Founded on Goodbye by Kat Singleton

“I absolutely hate mac n’ cheese,” Nash admits.

The ball is still bouncing behind the basketball goal after he missed it by a hair. I’m smart enough to realize he could’ve easily made it if he wanted to, but we’ve had so much fun playing the game at this point it’s become more about sharing random facts about ourselves and not about making baskets.

I stand in my spot, my mouth agape. “Did I hear you right? You hate mac n’ cheese?!”

He laughs, scratching the tattoo on his hand. “Yep, I think it’s disgusting actually.”

A gasp leaves my mouth, the air making a wheezing sound as I suck in a breath. “That is the most un-American thing I’ve ever heard!”

Shaking his head, he lazily shrugs at me. “It’s a personal preference. Half the time that shit is a weird unnatural color. My younger brother used to ask for it for every fucking meal growing up. And since he was the favorite, that’s all we ate.”

I walk over to grab the basketball from the ground. I hold it against me as I try to decide where I want to shoot from next. Part of me wants to ask him more about this brother, but I’m trying to keep this game lighthearted. “Your personal preference sucks.”

His hand goes to his chest, acting as though my words physically hurt him. “Ouch, Nora.”

I laugh, brushing his comment off as I plant my feet to get ready to shoot the ball. “I think half of the girls that have your underwear ad as their screensaver would probably change it if they knew that fact about you. You’re a monster.”

My arms stretch out when I propel the ball out into the air. It just barely misses, making my competitive heart angry. I was around basketball a lot in high school; it’s something I’m pretty good at. Tonight though, Nash and I both kind of suck. Or, are pretending to suck.

“Your turn,” he says, with a mischievous grin on his face.

“One time when I was a kid, I stole a live bunny rabbit from the pet store,” I confess.

I can still see the look of horror on my mom’s face when she went to grab my jacket from my lap and realized there was a rabbit sitting there. I think she almost dropped my little sister in shock when she saw a furry bunny chilling in my lap.

Nash looks at me with bewilderment. “I think I’m going to need more details about this.”

I awkwardly laugh, the memory clear as day in my head. “We used to go to the local pet store to look at animals. It was one of my favorite things to do. One time, the worker gave me a rabbit to hold, then got distracted in a conversation with my mom. She had me placed in the child part of the cart, so when she finally said we had to go grab dog food from another aisle, I hid the rabbit under my jacket. After we paid, she was unloading me and my sister into the car when she noticed the gray bunny perched in my lap.”

He picks up the ball, his long fingers holding it in one hand. “Did you get to keep it?”

My nose scrunches while I watch him pick a spot to shoot from. “No, I’m allergic.”

Shaking his head, he barks out a laugh. “What a tragedy.”

“Yeah, it was kind of awkward explaining to the employee that I stole the rabbit. I bawled the whole time, but my mom didn’t show any mercy. She still made me go in there to return it and apologize.”

Standing in place, he looks at me thoughtfully. “Your mom sounds great.”

I smile wistfully. I try not to think about how much I miss her. Or any of them—my family. We all moved away as soon as I graduated high school. I don’t like to talk about why. In fact, I avoid even thinking about it most times. It’s too painful.

“Yeah, she’s pretty wonderful,” I agree, wishing I could talk to her more. And my sister Lenny, too. Especially Lenny…

“My brother had a rabbit growing up,” he throws out randomly. “He named her after Britney Spears. I think I was about ten, which must’ve made him around five at the time. He took that rabbit everywhere. The kid was obsessed.”

I can’t help but laugh. “That is the best name I’ve ever heard.”

Nash’s lips turn up in a smile. “Yeah, well that rabbit chewed through countless pairs of my shoes. I swear Aiden trained her to do it or some shit.”

This makes me laugh even harder. “That’s the most epic trick.”

“Aiden’s a pain in my ass that way,” he says, shaking his head with a smile.

Turning toward the basket, the muscles of his arma ripple under his tattoos as he sets up his shot. The ball leaves his hands gracefully, arching in the air and easily slipping through the net of the hoop.

“I win,” he declares, his arms stretched wide in celebration.

