Page 55 of Worth the Wait
Not a soldier.
Not a father.
Maybe not even a man.
Another broken thing the army had spat out and left behind to rot.
The door to the changing hut creaked open, and Nathan jolted upright. His pulse kicked hard before his brain caught up. No desert. No sniper. No enemy here.
Just Worthbridge.
The stale, damp air of a Wednesday night changing room.
AndFreddie Webb.
Far more dangerous than any bullet.
Nathan slumped back down as Freddie slipped inside, shutting the door.
“Hey.”
Nathan didn’t trust himself to reply. He nodded once. A stiff jerk of his chin. And Freddie crossed the room in three easy strides to sink onto the bench beside him, close enough that their bare knees touched.Nathan shifted, spreading his legs wider on instinct. He needed the space. The steadiness. Needed—God, he neededcontact.It had been a long, brutal deployment. Lonelier than he liked to admit. And right now, Freddie’s nearness was like a live current under his skin.
“You alright?” Freddie asked.
Nathan scrubbed both hands down his face until his skin stung. “Yeah,” he lied, then nodded to the door, thescreech of a whistle and thuds of a ball filtering through the thin walls. “Sorry if I got the match abandoned.”
Freddie huffed a laugh, almost fond. “You didn’t. Reece roped some RNLI bloke in to fill the spot, after being fixed up by Trent, the paramedic he’s been pining over, so he’s quite happy about that, and I swapped out with our rookie. Kid’s been itching to get a game for weeks.”
Nathan nodded again, but it felt hollow. Everything inside him was rattling around loose, ready to crack if he so much as breathed wrong. Then reality caught up with him.
What he’d done.
Who he’d done it in front of.
“You here to arrest me?”
Freddie snorted. “Nah. Off duty. No cuffs.” He scraped his trainers over the scuffed linoleum floor. “Besides, can’t exactly nick a bloke for defending my honour, can I?”
He said it lightly, but Nathan caught the tightness around his mouth, the way Freddie flexed his jaw as if he wasn’t sure whether to grin or grit his teeth.
“Not that I needed it.” Freddie bumped his shoulder to Nathan’s. “I don’t just arrest gobby teenagers. Took down a pissed-up rugby player last month outside The Jolly Sailor. Bloke chucked a pint glass at my head, then tried to snap my arm. Didn’t end well for him.” He lifted the back of his hand, where a faint scar arced across his knuckles. “Got a souvenir for it, though.”
“Should’ve dropped him at the shoulder,” Nathan said quietly. “Drive the pivot, use the collarbone. His weight goes forward, he’s yours before he gets anywhere near teeth.”
Freddie arched a brow. “Christ. Remind me never to try biting you.”
Nathan almost smiled. Almost.
Instead, he looked down at his hands. Still streaked with grease and dried blood, the knuckles torn raw. He flexed his fingers.
“Wouldn’t get the chance.”
The words hung there, rough-edged, unfinished.
Freddie shifted beside him, his thigh brushing Nathan’s. Whether it was nerves or something hungrier Nathan didn’t know. Couldn’t know. Not anymore. He’d already made a spectacular twat of himself out there on the pitch. Whatever fragile thing had once been between them was now lost to time and distance, watered down with different lives, different choices.
It didn’t stop it from aching like a bastard, though.
