13. Nathan

Honey Creek had a runaway bride on their hands, and the whole town was in a tizzy about it.

Avery didn’t marry Wesley.

She didn’t get married.

On one hand, I felt a sense of pleasure about that fact because Wesley wasn’t good enough for her. I was happy she didn’t tie herself to him for the rest of her life.

On the other hand, he broke her heart.

I knew Avery was heartbroken, even if she didn’t show it. She had such a hard exterior, but I knew deep inside she was the most gentle, emotional person. I knew she felt things a lot deeper than others. So I hated that she was somewhere out there, pretending she was fine when she was far from okay.

Luckily for me, I knew Avery Kingsley.

I might’ve known her better than she knew herself.

So while the whole town searched to find where Avery had escaped, I knew exactly where I could find her.

As I strolled over to the batting cage, there she was, holding a wooden bat tightly in her grip. She wore a beautiful wedding dress along with a backward baseball cap. The train of the dress was covered in dust and dirt from the baseball field.

As the ball flung from the machine, Avery swung and knocked it out of the damn park. I’d never seen a person swing with so much power, and I worked in the Major Leagues. I was almost shocked that the bat didn’t snap in half.

I leaned against the bleachers for a second, watching her as she knocked pitch after pitch toward outer space.

It wasn’t until the machine was out of balls that I spoke.

“You get it out of your system, Coach? Or do you want me to reload it for you?”

Avery turned to face me. Her chest rose and fell from her weighted breaths as she tilted her head toward me. At first, she seemed confused by my presence, but then her face hardened again. She turned away from me and nodded. “Reload.”

I flicked my thumb against my nose and did as she requested.

I reloaded the machine three times before I became concerned with how out of breath Avery had become.

“Reload,” she requested once more.

“I think that’s enough, Coach.”

“No, it’s not. Reload.”

“Avery—”

“Fine.” She dropped the bat. “I’ll do it myself. I didn’t need you to do it for me at all anyway. I don’t need anyone to do anything for me.” She huffed and puffed as she stormed over to the machine. As she reloaded it, I walked over and placed my hand over hers.

“Ave…come on.”

“What?”

“You’re burned out. How about you get some water and?—”

“Stop it,” she ordered, pointing a stern finger my way. “Don’t you dare feel bad for me. I see it in your stupid brown eyes. I don’t need you to feel bad for me, Nathaniel Pierce. I don’t need your pity. Lord knows I’m going to get it from everyone else in town. You’re the last person I need to look at me with those sad damn eyes.”

“I don’t feel bad for you,” I lied.

She rolled her eyes so far back I thought they’d get stuck. “Don’t lie to me. Have enough respect for me not to lie to me.”

“Fine, okay. I feel bad for you.” I almost forgot that for how well I knew her, she knew me too.

“Screw you, Nathan,” she muttered. She bit her bottom lip, and I knew it was because tears were trying their damnedest to escape her eyes. “Screw you and screw him. Oh gosh.” She paused and placed her hands over her face. “Everyone in town is talking about it, aren’t they?”

“Who cares?”

“I do. I wish I didn’t, but I do. This will be the worst thing for me to try to escape. Especially with the long weekend. Everyone’s going to be looking at me as if I’m a sad puppy, which will only piss me off more.”

“Let’s leave, then.”

She turned and arched an eyebrow. “What?”

“Let’s leave. I have a getaway car parked right outside the school parking lot. You don’t have to talk to anyone. You can escape to my penthouse in Chicago for the long weekend. I can even let your sisters know you’re okay. I can set you up in my apartment, and you can decompress.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You want me to run away?”

“Yes. I want you to run away.”

“And you want to run away with me?”

“I want to run away with you.” I gave her a half-grin. “I just want you to be okay, and I don’t think you can get okay around this damn town. We know how these people are.”

“Evil,” she scolded. “And judgmental.”

“Exactly. It’s up to you, though. Say yes, and I’ll get you out of here. You have my word.”

“Why would you do that for me? I’ve been a dick toward you since you started coaching with me. Why would you help me?”

“Come on, Coach…” I whispered as I rubbed the back of my neck. “You know I have a kink for people who treat me like shit and talk down to me.”

She smiled a little.

It was tiny, but it was there.

“You’re a dumbass,” she muttered.

“If you want me to get a hard-on, just say that, Coach,” I joked.

“God, I hate you.” She snickered, shaking her head.

I took a step toward her. “How much?”

“How much do I hate you?”

