25. Grady
25
GRADY
My steps echo through the empty halls of T-Mobile Park, so it’s no surprise Nell calls for me to come into her temporary office before I’ve had a chance to knock on the door. She’s sitting behind a massive desk, reading through something on her laptop.
“Morning, Grady.”
“Morning,” I parrot back, waiting for her to look up. She doesn’t, and I shift awkwardly, unsure if I should sit.
“Walk with me?” Nell says it like a question, but we both know it isn’t. I wait near the door as she stands and see her step into the heels she must have taken off. When she catches me smiling, she rolls her eyes. “Diana insists I start allowing my feet to rest.”
“I’m not arguing with her on that point,” I hold open the door, allowing Nell to pass under my arm. “How’s married life?”
“Perfect,” she smirks at me over her shoulder, a knowing look in her eye. “You haven’t come to tell me you’ve secretly gotten married, have you? Because there are many foolish things I can save you from, but that isn’t one of them.”
“Not secretly married, no,” I draw out the word, knowing this is my chance to explain everything. “But I wanted to give you a heads up that I’m going to ask Elliot out. I think.”
She stops in the middle of the hall, turning sharply toward me. “You think?”
“Well, I am going to ask him; I just don’t know if he will say yes or not,” I mumble, regretting the decision to talk to Nell before I say anything to Elliot.
“Of course, he’s going to say yes.”
“How do you know that?”
“How do I know anything?” she quips, moving down the hall again. “I have eyes and ears.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be talking to you about this.”
Nell snorts, pointing down the hall to direct me toward the Clubhouse. “No shit, big man. You should be talking to Elliot.”
“I was going to talk to him this morning, but I—” I almost say I didn’t have a chance, but that’s a lie. I had plenty of opportunities. I just chickened out on all of them.
She hums thoughtfully, moving past me as I open the Visitor Clubhouse door. “Well, from the Cougar’s standpoint, it doesn’t matter if you talk to him or not. I submitted the official relationship form for you and Elliot the night I caught you sneaking into the hotel in Houston.”
“You did?”
“Wait, you’re dating Elliot?” A surprised voice comes from behind me, and I see Miller and Steal standing shoulder to shoulder in the open doorway of the Clubhouse. Steal looks happy, but Mills looks downright evil. “Unlike anything you’ve experienced, huh?”
“Ah, fuck.” I’d forgotten about that conversation, and now Mills knows more about my feelings for Elliot than Elliot does. I need to change that before this bites me in the ass.
Miller cocks his head, a new thought seeming to override the last one. “Who all knows?”
“As of right now,” Nell cuts in before I can say anything. “It’s me, Grady, and the two of you.”
My eyes close as I hiss a curse under my breath, knowing there’s no way Mills is going to miss the fact that she omitted Elliot’s name.
“I feel like at least one person is missing from that list.”
“I’m working on it,” I assure everyone before glaring at Nell, where she’s standing at my side. She doesn’t look even remotely sorry.
“Well, any progress is good progress, I suppose,” Mills chuckles as he drops his bag on the bench. “I don’t think Elliot would have survived that crush much longer.”
“What?”
“Dammit, Nathaniel!”
“What?” Miller’s eyes bounce between my shocked face and Nell’s angry one. “What did I do?”
“What crush?”
“ What crush? ” Mills scoffs, an incredulous laugh dying on his lips when he sees how confused I am. “Dude. How do you still not know?”
“Not know what,” I demand, taking a step closer, hoping it will intimidate him into finally answering my question.
Miller backs up until he hits the bench, then quickly steps onto the wooden top as he raises his hands in defense. “Pretty sure it’s nothing.”
“Pretty sure it isn’t.”
“I would like to plead the fifth.”
“I would like for you to explain before I lose my patience.”
Wide brown eyes look down at me as Miller considers how far I’m willing to take this before giving up. He must see that I won’t be letting it go because his shoulders sag as he drops his hands. “Look, I may or may not have heard that Elliot has a crazy crush on you. But that’s all I know.”
“Heard from whom?”
“I’m not giving up my sources.”
