11. Dane
Chapter 11
Dane
I ’m pretty sure Bella Rose Braxton just gave me the slip and plans to do it again.
I roll down the window, leaning out to call her name, but she breaks eye contact, cooly ignoring me as she saunters inside a downtown shop.
It's her, although the woman I’m staring at is nothing like the girl I remember. That girl was pretty too, though teenage Rosie was shy and a little sad—like she was one strong breeze away from breaking. This grown-up version of Rosie is nothing like I expected. She’s bold, with full round hips and short, unruly dark curls that frame one side of a delicate face.
I’ve been around a lot of beautiful people during my time in football. It comes with the territory, especially being at the top of the game. Everyone starts to look the same, dress the same, talk the same. After a while, the lavish parties, the people trying to buy a ride on someone else’s talent, and the constant recognition all bleed together into a shiny, shallow world that can suck a person in if they let it.
But this woman doesn’t have her little imperfections buffed out. Rosie Braxton is raw, a little quirky, and sexy as hell.
I’ve spent more than a decade wondering what happened between Nash and Rosie that night. Nash can be an intense alpha, his moods tending to go to extremes, but that night with Rosie seemed to eat away at him. I eventually settled on the idea that Nash’s weird obsession with the night stems from his misplaced guilt over his mother. Rosie gave Nash an excuse to unleash his demons on the town before he left it. That spring, he beat on anyone who so much as mentioned her name. But now I’m questioning my own logic because I’m seriously drawn to her, and guilt is definitely not what I’m feeling.
Rosie made it clear by her hasty exit that she doesn’t want to see me, just as she did the many times I came with Nash to the hospital and her fathers turned us away. I’m pretty sure it makes me an alphahole for thinking it, but I’m not used to people running the other way when they see me. It’s generally the opposite.
What happened at that party and after, at school, must have been traumatic. We did what we could to stop it, but it was rough. If I thought about it long enough, I could get as ragey as Nash. So, I can see why she might want to avoid any reminders of that night. But the snub chafes something inside me, rubbing me the wrong way even though I know it shouldn’t. Rosie Braxton doesn’t owe me shit.
I can’t help my reaction though. It’s like she took one look at me, sized me up, and wrote me off. For some inexplicable reason, that makes me want to prove something to her, which is ridiculous.
The Bluetooth beeps with an incoming text from Nash, no doubt wondering why it’s taking me an hour to run to town and grab lunch. Another two minutes pass, and Rosie still hasn’t exited the shop. I give up and back out of my spot, heading toward my new home. I don’t know what the heck I was waiting for or what I would even say to her. It’s not as if I have any business demanding Rosie’s attention, but that doesn’t seem to stop me from wanting it.
By the time I’m back at our new place, I’m not any more settled. My alpha instincts are riding me. It feels as if I’ve been issued a challenge, and my alpha wants to go hard. Maybe it’s that Quinn is halfway around the country, closing the sale on our condo, instead of with us setting up his nest. Or maybe it’s the stress of moving and starting another football program—this time one that will finally be my own. Whatever it is, I need to shake it off and show my pack that this was the right move.
I’m the one who pushed us to move here despite Nash’s hesitance to come back. I was homesick and looking to get out of the national limelight. When my father mentioned that my old head coach was retiring after twenty-five seasons at Knotty Pines High, I was the one who reached out about taking over.
After almost a decade of chasing titles with me—first as a player, then as a coach—our pack needs a change of pace and a chance to finally settle down.
A thump on my window startles me out of my stupor, and Nash grumbles at me through the glass. “What took so long, man? My stomach is eating itself.”
I roll my eyes at my grumpy packmate but grab the bag. Nash opens my door and has his first sandwich unwrapped before I’m out of the truck.
“We need groceries,” he mumbles around a mouthful. “And Quinn, because you know he’s gonna tell us to move every item we’ve already put down.”
The extra salt in his scent gives away the fact that he misses our omega, but his commentary is spot on.
“Then we get it all inside and change it when he gets here.” I shrug, stealing back the bag. He'll finish all of them if I don’t grab at least two sandwiches now. “We can live on takeout and the essentials ‘til Monday.”
He gives a chin lift in acknowledgment and scarfs down another sandwich before tossing the sack on the hood of his truck and getting back to work unloading. While eating, I debate telling him I saw Rosie in town but decide that for now, it’s best to keep it to myself.
I never really considered the idea that there was more of a connection to Nash’s feelings about Rosie than his own past. But how drawn I felt to her today has given new light to Nash’s hesitance to return home, one I feel like a total asshole for missing. There’s something there, something I don’t understand, but it explains why both of them are running away. I ponder that for the rest of the afternoon as we unload the big rental truck.