SWNOVELS The Enforcer: Chapter 23
paramount LSU tradition held during the second weekend in October. It’s a massive event boasting live music, fair food, and midway games, with all the proceeds going to the local children’s hospital. Classes are canceled Friday, and everything on campus comes to a halt. With the exception of hockey. The team still had on-ice practice and dryland training this morning.
As Julianna and I walk through the gates, the scent of greasy fair food greets us. Guitar chords carry through the air from a local band playing on stage in the center of the grounds while people mill about with corn dogs, funnel cakes, and stuffed animal prizes.
“Spiked apple cider?” Julianna nudges me, pointing to the booth.
“Do you even need to ask?”
Drinks in hand, complete with caramel sauce, whipped cream, and a healthy dose of rum, we do a loop of the festivities. We grab some cotton candy before trying our hands at the cornhole competition, balloon pop, and pick a duck, but only Julianna wins a tiny giraffe. Although she kindly tries to console me by saying the games are rigged, we both know my hand-eye coordination leaves much to be desired.
When we turn the corner, we stumble upon the Mini-Grizzlies booth where kids get to play against “the team” and get a stuffed Griswold the Grizzly prize after. Nash and Vaughn are wearing their jerseys over jeans, playing ball hockey with two little boys who can’t be much older than six or seven. Vaughn takes a shot on net, clearly not trying very hard, and the first boy blocks it. Then Nash lets the other boy get past him with the ball, pretending that he tricked him, while the kids howl with laughter.
It’s adorable.
“This is pretty cute,” Jules admits as we come to a stop, watching. I think Vaughn and Nash might be having as much fun as the kids. Meanwhile, I’m swooning over how cute Nash is. I’ve never seen him interact with children, and he’s a complete natural. Between this and seeing him take care of a puppy, my ovaries are in overdrive.
A few shots on net later, the game wraps up with the Grizzlies “losing” six to two. Julianna looks down at her phone and grimaces. “Oh, uh . . . Preston just texted to let me know he’s here. Sorry, Violet. We’d been talking about attending this together for ages as the three of us, and I couldn’t un-invite him. I’m going to go meet him at the front gates and then we’ll see you at the stage?”
“Sounds good. I want to say hi to Nash first.” Even though I probably shouldn’t, especially after my talk with her and Claire last night. But we still have to see each other, so we can be civil, right? Friendly?
Fine. Not even I believe that, but I can’t stay away from him. Especially after the heart-exploding cuteness I just witnessed.
Vaughn hands both of the boys their stuffed Griswolds while Nash saunters over to where I’m standing.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” I tell him. He neglected to mention he’d be doing this, probably because he knew I’d come watch and see him being all soft.
“Voluntold.” Nash props his stick upright, leaning against it, and his face brightens with a smile, like the sun peeking through the clouds. “It’s for a good cause, so I don’t mind.”
“When are you done?”
He checks his black Apple watch. “About half an hour. Are you sticking around?”
“We’re going to go watch the bands for a while. Reaping Glory is playing later.”
“Nice. We’ll stop by after Grant and Hanson show up for their shift.” Nash nods to the spiked apple cider in my hand, forking a hand through his dark hair. “Just stay away from—”
“The basketball team,” I finish, rolling my eyes and fighting a smile at the same time. Butterfly wings stir in my stomach. Despite my better judgment, I like his protective act a little too much. “Better yet, guys in general. Except for you, right?”
He grins. “Exactly.”
***
By the time I arrive at center stage, several other hockey players have joined Julianna and Preston, including Marcus, who’s standing with Jules, as well as Connor and Drew. I’d like to say things aren’t awkward between me and Preston, but for some reason, tonight, they are. Maybe it’s because of the kiss with Nash. Now that it’s happened, I know there’s no going back with Preston. Ever.
I’m forced to confront this head-on when I end up dancing with him. While he danced with Julianna for the song before ours, and our dance is perfectly platonic from an objective point of view, somehow the intent feels different when it comes to me. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything, but there is an undercurrent of something else; something more. A sickly guilt looms in my belly, because hurting him is the last thing I wanted to do.
Notes of the song die down, and we pull apart, stepping off to the side. I don’t know if this is the right time or place to be doing this, but I don’t want to lead him on, either. I’m trying to be fair to him, or as fair as I can be, considering what already happened.
“Pres,” I start. “I’m not ready for anything serious right now.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I silently kick myself. This is my way of breaking it to him? It’s ineffective at best, and dishonest at worst. Sadly, I’m terrible with confrontation and will do anything to avoid it. The only person I have experience arguing with is Nash, and he’s so infuriating that it’s an entirely different ballgame. Nash could goad the Dalai Lama into a fight.
“I’m not trying to pressure you into anything.” Preston frowns, running a hand through his dark blond hair. God, he’s handsome. Normal. Nice. Why don’t I like him?
And the fact that he’s trying to be understanding only makes me feel worse.
