9. Nash
CHAPTER NINE
Nash
I wake up convinced two things are wrong.
One: my head feels like someone used it for rodeo practice.
Two: this is not my bed.
I crack one eye open and immediately regret it. Light slants across unfamiliar walls. Soft, pale, too clean. Not the rough wood paneling I grew up with. The sheets smell of bergamot and pine in a way that is very much not McCoy Ranch laundry detergent.
Oh no.
I lift my head an inch. The room spins violently. I drop back onto the pillow with a groan, pressing my palm to my face as memory slams into me all at once.
Whiskey… snow, the kiss… the sneaking.
Laughter I tried not to make loud.
Tessa Long.
In her house.
In her bed.
I bolt upright.
Or try to.
Pain detonates behind my eyes, and I hiss, grabbing the edge of the mattress to keep from toppling sideways. The movement is enough to disturb the other side of the bed.
Tessa stirs.
My stomach drops clean through the floor.
She rolls onto her back, hair loose and wild against the pillow, blinking, waking from a dream. Then her gaze locks on me.
All softness vanishes.
“What,” she snaps, “are you still doing in my bed?”
I swallow. “Good morning?”
“Don’t,” she snaps. “Do not good morning me.”
I scrub a hand through my hair, immediately regretting the pressure. “Okay. Yeah. That’s fair.”
She sits up, dragging the sheet with her, posture already locked down, spine straight, armor snapping into place as it always does when she’s angry.
“You need to leave.”
“That was my plan,” I say quickly. “Immediately. As soon as my brain stops trying to escape my skull.”
“You stayed,” she fires back.
“So did you,” I shoot back, then instantly regret it.
Her eyes flash. “This is my house.”
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. The cold floor bites into my bare feet. My jeans are folded neatly over a chair. Folded.
Of course they are.
Tessa Long does not allow turmoil, even after questionable decisions.
I reach for my shirt, and she makes a sharp sound.
“Don’t touch anything else.”
I freeze. “I was just—”
“I know what you were just…” she cuts in. “I mean, don’t touch anything else in this house. You’re loud. You creak.”
“I do not creak.”
“You absolutely creak.”
I bite back a smile. Wrong. Moment.
She gets up, wrapping the sheet tighter around herself. “What were you thinking?”
There it is.
The real question.
“I wasn’t,” I admit. “Clearly.”
She exhales hard, pacing once, then stopping directly in front of me. “Do you have any idea how bad this looks?”
“I didn’t exactly bring a marching band,” I mutter.
Her glare could cut glass. “You are engaged.”
The word hits hard.
I straighten despite the hangover. “I did not—”
“You cheated on your fiancée,” she snaps, eyes bright with fury. “With me.”
“I didn’t cheat,” I fire back.
She lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “That is an insane thing to say.”
“Because…” I stop myself, jaw tightening. “Because it’s not like that.”
“Oh?” she challenges. “Then explain it to me, Nash. Slowly. Like I’m five.”
I drag a hand down my face. My head is pounding. My mouth tastes of cheap whiskey. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about,” she says. “You made a public declaration. You stood in front of the town council and told everyone you were engaged. Then you kissed me. Then you slept with me.” Her voice sharpens. “In my bed.”
The room feels too small.
“You panicked,” she continues. “You panicked, like you always do, and now you’re dragging everyone else into it.”
“That’s not fair.”
She laughs again, but this time there’s no humor in it. “You don’t get to decide what’s fair.”
I stand abruptly, swaying once. She watches me carefully, ready to shove me back onto the bed if I fall.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” I say.
“And whose fault is that?” she snaps. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you used me to blow off steam after creating a drama with the entire town.”
“That’s not…” My voice cracks, frustration surging. “You think I planned this?”
“Yes,” she says immediately. “I think you make reckless choices and clean them up later with charm.”
“That’s not who I am.”
“It’s who you are under pressure,” she counters. “And now you’re trying to tell me this…” she gestures between us, sharp and contained, “was just an accident?”
My head throbs. My chest tightens. The words stack up behind my teeth with nowhere to go.
“I didn’t cheat,” I say again, too fast, too defensive. “Because there is no fiancée.”
The silence is immediate.
Absolute.
Tessa freezes.
“What,” she says very quietly, “did you just say?”
The words hang there, ugly and irreversible.
I close my eyes.
“Shit.”
She takes one slow step toward me. “Say it again.”
I shake my head. “Tessa—”
“There is no fiancée,” she repeats. “That’s what you said.”
I open my eyes and meet her gaze.
“There is no fiancée,” I admit.
The truth lands as a gunshot.
“Oh shit. You’re serious.”
“I panicked,” I say, words tumbling out now. “The council cornered me—they were going to shut the whole thing down, and I said the first thing that made them hesitate.”
“So you invented a woman,” she says flatly.
“Yes.”
“You invented commitment.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re telling me,” she says slowly, dangerously, “that there is no fiancée at all.”
“That’s what I just said.”
She stares at me for a long moment, then bursts out laughing. Real laughter this time, bent over at the waist, one hand braced on the dresser as if she might actually collapse.
“You are unbelievable,” she manages. “Absolutely unbelievable.”
I scowl. “This isn’t funny.”
“Oh, it is,” she says, straightening and pointing at me. “You stood in front of the entire town and lied about settling down because you needed leverage.”
“I needed time.”
“And now you’re in my bed,” she adds. “Congratulations. You’ve outdone yourself.”
The argument sparks fully now, words snapping back and forth, old rivalry flaring as dry brush catching fire.
