Page 155 of The Problem with Players

I leaned toward her and kissed the top of her head before pulling her into a hug. “We’re all okay, Mom. We boys turned out all right because we had a strong woman leading us.”

She hugged me back. Once she let go, she wiped away her falling tears. “Well, since it’s the holiday season, I figured I could give you one Christmas gift early before tomorrow. Don’t tell your brothers. Lord knows they’ll give me a hard time and claim I was playing favorites.”

“A gift?” I asked. “What is it?”

“Who,” she corrected. “Who is it, you mean.”

Right then, Avery stepped into the stable with a small smile on her face. I stood confused for a moment before Mom leaned toward me and kissed my cheek. “Merry Christmas, Nate. Momma loves you.”

She walked away, leaving me standing there a bit dazed and confused by Avery’s appearance. Avery took a few steps toward me, her nervousness apparent.

“Hi there,” she said with a small smile.

“Hi there,” I replied, moving closer. “What’s going on?”

“Remember when I lived with you and we had a conversation about happiness versus contentment?”

“Yeah. I recall.”

“You said that when people are in love, being content wasn’t good enough. You said there needed to be a word to express the meaning behind that kind of love. Well, I figured out the word that encompasses what love is and that full feeling. The feeling that fills you up from your head to your toes. That feeling of a nature high, where all hurts stop hurting and joy exists tenfold. I know what the word for that is.”

“What is it?”

“You.” Her eyes glassed over, and she shook her head slowly. Her shoulders shrugged. “It’s you, Nathan.”

I shut my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Coach, don’t come in here on Christmas Eve and play with my emotions. Because it’s getting a lot harder for me not to wrap my arms around you every fucking day.”

“I know, and I have this whole speech in my head that I want to say to you. I’ve been playing it over and over for weeks now. I get that I’m negative and expect the worst outcome. I hardly let my guard down, and if I do, I build it back up quickly. I jump to conclusions. I’m mean?—”

“Avery—”

“Wait, let me finish,” she urged as a flash of emotions sliced through her eyes. “I’m also moody, and scarred, and scared. Mostly that. Mostly, I’m scared, Nathan. I’m scared of being abandoned. I’m scared of being alone. Which is ironic because I self-sabotage and push everyone away in order to avoid being left behind, which ends up leaving me alone. I’m grumpy and don’t smile enough. I pick fights that don’t need to be picked. I get it. I know I’m hard to love, okay? I know I’m a mess and all over the place, and I’m just learning how not to be all these things, but I can’t let this year go by without telling you how I feel.

“I love you, Nathan. I love everything about you. I love your heart and how gentle it is. I love how you are patient. I love how you laugh. I love how you push my buttons. I love how you listen. I love how you see all our guys on the team as individuals. I love that you take extra time to serve them. And I love how easy you make it to fall for you. I love you, Nathan. I love you so much that it scares me, but I don’t want to waste another day not loving you out loud.”

I narrowed my eyes, baffled by everything she was saying. Yet one comment stood out more than the others. “Who told you that?”

“Who told me what?”

“That you were hard to love.”

Her bottom lip trembled as she shook her head. Tears began to roll down her cheeks, and she didn’t try to stop them. As she let the tears out, she was letting me in. “It doesn’t matter. I just know it’s true.”

“Avery…” I stepped toward her, wanting nothing more than to wrap my arms around her and pull her in closer to me. I wanted to wipe away her tears and fill her with the comfort her soul needed and deserved. “It’s true. You are all those things you mentioned, except for that one. You are not hard to love.”

It was only six words, but I saw how they cracked her. She shut her eyes as her body began to shake from her emotions taking over.

I moved in closer and closer. So close that I was able to wipe away her tears and speak the words once more, hoping they’d land against her heartbeat. “You’re not hard to love. Trust me, I know who you are. I know your ins and outs. And you’re right. You’re grumpy, moody, and you do have walls built up. You also leave a shit ton of hair in bathroom drains,” I joked.

She snickered quietly as I kept going. “But you’re so much more than that. You’re an amazing coach. A great friend. You’re loyal. You’re consistent. You always show up whenever someone needs you. You’re humble, even when your gifts deserve more praise. You’re an amazing sister and daughter. You’re funny and clever and the smartest person I’ve ever met. The hardest-working one, too. You challenge people to think in a way they never have before. You are an amazing person, and I need you to understand one thing and one thing only.”

“What’s that?” she asked as her eyes opened.

“Loving you is easy.”

She bit her bottom lip and tugged on her sleeves. “Really?”

I moved in more, softly kissing away the tears falling down her cheeks. “Really.”

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