“So, Charlotte.” The look on Miller’s face tells me I’ve guessed correctly, but I don’t make him confirm it. I take a step back, considering what he’s just said. “Elliot has a crush on me?”
“As a person who knows for a fact that Elliot has been regularly sleeping with you?—”
“How do you know that ‘ for a fact ’?”
Steal flips Miller off but continues speaking. “I don’t understand how this is shocking to you.”
“He hated me.”
“He didn’t,” Nell sighs, dropping onto the bench at Steal’s side. She somehow manages to look intimidating, even while sitting. “What made you think he didn’t like you?”
I give her an incredulous look. “Uh, literally everything about every interaction we had.”
“I would like examples,” she insists, folding her hands against her thigh as if settling in for a long conversation.
“He wouldn’t talk to me,” I start, ticking each point on my fingers for her. “He would look away every time I looked at him. He would run away, or worse, intentionally avoid being in the same spaces as me. He said he would rather quit his job than spend time with me. That isn’t exactly I have a crush on you behavior.”
Nell nods, but something about the movement screams her lack of agreement with my points. “Have you ever been nervous before?”
The change of subject throws me, but I manage to answer. “Yeah, all the time.”
“And when you are nervous, how do you act?”
“Nervous.”
“Try not being a shit, for once,” Nell sighs, narrowing her eyes on me. “How do you act?”
My hand closes on the brim of my hat, spinning it until my eyes are covered in shadows. I realize what I’m doing the moment Nell smirks at me, and if I weren’t reasonably sure she would murder me for it, I’d flip her off. “Okay, I will admit some of that could be due to nerves.”
“My assumption is that it’s entirely due to nerves, but that’s just an assumption ,” Nell emphasizes the word with a look I can’t place. When it becomes clear I don’t understand what she’s trying to say, she lets out a long breath. “Men are the worst.”
“I resent that,” Mills huffs, but Nell ignores him.
“Talk to Elliot.”
“What if he turns me down?”
“Then you move on. You’re a big boy, Grady,” Nell stands, brushing imaginary fuzz off her pants. “Time to act like it.”
I think about what Nell said throughout the entire game. I’m so lost in thoughts that I nearly miss the final inning, where we manage to scrape out a 7-6 win. Everyone’s spirits are high as we board the plane home that night, but I’m not among them.
My eyes drift toward the opening to first class, where I can just see the side of Elliot’s face. Thick glasses sit low on his nose as he bends over the book, the tip of one thumb trapped between his teeth as he reads.
I love when he’s so clearly focused on something that the rest of the world falls away. I can’t get enough of his laughter or all his different smiles. I love when I catch him looking at me, especially when he thinks I can’t see him. And when he pushes up his glasses while listening to someone talk as if that will help him hear them better. I love when he’s in Trainer Mode and refuses to take any shit from me. And the way he’s always so deep in his head that sometimes he just stops and tips his face toward the sun. The most peaceful expression flattens the worry lines between his brows, and every time all I can think is that I want to give him peace like that. I want him to relax into me, to fall into my bed at the end of a long day. I want him .
I love Elliot Bennett, and I have no idea what to do with that.
I don’t realize how completely I’ve spaced out until Steal elbows me in the ribs. “Dude.”
“What?”
“You’re bringing down the mood,” he mumbles, giving me a pointed look. “Just go talk to him.”
“Now?” My gaze darts around the plane. A few guys are sleeping, but most are wide awake and chatting loudly. “I don’t want us to be overheard.”
“You don’t have to talk to him about... that ,” Steal wiggles his eyebrows, and I roll my eyes at how not subtle he is. “But you can’t stay here. Go,” he shoos me away with both hands, gesturing toward the first class barrier.
Elliot doesn’t notice me until I drop into the chair next to him, and even then, he only looks at me for a moment before turning toward his book again.
“Hi,” I murmur, slipping my hand between our seats and linking my fingers through his where no one can see.
Elliot’s gaze bounces around the plane before landing on our entwined fingers. “What’s this?”
“I missed you.”
“Hmmm,” he smirks, but his hand tightens around mine. “I might have missed you, too.”
