9. Nova
Chapter nine
Nova
Jax Mercer makes restraint look like a contact sport.
Which should not be attractive.
Unfortunately, it is.
I lift the camera. Lower it again. I write three usable lines about his edgework, his rebound control, the way the coaching staff trusts him to anchor the pace of the session.
I read it back.
Useful. Professional. Empty.
Because what I want to write is that there’s something unsettling about a man who wastes that little. Every movement looks deliberate. Controlled. Like even being still is something he decided on purpose. And being looked at by him feels like being pinned in place with almost no effort at all.
I catch him catching me. He doesn’t react, which is somehow worse than if he did.
I spend the next minute taking pictures of the boards like I’m suddenly pitching a heartfelt visual essay on chipped paint and ad placement.
The whole day splits after that.
There’s work-Nova, competent and composed, getting what she needs, lining up quotes, checking facts, staying on deadline.
Then there’s the other me, the one who keeps replaying a one-word text, the hallway, the look on his face, the fact that I can’t decide whether his lack of reaction calms me down or makes me want to shake him by the shoulders until he says something unwise.
I get a lot done. I’m good at that — staying busy is the oldest trick I have, and most days it works.
What I do not do is write Mercer should come with a warning label in my notebook.
I think it, though. Loudly. More than once.
By the end of the day I’ve talked myself into a plan, the way you do when you already suspect you’re going to ignore it: go home, feed the ungrateful alley cat currently squatting in my life like she holds the lease, and make exactly one decision my future self won’t describe as catastrophic.
I push through the door into the parking lot.
He’s there. Leaning against his car like he’s been waiting long enough to settle in.
Of course he is.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.”
I keep walking because I have instincts, and some of them are even good.
“Nova.”
I stop, but I don’t turn around.
“You already said what you needed to say,” I tell him. “We’re done.”
Even as I say it, I know it sounds thin. Like I’m trying to end a conversation that was never really under my control in the first place.
“We’re not done.”
“We are.”
“Turn around.”
“I’m good.”
Then—
“Nova.”
Just my name.
That’s all.
And somehow it lands low and warm and entirely too certain, and my body betrays me before my pride can get involved.
I turn.
He looks different up close. Not undone. He’s too contained for that. But there’s less distance in his face now. Less blankness. His focus is direct enough to feel physical, and there’s something in his mouth—not softness, exactly, but the possibility of it—that makes my pulse trip over itself.
“You apologized twice.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you?”
Because once felt polite and this wasn’t polite. Because I needed him to understand I meant it. Because I’ve spent enough of my life swallowing things that mattered and pretending they didn’t leave bruises.
“Because once didn’t feel like enough.”
He studies me for a second.
“You always do that?”
“Do what.”
“Decide something matters and then go all in on it.”
I fold my arms. “You always do that?”
His eyes stay on mine. “Do what.”
“Stand there like you already know exactly how this is going to go.”
He shifts, barely. It’s not much, but it’s more than he usually gives.
“I don’t.”
“You act like you do.”
That’s the problem with Jax Mercer. He doesn’t push. Doesn’t chase. Doesn’t fill silence just because it exists. He just stands there, steady enough to make every exit strategy I have feel dramatic and unnecessary.
I want to call it arrogance. Arrogance would be easier. It isn’t arrogance.
“You don’t like that?”
Like what?
Like the certainty. Like the fact that he doesn’t rush to rescue me from the quiet. Like the way he looks at me like waiting isn’t difficult for him.
I should say yes.
I don’t.
“I didn’t say that.”
Something changes between us. Subtle, but real. The air feels closer somehow, even before he moves. Like the moment has already tipped and the rest of me is just catching up.
He looks at me like he’s leaving me room to back out. That does something to me. More than it should. Way more than it should. Because guys who leave room are dangerous in a completely different way than guys who push. The ones who push are easy. You brace. You resist. You sharpen.
It’s the men I might actually trust that are the problem. I don’t step back.
That feels like the real answer.
He pushes off the car and closes the space between us. Slow enough that I could stop this. Certain enough that I know he thinks I won’t.
One step. Then another.
