by Hanna Hart
“Nah, forget it. You wrecked it,” he said, waving her off playfully.
“Don't be stubborn. Be romantic. Come on; I know you want to!”
“Do you know how difficult it is to be with you?” he asked, and she leaned in, kissing him softly.
“You love it,” she said as their lips parted.
Nash opened his eyes as the kiss broke, and the way he looked at her afterward gave her full-body goosebumps. She felt an overwhelming need for him so she went right back in for another embrace, but he craned his neck to back away.
She suddenly realized how nervous he looked, and it made her feel giddy.
“I love you,” he said, pulling her hand into his and cradling it like a precious gem. “You know that, right? I can't imagine my life without you, Sophia Sawyer.”
Her mouth pulled into a wide, goofy grin at the sentiment. She loved what he was saying, but she never knew how to take compliments.
Nash inhaled and seemed to hold his breath as he stared down at her hand, gentling running his thumb across her knuckles.
“And I can't imagine coming out here to watch the sunset with anyone else,” she reciprocated. “I could watch a thousand sunsets with you and never get bored.”
Nash smiled. She heard a nervous swallow, and just like that, he said, “I got you something.”
“Oh yeah? What is it?”
“Check the glove box,” he said, nodding toward the black handle.
Sophia leaned forward and pulled the compartment open. Sitting on the tiny gray shelf sat a silver ring box.
She looked at him, and he gestured for her to take the box. “Open it,” he said nervously.
Now it was Sophia’s turn to be nervous.
She took the tiny box in her hand and flipped it open. Inside was a white gold engagement ring with a simple vintage style oval diamond with two dainty round diamonds on either side. It was simple but beautiful.
“Nash,” she said breathlessly.
“Just wait,” he said with a nervous laugh, putting up a hand to stop her from interrupting.
Her eyes were round as saucers as she stared down at the grand gesture. She shook her head and repeated, “Nash,” but he wouldn’t be deterred.
“Just,” he repeated, “give me a second, please.”
She went silent, but inside, she was shaking. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, and her hands went so sweaty, she wouldn’t be surprised if the ring box slipped right out of her hand.
“Sophia, I love you. I love you in a way that is so fulfilling that sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of it.”
“Nash,” she tried.
“I always knew what I wanted, and from the moment I met you, I knew you drove me crazy, knew that I was going to fall hard for you, and that one day, I was going to want you to be my wife.”
“And let me guess...” she said. “This is that day?”
Nash smiled at her, completely amused as he said, “You're really not going to let me get through this speech, are you?”
“Sounds like you've hit the bullet points,” she teased nervously.
“Sophia, I love you, and I never want to live a life without you in it,” he said, and everything he said sounded so perfect. “Will you marry me?”
Until he said that.
Sophia felt her mouth go dry. She smiled at him, in shock, and then looked back down at the ring.
The diamonds were modest in size, yet she felt as if they took up all the room in the car. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was like a desert.
She scraped her teeth against her bottom lip and suddenly realized nobody had said anything in what felt like forever, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t force herself to speak.
Nash was still smiling, but she could see the tension in his face as he said, “Sophia?”
She glanced at the ring a second longer before looking back up at him. Her smile faded, and his quickly followed.
She set the ring box on the center console between them and he quickly took it into his hand and snapped it shut with one swift motion.
“You're saying no,” he said stubbornly, looking away from her.
She wanted to think very carefully about how to respond, but she wasn’t sure how to properly express herself without hurting Nash’s feelings.
Or maybe there was no way to express how she felt without breaking his heart a little bit.
“I'm not saying yes,” she said slowly.
“So you're saying no,” he snapped.
“Not exactly,” she winced. “I don't know; this is so sudden.”
“We've been together for two years. That's not exactly in the blink of an eye.”
“I just don't know; just give me a minute to think about this,” she said.
“What's there to think about? Don't you love me?”
“Yes, of course,” she said.
“And we have fun together. We work well together, don't we?”
“We know how to shine a banister,” she tried to joke, but Nash was far from amused.
“I'm being serious right now, Sophia,” he said. “Can you be serious for two seconds? Ever? Please?”
“I'm sorry. I don't know what to say. I'm flustered,” she said sympathetically.
She felt awkward and trapped and hated every minute of this conversation. She didn’t want to hurt him, and she was doing just that.
“You know, most girls consider this the best moment of their lives,” he said, making her feel even worse.
“I can't. I'm not…I'm not that girl. Not yet,” Sophia shrugged.
“Why not?”
“I don't know. I just, I'm not...” she stammered.
“You’re not that girl, I got it,” Nash snapped.
Sophia was not a girl who grew up dreaming about marriage. She was the daughter of teenage parents who decided she was better to off raised by her aunt and uncle, Marta and George. Five years later, when she was just eight years old, Marta split, leaving her in the custody of her uncle.