“Yeah, but—”
“Hey, Vi.” Nash strolls up, clutching a green glass bottle of beer in his large hand, and shoots Preston a look so hostile, you’d think they were enemy combatants on the battlefield.
Preston clears his throat. “We were in the middle of something, Richards.”
“It’s almost like that’s the point, huh?” Nash smirks, but there’s malice behind it.
I elbow him in the ribs. He remains undeterred. There’s a lull, and an uncomfortable silence hangs between the three of us for several seconds too long. My life has officially reached peak awkwardness.
Preston glares at Nash before turning his gaze to me. “I’ll talk to you later, Violet.”
“Yeah, sounds good. Sorry about him.” I jerk my thumb at Nash, though I can’t decide whether I’m annoyed or relieved at the interruption. Either way, I feel bad about him being a jerk to Preston. While I’m used to Nash’s prickly ways, most other people are not.
Nash steps closer, giving me an appraising once-over. “What was that about?”
“Nothing,” I tell him. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Uh-huh.” His jaw works for a beat, and then he sighs as if deciding to let it go. He inclines his head to the dance floor. “If you danced with Mr. Rogers over there, you definitely have to dance with me.”
Heat laces my cheeks, and I blink at him blankly. Not because I don’t want to dance with him, but because I’m not sure it’s a good idea in front of so many people. How I feel is sure to be written all over my face. It probably already is.
Not one to be easily deterred, Nash doesn’t wait for a response before he sets down his empty beer and takes me by the arm, steering me out onto the dance floor. His large, rough hand envelops mine, and his other hand slides to my lower back, exuding warmth through my thin fall jacket. I drape my left arm on his shoulder, lightly gripping as he leads.
With the sun rapidly setting, the lanterns strung around the perimeter have switched on, bathing the makeshift dance floor in dim, ambient light. It’d be romantic under different circumstances. As it is, something about it makes my chest ache.
A few steps in, his palm against my back slips a little lower, evoking a dull throb of longing between my thighs and a lightheadedness I can’t blame on one spiked cider. The way he smells isn’t helping, either. Clean and masculine, like temptation and everything I shouldn’t want.
“Careful where you put that hand. I don’t want people to think we’re being inappropriate.” I’m saying it for my benefit as much as his. The chemistry between us is so enchanting, his presence so overpowering that it eclipses nearly everything else, including my ability to think. If I let myself, it would be all too easy to forget we have an audience and nestle into the crook of his arm where I already know I fit perfectly.
“It’s just a dance.”
I glance up at him, and when our eyes lock, my pulse stutters like a polygraph. We both know there is no scenario where we are “just” dancing. I’m excruciatingly aware of how close we are, of the heat of his body against mine while we move together with such ease, it’s like we were never apart.
The music winds down, but Nash doesn’t let me go. I look up at him, questioning.
“That was less than half a song,” he says simply. “Doesn’t count.”
When the band plays the next few notes, I immediately recognize it: it’s a cover of “The Dance” by Garth Brooks. The theme of the lyrics could not be more serendipitous. If the universe is sending us a sign, it’s being awfully heavy-handed.
“My dad always used to play this song on his guitar when I was little,” I tell Nash, trying to distract myself from the topic of us. “Before his arthritis got bad, anyway.”
Sadness tugs in my stomach at the recollection. My father’s rheumatoid arthritis isn’t debilitating by any means; he still works as an accountant and has a normal level of functionality in most senses of the word. But when I was growing up, one of his favorite things to do was play the guitar for us after dinner, and I hate that he had that ripped away from him.
“Believe it or not,” Nash says quietly, “I remember you telling me that before.”
An avalanche of emotions crashes over me, stealing the air from my lungs. “You do?” It’s a small detail, not one that I’d expect him to remember.
He expertly guides me in a turn. “We were in my dorm room, right before winter break.”
“In the blanket fort.”
It’s one of my favorite memories from our relationship. We’d both finished our winter exams and his dormmate left for break early, granting us two rare, full days alone together before we had to split up and go to our respective families for Christmas. When I came over, Nash surprised me with a blanket fort constructed from artfully draped sheets and clothespins, decorated with soft twinkle lights and extra pillows that he’d bought. To this day, it’s still the best blanket fort I’ve ever seen. Maybe that’s the engineer in him.
We snuggled inside and streamed Netflix on his laptop while sharing Skittles and popcorn, making out so much that we missed half of what we were supposed to be watching. There was some sex thrown in there too, obviously, but it was more about the closeness and cuddling.
In addition to kissing for hours at a time tucked away in the fort, he took me skating beneath the stars the first night. Out to dinner at my favorite restaurant the second, and then to the see Christmas lights display downtown with hot chocolate for dessert.
That was when I knew I loved him.
And after he came back from winter break, there was a distance between us that never quite went away.
The bitter overtakes the sweet, sadness clawing at my throat. Snapping back to the present moment, I swallow hard, finding him watching me with his dark green eyes clouded over.
Nash’s brow creases, something unreadable stretching across his face. “I’m sorry, Vi.”
