Page 16 of Nash

Nash laughs, likely reading the lie for what it is. “Great,” he says. “I'll take great. It sure as hell will be fun working up to phenomenal.”

A warm shiver has me trembling slightly on his lap, the promise in his words igniting a fire beneath my skin. I do my best to act casual, as if his kiss hasn’t affected me at all, and tug him to the dance floor.

An hour later, I ride home with the girls, despite Nash offering to take me home. I knew if I let him, I’d be asking him to stay the night. His kiss is like a drug, one I couldn’t stop thinking about the rest of the night.

I do my best to ignore that fact as I make it into my apartment, focusing on the actualbusinessrelationship that Nash and I have.

Changing out of my game clothes, I slip into my favorite PJ's, and hop onto my laptop, editing the footage from tonight's game and party. After a couple hours, I end up with a few videos, some of the fun warmup stretches, Nash being absolutely ridiculous and a camera hog, and one from the party that highlights the players in their element, and at the end, I add just a second or two of me and Nash.

It's a shot the camera caught while I was talking to Paxton, Nash looking at me with an intensity that made me shiver. I’m certain I'veneverbeen looked at like that before—like whatever I'd been saying was the most interesting thing in the entire universe.

And yet I'm almost a thousand percent positive I’d been explaining to Paxton how to do voiceover on videos.

I pair that footage with a microsecond of our kiss, whichholy hell. It made me blush just watching it. There’s no way I could post the entire kiss, which I’d gotten so lost in, I’d forgot I was recording.

As I lay out the transitions, searching for the perfect sounds to pair with the videos, I can't help but laugh at myself. It feels like I'm editing a movie trailer to a fun sports romance where I’m somehow the star and have landed the lead actor who’s not only gorgeous but funny and smart and shockingly kind.

After watching and re-watching the videos at least a dozen times each, making sure the captions and the sounds and everything works smoothly together, I end up posting the one that includes a little bit of me and Nash. Because I just never know what will go viral, and it'll be fun to see if this fantasy I'm living in does the trick.

CHAPTER 5

NASH

My quads areon fire as I push myself, soaring across the ice. We’re in the third period against the Anaheim Ducks, and the fuckers are ahead by one.

Wolfe has the puck and is zig-zagging his way in and out of defenders before he sends a pass to Pax.

I track the moves with a laser focus, everything quieting around me as adrenaline pumps through my veins. Pax shoots the puck to me because he’s too covered. The puck settles against my stick like a soft weight, and I don’t miss a beat as I fly toward the Ducks’ goal.

Two defenders come straight for me, and I fake like I’m going to take a shot but send the puck right back to Pax—a move we’ve practiced over a hundred times that I could do in my sleep.

Pax pulls his stick back and takes the shot?—

And the Ducks’ goalie turns into Mr. Fucking Fantastic, stretching to inhuman lengths to stop it.

“Shit!” I groan, the buzzer sounding as the period runs out of time.

We lost.

I skate over to Pax, who still stares at the goal like he can redo the shot. “It was a good shot, man,” I say, bumping his shoulder.

“I missed.”

“You didn’t miss,” I say. “He was really fucking quick. There’s a difference.”

Pax groans but we make our way off the ice, our team heading to the away-team’s locker room.

It’s fucking quiet in here, but it always is after a loss.

“Heavy,” Coach Hardin says after we’ve all taken a seat on a bench or a lean against the wall. He nods, his usual goofy smile just a little bit wilted. “I get the heavy after a loss, I really do.” He puts his hand over the center of his chest. “I feel it in here. But, you all played your asses off. Every play was executed to perfection.” He shrugs, letting his hand drop. “It’s hard to be mad with that kind of performance.”

He’s right. We played our asses off. The Ducks just got the better of us.

“We’ll meet them on the ice again,” he says. “And when we do, we’ll be the ones celebrating.”

There are a few collective nods andhell yeahsand then we break up to hit the showers.

I wash up quickly, heading back to the locker where I stowed my gear to get dressed.

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