Dating the Defensive Back (The Nash Brothers Book 1)

Nash’s Nibbles

One more game.

One more day.

One more night.

And then, finally…I can reveal the secret I’ve been working on for months.

It’s what kept me away, though I’d never admit it to her. But in order for everything to be in place, I had to be here as much—if not more—than I was at the Complex for practice.

My days have been long as I went from one place to another every single day, and I still managed to fit in time to let her know she was my top priority.

I wouldn’t have done all this if she wasn’t.

I hope she can see she made the right decision in taking me back, and it pulses something else in me.

Another idea to prove to her that she is my future—as if the secret project wasn’t enough to prove that.

I see her grab her seat with Beckett beside her. She gave the other two tickets I scored to Sandra and Thomas, and all four of them are wearing Nash twenty-four jerseys.

My heart is beating wildly as I run over to see my girl before the game.

“Nice jersey,” I say.

She leans over the guardrail, grabs my face between her palms, and plants a kiss on my mouth.

I grab her and pull her down onto the field, and she squeals as I press my lips to hers again. “I love you,” I say as I lean my forehead to hers.

“I love you, too. Now go win this game, and we’ll celebrate later.”

I grin at her and help her back up to her seat, and I fist bump her brother, who’s grinning at me. Holy shit. I just kissed Ava in front of Beckett…and it didn’t feel weird.

What a fucking day.

We roll through the first half of the game against the Jags with two tuddies—or touchdowns—and we hold the Jags to only a field goal. I’m having one of the best games of my professional career with one interception and one forced fumble among other achievements. I’m blocking the hell out of wide receiver James Christian, and I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more freedom playing this game before.

Asher grabs a tuddy late in the fourth, so it’s all about the Nash brothers this game. The quarterback decides he can’t get it to Christian with me in the game, so he starts throwing to the other side of the field.

All in all, it’s a perfect day that started with my woman in my arms and a kiss before the game and ends with a kiss after the game and my woman in my arms again.

She gets up early for work on Monday morning, and I have the day off since we won yesterday.

Lincoln was giving me the day off regardless, but it feels even better to have earned it.

Beck comes with me to the Strip to check on things, and everything is in place.

It’s perfect.

All our hard work has really paid off, and I’m so excited for her to get here.

I finger the box in my pocket a little nervously.

I’m ready to go, and it’s even sweeter that we got back together two nights ago. I didn’t want this to be the driving factor in what helped her decide she wanted to be with me, but the whole idea behind doing it was to show her how much I believe in her, in us, in our future together.

I still don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know if I want to play another year, or move onto coaching, or something else. But I do know that I want to spend nights here watching her do her thing, and I can see little kids—our kids—in a gated corner where they can safely play. I see long hours and probably frustrations as we work together, but I also see all the things I feel most when I’m with her—laughter and brightness and happiness.

Everyone is here. I can’t believe we actually made this work.

“It’s time,” Beck says to me.

That means she’s on her way.

She thinks she’s coming here for lunch. She has no idea what’s really about to go down.

I head out front so I can intercept her as soon as she arrives, and I spot her walking down the sidewalk.

I should be nervous. I have no idea how she’s going to react to this. But I don’t feel nervous, and maybe it’s because I finally got something right. Maybe I don’t fuck everything up. Maybe it just took the power of finding my other half to do things right for a change.

My heart swells as I take in every detail. Her blonde hair swings gently around her shoulders, and she’s wearing sunglasses and a dress with flowers on it today. It’s early November in Vegas, and the weather is perfect—sunshine and seventy with a light breeze.

A perfect day for my perfect girl.

She smiles when she sees me, and she picks up the pace, walking quickly through a throng of people to get to me. When she does, she practically crashes into my arms. I grunt at the force but smile as my eyes move down to her face. I drop my lips to hers.

“What is this place?” she asks when she sees where we’re standing.

“It’s new. It’s not quite open to the public yet, but I got us in to give it a try. You ready?”

She nods, and I go in first, holding the door open for her.

“Surprise!” the huge group of people gathered yell, and her eyes are drawn to the bright pink neon sign perched behind the counter that will eventually be the cashier stand: Cookie’s Cookies.

Her jaw drops as she spins around to face me, but I’m already down on the floor. She gasps as she sees me kneeling.

“Ava Cookie Maxwell, I love you. I love your cookies and your cakes. I love your talent. I love your drive and your ambition. I love your kind heart and your sweet soul. I want to spend forever with you right here, whether we call it Sinful or Cookie’s Cookies or Ava’s Haven or Nash’s Nibbles. This place is yours now, but it’s our future, the place where I envision long days and late nights filled with laughter and recipes and experiments and fun.”

My big, planned speech that I rehearsed hundreds of times seems to have flown out the window at the pressure of having her entire family looking at me.

“But it’s not just this new bakery I want you to have today. I’m also handing over my heart. You’ve owned it since the day we reconnected at the Gridiron. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, whether it’s here at this bakery or kissing you from the sidelines. This place can be our first baby, and if and when the time is right for us, we’ll have more. All I know is I want to be with you, and I want to give you everything you deserve.”

The room falls silent. Deafeningly silent.

I pull the box out of my pocket, and she gasps as I flip open the lid.

The diamond glints in the light, and her hands fly to her mouth.

“Ava Louise Maxwell, will you marry me?”

“Oh my God! Yes! Yes, I will marry you!”

I laugh as I yank the ring out of the box, shove it onto her finger, and rise to a stand so I can pull her into my arms and kiss her properly.

It takes a solid beat before I realize people are clapping and cheering. I think it’s Beckett’s loud whistle that brings me back from the cloud where I’m floating back down to solid ground.

I pull apart from her lips. There will be plenty of time for that sort of celebration later, but I have a lot of details to share with her about this place, and her entire family is here ready to celebrate with her.

The first person who comes rushing over for a hug once we pull apart is Kelly.

“Oh my God!” Ava squeals. “I can’t believe you’re really here!”

“I can’t believe you’re really engaged!” she squeals back. “Congratulations!”

Ava reaches down and rubs Kelly’s growing stomach. “You look so good!”

Sandra moves in for the next hug while Beckett claps me on the back.

“Holy shit, man. You actually did it. Congrats.”

I chuckle as I give my future brother-in-law a hug. “Thanks, man. For everything. For being here. For not getting mad that I’m banging your little sister.”

“Dude. Our friendship doesn’t have to change, but if you ever say that again, it will.”

I laugh. Oliver and Alexander are here, too, and it’s been a full decade since I’ve seen either of them. Beckett actually did bring lunch, so after the excitement starts to die down, we sit at the tables that were left behind from the last restaurant that moved out a little over a month ago.

I’m sitting beside Ava, and as she digs into a sandwich, she asks, “So how soon until we can have this place up and running?”

I laugh. “I have a business contact who can help us with a lot of the lifting, and I thought long and hard about whether I should finalize the details or not, and ultimately I knew you’d want it to have your own touch. It’s your dream, so I just had the place painted white and cleaned out so you could build your dream from scratch. But I also want you to know that you’re not doing this alone. I’ll be right here every step of the way, and together we’ll make your vision a reality.”

She leans over and presses a kiss to my lips, and when she pulls back, she bumps my shoulder with hers. “The neon sign is a perfect touch. I think I might have to go with that name after all.”

“I’m kind of partial to Nash’s Nibbles,” I admit.

She laughs, and it’s that sweet, musical sound that I can’t wait to hear for the rest of my life.