To say she knew where to begin with love, relationships, or even marriage was a complete joke.
She didn’t want to say yes to a life she knew nothing about and then have Nash resent her for it. She wouldn’t do it.
“I don't understand,” he said, his voice filled with anguish. “Aren't things good between us? I don't understand how you think you could have a better connection with somebody else.”
“With somebody else?” she repeated with a scoff. “Nash, I'm not saying I want to break up with you; I'm saying I don't want to get married.”
He blinked and gave her a curious stare. “How are you acting like there's a middle ground somewhere?”
“What do you mean? If I don't want to marry you, then we can't be together?”
His expression said he didn't know how she could think otherwise, and Sophia started to feel embarrassed.
“Sophia,” he said firmly. “I love you. I want to be your husband.”
“Why?”
He scoffed. “Because I want to start my life with you.”
“We're doing that now!”
“Why are you so afraid to commit to me? Why is this always a battle with you? Do you know how much of our relationship I have spent wondering how you feel about me? I don't understand why you can't just…”
His lingering sentence made Sophia’s heart drop. She met his eyes and asked, “Can't just…what?”
“Love me!” he shouted. “Why can't you love me, Sophia?”
“I do love you,” she spat with a frustrated laugh. “But I can't marry you just to prove that!”
Nash had enough. He turned the engine off and got out of the car, slamming the driver’s side door behind him.
“Nash, come on!” she called out the window.
She could see him slowly disappear into the darkness outside and felt panic creep from the bottom of her spine up to her neck.
Sophia got out of the car and slammed the door hard.
“Nash,
don't make me chase after you!” she called. “It's cold, and there are snakes out there. Please, you'll get lost!” she fumed. “Stop being so dramatic!”
Sophia had said the magic word because she heard the sand and gravel kick up under Nash’s foot as he spun on his heel.
Stomping back to her, he said, “Dramatic?”
“Dramatic,” she said, enunciating the word this time.
“Dramatic?” he repeated, furious. “You just broke my heart and now I'm being dramatic?”
“Nash, I love you!”
“Then what's the problem?” he asked as he threw his hands into the air.
“I don't know! I don't know what it is!”
“You don't think I'm the one for you?” he asked, calmer then.
She shook her head and felt the dark Texas air brush coolly against her bare skin. “No, that's not it.”
“Stop doing that! Don't jerk me around, Sophia. Just answer the question.”
“I just, I'm not used to that,” she stammered out.
“What…stability? Love?”
“Sure! Both of those things,” she said.
“Your past shouldn't have anything to do with your future.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” she laughed, shaking her head. How could he not see that it had everything to do with it?
“Just tell me why.”
“Because!” Sophia said, half-shouting. “Because I don't want to be stuck with you forever!”
Her words hit the air and seemed to hover before sinking into both of them like a virus.
She let out a long exhale and knew that she’d just thrown everything right out the window.
“What if we stay together for years and then we're both just miserable and everything is horrible and we both wish we never did this?” she asked. “Then there's lawyers and assets to split, and then we're not the fun Nash and Sophia anymore. We're the divorced, ugly, horrible Nash and Sophia.”
Nash’s expression went hard, but she could see a smirk forming in the corner of his lips.
It was not an amused smirk, however. It was an irritated one.
“Let me get this straight...” he said slowly. “While I'm asking you to be my wife, you're already planning our miserable marriage and divorce?”
“I like things the way they are,” she insisted.
Nash breathed, and she could tell the weight of her words were finally sinking in.
“You don't want to marry me because you don't want to be stuck with me,” he said.
“I don't want to marry you because I'm scared and I love you and I love the way things are now,” she said, trying to take it all back.
“We've been here before,” he warned. “I told you I wanted to be with you, and you were scared and you flailed and you fought it because that's what you do, but then you realized I was right.”
“I know,” she said. “But you're not right about this.”
A long silence followed, and after all of the yelling and reasoning, something unspoken passed between them.
“I can't make you want this,” he said.
“No,” she said quietly.
She watched Nash as he ran a hand through his hair. He tilted his head back and looked at the sky and how it was blanketed with stars.
The longer he stayed silent, the more unnerved she became.
“Nash, talk to me. Let's talk about this before you make a huge mistake.”
“I'm gonna take you home,” he said.
“Let’s talk.”
“Nah,” he said with a breath. “I'm done talking.”
“It's thirty minutes back to my house,” she said, following him back into the car. “You're not going to talk to me for the whole car ride?”
“I can hardly look at you right now, let alone talk to you.”
She thought it was a bluff, but Nash didn’t say one word to her the whole way back to her house.
When he pulled into her driveway, he parked the car and stared forward, waiting for her to get out.
Sophia swallowed nervously and clutched her purse on her lap, still in the passenger seat.
“Will you call me?” she asked.
His tone was even as he said, “I don't think so.”
