Page 54 of Worth the Wait
No shout, no warning. A blur of rage and velocity, he slammed his shoulder into Reece, sending him stumbling a step before Nathan’s clean, practiced right hook cracked across his jaw. A punch born of discipline, of combat drills and silent fury. Asoldier’spunch.
“That’s the last time you touch him without a fucking invitation,” Nathan snarled.
Reece staggered back, stunned, blood blooming from the corner of his lip, dabbing his fingers into his broken flesh to check the damage.
Everything stopped.
The match, the shouts, the laughter. Choked off like a cut wire. The other players stood stunned, some with mouths open, others already pulling back, uncertain whether to intervene or let it play out.
Freddie couldn’t move, either.
Heartbeat like a snare drum, stuttering and jagged in his chest, he stared at Nathan. His heaving chest, his clenched fists, the wild look in his eyes that slowly faded as awareness sank in. Not for what he’d done, but for where they were. Who’d seen. What it meant.
Nathan looked around.
At the stunned silence. The ref sprinting over. At Reece, holding his jaw. And at Alfie on the sideline, stood up on a railing.
Then finally, atFreddie.
“What the fuck, Nate?” Freddie whispered that same line Nathan had said to him all those years ago when he’d done the same thing to him.
Nathan looked as though he might speak. But he didn’t.
He swallowed. One hard, shaky gulp.
Then he turned.
And walked off the pitch.
CHapter eleven
Battle Scars
Nathan buried his head in his hands, elbows braced on his knees and dragged his palms through his hair as if he could scrub the last ten minutes out of existence.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck.
He’d lost it.
Completely. Lost himself in a heartbeat.
Something he hadn’t done in years. Not properly. Not since the early deployments, when fists had flown too easily, and the anger had been a hair-trigger pull away from disaster. He’d trained that instinct out of himself. Had to. Had been proud of it, even.
Calm under pressure. Steady when it counted.
A soldier to be trusted when everything else went to hell.
Until today.
Untilhim.
Freddie.
Hardly a damsel in distress. Nor some civilian fleeing war and torture, begging for rescue. But Nathan, without thinking, had answered the call like a loaded weapon someone else had cocked and fired.
What the hell am I if I can’t hold it together anymore?
