Dating the Defensive Back (The Nash Brothers Book 1)

What is with Today

I’m not sure what to expect as I turn onto the street my house is on, and my chest tightens when I see the little red Versa in the driveway.

My mother’s words to me have not left my mind since she said them.

I promised her I’d think about it, and I have.

It’s all I’ve thought about.

My mother wanted me to weigh whether being angry over the secrets was worth losing her, and it struck me that she was right.

Both my mother and Ava.

Ava said she knew me better than I knew myself. She said I was running scared.

She was abso-fucking-lutely right about that.

I did run scared. I told her it was over to save myself the pain of it all coming to an end later anyway.

But my mom was right, too, and she made me see that I was giving up the good times because I’m scared of the bad.

I can’t live life scared.

Ava really didn’t keep a secret from me. It’s not like she was knocked up, but seeing those tests on her counter pulsed a fear in me I didn’t quite understand at the time.

I’m not ready to be a father, and I still don’t know if I even want that in my future.

I thought we were protected. I thought we were safe. And that’s the root of my issue. As it turns out, my issue wasn’t with her or even that box at all—it was my own fears that I was going to fuck this all up, and I made it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I did fuck it up.

I realized it two days ago, but by that point, I figured I should just wait to see her in person to admit the truth.

And now here we are. I’m moments away from walking through the door and making my big confession so I can pave the way to winning her back.

Only…that’s not exactly what happens.

When I walk into the house from the garage, I hear some grunting. When I turn the corner, I find her.

She’s as gorgeous as ever, and my heart palpitates wildly in my chest at the sight of her.

God, I love her.

How did I think I could walk away? What the fuck is wrong with me?

She’s struggling with one of her suitcases as she yanks it down the stairs, and I walk up to take the suitcase from her.

“Oh!” she gasps when she sees me. Her hand flies to her chest. “You scared me.”

“Sorry,” I murmur, and even from here I can smell that fresh-baked cookie scent that somehow now only serves to make me horny as fuck.

I keep it in my pants.

For now.

We have to talk first.

I have to tell her how sorry I am for what I did.

I get her suitcase down the stairs, and I pause with the handle still in my hand. She seems to be waiting for me to keep moving it along, maybe even out to her car, but I don’t want to do that. I want her to stay right here.

“I’m sorry. I had planned to be out by the time you got home. You’re earlier than I thought you’d be.”

I rushed home so I could see you.

I let the words die on my tongue. “You don’t have to leave.”

She purses her lips. “Well, it doesn’t make much sense for me to stay when you made it clear that things are over.”

“What if they aren’t?” I ask.

“Wha…um. What?”

“What if things between us aren’t over?” I ask.

She sighs. “Can you, like…be clearer?”

“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t want things to be over. I fucked up, Ava, just like we both knew I would, and I’m sorry. I want to try this with you. I want to be with you. I love you.”

She’s quiet as she touches a hand to her forehead for a beat.

I wait with bated breath for her to leap into my arms.

“God…what is with today?” she wonders quietly, and I can’t help but wonder what she means by that.

I don’t get a chance to ask because she plows forward. “I love you, too, Grayson, and once upon a time, I thought that was enough. You told me it wasn’t. So…I’m sorry, but no.”

She twists her lips as her words pack a punch to my gut.

“I never thought I’d be the one to say it,” she continues, “but I’ve realized over the last two weeks that I need to be with someone who believes in us—who believes in me. I need to be with someone who won’t run at the first sign of trouble. I deserve that. I deserve someone who might go away for two weeks but who can’t possibly not call me every single one of those days. I deserve someone who doesn’t leave me like everyone else leaves me, especially not when you knew that was my biggest fear and you bailed on me anyway. You showed me exactly who you are, and I wish who you are could line up with what I want, what I deserve, but it just…doesn’t.” She presses her lips together, and then she reaches out and squeezes my arm.

She squeezes my fucking arm when I’m expecting her to fall into them at my confession.

I thought this would be so easy.

Clearly…I was wrong.

She’s not the girl who’s going to forgive me with one apology.