His hand comes up and cups my face. Warm. Steady. Careful. My body reacts instantly, like it’s been waiting for him to catch up all day, which feels both excessive and deeply rude.
I know how to handle being wanted. Men make that easy all the time. It’s being handled carefully that throws me off. Because careful has never felt neutral to me. It feels temporary. Like the kind of thing people offer right before they decide you’re too much work after all.
But there’s nothing temporary in him. Nothing halfway. Just that quiet, impossible certainty.
Great. Perfect. Exactly what my week needed, a professional disaster with nice hands.
I don’t move.
I should.
Apparently every survival instinct I own has stepped out for a smoke.
“You’re not going to apologize a third time.”
“That wasn’t the plan.”
“Good.”
Then he kisses me.
It lands a little rough, a little crooked, like patience gave out halfway through restraint, and my hands fist in his jacket before I consciously agree to any of this. His mouth is hot, insistent without being careless, and when he makes this low sound in his throat I feel it everywhere.
Which is ridiculous. It’s just a sound.
It’s not.
Then his hand tightens at my back and the joke dies immediately. I pull him closer. He comes without hesitation. That’s what gets me. Not just the kiss. Not even how badly I want it.
It’s the way he meets me like he knows the difference between me freezing and me choosing. Like he has no interest in taking anything I don’t hand him. There’s something unbearable about being wanted without being pushed. That realization goes through me hot, sharp, and way too deep.
When we break, I’m breathing too fast. His hand is still on my face. Mine is still twisted in his jacket. He looks at me, eyes fixed on my mouth, and my whole body lights up again like it learned something the first time and would now like to be absolutely insufferable about it.
“That was—”
“Yeah.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“Didn’t think you wanted helpful.”
“I didn’t think I wanted that either.”
A pause.
“You did.”
I stare at him. “You’re pretty sure of yourself.”
“Not usually.”
That almost makes me laugh, which is annoying, because it’s not even that clever. It’s just him. The dry certainty of it. The fact that he says things like that without trying to charm me, which somehow works much better than if he did.
“It should concern you how little that reassures me.”
“It should reassure you a lot.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m right.”
Jesus Christ.
“That’s arrogant.”
“Probably,” He says.
That does make me laugh, and I hate how quickly he notices. His whole face doesn’t change, but something in it warms. Enough that I feel it like his hand low on my spine.
This is how women end up making terrible decisions and writing playlists about them.
“This is a terrible idea.”
“I know.”
“We should probably—”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t let go. Just watches me, like he’s waiting to see whether I’m about to lie to both of us.
The smart thing would be to finish that sentence.
The smart thing would be to step back, get in my car, go home, overfeed the feral dictator on my back step, and remember I have worked too hard for my life to start detonating it over a goalie with a god complex and unfair hands.
Instead, I stay right where I am. Which is, frankly, its own answer.
He kisses me again, slower.
Deliberate. Intentional. Like he’s learned the shape of my hesitation and decided to take his time proving he can get past it. He kisses me again, slower.
Deliberate. Intentional. Like he’s learned the shape of my hesitation and decided to take his time proving he can get past it. His thumb drags once along my jaw and something in me goes loose.
His other hand settles at my back and pulls me in, closer than necessary, closer than reasonable, and my body goes with him so fast it’s almost insulting.
No pause. No internal debate. No last stand from the part of me that usually insists on caution. His mouth shifts against mine, deeper this time, and something in me gives so fast it feels like betrayal. He touches me like he already knows I bruise in places nobody can see.
That should not feel this dangerous.
It does.
Because some awful, hopeful part of me is already answering a question he hasn’t actually asked. When we break apart again, he still hasn’t moved his hand from my face, and mine is still fisted in his jacket like I need the leverage.
Neither of us steps back. My phone rings.
Fuck.
Of course it does. I answer because apparently I’m still me, even half-melted and furious about it. He watches me the whole time—steady, tracking every shift in my expression like he’s reading a play develop in real time. I hang up. Look at him.
“The rival outlet wants a comment by morning.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“About us.”
The air shifts. The space between us is gone, and neither of us seems in any hurry to fix that. That feels like an answer.
Maybe not a safe one.
But definitely an answer.