Dating the Defensive Back (The Nash Brothers Book 1)

Cookies Are the Way to a Man’s Heart

I hand him the drink I just mixed, and he holds up his glass. I clink mine to his.

“Cheers,” I say, and then I take a sip.

Okay, so I made them strong.

Maybe I’m trying to get him to loosen up. I just need him to abandon his morals a little so I can break away at his shell, we can have all the sex again, and we can get started on this whole him falling for me thing.

And on that note, I like to keep my hands busy while I talk. “Can you help me with something while we talk through some of this?” I ask.

His brows dip. “What do you need help with? Changing a lightbulb or something?”

I laugh. “No, we’re not helpless housewives from the nineteen-twenties. We’re pretty good at lightbulbs. I have an idea for some cookies I’ve been wanting to try, but I haven’t had time to execute them at work. Want to be my helper and guinea pig?”

Cookies are the way to a man’s heart, right?

It’s worth a shot.

He looks a little hesitant, but then he says, “Sure.”

“Any food allergies?”

He shakes his head, and I nod over toward the kitchen—the place where I feel most myself.

I grab some ingredients from the pantry and set them out, and he takes a seat on the stool at the counter.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Sitting is not helping.”

He immediately stands. “Yes, ma’am.”

Why do those words falling from his lips as he follows my directions pulse a needy ache solidly between my legs?

Oh, right. Because I want to have sex with him again, and pretty much everything he does is sexy as hell.

I hand him a measuring cup and push a bowl over to him. “I need three cups of flour in this bowl.”

I set to work on the wet ingredients, and I start to make conversation as I methodically pick up each ingredient I need and measure it out before dumping it into the bowl.

“So we’re sticking with the backstory that we’ve known each other for years and just ended up in the right place at the right time?”

“Well, the truth is probably the easiest thing to stick to.” He clears his throat. “I mean…as closely as we can. It’ll come off a lot more genuine if we tell the truth, anyway.”

He dumps the first cup of flour into the bowl after carefully measuring it, and he somehow spills a bunch on the counter on his way. I brush it into my hand and throw it in the sink.

I nod. “Right. And how, exactly, do I handle the media?”

“It might be a good idea to have you sit down with a publicist to discuss some of that, but my own training has taught me that less is more, and maintaining privacy is key.”

“Right. Less is more. The same is not true for cookies.” I sprinkle in some more brown sugar, and he chuckles.

I hand over a teaspoon. “Let’s go with one teaspoon of baking soda and a half teaspoon of salt.”

He nods and adds in those dry ingredients.

“I get the theory behind maintaining privacy, but people are going to want to know who you’re dating, and I’m just a normal pastry chef who likes to bake cookies. We need some sort of story to explain why you’d be with someone like me.”

He looks surprised by my question. “You think you’re just a normal pastry chef?”

I glance over at him after I set my bowl onto the mixing stand. “Well…I am.” I pick up the bowl he added the dry ingredients to.

“You’re a lot more than that.” He reaches over with his thumb to brush away a smudge of flour from my cheek, and his gaze is so tender on me that I think he’s going to lean down to kiss me for a beat. “You’re beautiful, Ava. You’re funny and smart. You’re talented and kind. You’re sexy as fuck without even knowing it.”

He draws in a deep breath before he seems to snap out of whatever thought he’s having.

He clears his throat. “You’re, uh…you’re definitely more than just a pastry chef, but the fact that we share a history is enough of a story to keep the wolves at bay.” His voice is a little robotic at the end, as if he’s saying something he feels he needs to say even if he’s not sure he believes it. Or maybe that’s just me reading too much into things.

He grabs his phone out of his pocket and appears to send a text.

“What was that?” I ask.

“I texted Linc to ask about local publicists. From what I remember, he’s working with someone he really likes. Got him out of a whole heap of trouble with Jolene when they first got together.”

I vaguely recall something of a rivalry between the Nashes and the Baileys, but clearly that’s over if his brother is married to Jolene now. I didn’t know much about the story since it all went down over twenty years ago when I was barely in kindergarten.

But my mom was friends with Mrs. Nash since their boys were so close, and I recall gossipy discussions between my mom and Mrs. Nash about some bar the Nashes and Baileys had invested in together.

His phone dings with a new text, and he scans it before giving me the summary. “He’s working with someone named Ellie Dalton, the wife of former player Luke Dalton. She represents a bunch of players on the team, and he highly recommends her.” He shrugs as he looks at me.

“Can’t hurt to give her a call,” I say. I have no idea who Luke Dalton is, but the name is vaguely familiar. I really should brush up on my football knowledge if I’m supposedly dating a player. “So talk to me like I know nothing about football. You play defense?”

He chuckles. “Do you know anything about football?

I twist my lips and shake my head. “Honestly? No. I’ve never understood it. My brothers tried to explain it to me, and they’d always draw these things out with Xs and Os and squiggly lines, and I had no idea what any of it meant.”

“I’ll teach you without drawing anything.” He laughs. “The very bare bones basics is that the goal is to score more points than the other team.”

“Like in most team sports,” I say.

He nods. “A field is a hundred yards, and we take it ten yards at a time. We get four tries, or downs, to move the ball ten yards. Do you know what it’s called if a team moves it those ten yards?”

I bite my lip. “A first down?”