“So, what? That's it? It's all or nothing with you?”
Nash shrugged. “I told you what I wanted.”
“And I told you that I'm not…I told you no,” she said.
“Exactly. We don't want the same things, so why should we be together?”
Sophia went to speak, but Nash put a hand up, finally meeting her eyes. He didn’t look angry as he spoke; he looked resigned, and that scared her more than anything.
“Why should I waste any more time with someone who doesn't want the things that I want?” he said.
“Nash,” she began, but he jut a thumb out toward her house and said, “Out.”
Sophia set her jaw, clenching her teeth hard. She got out of the car and leaned in through the passenger-side window, snipping, “You're going to regret the way this ended, Nash. You're going to regret making me get out of your car and you're going to kick yourself later for this. You're going to wish we talked.”
He pierced her with a hard stare, unmoving as he said, “And you're going to wish you said yes. And you know where I'll be by then? Married.”
Sophia’s eyes went wide with fury.
She was so angry that her hurt didn’t set in for days.
Then, when it was too late, she realized that he had been right. Infuriatingly right.
She had been searching for stability for her whole life. She just didn’t know she needed it until Nash left.
When she found out they were pregnant, she tried to call Nash, but he had blocked her number. She tried to get the information from Gage, but he wouldn’t let her in, either.
So she decided that if he didn’t want anything to do with her, why should he have anything to do with their child?
It was a selfish, stupid, immature way to think. There was no denying that, but it was the choice she made.
But now that Nash was back in Sophia’s life, she couldn’t help but think this was the perfect opportunity to fix the past.
Chapter Thirteen
Nash
Sophia Sawyer.
Her name haunted Nash’s mind day and night.
The two of them had been spending nearly every day together, their streak only ever interrupted by Wesley.
She spent nights out with him, but when he saw them together, he could tell there was no chemistry there.
Wesley was falling for her, that much Nash knew for sure. He’d known Wesley for years, and he could tell when the guy was going crazy for a girl, but Nash knew Sophia even better, and he could tell her interest in Wesley was one of shoulds.
She should be with him because he’s a nice guy.
Should like him because he treats Imogene so well.
She should be in love with him by now, but she just wasn’t.
He knew she wasn’t—or at least, he hoped.
Which made him feel like a horrible friend. He should be hoping the best for Wesley; hoping that Sophia had changed, and she could commit.
The two managed about one date a week, which was only a handful of occasions, really.
Nash wanted to say, don't get involved with this guy. Don't make things a mess before I have my chance to see you.
But maybe it was for the best…maybe his heart wasn't ready to love anyone except for Kenzie. Or more specifically, maybe his heart wasn't ready for Sophia again.
He wasn't ready for the guessing games or thinking he knew someone so well only to have the rug pulled out from underneath him. To be with someone too immature to comprehend real love.
He knew he should steer clear of her and to protect himself, but he couldn’t help the draw he felt for her. She was so beautiful and so fun, and even her daughter—whom by all rights he should feel was a burden to his ability to be alone with Sophia—made his heart happy. She was
the sweetest, cutest, funniest little girl he'd ever met. If anything, Imogene enhanced their time together.
No matter how much he tried to warn his heart, he couldn't stay away from Sophia. She was like a beacon: a lighthouse to his ship in the night. Days when he promised he wouldn't talk to her would end with him going to her house and cooking dinner with her or working on the house.
That night, Nash had gone to Sophia’s, preferring her house—lively and welcoming—to his own, which only ever reminded him that he was alone.
The two of them put some finishing touches in the hallway, hanging a frame or two, and then made an easy dinner of burgers and salads.
They ate and played board games with Imogene until she was too tired to stay awake. Then, as the night rolled over the small farmhouse, they sat on the floor of her living room, close to the coffee table, and sipped room temperature tea.
There was always tea.
Nash wasn’t particularly fond of tea, but drinking it wasn’t about enjoyment. It was just a reason to stay longer. He couldn’t leave if there were still tea to drink.
“It looks amazing in here,” he said, raising his mug and gesturing around the room.
“We know how to build a home,” she said, pulling her thick hair up into a blue scrunchie.
“Now if only we could go five seconds without arguing, we'd be perfect,” he said with a wink.
“I love quarreling with you.”
“Don't say quarrel,” he laughed.
“Why?”
“Just say argue!” he frowned. “Quarrel is so…old!”
“Quarrel is the refined way of saying argue, and I'm refined,” she said, pressing a hand against her chest.
“Is that right?” he snorted.
“Yeah, it is,” she flirted back.
“You can only saw quarrel if you're British. That's the only way it sounds refined. Otherwise, it sounds like you just stepped out of a time machine and need to go back to the eighteen-hundreds.”
“Why can't we stop arguing?” she giggled, shaking her head and glancing around the room at the beautiful house they had created together.