23. Avery

One Sunday morning, I suddenly awakened from my slumber due to the sound of a rooster crowing. I groaned as I pushed myself up to a sitting position and rubbed the exhaustion from my eyes. The sun was hardly up as I yawned and stretched my arms.

To my surprise, it wasn’t a rooster shouting good morning to me. It was Nathan standing in my doorframe with a big goofy grin on his face, making the loudest rooster sounds I’d ever heard in my life.

“What in the living heck are you doing?” I grumbled.

He had a stack of clothes in his hand as he walked over to me. “Morning, sunshine. It’s the third Sunday of the month.”

I blankly stared at him, probably with morning gunk in the corners of my eyes, still. “What’s your point?”

“It’s Sunday Funday on the Farm!” he exclaimed, placing the clothes in my hand. “I guessed on your sizes. I let you sleep in a little longer, but everyone else is already out there warming up on the field. I wanted you to be on my team, Team Blue, but everyone said it would be an unfair advantage to have you play on the same team as me. So you’re on the yellow team.”

“Nathan, what the heck are you talking about?”

“Every third Sunday morning, starting in the spring, my family gets up and plays a baseball game at the crack of dawn. The losers have to go through the garden and prepare brunch for the winning team. It’s a tradition. Sunday Funday.”

“Oh my goodness,” I groaned, covering my face with a pillow. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those families who runs marathons on Thanksgiving morning.”

“Actually, we do.” He pulled the pillow from my face and smiled. “Since you’re here, you gotta play. Get changed. There are thirty people out there waiting.”

“Thirty people?!” I gasped. My eyes bulged out of my head. “What do you mean, thirty people?”

“My cousins, aunts, and uncles come over for it, too. A lot just stay in the bleachers and watch, but they have to pick a team, too. Then they have to help out with the meal if their team loses.”

“I hate everything about this,” I muttered as I dragged myself out of bed.

His smile stayed in place as he patted me on the back. “You’ll learn to love it.”

I hatedthat he was right, too, because the minute I got on the field, I was reminded of one of my favorite things about the Pierces—they took family to a new level.

Sure, I was close with my sisters and my father, but we weren’t really that close with our extended family. We saw them around the holidays, but that was about it. Nathan’s family—more than thirty of them—got together once a month to play baseball.

And they loved it!

The mood of the whole morning was light and fluffy. Young kids were running around, taking bets on who they thought would win. My team—the yellow team—was led by Easton and River. That was until they handed the coaching position over to me. They were awful coaches, but at least they knew how to hit home runs. Each time we scored, I loved seeing the irritation sitting on Nathan’s face.

The more the sun rose, the more excitement I began to feel. When it came down to the fifth inning—the final inning, because there was no way we would play a full nine innings—everyone was standing in the bleachers, cheering on team yellow.

The score was blue team five and yellow team four. Everyone was hungry for the win. We already had two outs. I was sitting on second base, and Easton was up to bat. He had two strikes, but I knew he could do it.

Nathan was pitching, and he had the smuggest look on his face, feeling as if he was about to take his brother out. I saw the sweat brewing on Easton’s forehead. The opposing team’s chants and mocking were getting to him.

“Come on, Easton, you got this,” I cheered on. I tapped my hand against my chest and over my heart. “Think here, not here,” I said, tapping my head next.

Think with your heart, not your mind.

A motto I’d learned from my father when he first taught me how to hold my first baseball. Heart over head. Daddy always said the game was over before it started if a person took their head into it more than their heart. It was something that stuck with me for a long time.

Easton nodded, gripped his baseball bat in his hand, and got into the right position. He had his game face on, with black pats smeared beneath his eyes. He was locked in.

Unfortunately, so was Nathan.

As Nathan threw the ball toward Easton, I held my breath the whole time, ready to sprint faster than ever before if need be.

It all happened so quickly. The ball released from Nathan’s hand, a perfect pitch, which wasn’t shocking. Nathan might’ve played left field in the Major Leagues, but his pitching skills were always remarkable to me.

And Easton swung.

He swung like never before, making hard contact with the ball. It went soaring, too, farther than ever, making it nearly impossible for the other team to get.

I took off running as if my heart would explode from my chest. Right behind me was Easton, who was probably one of the fastest people I’d ever seen in my life. His track days came in handy that morning. The crowd erupted in shouts and cheers as I slid into home plate. Easton slid over the plate right after me, scoring us two points, making us the winners of the game.

I burst out in celebration with my teammates, wrapping Easton in the biggest hug. Before I knew it, he and River were tossing me up in the air to celebrate the win, calling me the MVP of the game. I couldn’t stop laughing as I begged them to let me down.

That was what it was all about. The teamwork, the excitement, the game.

Gosh, that felt good.

