Page 79 of Winning the Nightcap

She holds up her hands defensively. “Okay, it’s been a while since I’ve made a box cake and I’m not a great cook. Believe it or not even the mac and cheese was a struggle. It’s not my fault the cake sort of…cratered in the middle? I stole a taste to make sure it doesn’t taste like garbage. I can confirm, the aesthetics are lacking, but the deliciousness is not.”

“Get over here,” I say, my voice low. She doesn’t hesitate and immediately walks into my arms, her chin propped on my chest, eyes on me. “You did this for me?” She answers me with a soft smile.

“Everything you told me about that birthday sounded so perfect. I thought it’d be fun to relive it together.”

“No one has ever done anything like this for me before,” I say quietly, not trusting the shake in my voice. The ache in my chest is sharp as I realize I don’t feel like I deserve it. I don’t deserve her. “That memory was from a really great day surrounded by a sea of terrible ones. My family was in the thick of healing.”

“Did I mess up? Is this too much?”

“It is most definitely too much. But only because I don’t know how I’ll ever pay you back for something this genuinely thoughtful.”

“Relationships aren’t about keeping score, Aiden. They aren’t about tallying up what we owe each other. I did this because I care about you, and I wanted you to feel it.”

“I want to be the man who’s worthy of this…kindness.”

Love.

I want to be worthy of Bec’s love.

“You already are,” she says quietly, her words soft but sure. Bec loops her hands around my neck and pulls me down for a quick kiss.

“But I do have a confession. I’ve seen this movie before,” I admit.

“What? When we met, you said you hadn’t ever—”

“I watched it the day I got home from Dom’s wedding. It’s a good movie. A great movie. You could’ve borrowed my copy. I ended upbuying it. Even lent it to a few teammates so they could watch it too.”

“Why did you…?” Her voice tapers off timidly.

“When we met, you understandably had doubts.” I reach up to brush a loose curl behind Bec’s ear. “But I knew. I knew I was ready for you, for us. I was clinging to anything that felt like you…any connection to what I wished we could be.”

A single tear drops down her cheek.

“Hey, there’s no crying in baseball,” I say, before wiping the tear off her cheek with my thumb. She breaks out into a fit of laughter and I join her, my heart so full I can feel it trying to break through my chest just to be closer to her. It’s hers anyway.

“Did you really just quoteA League of Their Own?” she asks.

“I really did,” I say with a smile. “Can I take you somewhere tomorrow?” I ask. She wipes tears of laughter from her cheeks and nods. “Good. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

Bec

When Aiden first told me about his mom’s condition, I felt the uncomfortable itch of helplessness crawling over my skin. It was evident how hard all of this has been on his family, and I wanted to take away all of his pain at that moment. When I look at him now, that gnawing feeling rises up again.

While I’m grateful that I don’t have experience dealing with something like this, it also makes me feel inadequate as far as helping Aiden with the challenges that he’s facing and will continue to face as time goes on. So, I do what I do in any situation where I don’t have the answers, when there’s no solution, when it’s clear that compassion and empathy are the only things needed; I listen. I listen as we drive to the facility and Aiden describes the check-in procedure, his mom’s daily routine, how the staff works with her, and how he and Evie handle their visits on both the good days and the bad days.

Aiden estimates we have a fifty-fifty chance of catching her on a good day. Evie agreed to meet us there as well, in hopes that a good day wins out.

While he’s trying to appear calm—his voice and his hand resting on my thigh are both steady—I still notice his restless leg, bouncingthe entire drive and the tense set of his shoulders. It’s clear nothing about this is easy for Aiden.

I’m honored he wants me to meet his mother, and equally terrified about what that means for us. Somewhere along the way, the walls I surrounded myself with out of spite have weakened. I was jaded by the entire premise of love. I was never going to get my own love story. I had accepted that the ones I read about are works of fiction, not fact.

So why does it feel like I can’t find the flaw here?

Why don’t I see an ending to whatever this is?

Whatever we are to each other, it’s become so much more than just one date at a time. He fits into my life easier than I imagined possible. I’m left with a growing sense of hope and optimism thatmaybethis could all work out, if we both let it. I’m surprised to find the thought doesn’t scare me like it used to.

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