“You don’t get to judge me,” I say. “You don’t know what it’s like to be dismissed every time you open your mouth.”
“You don’t get to drag other people into your mess,” she fires back. “Especially not me.”
“I didn’t plan—”
“You always do this,” she says, quieter now. “You jump. You improvise. You assume you’ll land on your feet.”
“That’s not—”
“And you do,” she continues. “Most of the time. That’s the problem.”
I drag on my jeans and shirt, then grab my boots, fingers fumbling as anger and embarrassment tangle tight in my chest.
“Fine,” I mutter. “I’ll go.”
She doesn’t turn around. “Yeah.”
I grab my coat from the chair. The room suddenly feels smaller. Too full of things I shouldn’t have touched.
I reach for the door.
“Nash.”
I stop, hand on the knob, pulse roaring in my ears.
She turns slowly, expression closed off now.
“You’re buying me breakfast.”
I blink. “What?”
“At Spurs,” she says, as if this is the most reasonable conclusion in the world. “You owe me an explanation that doesn’t involve shouting or passing out.”
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say honestly.
“I didn’t say it was,” she replies evenly. “I said you’re buying.”
I just stare at her.
My head throbs. My pride throbs harder. Every instinct I have is screaming to run, get out of this house, out of this conversation, out of the mess I made.
But she’s right.
Running won’t fix this.
And somehow, impossibly, she’s offering me a way to stay in the room without blowing everything apart.
“Fine,” I mutter. “Breakfast.”
She lifts her chin, reclaiming the space between us inch by inch. “Good. Window.”
I blink. “What?”
She dresses quickly, pulling her sweater over her head in one smooth motion, hair tumbling loose again.
“Front hall creaks. Back stairs creak. And if my uncle hears either of us, this morning gets ten times worse.”
“You keep accusing me of creaking.”
“I was being generous,” she replies. “You stomp like a wounded moose.”
I glance at the door, then at the window on the far side of the room. It’s tall, old-fashioned, framed by heavy curtains.
“You want me to climb out the window.”
“Yes.”
“I am hungover.”
“Yes.”
She fixes me with a look. “Would you like to meet my uncle in my bedroom wearing last night’s jeans?”
I sigh. “Point taken.”
She crosses the room and pulls the curtain aside just enough to peer out. Snow blankets the side yard, pristine except for a faint trail of footprints that I’m ninety percent sure are mine from last night.
“There’s a trellis,” she says. “It’s sturdy.”
“That sounds like a lie people tell right before something collapses.”
“It held my grandmother’s roses for fifteen years,” she shoots back. “You’ll survive.”
I rub my temples. “If I die, I’m haunting you.”
“Get in line.”
She pushes the window open carefully. Cold rushes in, sharp and bracing, doing nothing for my headache but clearing my head just enough to register how absurd this is.
I swing one leg over the sill, then pause.
“Tessa.”
She looks at me, brows lifted. “What?”
“Thank you,” I say, meaning… well, I don’t really know what yet.
Her mouth tightens, then relaxes. “Don’t make this weird.”
“Too late.”
She rolls her eyes. “Go.”
I ease myself onto the trellis, gripping the wood as if my life depends on it. Which, frankly, it might.
“Don’t look down,” she advises.
“I am absolutely looking down.”
“Stop.”
“I can see my death.”
“You’re fine,” she whispers sharply. “Just…”
A floorboard creaks somewhere in the house.
We both freeze.
Her eyes widen. My heart drops straight into my boots.
Footsteps.
“Shit,” I breathe.
She grabs my collar and yanks me back toward the window just as a door opens down the hall.
“Tessa?” a voice calls. “Are you awake?”
I flatten myself against the exterior wall, one boot balanced precariously on the trellis, the other dangling in midair idiotically. Tessa presses herself flat against the wall inside, hand clamped over her mouth to keep from laughing or screaming, I can’t tell which.
“Yes,” she calls back, too bright. “I’m, uh… stretching.”
There’s a pause.
“Stretching,” he repeats.
“Yes,” she says firmly. “Morning routine.”
Another step. Closer.
I close my eyes and will my balance not to fail me now.
“And the window’s open because…?” he asks.
Cold sweat trickles down my spine.
Tessa doesn’t miss a beat. “Fresh air. Clears my head.”
Silence.
Then: “You’ve always been odd before breakfast.”
She hums. “Runs in the family.”
The footsteps retreat.
I wait a full three seconds after the last sound fades before I dare to move.
“Tessa,” I whisper. “I’m going to fall.”
“Drop,” she whispers back. “Just drop.”
“I don’t think that’s…”
She shoves my shoulder.
I yelp, lose my grip, and drop the last few feet into the snow with a muffled whump, landing on my ass, hard as a sack of feed.
The cold is immediate.
I lie there for half a second, staring up at the gray morning sky, breath knocked clean out of me.
Then her face appears at the window, peering down.
“You alive?” she asks.
“I think my dignity died on impact.”
She snorts, then clamps a hand over her mouth.
“Go,” she says urgently. “Before he looks out the window.”
I scramble to my feet, slipping once, then take off toward the side gate as if I’ve just robbed the place.
At the fence, I glance back.
She’s still there, watching me, hair a mess, eyes bright, cheeks flushed, and despite everything, she looks amused.
“Spurs,” she calls softly.
I nod. “I’ll see you there.”
She shuts the window.
I vault the gate and head down the street, boots crunching through snow, head pounding, heart racing.
I have a fake engagement.
A real problem.
And a breakfast date I absolutely deserve to pay for.