Dating the Defensive Back (The Nash Brothers Book 1)

The Delusional Phase

“Grayson, wait!” I yell after him. I wipe my hands on the apron tied around my waist as I run out to the parking lot.

Poppy will probably yell at me, but I don’t care.

This matters.

He stops and turns around to face me. “Your brother told me to check in on you. I don’t think this is what he meant.” He’s hissing at me, clearly disappointed that I didn’t fess up to who I was.

“You know what we shared was special, Gray. You know it was. You wouldn’t have given me the time of day if I would’ve told you who I was.” While his voice is a hiss, mine is a plea.

“You don’t know that. And now I guess we’ll never know.” He turns to get into his truck.

“Please give me another chance. Please.”

“You’re Beckett’s little sister,” he says. He shakes his head. “I can’t.” He gets into his car and peels out of the parking lot, cutting his way into traffic without so much as another look back at me.

I stand in the parking lot staring after him until he turns at the next block and drives out of sight, and then I close my eyes as a heavy weight seems to push down on my chest, as if it’s somehow cracking in half.

It’s ridiculous. I can’t be heartbroken over one night. I’m just the naïve girl who lost her virginity who’s standing in a parking lot up in her feels.

But it felt like more, and I know he felt it, too.

I was so excited for tonight, and now…

I blow out a breath as I force myself to turn around and head back inside.

I shouldn’t be out here with my Cravings apron crying in the parking lot, anyway, so I run into the employee bathroom, lock myself inside, and allow the tears to flow down my cheeks.

I hear a knock at the door, which means either someone wants to get in here or someone is checking on me.

“Occupied!” I yell through my tears.

It’s Cora’s voice that answers back. “I saw you come running in here, babe. You okay?”

I draw in a shaky breath and open the door.

“What happened?” she asks, locking the door behind her.

I never told her my brother knows Grayson. I never told her I slept with Grayson, either.

“It’s complicated,” I finally say.

“Did he hurt you?” she asks softly.

I shake my head. “This was my fault.”

“What was?”

I know better than to blab all this to her when I’m hurting, but that’s sort of the whole problem. I’m hurting.

Even so, I’m still not dumb enough to tell her everything. Still, I have to say something.

“Grayson and my brother go way back. I had a crush on him when I was younger, and I guess it’s just never going to happen.” I sigh after I admit a version of the truth.

Somehow the truth hurts far, far worse than breaking up with Colin did. That only tells me that I was more invested in Grayson than I ever was in Colin—even though we only shared one night instead of five years.

How could one night have meant so much to me?

And how can I feel so shattered now that he walked out?

“Oh no, Ava. I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?” she asks.

I shake my head a little, not really sure there’s anything she can do short of calling up Grayson and getting him back here to give me a second chance.

He was pretty clear that wasn’t an option.

“Just…don’t say anything to anyone about this, okay?”

She nods, and she pulls me in for a hug. “Now get your ass back to work before Poppy starts asking questions,” she warns.

I blink a few times as I realize she’s right. I just took nearly a thirty-minute unplanned break on one of our busy days.

I draw in another shaky breath then walk out of the bathroom with her, my head held high. I focus on my tasks so I don’t fall apart at work. I bake my famous cookies ahead of our rush tomorrow, but all I can think about as I portion out the dough onto the cookie sheets is how Grayson took a cookie from me that he never ate.

All I can think about is the fact that he called me Cookie.

All I can think about is him—not the man I broke up with a week ago today.

All I can think about is finishing my task list for the day so I can go home and cry myself to sleep.

But when I get home, I spot a car out front.

I very nearly turn the car around to check into a hotel somewhere just so I don’t have to face whoever drove that car here.

Apparently Colin is firmly planted in the trying to make this work phase crossed with the delusional phase, and that’s one combinational phase I’m just not prepared to handle tonight.

I walk in, and it feels like total déjà vu of last weekend. Kelly is making big eyes at me in the kitchen, and Colin stands a few yards away in the family room just waiting for me to get home.

I’m glad he didn’t come to the bakery. At least I have the kitchen there as my safe space.

“Colin, I’m not in the mood tonight,” I say quietly, giving exactly zero fucks as to putting on any sort of pretense whatsoever.

“I traveled halfway across the country to see you. The least you can do is let me take you to dinner,” he complains.

I blow out a heavy breath. “I had a rough day at work, and I just want to slip into a bubble bath, eat some pizza, and call it an early night. I don’t have the energy to feed your delusions.”

His brows dip together. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” I pucker my lips at him. “If you got a hotel, you should go to it. You know weekends are the busiest time for the bakery.”

Kelly slips quietly out of the room as we argue, and I really could’ve used her for moral support. And I will. She’ll be there when I get him to leave, and I can tell her all about Grayson coming by and shattering my heart when breaking up with the man standing in front of me didn’t so much as break a sliver off.

He clears his throat. “But I work all week. When are we ever supposed to see each other to make this work?”

“That’s sort of the point of what I’m saying,” I say dryly. I turn to walk out of the room to my bedroom, but before I stop, I turn back toward him. “Thank you for coming. Thank you for trying to work on this. I just don’t have it in me tonight.”

With those words, I head down the hall to my bedroom.