She needs to see that I’m all the things she deserves—that I believe in her. I believe in us. I believe in our future together, and I won’t ever leave her again.

I need her to see that this was just my fear that I needed to deal with, but it was knowing she’d be there on the other side of it that eventually showed me how to get the fuck over it. She needs to know I can’t and won’t go a single goddamn day without hearing her voice.

And maybe most of all, I need to show her that one simple question from my mother turned me into someone else.

I’m not the same guy who left two weeks ago for camp.

That guy would have heard her rejection and walked away. That guy would have believed it wasn’t worth fighting for.

I’m better than him. I’m the guy who’s going to fight to win her back…whatever it takes.

And I know just where to start.

She leaves, and I put my plan together. I make a few calls and get some things lined up.

I bide my time and wait for the next morning when I’m sure she’ll be at the bakery.

It’s my one day off before the local leg of training camp begins, and instead of taking the day to rest and relax as was recommended by our coaches, I’m on a mission.

I still have the spare key for her house, so I grab a few empty boxes and toss them in the bed of my truck before I jump in and head over. The house is quiet. She’s the only one who lives here now, anyway, and she’s at work.

I grab a couple of the boxes out of my trunk and head toward her closet. I have absolutely no idea what this shit might be worth, but I looked up a local consultant who was happy to take a look at the inventory and let me know what it’s worth in exchange for a pair of tickets to an upcoming game.

Am I using my connections to try to get what I want? Fuck yeah, I am. What’s the point of having connections if you don’t use them?

I start emptying the shelves of the Radiance skincare products. There are hundreds of white boxes with black writing on them: cleansers, toners, serums, scrubs, soaps, moisturizers, haircare, suncare, retinol, makeup. At the beginning, I look at every single label. By the end, I’m tossing shit into the boxes, hoping that I brought enough empties with me to get all this shit out of here.

I navigate over toward the coffee shop where I agreed to meet this consultant. It’s obvious which one is her since she has a giant sticker in the back window of her car that lets the world know she is a Radiance Independent Consultant—along with her social media handle to make it easy to find her.

She must really be into this shit. Ava clearly is not.

I get out of the truck. She must recognize me because she gets out of her car at the same time.

“Melanie? I ask.

“So nice to meet you,” she says. “Let’s take a look at what you have.”

I open the boxes for her and show her all the stuff Ava has stored in her closet for who knows how long.

“Wow,” Melanie breathes. “This is…well, it’s a jackpot. It’s a tier five VIP box.”

It’s a little incredible she can look through a few boxes and know exactly what she’s looking at. “What does that mean?”

“All the consultants start out at fifteen percent commission, but each tier gets you a better rate. By the time you’re at the tier five box, consultants keep thirty percent commission.”

“What are you?” I ask.

“Tier five. It’s the max.”

“So…do you want all this shit?”

She narrows her eyes at me like calling it shit is an insult.

“How did you find all this? Is it…” She glances around. “Is it an underground, back-alley kind of thing?”

I can’t help but laugh at that. Do people really do that? “No,” I say as I hand her an envelope with two tickets in it to our home opener. “It’s my girlfriend’s. I’m just trying to help her offload it.”

She nods and twists her lips as she eyes the boxes. She’s right there. I can tell. It might just take a little, tiny nudge.

“Do you want it?” I ask.

She sighs. “It’s a lot of money. I’m not sure…”

“What did my girlfriend pay for it?” I ask. I’m hoping she tells me the truth, but it’s easy enough to look it up now that I know what it is.

“Ten thousand.”

Whoa.

She paid ten thousand dollars for this shit? What the fuck was she thinking?

I sigh. “You can have it all for five thousand.” I’ll pay the difference. I just want her to have her money back.

“Oh, wow. I…I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll get this shit out of my truck.”

She laughs. “Okay.” She nods as she says the word. “Yes. Let’s do it.”

I suck in a deep breath. Mission fucking accomplished.

I just hope it’s enough for her to see that I’m making the types of sacrifices that she deserves.