Page 100 of Trade Deadline

Maria rolls her eyes lovingly.

We dig into the delicious pie dish, and Blaine’s hand remains fixed on my thigh as he demolishes the dessert within a few mouthfuls.

“Every time.” He shakes his head with a satisfied groan. “You, Maria, are a saint to the food gods.”

She flicks her pink bob with her hand. “And with compliments like that, you are welcome anytime, sweetie.”

Kendrick stands and takes all our plates, rinsing them off in the sink before stacking them into the dishwasher. Blaine leans in, pressing a soft kiss under my ear.

“They’re good people,” he whispers.

Maria pats Kendrick on the ass as he bends over to fill one of the racks. “You always look so hot doing the dishes.”

“I know.” He stands to his full height, then leans down to press a kiss to her lips. “Thanks for cooking dinner, baby.”

“They’re wonderful,” I reply to Blaine. “And she’s really happy.”

He nods. “She is, but she still deals with the same shit as you.”

As if she’s aware we’re talking about her, she whirls around to face both of us, a large glass of white wine in her hand. “You.” She points to me. “You come with me and Blaine,” she says, facing my man. “You can go with Adam to the man cave for a while.”

I turn to Blaine. His eyebrows crease in concern.

“Oh, sweetie. I’m not going to hurt him.” She walks over and ruffles Blaine’s hair. “You can have him back; I just wanna talk to him, spouse to spouse.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but I interrupt. “It’s okay.”

When he looks at me, his eyes ask,are you sure?

I nod and press a kiss to his lips. I follow Maria through the house to an impressive living room. The fire in the hearth crackles in front of a sectional couch, and when I sit down, I sink into the softest cushions.

“Adam mentioned you’ve been receiving some rather alarming messages recently.” Maria begins, tucking her feet beneath her. “You don’t have to tell me what they said, because I can imagine.”

I sigh, running a hand through my hair.

“It’s not that I don’t trust Blaine, because I do, but it makes me question whether I’m good enough for him. Whether I’m strong enoughfor him.”

I’ve spoken about these worries with Jacob and Nate, but they haven’t been able to fully understand. Sometimes at night, I find myself scrolling through the bunny blogs. Reading through their theories of how Blaine is using me to avoid being traded. How his agent and Coach demanded he clean up his act else he’d be traded, and how that conversation happened the day he met me.

It's hard not to begin allowing those negative thoughts to seep in. And while I trust Blaine…

What if he gets traded and he doesn’t want to do long distance?

Her face turns sad.

“You know, I get it, literally. I’ve been with Adam since we were in college, about ten years now, and I still get messages from people trying to insinuate that he cheats. Every away game, I’ll get some photoshopped image that’s supposed to be him DMing them and asking to meet up. Little do they know that Adam tells me and shows me the shit they send him. I trust him wholly, but it still hurts. That someone is so jealous of your life that they want to hurt you because of who you love, and still call themselves fans.” She shakes her head. “It baffles me, so I understand what you’re going through, and I hate to say this won’t be the end of it. If anything, it will probably become more frequent.”

“Can I ask what kind of things they say to you?”

She takes a sip of her wine, then takes a deep, shaky breath. “Some are really awful messages, targeting me as a person. They’ll send degrading comments about my appearance and my body, or they’ll send stuff pretending that he’s sent them explicit messages.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

How can people be so fucking cruel?

“I’ve got a fairly thick skin now, but every one of us knows what you’re going through. It makes you feel like you shouldn’t be on social media, that you need to distance yourself from the online world to stop the negativity, but it won’t stop it. You shouldn’t have to hide yourself because some idiotic people are jealous.”

“How do you deal with it?”

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