“ Might have ?” I pretend to scoff at the idea. “You mean you haven’t been despondent without me?”
“Despondent?” He chuckles, finally turning those beautiful eyes on me as he closes the book in his lap. “Where on Earth would you get an idea like that?”
“From one of your books.”
“Who said romance novels aren’t educational?”
“Does that mean I’m right?”
“About what?”
“You being despondent without me?”
Elliot rolls his eyes but doesn’t deny it. “What can I do for you, Mr. Grady?”
“Mr. Grady is my brother,” I huff, letting go of his hand with one final squeeze when I see Coach Maggert stand from his seat three rows in front of us. “I came to talk to you.”
“About?”
This is the moment. I will ask Elliot if he has a crush on me, if he wants to go on a date with me, and if he sees this going anywhere in the future. “Whatever you want to talk about.”
You’re a fucking chicken, Matthew Grady.
“Great, because I want to talk about your recovery.”
“No, I’m sorry, I was thinking of something sexier.”
“Oh, did you not mean it when you said I could pick?”
Elliot cocks an eyebrow at me, and I curse myself for not choosing the topic. “What about my recovery?”
“It’s going really well,” Elliot leans forward, swapping out his book for the tablet sitting in the front pocket of his bag. “I don’t think you’ll be stuck with me much longer.”
For some reason, those words don’t quite sit right in the air between us. It’s like I can see them floating there, hanging at an odd angle, taunting me with everything they could mean. “Oh?”
Elliot pokes around on his tablet. “I’ll be honest; I didn’t think you could do it, but you’re well ahead of schedule. It’s impressive.” He finally looks up, meeting my gaze with a soft smile. “I should have known.”
I want to kiss him. I want to lean across this armrest and press my lips to his; consequences be damned. But something shifts in his demeanor, and he looks away again. I clear my throat, looking at the tablet over his shoulder. The numbers don’t make any sense, so I lean back before I’m too tempted to stay in his personal space. “Known what?”
“That you would heal this quickly,” he murmurs, squinting at the screen with a smirk. “Peak physical condition, right?”
“Right.”
He doesn’t look up for several long moments, seemingly lost in whatever he’s looking over. “Elliot,” I prompt, only just managing to stop myself from reaching out to physically turn his face toward me. I wait until he looks over, hesitant green eyes meeting mine. “Are we okay?”
“Yes, of course,” he frowns, sitting up straighter. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“You’re,” I trail off, unsure what I was about to say. You’re not acting like you’ve had a massive crush on me, despite Miller and Nell stating the opposite, and I would like an explanation, please. I shake that thought from my head, eventually finishing the sentence with a half-hearted “Distracted”.
“I am,” he admits, and my chest tightens as I wait to hear what he has to say. “I haven’t heard from my dad in a few days. The last time I talked to him, he wasn’t feeling well. Colin is the only one that lives in New Heights, and that dickhead won’t answer my texts.”
As if the dickhead in question hears he’s being talked about, Elliot’s phone lights up with a text. I see the words “good” and “medicine” before Elliot swipes his phone off the tray to read the text in full. The tension bleeds from his shoulders as he types out a reply.
“All good?”
“Yeah,” Elliot doesn’t look up from his phone as he texts a small novel back to his brother. “Colin finally got over to our dad’s, but apparently he didn’t need to. Hazel has been taking care of him.”
“Hazel?” I ask, but the answer comes to me before Elliot can open his mouth. “Miller’s mom?”
“The very one,” Elliot smirks, dropping his phone back on the tray. “I think something is going on between those two.”
“Really?” I match his grin, knowing how much it will freak Miller out to know his mom is in a new relationship. “Can I be there when Mills finds out? Pretty please?”
Elliot’s rich laughter wraps around me, and I sink into the feeling. “I’m not planning to tell him, so you’re asking the wrong person.”
“Maybe the Universe will grant me this one.”
“Maybe,” Elliot agrees with another soft chuckle. I watch him slide his glasses back up his nose, and I mentally change my request to the Universe. I don’t give a shit if I’m around when Miller finds out because there’s something I want much, much more.
And I’m going to get it.