Page 113 of Off Pitch

“Not at all,” I admit. My pitching has only lookedworsesince Thursday’s practice. The game tonight is going to be a shitshow with me on the mound. “But I’ll get through it.”

“I’m sure you’ll do great.” She smiles at me, but it’s forced. “You always do.”

“Yeah,” I say, letting out a breath. “I guess we’ll see.”

She seems somewhat reassured by my words. Like she wants to believe that, no matter what’s going on between us, this won’t affect my performance on the field.

But the words are meaningless. I don’t believe them.

With everything running through my head, I don’t have any chance of pitching a good game tonight. My only hope is that the team bats well enough tonight to make sure that doesn’t matter.

“Have you, uh… been okay, Knox?” Harlow asks, voice wavering.

“Not really,” I admit. “This whole situation just fucking sucks.”

“Yeah,” she says so softly it’s almost a whisper.

Every thread of sanity I have left snaps with how broken she seems. How did I go from this uncaring, grumpy asshole at the beginning of this season to where I am now?

I’m sitting across from the only woman in seven years that I’ve felt a connection with, caring about how this is all affecting her.

And hating myself for being the one to make her feel this way.

I sigh. “Harlow,” I say lowly. “Do you think we’ll ever get back to what we were?”

She looks down at the coffee in front of her. “I don’t know,” she whispers. “I hope so. But I’ll need time away from you to do that, so as far as for the rest of this season, I can’t see it happening.”

“Right,” I say back, the word almost getting caught in my throat.

The only way to get us back to what we were eventually is to give her space from me. Space she can’t get when the world believes she’s dating me.

To get what I want, the only thing I can do is let her go.

“Harlow,” I mutter before she stops me.

“People are walking down the street. Pretend you’re happy to be around me.” She leans her head on her hand, elbow propped on the table, smiling softly as she tries to be convincing. I mirror what she does.

“I am happy to be around you, Harlow.”

“Oh.”

“What I wanted to say, though, is that you can’t move on from everything as long as you’re around me.” I take a deep breath. “Let’s just end this thing. I want you to be happy, and if that will get you there, I think that’s what we should do.”

“Knox,” she sighs. “I’m not trying to end this. I gave you my word, and I don’t break my word.”

“You’re miserable right now.”

“I’m not miserable,” she says. “I’m hurting, yes, but I’m not miserable. I told you I don’t hate you. I genuinely enjoy your company, and I hope once we have some time apart when the season ends, we can really be friends again.”

“We can get back to that sooner if you walk away now.”

“Do you want me to walk away?” Harlow’s lip quivers as she asks.

“God, not at all.“ The absolutelastthing I want is for her to walk away. It’s even more clear now that I lied to her when I said none of this was real because I still want her around. Ialwayswant her around. And I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do about it. “But I want to be fair to you, and I know how shitty it must feel to be around me right now.”

“And what about your Axis contract?” she asks. “That’s still on the line. That’s the whole damn reason we started this.”

“Fuck the contract.” I scrub a hand over my face. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

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