I want to take a picture of the smile on his face and keep it in my memory forever. He looks so carefree. It doesn’t look forced or strained. He looks happy.

I lift my shoulders, accepting defeat. “I guess you did. I put up a good fight though.”

The ball rolls from its place below us, bouncing off the wall and coming to a stop behind him. “I hate it when people touch my elbows. I absolutely despise it,” he tells me.

I offer a timid laugh, pulling my tank top that had been riding up down. “Nash, who is touching your elbows?”

His hand runs through the shaggy strands at the top of his head. The bright lighting of the arena makes the brown strands appear lighter than normal.

“I know it sounds fucking crazy, but you have no idea how many people try to hold you by the elbow.” After taking a few long strides toward me, he’s suddenly standing right in front of me. Without warning, his warm grip wraps around my elbow. “See what I mean?”

“You’re holding my elbow…” I slowly point out, looking up at him with a curious look.

Sighing, he tightens his grip on my elbow a bit more. “Just wait, it gets awkward.” He continues to stare down at me with an expectant look, his fingers splayed out on my elbow and coming up to wrap around my forearm.

Finally, I begin to understand what he means. “I think it’s awkward because you’re making it awkward.”

He lets go, stuffing his hands into the front pockets of his dark jeans. Shaking his head, he gives me a small smirk. “No, Nora, you have no idea. Reporters all the time grab me right there while interviewing me. So many people do it. It weirds me out.”

I look up at him, a grin on my face. “Next time you piss me off I’m just going to grab you by the elbows.”

Our bodies are still close. Neither one of us have stepped back from the other, even though he’s gotten his point across.

His eyes flick down to the small space between us. He’s close enough that I could reach out and touch the soft fabric of his T-shirt. I can feel the warmth of his breath when he lets out a long sigh. “I’m not sure I’d hate it coming from you.”

Before I get the chance to ask him what he means by that, he steps away and races across the floor. His long legs take him across the court quickly, and before I know it, he’s skipping stairs, racing through the auditorium seats.

“Where are you going?” I yell, watching the way his T-shirt stretches perfectly over his back as he goes, his arms pumping at his sides, the muscles rippling underneath it.

“Come join me!” he shouts back, not bothering to look over his shoulder.

I shake my head at him and do just as he instructs. My legs take me up the absurd number of stairs until I finally reach a grinning Nash, who’s chilling in an auditorium seat like he didn’t just essentially put me through a workout.

I grab the railing in the aisle next to him, dramatically gulping for air. “Are you trying to kill me with those stairs?”

He swats at the air, leaning further back in his seat. He’s got his legs propped up on the seat in front of him, his arms resting on his thighs. “Oh, please. I know firsthand how conditioned your body is. That was nothing.”

Giving him a pouty face, I straighten my body, returning to my normal breathing. I fall into the chair next to his, looking ahead at the empty court below us. “Maybe I didn’t want to get a workout in tonight,” I say.

I can feel his eyes against my cheek, but I still focus on the arena in front of us. “You’re not even breathing heavy,” he says.

Looking in his direction, I narrow my eyes at him in disapproval. “Fine, you’re right. I’m being dramatic. But, why are we up here?”

He reaches up, placing his hands behind his head. His position seems so relaxed. I take the cue from him, scooting forward in my seat and leaning back until I’m in an almost identical position.

“I think it’s important to see the view from the audience. To know what the experience looks like from their vantage point.” His tone is serious, and as I slowly start to shave away at the layers of him, I realize he’s deeper than I expected him to be.

For someone who claims to hate his fame, he sure does try to understand and relate to his fans a lot.

“But you’re not performing here.” I take in his face, the face that’s graced an unfathomable number of magazines, billboards, album covers, so many things.

It isn’t fair for a face to be so perfect. His high cheekbones, the focal point. His sharp jawline and straight eyebrows also make the girls swoon. His lips are plump, a shade that women pay good money for, to have that same color of nude on their lips.

“No, you’re right. When I first started touring with Anticipation Rising, I would sit in the audience before every show. I’d wonder how the hell I got to be one of the guys on stage instead of someone in the audience.”