“Very good! And if they don’t move it those ten yards?”

“Then the other team gets the ball?” I guess.

“That’s right! See, you know more than you think.” He beams at me a little—or maybe I’m just delusional. He fills me in on more of the basics with no Xs and Os, and I learn that he’s a cornerback, which is a type of defensive back. His job is mostly to guard wide receivers, who usually run down the field to catch the ball.

“So I’m dating the defensive back?” I ask.

He flashes me a smirk. “It appears that way.”

By the time he’s done explaining it to me, our last batch of cookies is almost done baking, and I feel like I understand the basics of a game I’ve never taken the time to understand.

Just the way he’s explaining it shows me how passionate he is about the game, and the best part is that we’re talking about it while indulging in my passion, too.

“Ready to try one?” I ask, picking up a cookie from the first batch which has been cooling on a rack.

He nods, and I hand it over.

“Are you trying one?” he asks.

“You go first.” I’m not sure why I’m suddenly nervous, but this is the first cookie of mine he’ll be tasting, and we made them together. It feels like a lot hinges on him actually liking them.

He takes a large bite and chews, his face giving nothing away as he lets the flavors roll over his tongue before he swallows.

“Well?” I ask.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

I pump a fist into the air then pick up a cookie for myself.

And he’s right. It’s pretty damn good. I guess I’m not just a normal pastry chef after all. I’m a damn good one.

We’re both finishing our first cookie when the door opens.

“Ava? You home?” Kelly yells from the front door.

“In the kitchen!” I yell back, and she appears there a moment later.

And she’s not alone. It looks like my roommate scored herself a baller, and the wide smile stretching across her lips tells me she’s happy about it.

“Graham,” Grayson says cordially.

“Nash,” Austin says back with a nod.

“Anyone want a cookie?” I ask as a way to break up the sudden awkwardness. Grayson and Austin don’t really know each other yet, and now they’re thrust into an interesting situation.

“I’ll try one,” Austin says.

“Give me two seconds, okay?” Kelly says to Austin, and she scurries out of the room, presumably to clear the papers she was grading earlier from her bed. And maybe put away her stuffed teddy bear.

I should do that, too. Grayson doesn’t need to know I snuggle a stuffed bunny every night while I’m sleeping.

His eyes find mine after I hand Austin the cookie, and it seems like he’s trying to tell me something. We’re not quite at the level where the two of us can communicate without words just yet.

With any luck, we’ll get there someday. But that day is not today because I have no idea what the fuck he’s asking me.

“This is great,” Austin says as he munches the cookie.

“It was all Grayson,” I say modestly, and he laughs.

“Yeah, it totally was all me.”

Austin looks like he’s not really sure what to do with our banter, and Grayson doesn’t seem to be saying anything. I get the sudden inclination that he might not like Austin, but I can’t imagine why, and I can’t exactly ask him in front of the guy.

“Hey, are you going to the Heat’s home opener next Friday?” Austin asks.

“I’m not sure yet,” Grayson says. He avoids looking over at me, and thankfully, Kelly steps back into the room before Grayson has to expand on that.

She’s a little stilted and awkward, as if she’s not quite sure how to handle herself. We all know why Austin’s here and what they’re about to go do, so there’s no sense in beating around the bush.

“Guess we’ll see you at breakfast!” I say brightly, clearly only making the awkwardness even worse, and Austin glances at me and nods a little before Kelly grabs his hand and pulls him out of the room.

“Well, that was awkward,” I mutter.

“We? We will see you at breakfast?” Grayson says.

“It was a blanket we. Not a you-and-me we.”

“It was totally a you-and-me we. And you just basically told him I’ll be spending the night, and now if I don’t, he’ll know something’s up!” He’s hissing at me so Austin doesn’t overhear, but maybe he’s right.

“Oh, I, uh—I didn’t mean to…”

He purses his lips, and he’s angry again. It felt like we were making a breakthrough tonight, and now this.

I sigh. “I’m sorry. You’re free to go whenever. What we do isn’t any of his business.”

“He’s going to make it his business, which is probably why he showed up here tonight.”

My brows dip. “What are you talking about? He came here tonight because of Kelly.”

“I don’t trust that guy, and you shouldn’t, either,” he warns in a whisper.

My brows dip. “Why not?”

He glances back toward the direction the two of them disappeared. “We’ll talk later.”

“Fine. What’s this Vegas Heat thing?” I ask.

“Lincoln sent me a text last week about it. Jack apparently rented out a huge suite for players to attend the first home game of the season for the Vegas Heat baseball team.”

“That sounds fun,” I say.

“It does, and he invited families, too.” He pauses, and then he adds, “It might be the right time to put in my first public appearance with my new girlfriend.” He nods meaningfully at me.

“Are you inviting me?”

“Do you want to go?”

“Hell yeah, I want to go! Will Danny Brewer be there? Oh my God, will Cooper Noah be there?” I’m babbling now, but I can’t help it. I’m a baseball girl.

“I assume they’ll both be there since they play for the Heat,” he says dryly. “But they’re also both in relationships, and you’ll be there with me, so…” He trails off, and I sort of like the fact that he sounds almost jealous that I know who those two players are.

“A girl can dream,” I say with a smile, and he rolls his eyes.

And now I’m wondering how I can use this little dose of jealousy to my advantage.