“I’ll handle it.”
“I am having doubts about that,” Avery snaps. “Between this and that drunken episode earlier in the season where you brawled with your brother I?—”
“Surprise, I’m not perfect!” Nash yells, and I watch both his parents freeze. Nash doesn’t yell in front of them, I’m guessing. He hops off the stool. “I love you both. I am sorry you are disappointed in me, but maybe you should trust me. Trust that I had a very good reason to do what I did.”
“Did he…?” Stephanie swallows and turns her eyes to me. They’re a pale blue, filled with concern. “Did Bryce say something inappropriate to you? Do something inappropriate?”
I blink and my heart stutters harder. I open my mouth, which is drier than a desert, so I’m not surprised no words come out.
“Honey,” Stephanie whispers, reaching across the couch to place a hand over mine. “You were the one with Bryce when Nash freaked out. And my son is not someone who reacts without reason. He’s never been that guy.”
I blink back tears. Nash clears his throat. “I’d appreciate it if you two went back to your hotel now.”
“What?” Avery says, the shock all over his face.
“It’s been a long night. My leg is killing me. I need pain killers and a hot tub and a lot of sleep,” Nash says and waves towards the door. “I love you both. I’m sorry you’re disappointed. I will call you if I need you, but right now I do not.”
It’s literally physically painful to watch Avery’s face turn from confusion to pain. Stephanie squeezes my hand once before pulling hers away as she stands. “Avery, let’s go.”
“No. I can’t,” Avery argues but there is no fight in his voice. He locks eyes with his wife, runs a hand through his hair again, and sighs.
Without a word, he walks to the front door, opens it, and leaves. Stephanie glances back and gives us both a small sad smile. "He loves you, Nash. We both do. We are not your enemy. Or yours, Tenley."
When the door closes behind her, the silence is the loft feels defeating. Like I’ve made such a mess of Nash’s life, of his career and his relationship with his parents that I will never be able to fix it. And that’s the only thing I want to do now. “I’m so sorry.”
He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, shaking his head. “Don’t be. You didn’t tell me, I figured it out. You also didn’t make me respond the way I did. That was all on me, and you know what? I don’t regret it.”
He walks towards the stairs of the loft, pausing only to reach for my hand and pull me with him. When we get upstairs to his bedroom he drops his suit jacket on the chair in the corner and starts unbuttoning his shirt. He watches me as he does it. I don't know why. I'm not doing anything. I'm literally just standing at the foot of his bed staring. I feel entirely off my game. Like I'm not me anymore and I don't know who I am. It's wildly disconcerting, to say the least. But I don't… I don't hate it. I feel like I'm finding a new me… someone I didn't know it was possible for me to be.
“Why am I the only one undressing?” he finally asks.
“Because… I think we need to talk.”
“We can talk and hot tub at the same time,” Nash replies and gives me a wink. “We can hot tub and do lots of things at the same time.”
"Jokes? This feels like the right time to make jokes?" I counter, staring at him in disbelief and trying very hard not to let my brain get sidetracked by his now-exposed chest and all those ripples of abs.
“Nope?” Nash replies but it’s a question. He starts removing his pants but stops after getting his belt and button undone. He walks over to stand behind me and slowly starts to unzip my dress. “I have never done anything like this before. I’m sorry if it was the wrong reaction. If this makes it all worse for you, I’m truly, totally sorry. But I just saw red when my brain put it all together. I couldn’t not make him pay, somehow, for what he did.”
“It didn’t make things worse for me,” I admit as he slides my zipper to the bottom and his hands deftly slip my straps down my shoulders. I can’t wear a bra with this dress so now I’m naked from the top up as the dress clings precariously to my hips. I slowly turn to face him. “It actually made things better. Someone stood up for me. Someone believed me and took a stand.”
He caresses my cheek with his hand. “Everyone would stand up for you and believe you. Every single member of your family. If you told them.”
“Probably. But it would also gut them.”
“Not as much as you suffering through this, for years, alone,” Nash replies and when I close my eyes to handle the wave of guilt that overcomes me, he leans forward and kisses my forehead, his hands circling my waist.
We hug bare chest to bare chest and I sigh. “I can’t tell them now.”
“You don’t have to.”
I tilt my head to look up at him. “If I don’t, you’ll look like a crazy person and your coach will likely bench you, maybe indefinitely. I can’t do that to you.”
“I did it to myself.”
He looks like he means that but I don’t feel it. I feel totally and utterly responsible and I know in my heart I have to stand up for him the way he did for me. I know that if I don’t, I will hate myself and something in me would break if I caused him to miss the rest of this playoff run. Nash lives for hockey and I’m slowly, reluctantly, coming to realize I live for Nash. I mean not entirely, but… his happiness matters to me as much as my own. And clearly, he’d risk everything for me, which can only mean these unexpected feelings are reciprocal.
Holy hell, what have we done to each other?
