Page 5 of Nash

Self-consciousness curls inside me, making my stomach drop for two seconds before it’s immediately replaced with anger. Fuck this, I haven’t been bullied since high school.

“You can go fu?—”

“Okay,” Nash cuts over my words, stepping into my space. He bends slightly, and before I know what’s happening, I’m tossedover a very strong shoulder. “Time to get my girl home,” he continues, and the way he saysmy girlmakes every ounce of independent woman immediately vacate my body.

Nash spins around, and I’m laughing because I can’t help it. He’s thrown me over his shoulder like I’m his gear bag.

“Phone!” Monroe hustles behind us, handing me my phone before winking at me. “Love you. Call me in the morning!”

“Love you!” I call out through my giggles, and I don’t stop laughing until Nash settles me into his very nice smelling SUV. The seats feel like warm, buttery leather against my skin.

“Address, Reese’s Pieces,” he says as he gets behind the wheel, and I tell him while slipping my phone back in my purse.

“I can’t believe you,” I say as he navigates the roads back to my apartment. I do my best to focus on him and not the thingswhooshingby the window. The alcohol is marginally wearing off, but I’m still a little dizzy.

“I get it,” he says. “I’m basically superhuman.”

I snort laugh, shaking my head that leans heavy against the seat. “No,” I say. “You just…tossed me over your shoulder. Like it was nothing.”

“It was nothing,” he says, pulling into my apartment complex. “Besides, you looked like you were ready to go.”

“I was,” I say, sort of mystified that he’d picked up on that. “That woman was mean.”

“She was,” he says, unbuckling his seatbelt before walking around the car and opening my door for me. “Fuck her.”

“Yeah. She shouldn’t have referred to you assomething.Like you’re nothing more than a piece of meat,” I say, my tongue slightly heavy. “She can eat a dick.”

A laugh bursts out of him, and it’s one of my new favorite sounds.

“Not your dick,” I say as he helps me out of the car.

“Of course not,” he says, laughter clinging to his tone.

It takes me twice as long as normal to climb the steps to my apartment, but I’ll be damned if I let him carry me again. I am independent…sometimes.

“I’m okay,” I say as I finally get my door unlocked and walk inside, immediately discarding my pumps in two different directions.

“I can see that,” he says from where he’s heading into my kitchen like he owns the place. “Ah,” he says after he finds something in the fridge.

“What are you doing?” I call from my bedroom, slumping to sit on the edge of my bed.

Nash comes down my hallway, holding a bottle of water in one hand and a Gatorade in the other. “Drink these,” he says.

“At the same time?” I scrunch up my brow. “That’ll be difficult.”

He shakes his head, that smile brightening up every inch of space in my bedroom. “One at a time, Reese’s Pieces,” he says, handing them to me.

“Thank you for driving me home,” I say after flicking off both caps of the bottles and alternating drinks. “I don’t normally drink that much.”

“You deserve to have fun,” he says. “I’m happy to make sure you’re safe.”

I swallow the Gatorade a little too hard, and my vision is a little blurry as I look over the perfect features on his face. He’s all smooth skin with a chiseled jaw line andugh, does he have to look so damngood?

“You going to be all right?” he asks.

“Yes,” I assure him. “You don’t have to stay.”

His eyebrows raise. “Are you asking me to?”

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