39. Avery

Everything was going well.

I feared when life seemed good because I always seemed to wait for the other shoe to drop. So nothing could be too good for me. I lived in a constant state of pessimism, even though life seemed good. But lately, things have been good. Great, even.

The other day, the apartment complex in town told me they had an apartment coming available. I told them I wasn’t interested because I didn’t hate the idea of staying with Nathan on the farm. I felt like my best self at Honey Farms. Nathan and I were closer than ever. There wasn’t a night when I fell asleep without being in his arms.

The team was on a roll, too. We’d been winning game after game, and the crowds in the stands grew each week. With us being in the playoffs, a ton of eyes were on our team. I didn’t expect the season to take such a dramatic shift, but it had. I was not one to complain about it, seeing how my guys were all getting noticed by scouts. Their names were now entering rooms with higher-ups who could change their lives for the better.

Nathan, Cameron, Adam, and I were off to Prest University in two weeks to meet with their baseball team. Prest University! I couldn’t think of a better match for Cameron.

It was impossible for me not to admit all of this was due to Nathan. He was such an asset to the team, and I couldn’t have been more grateful for him joining us.

Due to his Major League success, the Honey Creek Hornets were making nationwide coverage. Just last week, there was a segment about the team on Good Morning America, and we went viral on TikTok, landing on baseballtok and booktok. I didn’t see how those two things crossed paths, but it seemed to have been a great way to get our team’s name out to a wider audience.

Unfortunately for me, with all eyes on us, came interviews.

I despised interviews.

On the other hand, Nathan was convinced that any press was good for the guys. The more we made our presence known, the more individuals would take notice of our players.

Everything was still going fine until one night after an annoying practice. After everyone left, I stayed on the field in the darkening night. The silence slicing through the space was a heavy contrast to the turmoil of noise racing through my head.

Then the other shoe dropped.

The glow of my phone screen illuminated the latest headline that came through of the last interview I did with Nathan. “Miracle Season or Male Influence? The Real Reason Beyond the Honey Creek Hornet’s Success.”

My heart sank to the pit of my stomach as I scrolled through the article, taking in every word.

Coach Kingsley’s coaching skills weren’t strong enough to carry the team alone. They hadn’t won a game in years. Perhaps having a woman coach a man’s sport is more trouble than anything.

Before two-time World Series-winning Nathan Pierce joined the staff, the Honey Creek Hornets were dead on arrival. Without the addition of Coach Pierce, it’s sufficient to say that the team would still be down in the dumps.

If I thought the article was rough, the comments were even harsher.

Keep women out of our coaching positions.

Maybe she took a wrong turn on her way to the cheerleading practice.

It’s not a shock that someone who looks like her doesn’t know how to coach. It looks like she’d cry over a hangnail.

The air around me felt heavy, thick with unspoken doubts that were now being formed within my thoughts. A wave of nausea hit my stomach as I read the article again. And again. And again. Each time I read it, the invisible pressure resting against my shoulders felt as if it was pushing me further down. I felt so little at that moment. So heartbroken. Mainly because a big part of me believed the article.

I wished I could say that was the first article I’d seen, but it wasn’t. Over the past few weeks, more and more alike had been flooding in. Articles questioning my capabilities and suggesting that Nathan should take the head coach position. Stories stating that perhaps baseball wasn’t for me, and I should look into starting a softball team of my own. Think pieces about how women weren’t meant to exist in men’s realms.

I locked my phone, the screen going pitch-black, but the words lingered in my mind. They were embedding themselves into my spirit, into my soul, and I couldn’t stop it, even though I tried. I worked really hard for my team over the years. I went to bat for those boys time and time again, and all the achievements I did make, like getting better equipment and getting a facility built so they could be the best they could be, were all being diminished. What was even worse was them saying it was because I was a woman. I’d be fine if they said I sucked. But saying I sucked because I was a woman? That set up a completely different kind of hurt brewing within me. It felt like I was on trial for my gender as if my every decision was being scrutinized and judged based on my sex.

Unfortunately for me, when I was hurt, I grew angry. And when I was angry, I was no fun to be around.

“Hey, Avery?”

I quickly composed myself at the sound of footsteps approaching. I knew it was Nathan coming to check on me. Normally, after practices, we’d meet in my office to go over our game plan for the following day.

