Dating the Defensive Back (The Nash Brothers Book 1)

He’s Grayman

Another Saturday, another huge line out the door. It’s busier than usual, and my guess is because it’s spring break around the country, and for some reason people think it’s a good idea to bring their families to Vegas for spring break.

Vegas is not for the weak. Or for kids.

I’m glad Poppy’s bakery is doing so well, but I have to admit, sometimes I wish I’d saved my kitchen sink cookie recipe for my own place since they’re our most ordered bakery item. But at least Beckett talked me into writing up a contract before I baked my first batch for Poppy.

Beckett’s a good brother like that—always taking care of me. Always looking out for me. Always protecting me. Even to this damn day when he told Grayson to check up on me.

But he’s also a good lawyer, and I suppose I can’t get mad that he’d send Grayson to check on me and in the same breath be thankful that he’s taking care of me in other ways.

I grit my teeth as I decorate a birthday cake that’s scheduled for pickup before we close tonight. It’s still early, and I probably need to mix up another batch of cookies, but I want to finish this first.

“Ava, you’ve got a visitor,” Cora says, and she raises her brows pointedly.

My chest tightens. “Is it Grayson?”

She presses her lips together and shakes her head.

Dammit.

Wishful thinking, I guess.

I clear my throat and head out into the bakery, and I see Colin standing on the other side of the counter. I duck under it and storm through the bakery toward the door. I don’t want to talk to him in front of our customers, so I pull him out front and around the side of the building.

“What are you doing here?” I spit at him.

“I came to make this work.” He stands firm on that.

“Making it work isn’t interrupting my busiest day of the week with this nonsense when I’ve already told you to just. Go. Home.” I enunciate each word like it’s its own sentence at the end.

He’s getting angry, an emotion he’s never really directed at me before. In fact, he’s maybe overly even-keeled most of the time. I rarely see any sort of fight out of him at all, which makes perfect sense in his position as a law firm associate who mostly does research and will likely never see the light of a courtroom.

“My flight isn’t until tomorrow, and I don’t get why you’re being so unreasonable about all this. Why don’t you even want to try?”

“I’m not being unreasonable!” I yell at him.

He points at me. “That right there. Unreasonable. You’re yelling at me in a parking lot!”

I point back at him. Why’s he pointing at me? What the hell even is that? “Well now you’re yelling, too!”

Just as I say the words, a silver truck skids to a stop on the street in front of us, blocking the driveway.

And as the man driving the truck jumps down from the driver’s side and rushes over toward me, he looks like a damn superhero.

Maybe because he is a superhero.

He’s not Batman. He’s not Superman. He’s…Grayman?

I’ll come up with something later.

“What’s going on here?” Grayson asks, stopping when he’s standing beside me, and it feels like I have someone on my side facing off against the ex who can’t seem to take a hint.

And then he slips his arm around my shoulders.

He draws me into his side.

Grayson Nash draws me into his side.

The man who’s mad at me for lying to him is here for me.

I’m not quite sure if this is reality or if I’m so exhausted from the morning rush that I’m hallucinating.

“Holy shit. You’re Grayson Nash,” Colin murmurs, immediately recognizing him. I may have left out the little detail that I knew Grayson in a former life. I wasn’t exactly keen on chatting about my former crushes with my current boyfriend, so Grayson never really entered the conversation.

“This is the ex I told you about,” I say quietly to Grayson.

“Oh.” He tightens his arm around my shoulder as if the very thought that I was with the man standing across from us physically pains him.

He doesn’t know that he’s the sole owner of my V-card.

And the way he’s holding onto me so possessively should be a huge red flag, but it isn’t. Instead, it’s barbaric and overly macho and really, really sexy.

“Well I’m here now, so you can run along,” he says.

I nearly die on the very spot where I stand as the words drop from his lips.

“Excuse me?” Colin asks.

“She’s mine,” Grayson says, and he puffs his chest out a little. It’s a confident move, and Colin is exactly zero match for the athlete currently leaning down to press his lips to my temple.

Colin grabs his phone out of his pocket and snaps a photo of the two of us. I’m not sure what the hell he thinks he’s going to do with that photo, but he’s got it.

I sort of want a copy, but I stop myself short of asking him to send it to me.

“She’s mine,” Colin says. “She’s been mine for five years, and I’m not letting her go without a fight.”

“Why don’t we go ahead and let her decide instead of acting like a couple of fools outside her bakery when she only wants to get back to work?” Grayson suggests.

It’s like the man knows exactly what to say. He’s confident in his suggestion, but Colin is stupid. He’s no match for Grayson, yet he’s standing here thinking he is when he’s literally the one trying to claim me just because we were together for five years. If the length of time we’ve known each other is a factor, Grayson’s actually got him by a long shot, not that he’d ever know that.

“Ava?” Colin says at the same time Grayson says, “Cookie?”

I lean into Grayson a little as my eyes find Colin’s. “I’m sorry, but I’m with Grayson now.”

Colin’s jaw drops clean to the ground—figuratively, of course. He points at me. “You were with him all along, weren’t you? Wait a minute. Were you cheating on me with him?”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Grayson looks down at me, and there’s a question there in his eyes, as if he wants to say something but isn’t sure he should. I’m not exactly sure what he’s asking, but he exudes this warmth that makes me trust him. I gently incline my head a little to tell him to go ahead with whatever it is he wants to say.

“She was faithful to you all along, man.” Grayson shakes his head a little. “Not that I didn’t want her to give you up years ago.”

“Years ago?” Colin repeats, narrowing his eyes at the two of us. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, he doesn’t know?” he asks, turning to me. He turns back to Colin. “Little Ava Maxwell and I go back many, many years. Her oldest brother is my best friend, and we’ve known each other since…” He trails off and glances down at me. “Since she was single digits, anyway. And now we’ve decided to take our relationship to the next level, if you catch my drift. Sorry it wasn’t you.” He ends with a shrug, and I could freaking kiss him right now.

So I do.

I push up onto my tiptoes and press my lips to his. It may be for Colin’s benefit, but I am most definitely the one reaping the rewards.

Grayson slides his arm around my waist to haul me in a little closer. Colin might take another photo—I’m not sure, nor do I care. But he catches the hint that he’s out and Grayson’s in, and as we kiss in front of my ex, I can’t help but wonder what changed Grayson’s mind.

Why did he show up here today? Why did his silver truck skid to a stop? Why did he jump out of said truck to rush to be by my side while I fought with my ex in a bakery parking lot?

And…is he telling Colin the truth? Or am I going to be blindsided by this man yet again?

I settle back down onto my heels even if the rest of me hovers somewhere up in the clouds. I’m sure I’ll get to the truth eventually, but right now…it’s pretty damn sweet up in these clouds.