They are all innocent, but the angles at which they are shot make them look almost intimate.
“What the fuck is this, Nate?”
He finally turns, jaw tight, eyes shadowed.“They think it started with Brielle and Sloane.The team’s looking into it.”
“They?”My voice sharpens.“Who the hell isthey?”
“Team management,” he says, quieter.“But I need to know if we’re together.”
I stare at him, disbelief and anger tangling like wires.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?You just told me yourexand the girl youfuckedin a public hallway, who I almost died protecting...are coming after my character, that people are following me, violating my privacy, and you have the nerve to turn this one on me.To make this about you...about us?”
He flinches but doesn’t move.
I throw the iPad onto the couch, “I don't know what we are doing, Nate.I thought I did.But this.This...what the hell is this?This isn't like you, at least not the you I thought I knew.How can you turn this around on me?You were with me when most of these pictures were taken, and let's not get started on how many there seem to be.But my past is my past, just as yours is, and I have been trying hard to look beyond it and see you.You know I am friends with Chase and Adam.That isn't going to change...”
His eyes flash, and he cuts me off.“Is it true you fucked him...Chase”
The question feels like a physical blow.I laugh, a hollow, incredulous sound, and feel a tear slip free before I can stop it.
“Seriously, Nate, how many women did you fuck after Brielle?How many before?But because you are jealous about my relationship with Chase and the fact that he and I may have casually hooked up...you think you can turn this all on me.”
He opens his mouth, but I don’t give him the chance.
“You want to talk about trust?You think I’d hurt you like that?You think I’d lie to you?”
He just stares at me, and I have had enough.I turn to leave, but then I hear him.
“Brielle cheated on me.I didn't expect it, I had no fucking clue, and it blindsided me and then turned into the media shitshow and I...I am falling for you, Tessa, and I don't know if I can handle you doing that to me, too.”
“No,” I cut in, voice breaking.I spin back to face him and take a shaky step forward.“One, Brielle cheating on you says shit things about whosheis as a person...not me...it has nothing to do with me.Two, don't you dare try to throw in that you are falling for me right now, Nate, not after this shit you just pulled.Three, I am an open book, you should know exactly who I am by now, and if you don't, then don't you fucking dare say you are falling for me because you can't be falling for who I am as a person, and the physical parts of me are only skin deep, you can't fall in love with that.I get that this is part of your world, but you just told me I am being trashed publicly, and people are digging into my past, because of you andyourpast...and then make this about you and twist it on me.Because if this is whoyouare, then I don't know you either, and we are done here.”
He takes a step forward, and I step back.
“If you were falling forme, Nate, you’dknowme.You’d know what kind of person I am.You’d trust that.”
The silence stretches until it hurts.
Finally, I whisper, “I can’t do this.”
I turn toward the door, every step feeling like a fracture.
“Please stay.”
It’s so soft I almost miss it.Then louder...
“Fuck.I’m sorry, Tessa.I got stuck in my head, and I’m terrified about how I feel about you, about all of it.I screwed this up.Please… stay.Let me explain.You can still hate me after, but just...don’t walk away yet.”
Something in his voice makes me stop.When I look back, there’s a single tear tracking down his cheek.He looks wrecked.Small, almost.Like a boy who’s just realized he broke something he can’t fix.
He keeps going, words tumbling now.“We’ll order food.We’ll talk.I will try to explain it all, so you see.Please don't leave me.I know this was screwed up, and it says more about me and my past than it does you.I should know.Fuck Tessa, I do know you.I promise I do.I just...don’t let this be how we end.This can't be it.I know there's more to us than this fuck up.”
And against my better judgment, against every self-preservation instinct I have, I walk back to him.
Dinner arrives but goes mostly untouched.Nate tells me about the meeting, the pressure from management, the threats about losing his captaincy if they don’t make the playoffs this season, and the way the Brielle scandal still hangs over everything he does.
He talks until his voice cracks, and I finally see it: The fear.The weight.The exhaustion.
