Page 130 of The Problem with Players

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 theysomersaulted 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.”

“Everyoneis 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 shinyhero 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 loveto 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 ahelmet 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.

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