Dating the Defensive Back (The Nash Brothers Book 1)

Everything is Easier When You’re Drunk

Everything is easier when you’re drunk. Except actually dialing the phone.

I have to be at work in six hours, I’ve had two too many vodka drinks, and I’m trying to pull up Colin’s number. It’s not going well.

Kelly is next to me, giggling as she crunches on a Dorito. Cool Ranch, by the way.

I stab at my phone, and then I close one eye and squint with the other in order to focus. I pull up my favorites and click on Colin’s name, and then I flash my phone at Kelly.

“Ava?”

Kelly points at the phone. “He answered,” she whispers.

“Are you with Kelly?” he grumbles, and oops, I definitely woke him up.

“Of course I’m with Kelly,” I say, and I sound exasperated even to myself.

“Why are you calling me so late?”

Honestly because I’m finally drunk enough to admit the truth. But also…time zones. I forgot about time zones. I’m in Vegas, where it’s only midnight. He’s in Chicago where it’s…two hours later than that.

“Because I have to say this while I have the courage,” I slur.

“Say what?” he asks, confused.

“That I’m tired of coming in second to your cob,” I blurt.

Shit.

I meant to say job, and I started to say career, and somehow they gelled into one word, and this isn’t quite the breakup call I meant to make.

“My cob? What are you talking about?”

“I deserve some attention, Colin,” I say, plowing forward despite the blunder. “I deserve someone who wants to be with me more than they want to be at the worfice.”

“The worfice?”

Dammit. I did it again. Work plus the office…ugh.

“The office,” I say, emphasizing the start of the word.

Kelly starts to giggle, but she’s trying to hold it in so Colin doesn’t hear, and her whole face is turning bright red as she silently quakes with laughter.

I force myself not to laugh as I turn away from her.

Maybe everything is not easier when I’m drunk.

“Do you want to talk in the morning when you’re sober?” he suggests.

“No, Colin. I don’t want to talk in the morning when I’m sober.” I mimic his voice, and this conversation is definitely going off the rails. “I’m breaking up with you.”

Silence meets me on the other side as I manage not to fumble any of those words.

“Was that clear enough for you?” I ask.

“Let’s talk in the morning,” he repeats.

“No, Colin. You’re in Chicago. I’m in Vegas. We want different things out of life.”

“So you’re throwing away five amazing years because you drank too much?” he asks. “Let’s see if you feel the same way tomorrow.”

“I’ve felt this way a long time. Yesterday, the day before. The month before. Hell, maybe even for an entire year. We were happy when we lived in the same place, and things were good, and they’re just…not anymore. So I’m done, and you’re free to move on and find a nice lady to settle down with who wants to be in Chicago, but I for one want nothing to do with snowy winters and windy cities even if they turn the river green for St. Patty’s Day.” I’m rambling, and I need to stop rambling, but it’s vodka-fueled rambling so there’s a real fat chance it’ll stop anytime soon.

He sighs. “You’ve really felt this way for that long?”

“I really have,” I confirm.

Kelly isn’t laughing anymore. Instead, she’s looking at me with wide eyes as she watches me break up with someone else.

“Drunk or not, Colin, this isn’t working for me anymore, and I think it’s best if we call it quits.” My voice is firm. Resolute, even. I think. It’s possible I’m delusional right now, too.

“Okay, then. I guess…I guess I’ll talk to you soon.”

“I guess so, Colin. Bye.” I hang up, not sure what soon means or when we’ll actually talk again.

And as I end the call and hold my phone in my palm, I feel…free.

For the first time in five years, I feel free.

All the things I’ve put on hold, all the sacrifices I’ve made…I can do what I want now.

When I wake up in the morning, I might be sad. I might feel like I just lost my best friend. But the truth is that we were over a long time ago, and he hasn’t been a very good friend to me since he moved to Chicago. We moved to a spot of complacency, and I refuse to live there anymore. I deserve better.

“You okay?” Kelly asks me as I stare at my phone.

I set it down beside me, and I glance up at my friend. I nod, my brows crinkling together. “Yeah. Oddly, I feel fine. I feel like I should be sad or upset, but I’m not. Instead, I feel like…like…” I slap a hand over my mouth. I can’t seem to finish that sentence, but I feel like I’m going to throw up.

