I can do whatever I please.
“But when she left that morning, I felt like she took a part of me with her. I’ve been reeling ever since. I tried for weeks to find her using her name and occupation, but I didn’t know where to look. Then, one day I walked into the conference room to greet our newest medical doctor, and there she was.” I smirk at the memory and scrub my hand across my jaw. “But everything is different now that we’re in the real world. We can’t be together for more than a few hours before we’re at each other's throats.”
He sighs and leans back in his chair, expression unreadable. “You know I’m not a superstitious man. Your mother was always the one who believed in fate.” His voice trails off and I think he’s not going to say anything else, but suddenly his eyes are boring into mine. “But I can’t help but feel that maybe your mother sent you this girl because she knew you needed someone.”
My vision blurs as I stare down at the grainy image of Anastasia, my gut twisting painfully. I know I need to talk to her, but she hasn't returned my calls or texts. “Maybe she did,” I murmur and rake my fingers through my hair.
“Then I think you need to figure out what you want to worry about fixing more, the team or the situation between the two of you.”
He’s right, of course, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to make that decision.
It’s been four weeks since Ana left me standing in the airport with my bleeding heart in a heap at my feet.
One month.
And it’s been the single hardest month of my life.
The team has done alright on and off the field. The press has died down and accepted the fact that the Tigers are climbing the ranks despite the setbacks at the beginning of the season. Finn’s shoulder is continuing to give him a problem, but I’ve got a video call today with Bodhi that could solve Finn’s problem. I just hope Bodhi’s calling to give me the green light, and not throw another wrench into this team.
A knock on my door pulls my attention back to the present. “It’s open,” I call, leaning back in my chair and sliding my laptop to the side to make room on my desk.
Brooke stalks into my office, her heels clicking against the tile in rapid succession as she drops another tabloid onto my desk. There’s the image of my altercation after our first game, the one of Ana and me at the airport, and a blown-up one of me looking across the sideline to Ana. The headline reads ‘The Callahan Crisis - midlife or something more?’
Brady slips into the room and closes the door. “We have some fires that need to be addressed now.”
I glance at the clock on the wall. “I have a call in fifteen minutes. How big are these fires?” I ask, sliding the tabloid away from me. I still can’t look at Ana’s picture without feeling the painful twist in my heart.
“We’re out a doctor,” Brady says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “I got the call this morning.”
“What happened to Ana?” I ask, panic curling around my spine. Did she quit without talking to me first? Does she really want to get away from me that badly? A million questions race through my mind, making me dizzy.
Brady clears his throat and cuts his eyes to Brooke. “Ana is still here, although her position was temporary. She was filling in until Susan came back from maternity leave.”