It felt like a high I hadn’t felt in so long. It was one thing to coach the sport, yet it was another to lace up your shoes and get out on the diamond. I missed it so much more than I realized.

They returned me to the ground, and Easton patted his chest. “Here, Avery.” He tapped his head. “Not here.”

I smirked. “Damn straight, buddy.” I hugged him again, and he ruffled my hair with his hand in a victory cry.

“All right, Team Blue, you know the deal. Get to work,” Laurelin said, clapping her hands together from the stands. “Everyone else can head over to the barn house. I have a few snacks I tossed in there before brunch is ready.”

My cheeks hurt from smiling so hard as Nathan walked over to me. He held a hand out my way. “Good game, Coach.”

I shook his hand. “Great game. Too bad we smoked you.”

His dimples deepened as he shook his head. “You always were a sore winner.”

“What can I say? I get cocky with this game.”

“Cockiness looks good on you. You can beat me every week at this game if it keeps making you smile like that.”

An odd swirl of butterflies fell into my stomach from that comment.

I dropped my hold on his hand and rubbed my hands over my ponytail, trying to shake off the flurry of electricity that just raced through my system. I shoved him lightly, trying not to show him that he had some odd effect on me simply from his touch and his words. “I like my eggs scrambled, Nathaniel.”

He smirked bigger. “It would be an honor to scramble your eggs, Avery.” He slightly bowed and winked before he headed off to get the meal going.

Oh crap.

I think I just orgasmed on the field.

Screw Nathan Pierce and those damn winks of his.

I didn’t think they still had that much power over me, yet there I was, feeling slightly weak in the knees.

“Can I sit with you?”Laurelin asked as I sat at one of the long tables in the barn, waiting to be served by the other team.

“Of course, please.”

She sat across from me and quickly made herself comfortable. She grabbed a slice of the sourdough bread in front of us and started spreading butter onto it. “What a fun game it was today, huh?”

“Gosh, yeah. I forgot how much fun it was to play an actual game as opposed to just coaching it.”

“I get the feeling Nathan felt the same way out there,” she said, gesturing to her smiling son, who was bringing in a tray of hash browns to put on the bar with the food warmers. “You know he’s been back in town for over a year, but this is the first time he actually took part in the Sunday Funday baseball game.”

My eyebrows arched in disbelief. “What? He never played before?”

“Nope. He always said he was too busy doing stuff around the property. That was until today.”

“He made it seem like he looked forward to these games when he told me. I wonder why that is or what changed.”

Laurelin smiled. “Yeah, I wonder.” Her eyes moved back to her son, and her smile slowly faded. “I do worry about him, though.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because he’s like you. Resiliently strong. That worries me as a mother. I don’t want him to feel as if he needs to always be strong. I don’t want him to feel as if he needs to be so serious and driven every second of every day.”

“My father says the same thing about me.”

“The curse of being the eldest child,” she semi-joked. “I was the middle child in my family. I never realized how much my sister Stacey dealt with until I grew up. She took on a lot more responsibility than she should’ve had to. Nathan did the same thing, especially after his father passed away. After that happened, I know Nathan felt a responsibility to the family. He struggled a lot to have a life outside of looking after us and the game. When he lost the game with his injury, after losing his good friend, too, he focused so much on the farm life. Nathan puts so much weight on his shoulders to help everyone out. I don’t know the last time I’ve seen him have as much fun as he did today. It’s good to see him like this,” Laurelin explained.

“Like what?”

“Happy and free.” She smiled at me. “Why do I feel as if you might have had something to do with that, Ms. Kingsley?”

I shook my head. “No. I honestly think it’s just that he got back into coaching. I think helping the team is helping him. I felt it on the field today, too. I had nothing to do with his happiness. He just rediscovered something he loved again.”

“Yes,” she agreed in an all-knowing way. “He did.” She smiled a smile that matched her son’s and patted my hand. “Well, I should get to helping around here. But if there is anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Thank you, Laurelin.”

“Thank you, Avery,” she said before she walked away. I didn’t know exactly what she was thanking me for, but the words stayed dancing in my head for a while.

Not long after, Laurelin was standing in front of everyone, and she said a prayer over the brunch. When that was all done, the losing team began to go around and collect the winners’ orders. When Nathan came over with my full plate of food, my stomach instantly growled.

“Here you go, your royalty,” he sarcastically remarked as he set the plate in front of me.

“Thank you, my servant.” I gestured toward the beverage table. “If only I had a nice, refreshing mimosa to drink with this meal. Fetch me one, will you?”

He snickered, shaking his head. “You’re going to milk this, aren’t you?”

I started to gesture me milking invisible udders. “One hundred percent.” I patted my throat. “Make it two mimosas. I’m parched.”