“For what?” I whisper.
“Everything.” A terse frown brackets his mouth. “For how things ended. All of it.”
The stitches holding my heart together split open at the words I’ve been waiting so long to hear. Truth is, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get an apology, and it’s validating and excruciating all at once. I loved him. Furiously, madly, passionately. And while he never said it, I’m pretty sure he loved me, too, which is why I still don’t understand where things went wrong.
“You mean when you bailed on our plans for Easter to go on a road trip with your buddies?” My tone is sharper than I intend because it’s still a sore spot, and it probably always will be. Breaking up would have hurt no matter what, but what he did at the end really twisted the knife.
“God, I was such a dick.” Nash removes his hand from my back, running it along his square jawline before replacing it. His face tightens, his features imprinted with regret. “This probably won’t make sense, but nothing I ever did was a reflection of how I felt for you or meant that I didn’t care.”
“Uh-huh.” I huff to hide a sob that’s threatening to wrench free, torn between hearing him out and resenting the message—because how much could he have possibly cared when he walked away so callously?
“I know this will sound like a cop-out, but the parent thing is . . . it’s hard for me.”
My breath sticks in my throat. He’s never said anything like this before. Getting him to talk about his family is almost impossible. I could list what I know on one hand: he’s an only child, his mother died of cancer when he was four, and he’s not close to his father. The rest is a mystery.
“You mean because of your mom?” I ask softly.
Nash shrugs, breaking away from my gaze, and pulls me closer to him again. His lack of confirmation leaves me wondering what part of meeting my family was such an issue, and why. While he’s hinted at not getting along with his father, I’m starting to think it might be worse than I realized. I know better than to pry, though. Slow progress is better than no progress.
Something in his demeanor shifts, and his grip on me tightens, deep voice turning gruff. “While we’re on the subject of the past, why did you end up with Jay so quickly after we broke up?”
Beyond the predictable ire in his eyes, there’s pain I don’t expect to see. While I knew he was pissed about this, because that’s his MO, I’d chalked it up to jealousy. I truly didn’t realize it had hurt him. By the end, things were so hot and cold that it was difficult to tell whether he cared much about me in general.
Hesitating, I sink my teeth into my bottom lip. “It was a distraction, I guess, which was crappy of me.” I’d feel guiltier about this if not for the fact that Jay turned out to be a raging asshole. Guess it’s no big surprise my judgement wasn’t stellar given my poor state of mind, still reeling and heartbroken. “But I couldn’t take the back and forth with you anymore, so I decided to try to force myself to move on. Didn’t work, though.”
“It stung, Vi. I mean . . . I know I drove you away, but you were never replaceable to me.”
My lower lip wobbles, my chest burning. That’s it. I’m going to start crying in the middle of the dance floor.
“Trust me, you weren’t replaceable to me, either.”
He still isn’t.
And that’s the problem.
The last chords of the song fade out, leaving us standing on the periphery of the dance floor with unspoken questions and unknown answers. Off to the side, nearly all the team has gathered along with Julianna and Preston. Like I predicted, I’d all but forgotten where we are and what we were doing.
“We should get back.”
His fingers circle my wrist, tugging. “Let’s get a drink first.”
As much as I want to be alone with him, I know I shouldn’t.
“I can’t ditch Julianna and Preston.” It’s a flimsy excuse when their backs are turned, and they’re immersed in conversation with the rest of the team. No one seems to notice or particularly care that we’re missing. Preston probably isn’t too thrilled with either one of us at the moment, anyway.
“It won’t take long. My treat.” He’s already guiding me through the crowd because my protest is bullshit, and we both know it.
We reach the outskirts of the concert area, and I come to a screeching halt. “Only if you do your stretching and rehab for another month.”
“A week,” he counters.
“A month or no deal.”
Nash’s mouth tugs. “You drive a hard bargain. Deal.”
A gust of chilly autumn air passes by, laced with the scent of smoke from the bonfire, and leaves on the ground in front of us swirl as the wind kicks up. I shiver and hug my thin coat tighter, but it does little to combat the bite in the air. Without missing a beat, Nash throws an arm over my shoulders, immediately warming me. While he’s a good source of body heat, I’m burning up on the inside for another reason entirely.
We pass a group of sorority girls dressed in pink house tees, loudly chattering away. Three of them blatantly check out Nash, one of whom practically eye-fucks him, but his attention is focused on me. He has a way of making me feel like I’m the only girl he sees. Probably not the case, but it’s fun to let myself pretend.
Then I wonder if that girl was one of the—allegedly many—girls he’s slept with since we’ve been apart. While we both moved on, it sounds like one of us had a lot more moving on than the other. He’s clearly been embracing the fringe benefits associated with being a high-level athlete for a long time.
It’s not that I hold it against him, it’s that it makes me nervous. I’m still not entirely sure what his intentions are when it comes to me, and with so much on the line this time, I would be risking a lot more than just my heart.