Blue Ribbon

Bonus Chapter - Nathan & Aylin

This was requested a lot, so here you go, but you've been warned ;)

Timeline: This is five months after their second meetup (the one that occurred in chapter 57)

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

"This isn't a love story.
This is a slow, exquisite destruction.
And neither of them will survive it whole."

Nathan's POV

I never meant to write about her.

When I write about someone, I bury them in my bones. I let them crawl beneath the chaos, press their fingers to the rot, whisper their name into the walls of my mind until I can't think straight.

I should've never written about her.

But now she's in every line, between the stanzas, beneath my skin, and moaned into the silence of every night.

She is everything I should have left behind on that plane, a beautiful mistake, a flash of light in my endless dark.

Yet still, there she was. Right beside me. Like I hadn't spent every night over the past months trying to forget the sounds she made every time she shattered beneath me. Like my hands didn't remember the map of her body better than my own reflection.

We stood alone on the tennis court, surrounded by green so vibrant it felt obscene. The next field lay quiet across from us, empty, still, like even the world knew better than to interrupt whatever this was.

She hadn't said a word since we arrived.

She was dressed like temptation, like a sin. A white tennis skirt clung to her hips, sinfully short, riding up just enough to make me forget how to breathe. Her matching sports bra left little to the imagination, hugging her chest so tightly it looked like it was molded there by some cruel god.

Her blonde hair was tied up in a high ponytail, strands falling loose around her flushed face like she had just walked out of a fever dream. A tennis white cap shadowed her eyes, but didn't hide the glint that ruined me.

And the worst part? She had no idea. Didn't see the way her skirt lifted as she stretched, or how my gaze followed every line like I was tracing poetry with my eyes. Didn't know that she was seconds away from becoming the next thing I wrote about in blood and sweat.

She bounced the ball in one hand, absentminded, like she hadn't just crawled out of my sheets two nights ago with bite marks down her spine. The other hand spun the racket around her wrist, slow and lazy. Her eyes stayed locked on the empty court ahead, brows slightly furrowed, as if strategizing some perfect shot.

So focused. So unaware. So fucking dangerous.

She didn't know that I was two seconds away from dragging her off the court just to hear my name fall from her lips again, shaky, ruined, reverent. Like a curse or a prayer. Either worked for me.

I hated how unaware she was. And I hated how much I wanted to ruin that.

She turned to me, green eyes meeting mine, "We need to win this, okay?" she muttered.

I moved closer, hands shoved in the pockets of my shorts, my voice low. "Why?"

I knew why. But I wanted to hear her say it. I wanted to hear the lie she'd fabricate.

"Just because," she replied, shrugging. "I don't like losing."

She placed the racket down, let the ball drop beside it. Then she stretched, arms above her head, back arched, skirt lifting. That tiny sports bra rode up just enough to make me forget my fucking name. Her damned skirt was so fucking short, it should've been illegal. White. Tight. Cut just to make me bleed, to make my blood roar loud.