Chapter 51 Asher Nash

This Isn’t Going Well

My heart thunders in my chest as I approach his office, and the second I step through the door, he turns on me.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Coach Dixon hisses. “Tell me this isn’t what I think.”

I draw in a deep breath. I wish she was here. I wish we could do this together. She’s going to be livid that she didn’t get to be part of this conversation, but I can’t lie to him. Not when he’s been so goddamn good to me this season. Not when I’ve already been lying. I can’t add another one on top of the pile when he already knows.

I close my eyes and admit the truth. “You’re not wrong.”

“ You ?” he demands. “ You got my little girl pregnant?”

I press my lips together. “It’s not what you think, Coach.”

“Don’t you fucking Coach me right now, Nash. I can’t believe you’d betray me like this.”

I shake my head. “It’s not a betrayal. We met before I knew she was your daughter. Before I even knew you had a daughter.”

“She had to have known who you were,” he points out.

I don’t know how to answer that without making it worse for her, but he doesn’t let me get words in anyway.

“And eventually you did know, but you kept seeing her anyway.”

“I tried to stop it,” I say, holding up both hands. “I told her I couldn’t lie to you, and I walked away.”

“What the fuck did you just say to me? That you walked away from my pregnant daughter?”

Jesus. This isn’t going well.

“No!” I say, and I tug on my hair as I try to get this situation under control. “It was before I knew, and I came crawling back to her because I’m in love with her, and then I found out she’s pregnant.”

He bites down on his lip as if he’s trying to control his own emotions, and he runs a hand through his hair. “Get out of my office.”

I stare at him. He’s the one who made me walk in here, and now he’s demanding I leave. I know he’s angry, but I don’t have anything else to lose by being honest with him.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He leans toward me menacingly. “I said get out .”

I shake my head and hold up both hands. “I will leave if it’s what you want. I meant I’m not leaving your daughter. I’m doing everything I can to be what she needs, sir. I’m sorry this is how you found out, but I can assure you, I won’t do anything to hurt her.”

His brows practically lift off his face. “You won’t do anything to hurt her? You just admitted you abandoned her once. You think that didn’t hurt her?” He shakes his head and turns away from me. “Because of you , she’s been lying to me for months. I need you to leave.”

I blow out a breath. “This doesn’t change who I am, Coach. It doesn’t change the man you believed in.”

He turns around to face me. He nods a little as he stares at me. “You’re right. It proves that you were exactly who they said you were all along.”

It’s a clean shot to my heart, and he knows it. It’s shoving the knife in and twisting it around for good measure.

It hurts more than it should, but I’ve gotten closer to this man than I have to my own father. I get why he feels betrayed, but maybe in time he’ll understand. I need him to understand. I respect the hell out of him as my coach.

His voice is quiet as he says his next words. “Do the right thing, Asher. Either quit playing or leave her alone. You can’t have both. Now get to practice.”

I turn and leave, granting his request, somehow not surprised at all that my father is the one who fucked this whole thing up for me. He didn’t even know who the woman was, and he still managed to ruin everything.

I head to the locker room, and my dad is long gone. That’s a blessing, at least.

I walk in right in the middle of my brother’s motivational speech about how we’re about to play the last game of the season and blah blah blah.

I can’t focus on anything. I’m late, and everyone is staring at me as they wonder why, and it’s also clear that Coach Dixon isn’t here since he usually says a few words after Lincoln does.

Coach Dixon doesn’t show up until we’re out on the field, which tells me he stayed in his office for one of two reasons. Either he was cooling down after learning what he just learned, or he had a phone call or two to make. Maybe both.

I need to talk to Desiree, but I can’t. Not while I’m here at practice, and especially not while all eyes are on me.

Rumors travel quickly, and there had to be at least one or two players out in that hallway when Dixon yelled at me to get to his office. Everyone saw that we were both late to practice.

But nobody knows why, and I’m not close enough to anybody here for them to actually confront me about it.

Except my brother.

“We need to talk,” Lincoln demands as he makes the rounds during practice.

Just fucking great. I guess the secret’s about to be out now, but clearly Lincoln wants to know why his OC demanded to talk to his star tight end right before practice.

I’m dreading that conversation. I’m dreading the end of practice, and at the same time, I can’t make it go by fast enough so I can get to my phone and explain to Des what’s going on.

I run drills with the tight ends, doing my absolute best to remain focused, and Desiree’s father walks over to Coach Bruce toward the end of our drills.

“Extra leg drills for Nash,” he barks at Coach Bruce.

He knows what he’s doing.

It’s going to be a late night for me, and he’s not even giving me the chance to give Desiree a fair warning about what’s to come for her—if he hasn’t already told her that he knows.

He’s setting us up to fail, and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it.