The Wall of Winnipeg and Me - Mariana Zapata Page 0,79

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