I slid my phone into my pocket and shook off my nerves as I turned to face him. I tried to push out a fake smile, but it fell short. “Hey,” I said.

“I was waiting for you inside.” He narrowed his eyes. “Everything okay?” His voice was laced with concern. Had he read the articles, too? Surely, he saw the one from today. It was on one of the biggest sports websites out there. I had no doubt people had been tagging him in it.

“I’m fine,” I curtly replied, walking past him. “Can we talk about the plan for tomorrow later? I’m not in the mood.”

His footsteps hurried behind me as he caught up to me. He placed a hand on my shoulder, pausing my movement. “Ave, wait, slow down.”

I shook his grip from my arm. “I don’t want to slow down. I don’t want to talk right now, Nathan.”

He grimaced. “You read the article, huh?”

That felt like a punch straight to my gut. The realization that he’d actually read it, too. The heat of embarrassment pierced my face like little needles stabbing against me. My emotions were all over the place, yet I knew the last thing I wanted was to witness Nathan’s pity stare. His worry felt like an intrusion, a reminder of everything spiraling out of my control.

“What does ‘I don’t want to talk’ mean to you?” I snapped, more sharply than I intended. The words felt bitter as they somersaulted from my tongue. They were laced with frustration building like a quiet storm within me. Poor Nathan didn’t even know that he’d just stepped right into the eye of the storm. He was in the danger zone, and with how I felt, I was more than willing to make him my target.

He recoiled slightly, tossing up two hands in surrender. “Avery, slow down. It’s me you’re talking to.”

There was an instant regret for my coldness, but the floodgates of my anger had been torn open, and I was unable to stop myself from lashing out. Unfortunately for him, he was just in my target range.

“I know who you are.” I griped as my breaths heavily weaved in and out. “You are Mr. World Series! The redeeming knight in shining armor for this damn team. Without you, I’m nothing. Without you, this team is shit. You’re fucking Superman, and I’m Lois Lane, the weak woman who needed to be saved by a man.”

“Avery—”

“Or better yet, you’re Tarzan and I’m Jane. The stupid love interest. How about you throw me over your shoulder and pound your chest because you’re a big, strong man who is the king of the jungle?”

“I get it. You’re upset right now and?—”

“Screw you! I’m not upset!” I screamed, highlighting that I was, indeed, upset. My chest heaved with rapid breaths. “Do you have any idea how hard it is? To constantly prove yourself only to have it all be undermined because of baseless speculations? I worked just as hard as you this season!”

“No one is saying you didn’t, Avery.”

“Everyone is saying I didn’t!” I cried out, tossing my hands up in frustration. “You don’t know what this feels like. You don’t know how it feels to have everything I love and worked hard for questioned by the whole world. You just get to be the shiny hero in the story. So congratulations, Nathaniel. You’re a winner.”

I started to storm off, but he reached for my wrist and swirled me back around to face him. “No,” he said, his voice dripping in control. “No, fuck that, Avery. You don’t get to make me the villain in this. I’m sorry they said what they did in that article. It was fucked up and stupid, but I’m not your enemy.”

“Yeah, well, it didn’t really sound like you were my partner, either.”

“What do you want me to do? Go burn down everyone who ever printed a bad word about you? Because I will. I will burn them all to the ground, but you don’t get to snap at me like this when I didn’t do shit wrong,” he growled. His eyes were dilated, and now his chest was the one rising and falling at an uncontrollable speed. “You said that I don’t know how it feels to be questioned by the whole world, and that’s bullshit. I’ve been in your shoes before. I’ve walked through that shit. It fucking hurts.”

I went to respond, but he held up a hand. “I’m not done speaking. You got to yell at me, so now it’s my turn to respond. I remember the headlines like they were yesterday. ‘Nathan Pierce: From World Series Hero to Suspected Junkie.’ Or, oh, how about ‘Legends of the Fall: Nathan Pierce’s Fall from Grace: How an all-American all-star let the pressure ruin his life.’ Oh, or what about ‘The world would be better if players like Nathan Pierce were six feet under instead of on the field.’ You think I don’t know what these vultures are like? I’ve been dragged through the mud and called every nasty name in the book. Yet I never took it out on anyone else.”

His words halted my storm as he verbally slapped me in the face with a taste of reality. He moved in closer to me, not backing down. His presence somehow dripped with challenge and support all at once.