“Do you still do that?”

His lips thin. “No, I don’t.”

I bump him gently with my shoulder. “Maybe you should start again.”

He bites down on his lip briefly, nodding his head. “Maybe I will.”

It’s silent, the both of us trapped in our own thoughts.

I still can’t fully wrap my head around the life Nash has lived. He’s been famous for most of his life. I can’t imagine never having privacy, waking up in a different city every day, sitting in a place like this knowing that soon all the seats would be filled and the reason they were filled was because of you.

I don’t have stage fright. I’ve loved the attention from a stage for as long as I can remember. But I’ve also never had the pressure of solely entertaining thousands of people.

As a backup dancer, we enhance the show no doubt, but fans aren’t paying money to see us. We’re there to make Nash look good—to put on a show. We don’t feel the pressure like a headliner would.

I start to wonder what kind of toll that pressure can take on one single person.

“Tell me another random fact.” His voice is quiet, but sure.

We both stare at the space around us instead of at each other. It’s crazy to look around us and think about what this building looks like when it’s at capacity.

“I miss my sister.” The air is quiet as I wonder where she is in this world. After a sigh, I add, “I’ll never go back to my hometown.”

He doesn’t know how much those two statements coincide, a raw truth of my past I’m still trying to come to terms with.

After graduating high school, I packed up everything I owned and left the town I grew up in. The town that went from my safe haven to a personal hell all in one night. I tried to take my sister with me, but she wouldn’t leave. After the night that changed everything, our relationship changed drastically, and now we’re practically strangers.

“Why is that?” he asks cautiously, his seat groaning underneath him as he adjusts his position.

I run my hands down my thighs nervously, not ready to divulge the past to him—to anyone, really. After it happened, I said my piece the only way I knew how—through dance, and then I left that shitty town and the human beings that live in it.

I don’t want to say too much, but I also feel like Nash has told me things in the short time we’ve known each other that he doesn’t tell others, so I feel like I need to give him something.

“I spent years in a place that felt safe. Then my safety net was pulled out from underneath me and somebody I loved in a matter of minutes. I left as soon as I could, flipping the whole damn town off through my rearview mirror as I left.”

Nash shocks me when he reaches between us, his hand gently grasping my cheek. His thumb rests along my jawline. I don’t resist when he guides my face to look at him. “Good for you for getting out of there, and I like the special touch of saying ‘fuck you’ on the way out. You’re so incredibly talented, and here in California, going on this tour, soon the world will really see that. To hell with the assholes that didn’t.”

I give him a sad smile, wishing it could be that simple.

Unfortunately, a small moment in time has left a part of me black and empty. And worse, it hurt one of the people I love most in this world.

I desperately try to fill the void by chasing my goals, hoping that the closer I get to my dream the more the black hole gets painted over. But apparently trauma works in different ways, and you don’t just wake up one day and heal from it; you just make the effort to not let that trauma define you.

A shaky breath leaves me. “It’s getting late. We should probably both try to sleep tonight before traveling tomorrow.”

He keeps his hand on my cheek for a little while longer, his eyes searching my face like he’s looking for some kind of answer.

I don’t move away from his touch, allowing the small moment with him before our world gets crazy.

An uneasy feeling cascades over me. This night has been so simple with him. He’s shown me a side to him I hadn’t expected, and I’m finding myself wanting to get to know that side of him more and more.

But in the back of my mind, I know why I’m here.

I was hired to break his heart. Now that I’m getting to know him, I’m scared that his heart is already broken, and they’re just wanting me to come in and break it more.

I don’t want to do it. I want to fess up to it, but if I do, he won’t look at me the way he’s looking at me right now. He’d probably fire me, which is the least of my worries and also what I deserve, but worse, he’d hate me.

And I can’t have him hating me. I was honest when I told him I wanted to help him fall in love with entertaining again. I meant it with every fiber of my being.

So now I’m left in the biggest catastrophe.

I promised his team I’d try my best to break him; I promised him I’d do my best to try to fix him. Only time will tell on which promise I keep—and which promise I break.