“Yeah?”

“A lot. Like, a lot a lot. But you’re sort of my saving grace right now, so yeah, let’s go.”

We successfully gotAvery out of Honey Creek without anyone noticing. I informed her sisters of her weekend getaway, and while Yara and Willow slightly panicked about the whole situation, I calmed them down by letting them know Avery was safe and taken care of.

Avery didn’t say a word during the drive to the penthouse, but I didn’t blame her. I didn’t know what to say to her, either. The whole situation was uncomfortable and brought back many odd feelings.

The last time she sat in a car with me was when we ended things years prior. Now, seeing her sitting in my passenger seat—in a wedding gown nonetheless—sent me back into memories of us. Of who we used to be. Of how I’d wished we would’ve made it to the altar together. But that was a long time ago. We’d both changed so much since then. Still, some of my favorite moments in cars were rides with Avery.

The summer after senior year was one of the best damn summers of my life. That was until it wasn’t.

After parking my car, we headed up to the private elevator of my building to the penthouse. As the elevator opened, I unlocked the front door as Avery shyly stood behind me. Her arms rested at her sides, and she kept biting her bottom lip. A nervous habit of hers.

Most of the time, she had her tough face on. When she showed any signs other than toughness, I felt as if I saw glimpses of the girl I once loved. The one who was strong but still so soft inside. The one who dreamed big and had sparkles in her eyes.

I opened the door and stepped to the side so she could enter. She walked in, glanced around the penthouse, and muttered something. She turned to face me and raised an eyebrow. “I read that you lost your penthouse.”

“Can’t believe everything you read online,” I told her as I tossed my keys into the basket on the table in my foyer. “Especially when it comes from tabloids.”

Avery took off her shoes, and I did the same. We placed them beneath the front hall table and stood still for a moment. She took off her baseball cap, revealing the flowers in her hair from her wedding updo.

I felt a tightness in my chest. I couldn’t differentiate whether it was her aching or my own. All I knew was that I wanted to slowly pick those damn flowers out of her hair and tell her everything would be all right.

“Can I take a shower?” she asked. Her eyes lifted and she met my stare. A wave of tears settled in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. That wasn’t shocking. “I need to get out of this damn dress.”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll grab some of my sweats and get you set up. If you want, I can run you a bath in my primary bathroom. It’s huge and relaxing. I got lavender bubble bath soap, Epsom salts, and bath bombs, too.”

She tilted her head. “You still take baths?”

“Ever since you told me how good they were for muscle recovery, I’m kind of a bath snob.”

“I always did give you the best ideas.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “You did.”

She almost smiled, and I almost loved it.“Stop trying to make me not hate you anymore.”

I laughed. “Did you already forget that I get turned on by your hatred, Coach?”

She rolled her eyes. “Can you draw me a bath?”

I stepped closer to her and removed one of the flowers from her hair. My hand slightly brushed against her cheek as I nodded slowly. “I can draw you a bath.”

Her mouth slightly parted, and I was almost certain a sarcastic comment was going to fall from her lips. Instead, her eyes shut, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. I brushed it away with my thumb, and her body shivered.

“You don’t have to do this, Ave,” I muttered, watching her fight like hell to keep from breaking. “You don’t have to pretend to be strong today.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because being weak never helped me before.” She shook her softness away, and I watched her eyes harden once more as her browns reappeared. She swiped away the tears that snuck past her stubbornness and rolled her shoulders back.

“Will you draw me a bath?” she asked once more.

“I will draw you a bath,” I echoed.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Be right back. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. Though I haven’t been here in a while, so I’m sure it’s all expired.”

“If I recall correctly, you had no problem eating expired food.”

“Butter and eggs don’t expire,” I countered.

“Butter and eggs definitely expire,” she disagreed. “And so does cheese.”

“If there’s no green, it’s good to go.”

She shook her head in disapproval. “That’s how you ended up with food poisoning way back when.”

“I still think it was a twelve-hour flu.”

“That’s because you’re hardheaded.”

“You always did know me best.”

The corner of her mouth twitched.

Almost another smile.

Damn.

I missed her smiles.

“Bath, Nathaniel.”

“On it, Coach.”

I headed to the bathroom and began to draw her a bath. The number of bath products I had was a running joke with my brothers. Every time they come over to my place, they’d mock me for my drawer of bathtime goodies. From oils to bath bombs to skin conditioners, I had it all. The joke was on them, though. Due to my bath routine, I’d have baby-smooth skin into my late sixties.