“The media loves a downfall story,” he told me. “They love to make you feel like you’re nothing so they can somehow feel as if their own lives are good enough. Don’t fall into their booby traps. They’ll feed off you until you’re nothing. Don’t let their words define you, Avery. Otherwise, they then yield the pen to write your tragic ending, too.”

I stood frozen as he somehow made the boiling rage within me come down to a simmer. The tempest within me clashed with the raw honesty of his words. My hands unclenched by my sides as a small tremble slipped through my lips. “I’m sorry. It just hurts,” I whispered as the anger residing within me began to ebb and be replaced with nothing more than pain. “It hurts,” I said, revealing a truth I had come to terms with.

“I know,” he agreed. “And that’s fine. It’s okay for it to hurt. But we’re more than their stories. We’ve worked too hard to get to where we are. We’re too strong to let this kind of shit get us down. We are almost to the finish line, Avery. Don’t let this sidetrack you. I know how deep the pit of self-doubt can pull you.”

I could tell that he meant that. Nathan had faced demons in his life that he probably never even spoke of. There were parts of his story that he ripped up the pages to. He’d been through the wringer of public opinion, and somehow, he not only managed to escape it and become stronger—but he still remained humble and kind.

He extended his hand toward me. “Let’s go to the batting cage and get this energy moving out of your system.”

“It’s fine. You don’t have to stay and make sure I’m good.”

He extended his hand once more.

I sighed as I looked at his hand and then at his eyes. I saw it, too. The care that he had the moment he first approached me. At that time, I was too hot-tempered to allow his kindness to take care of me.

I placed my hand into his. The moment I felt his touch, my whole body relaxed.

He walked me over to the batting cages. He grabbed a helmet and placed it over my head. As he put his hands on the side of the helmet, he placed his forehead to mine. “You are more than those articles, Avery Kingsley. And stop trying to push me away, will you? I’m not going anywhere, no matter how much you tell me to piss off.” He leaned in and kissed the tip of my nose before he smacked my behind and said, “Batter up.”

“I love you,” I blurted out, the confession hanging in the air between us. That felt more frightening than any article that could’ve been written about me. He froze in place as my whole body began to tremble from the words that freely fell from my lips. I shook my head in confusion because that was the last thing I expected to say in that batting cage after my outbursts. “I love you so much, and I don’t know when it started. I don’t know when I started to fall for you or when you started to mean so much to me, but I do. And I’m sorry for everything I said and how I reacted, and how I said so many hurtful things. I know I’m hard. I’m a hard person to see and to get, and every time I think you’re going to run away, you end up moving in closer, even when I don’t deserve that, even when I don’t deserve you, and well, it’s silly and stupid and completely unexplainable, but I love you, Nathan Pierce. I love you so much that it scares me, but still, I’ll love you anyway. And well, I just?—”

He stepped toward me and wrapped his hand around the bat in my grip. “Wait. Stop.” His gaze intensified as he searched my eyes. He placed a finger beneath my chin and tilted my head up. “Say it again,” he requested, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I love you,” I repeated as warmth wrapped around the fear sitting heavily within my chest.

He placed his forehead to mine once more. “Again,” he murmured.

I closed my eyes. “I love you,” I breathed out.

He took the bat from my hands and dropped it to the ground. His fingers laced with mine, and he pulled my hands to his chest. He shook his head slightly. “Sorry, it’s just…I’ve dreamed of you saying those words to me again,” he confessed as his thumbs gently caressed the palms of my hands. “Because I love you too, Avery. I’ve loved you since I first met you, and I’m certain I never stopped.”

We stood there for a moment in the batting cage, surrounded by the echoes of our past and the promise of our future, holding one another in a moment of complete surrender. I forgot about everything else. I forgot about the articles and the cruelty of the world outside of us and I allowed myself to slip back into our make-believe. Where happily-ever-afters existed and conflict didn’t lead to goodbyes. Where my heart could shatter, and he’d pick up the broken pieces.

I kissed him in the batting cages, allowing myself to fall completely for the man he was that day. Still, even if I wanted the lingering thoughts of doubt placed by the media to disappear, those quiet voices in my head were still trying to convince me otherwise.

Love didn’t cure self-doubt.

Sometimes it only made it louder.