With a slight bow, Nathan hurried off to grab my drinks, and when he came back, he took a seat across from me. He set down the mimosas in Mason jars and smirked my way as I was stuffing my mouth with a sausage link. I paused my bite as I stared at him, confused as to why he was smiling so dang hard.

I arched an eyebrow. “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just…”

“It’s just what?”

He leaned closer, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. “You like that, huh?”

I glanced at the piece of sausage on my fork. “Clearly, seeing as I’m eating it.” I took another bite.

His chest swelled with pride as his face glowed with a triumphant gleam. “I knew you’d like my sausage.”

I almost choked on the piece of meat in my mouth as those words escaped his mouth. I started coughing, trying my best to clear my throat and swallow the meat all at once.

Nathan picked up my mimosa and held it out to me. “Don’t worry. It’s not uncommon for me to cause women to choke from time to time.”

What a freaking idiot.

An idiot that somehow made me laugh. “Why are you such a moron?”

“I was born this way.” He shrugged, then leaned in closer. “So tell me… How well did I scramble your eggs?”

“Are you just going to sit here and watch me eat while asking inappropriate questions?”

“Yes, actually, that was the plan.”

“Don’t you want food of your own?”

“I ate in the kitchen.”

“What about drinks?”

He lifted one of my mimosas and took a sip. “Thanks, Coach. I was parched,” he said, mocking me.

I rolled my eyes and took a sip of my own drink. “So what’s the deal with you? This morning, you woke me up like this baseball game thing was a huge deal.”

“It is a big deal.”

“Rumor has it that you haven’t played a game since you moved back into town.”

“It’s a big deal for everyone else.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Then why did you make it seem like it was such a big deal this morning and as if you wanted to play?”

“Because I did want to play.” He set his Mason jar down and wrapped both his hands around it. “I just wanted to play with you.”

“Don’t do that, Nathan.”

“Do what?”

Make my heart skip a million beats.

I shook my head. “Nothing. Never mind.”

His lips curved up at the corners. “I know I can be a dumbass sometimes, but I’m serious, Avery. Lately, watching you with the guys at practices, you helped me to remember why I love this sport. Today was good for me.”

“Today was good for me, too.”

I looked down at my plate for a moment because sometimes it felt hard to stare into Nathan’s eyes. It felt like staring into my future and past all at once.

“Your mom worries about you,” I mentioned, needing to shift the conversation slightly so I wouldn’t continue to be sitting in a pool of flurries. “Did you know that?”

Now it was Nathan’s turn to uncomfortably shift. “I think that’s what parents do best. Worry.”

“Should she be worried, though?”

With a quizzical lift of his brow, he slanted his head slightly. His piercing look caused a tightness in my chest that was hard to breathe around.

“Now it’s your turn not to do that,” he whispered, his voice a blend of warning and pleading.

“Do what?”

“Make me tell you the truth,” he said, his stare unwavering. The air between us felt heavy with the weight of his impending confession. My mind spun with what his truth may have been.

Before I could reply, Easton walked over and slammed his hands onto Nathan’s shoulders, breaking the tension between us. “Sarah’s here,” Easton stated.

Nathan turned to face his brother. “No shit. Sarah’s here?”

“Yup. She walked in like she still had a right to walk on in,” he explained, sitting beside his brother. Easton looked at me and grinned. “Sorry to interrupt, Avery. It’s just that Sarah’s here.”

“Oh, no. I understand,” I said. I blinked a few times. “Who’s Sarah?”

“The woman who broke River’s heart,” Nathan explained. “She cheated on him with his best friend.”

“That’s not much of a best friend,” I muttered.

“You’re telling me,” Easton said, snatching a piece of bacon from my plate. “Can you believe that she had enough nerve to walk in here? With his whole family around?”

“Knowing Sarah, I’m not that shocked. Tact wasn’t her middle name,” Nathan said as he pushed himself up from sitting. “They are right outside?”

“Yeah. He’s trying to get Sarah to leave, but she’s having a full-blown freak-out,” Easton explained. “Evan said he’d get rid of her, but you know Evan…”

“Yeah, I know. It would make a bigger scene if he handled it. Don’t worry. I got it.” Nathan glanced my way and gave me a small grin. “I’ll see you later, Coach.”

I stood from the table and shook my head. “Wait. Let me handle Sarah.”

The guys looked at one another, then at me.

Easton grimaced. “You don’t know Sarah, Avery.”

“Exactly. And she doesn’t know that River and I are so in love,” I stated, placing my hands on my hips, batting my eyelashes toward the guys.

Easton’s grin stretched as he realized my plan. Nathan frowned.

“No way.”

“Yes!”

They both said it at the same time, but I went with Easton’s “yes” instead of Nathan’s “no way.”

“All right, Avery.” Easton patted me on the back before he rubbed his hands together in bliss. “Batter up.”