I got the water running and added lavender bath salts because I figured that would help Avery relax a little. I could only imagine the thoughts swirling through her mind as she tried to process what she’d been through that afternoon.

What happened with her and Wesley?

Why did the wedding get called off?

Who called it off?

There were a million questions I wanted answers to, but I knew it was none of my business until Avery made it my business. The only thing I knew was that if she was willing to run away with me—her sworn enemy—she must’ve been dealing with a lot of heavy thoughts.

Even seeing that single tear move down her cheek was a big sign of her hurting. One teardrop from Avery Kingsley was like a million tears from the average crier.

Willow was so in touch with her emotions that she probably would’ve cried enough to create her own river.

I lit a few candles around the bathroom, too, and poured her a glass of red wine. Before she came in, I tossed a jazz record onto the turntable. Was it odd I had a turntable set up in a bathroom? Maybe. But I took my bath time seriously. I was one to stay in until my fingertips looked like raisins.

As I walked out of the bathroom, I found Avery sitting on my couch, flipping through the baseball book I had as my coffee table centerpiece.

“Bath time,” I said, breaking her stare from the book.

She shut it and held it close to her chest. “Can I read this in the tub?”

“You can do whatever you want here, Avery Kingsley.”

She took a deep breath. “That’s right. I’m still a Kingsley.”

“Does that make you happy or sad?”

“Neither.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It just makes me numb.”

That made me sad for her, but I didn’t mention that because I was almost certain she’d chew my ass out for being sad for her.

I walked her to the bathroom, and a slight gasp escaped her lips as she looked around the dimly lit room. “Oh my gosh. Your bathroom is the size of my bedroom.” She paused and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh my gosh. I don’t have a bedroom anymore!” Her voice cracked as the realization rolled off her tongue. “I lived with Wesley. In his house. Oh my goodness. I’m homeless.”

“You’re not homeless.”

“I am! I don’t have a home. Not having a home means homeless, Nathan. Oh my gosh, I don’t have a home.” She began pacing in my bathroom as the realizations settled in. “What am I going to do?”

“You have a home,” I said once more.

“How so? How do I have a home if I don’t have a home?”

“Well, I have a home. So if I have a home, you have a home. If you need one, I mean.”

Her pacing stopped. She turned to me with widened eyes and tilted her head. Those full lips parted once more, and I prayed her thoughts would be released from her brain. Instead, she shook them away. “You need to leave. I have to get out of this damn dress.”

“Right. Of course.”

I turned to walk away, and she said, “Nathan, wait.”

“Yeah?”

She placed the baseball book on the bath tray I had set up for her, turned her back to me, and moved the loose hair hanging against her neck to the side. “Can you undo my dress? I can’t get out of this thing on my own.”

“Yeah, of course.”

I walked over to her and unlaced her dress from the top. I took my time with it, watching as the gown unraveled and loosened. She held her hands over her chest, keeping the fabric from falling to the floor. Each lace I loosened revealed more and more of her beautiful brown skin. I wanted my fingers to brush against her skin. I wanted to spin her around and hold her in my arms.

But I knew that would never happen for me.

She wasn’t mine to hold anymore. Yet being that close to her, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have her and to hold her once more.

I’d lost a lot of things in my life. I’d lost things I thought would make me crumble into a million pieces. I’ve lost things that meant so much to me. But nothing would compare to what losing Avery did to me.

Losing Avery Kingsley would be one of the greatest regrets of my life. If I could turn back time, it would’ve worked out differently. If I could turn back time, I would’ve never played another game of baseball if it meant I had her.

Yet that was the thing about choices. We’d made the best ones we thought possible when we were dealing with the different traumas at hand. Young Nathan was just…scared and so deeply sad from the loss of his father. I didn’t know how to think straight at that moment, let alone have enough space in my fucked-up head to love Avery right.

“I was right,” I said as I kept removing the ribbon from its loops.

“Right about what?”

“You being a beautiful bride.”

She didn’t say another word, and I didn’t blame her. But her body did tremble a little. Her soul did react. I just didn’t know what to make of the reaction. I wished I knew how to play it cool around her, too, and pretend that I didn’t feel the way I’d felt, but I couldn’t help it. She was beautiful, and I needed her to know that.

“Done,” I murmured, letting the ribbon drop to the floor.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

“Hopefully, I won’t need you to unlace me from a wedding dress again.”

One can hope, Avery. One can only hope.