Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“The night he passed away, he asked me to hang out with him. It was after a big win, and some of the guys were going out to celebrate. Mickey normally joined us, but he was in a weird mood. I figured it was because he didn’t perform his best during the game. Sure, we won, but Mickey was hard on himself. He’d always go deep into his head when he had a bad game. But to me, on the other hand, a win was a win. And his worst game was my best. I wanted to celebrate.” He grimaced and brushed his thumb against his nose. “I told him not to be a buzzkill and to come out with us. He asked me to stay in with him. And I didn’t…”
“Nathan, what happened wasn’t your fault.”
“Wasn’t it, though? Looking back on it, he was reaching out to me. He was asking me to be there for him, and I couldn’t get my head out of my own ass for the life of me. I was so egotistical that I couldn’t see past myself to realize my best friend, my best fucking friend, was suffering. He had suffered for a long time, too. And I didn’t see it. I should’ve seen it.”
“But still, it wasn’t your fault.”
“I hear you, Coach, I do. But I can’t believe that. Because he asked me to stick around that night. He pretty much begged me not to be alone. And that’s what he was—alone. They found him alone in his hotel room. That still haunts me. So the idea that you’ve been having dark thoughts…Avery…I’m sorry. But I can’t leave you alone.”
My tired, broken heart slowly began to beat for him. Maybe that was the exact second when my long-lived hatred for Nathaniel Pierce began to fade away. I had to admit, it was easier to hate him when he wasn’t around. Yet when he was around, Nathan was the easiest person in the world to like. Especially in his older age.
“We’ll figure out my living situation so I’m not alone,” I swore to him. “I can’t stay with Yara because they have a baby on the way, and I don’t want to put them out. And Willow’s bus house is a little too small. And living with my dad…” I shivered at the thought. “Even though I love him, I can’t live with my dad. He has one too many women who like sleepovers.”
“So you’ll stay with me.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Let’s just make it through this weekend. How about that?”
He smiled—his real smile. The smile that almost made me smile, too. He held a hand out toward me. “Promise you’ll really consider it?”
I shook his hand. “Promise.”
He placed his hands on his thick upper thighs and pushed himself up to a standing position. “Okay. Let me finish your breakfast. Then we can figure out what to do for the day.”
“Are you going to helicopter-parent me this whole weekend?” I quipped.
“I am going to helicopter-parent you this whole damn weekend,” he replied with a nod.
Oddly enough, I didn’t hate the idea of him looking after me.
16
NATHAN
Instead of eating our meals at the dining room table, we sat on my living room floor, eating at the coffee table as we watched ESPN for hours.
Avery hadn’t brought up the wedding over the past nine hours that swept past. Instead, she talked about everything else under the sun. We talked about our team’s stats and how we’d tackle next week’s games. She went over our practices and how we should switch things up. She even talked about how to make the best chicken wings. Anything and everything but the wedding.
It was going on so long that I finally burst while we were eating Chinese food for dinner. “What the hell happened yesterday, Avery?”
She turned to me and hesitated before placing her fork down. “What do you mean?”
“With the wedding. What happened?”
“Oh. That. Well, I’m cursed.”
“Cursed?”
“Yup. When I was a kid, Betty Stevens read my tarot card on the playground. She told me all men would choose their careers over loving me. I figured when you ditched me for baseball, it was just a coincidence, but then having Wesley leave for the same reason made it clear as day. I’m cursed to be second-string in men’s lives.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe, but true. If it wasn’t, I would’ve been married today. Instead, he showed up to my dressing room to tell me he got a new job and no longer wanted to get married.”
“What a dick.”
“I loved him. Or love him. I don’t know. I don’t even know what love is. All I know is I’m two strikes down.”
“Two strikes down?”
“Well, Wesley was leaving me for a job opportunity. You did the same thing. One more strike and I’m out.”
The amount of guilt that hit the pit of my stomach was enough for me to want to crawl into a hole. I wanted to explain to her why I’d left all those years before. I wanted her to understand that leaving her was the hardest and worst decision of my life. But that didn’t matter in that very second. She didn’t need my excuses. She needed comfort.