Page 67 of Nash

I brush it off. He's just being nice in order to get the best working relationship.

“Okay, well I would love to hear your ideas for your spotlight series. Did you have a particular theme you want to focus on? Only ice time? Technique? Game play? Or more of a get-to-know-me-beyond-the-game sort of thing?”

He takes a sip of his coffee, then smiles at me, his look lingering just a little bit too long on my mouth.

I swallow hard.

“Those sound good,” he says, leaning a little closer over the table. “But I had my heart set on the Nash Stokehill package.”

That flaring sensor inside me blazes. I tilt my head. “I’m not sure I know what you mean by that?”

My phone buzzes in my bag that hangs on the chair behind me, but I ignore it, too frozen in what I hope I’m wrong about.

He smiles, looking me up and down. “You know,” he says. “I'd love to have the same treatment. You and me, some epic dates?—”

“Wait,” I cut him off. “I'm sorry. You're joking right? Like you're doing this to break the ice or something?”

“I'm not joking,” he says. “You're gorgeous and clearly brilliant with all the side deals you've been landing for everyone. You're great at what you do. Who wouldn't want to date you? And I'm totally fine with it being casual. It doesn't have to be serious. It can be just like you did with Nash.”

Panic streaks through me, making my chest tight.

“I think you have the wrong idea,” I say still trying to cling to my professionalism. This is a Bangor Badger, and I dotechnicallywork for the team. I'm hoping to clear this up before it gets out of line. “Nash and I are actually together,” I say. “There's nothing casual about it.”

Darrell looks utterly confused. “Are you sure about that?”

My stomach drops.

Am I?

Nash and I haven't been able to connect in the last week or so. We've both been super busy, but that doesn't mean he's just moved on, does it?

“I'm pretty sure about that,” I say instead of expressing the doubts swirling through my mind at the moment.

“Oh, Reese,” he says, his tone drenched in pity. “My bad. He talks about it all the time in the locker room. I thought this was like a normal thing. When I set this meeting, I thought it would be a beneficial situation for both of us. Kind of like you did with him. I look good on camera, you get a ton of views, and we have some fun while we're doing it.”

Nausea rolls through my body in a quick wave at his assumption. At the way he's implying that's how Nash speaks about me when I'm not around.

“That's what you thought?” I ask, sitting up a little straighter, trying to cling to anything other than the breakdown I feel approaching me like a freight train. “Nash made you think that it was a casual beneficial business situation?”

He couldn't have.

Maybe in the beginning, because that's what it was, but after a month? Two months? There's no way he would talk about me like that. I knew him and he knew me and there wasnoway.

“Yeah,” he answers with a shrug.

“I'm sorry if you got the wrong idea,” I say, doing my best to not let my voice wobble. “But that's not how I operate. If you want a spotlight feature, I can make that happen, but there will be no?—”

“So, it's true.”

I hear Nash before I see him, stomping up to our table out of nowhere. He jabs a finger toward Darrell, but his eyes are on me, and I've never seen him so angry, so hurt.

“You're out here taking meetings for your next content star? Your nextleadingman?

What the actual fuck?”

“Whoa,” Darrell says, standing up with his hands raised. He looks between us, shaking his head. “I'm not signing up for this kind of drama unless you're going to put it on camera.” He looks down at me as if I'm about to pull out my phone and start recording. When I don’t, he says, “All right then, I'm out.”

He leaves the coffee shop, and I’m left gaping up at Nash, who looks livid to the point where he's actually shaking.

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