I rush to the bathroom. As I expel the vodka from my system, I know the cause is the amount of alcohol I drank, not the breakup.

It’s been years since I drank enough to get sick, but here we are. I don’t usually drink this much, but tonight, I just wanted to let loose with my best friend. And getting it out now will help me feel better in the morning.

My alarm wakes me bright and early at five so I can get to the bakery by six. I take an extra steamy shower, throw down a few ibuprofen, drink two glasses of water, toss my hair up into a bun, and head to work.

The bakery has been getting a ton of attention lately because it was recently featured on a podcast hosted by the head coach of the Vegas Aces, Lincoln Nash—the same Lincoln Nash who happens to be brothers with the newest acquisition to the team. His wife-slash-podcast co-host talked about our kitchen sink cookies on the podcast in the same episode where he proposed to her, and business shot through the roof.

Those cookies happen to be my very own recipe.

My very own secret recipe.

They didn’t know there’s a small connection from Lincoln to me when they talked about the bakery where I work and my cookies. They don’t even know they’re my cookies. Hell, Lincoln probably doesn’t even remember me.

But they’re mine. I call them my kitchen sink cookies since I put in everything but the kitchen sink: chocolate chips, of course, and toffee. Pretzels and potato chips for a salty bite, butterscotch and peanut butter, malt balls and caramel sauce. I add in a little sea salt, some pecans, and my super-secret special ingredient.

I’ve never told anyone my super-secret special ingredient—not even Poppy, the owner of Cravings and my boss.

But it’s what makes the cookies melt in your mouth.

How do I get around it so nobody for sure knows my secret? Simple. I prep them at home.

They’re our bestselling item, and we’re also known for our beautiful cakes and our adorably decorated sugar cookies. And this morning is busy. We have an order for two hundred cookies for a gender reveal party—so a hundred boy and a hundred girl-themed cookies.

Cora, my colleague, and I baked the cookies two days ago, flooded the icing yesterday, and today we need to finish up the decorating by noon so they’re dry by the time they’re picked up tomorrow morning. This afternoon I need to work on ten dozen kitchen sink cookies ahead of the weekend, and I also have to decorate a birthday cake. This business is no joke, but I’m doing what I love.

Except this morning…I’m moving slower than usual.

“You okay?” Cora asks when I pick up my fifth cookie to decorate, a heavy sigh blowing out of me as Poppy walks by us.

“Yeah. I broke up with Colin last night,” I admit over the whirl of the mixer Dom is operating on the other side of the kitchen.

“You what?” Poppy and Cora squawk at the same time.

“Haven’t you been together for, like, years?” Cora asks.

I nod. “Five of them.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Poppy laments. “Take the rest of the day off.”

“Why is she getting the day off?” Dom asks.

“I broke up with Colin, and I’m not taking the day off. We have cookies to decorate, and honestly…I’m not really all that sad about it. It was time,” I admit.

“What did he say?” Cora asks.

I press my lips together. “I may have had a few drinks before I made the call in the middle of the night, and he may have thought I was drunk dialing him since I woke him up because of time zones. But then I repeated several times that it’s over, so I think he got the message.”

Cora laughs. “Only you, Ava. I swear.”

I shrug and set another finished cookie down. “My slow speed and heavy sighs today are more about the hangover than the breakup.”

“Really?” Cora asks. “You’re not even sad?”

I shrug. “Not really. I sort of just feel free. And that tells me it’s the right thing for me.”

“Let’s take this girl out tonight!” Dom suggests.

Cora nods enthusiastically. “Yes! I heard the new players who were traded to the Aces are coming into town for a press conference, and a couple friends and I are going to that bar across the street from the practice facility so we can try to snag a baller. Anyone want to go?”

Wait…

What?

Grayson Nash might be in town tonight? And there’s a bar where he might go? And I’m single for the first time in five years?

Sign me all the way up. I’ll be first in line.

I tamper down my enthusiasm—or maybe it’s the hangover talking. “I’m in,” I say. “And Kelly will come, too.”

And then I speed my way through to the end of the day so I can get home and get ready to potentially see the boy I had the biggest crush ever on a decade ago.