Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Cassidy
“Pair up in threes.”
Yogi Berra
I didn’t post the kiss video from community day.
It sat in my drafts, messy and unfiltered, audio cracking, hair everywhere.
When Nate kissed me, none of that mattered—it was too real to share.
Maybe later, with a trending audio loop, but for now I kept it tucked away like a secret the world didn’t deserve yet.
I knew it’d be huge online, but I wanted this for me. Just me and him.
Instead, I focused on the clean-up footage: quick interviews, kids waving rakes like swords, a time-lapse of Pavin scrubbing graffiti. I stitched it together with upbeat music, a mini reel of chaos and good intentions. Nate barely looked at the camera, too busy working.
I paused on one frame—him carrying a broken trash can up a slope, shirt plastered to his back, jaw set. God, he was glorious. I added it to the reel. Deleted it. Added it again.
The apartment was quiet except for the ceiling fan and the clink of my spoon in a mostly melted pint of coffee-chip ice cream.
I was curled on the couch in one of Nate’s warmup shirts, sleeves rolled past my elbows, the fabric smelling like detergent and him.
It made my chest tight in a way I couldn’t name.
We hadn’t made plans yet. The all-star break was coming and our PR stunts were nearly over. We’d texted earlier, just a quick hope edits are going okay, and then silence. He had a game tonight. Rest mattered. Still, I stayed up, phone in hand, pretending I wasn’t waiting.
When the ache got too loud, I opened the folder labeled Dad Things. Screenshots of old texts. A birthday voicemail. A video where he tried to flip pancakes and caught one in a potholder like it was choreography. I watched it three times before I cried.
“I think you’d like Nate,” I whispered. “He’s loyal, gruff, but kind. Makes me feel safe. Makes me feel … like I can be me.”
The room felt smaller somehow, or maybe just heavier. I stared at the screen again, paused on a still of Nate handing a bottle of water to a kid at the field. His posture was easy, his face unguarded.
My dad would’ve teased me about it mercilessly, called Nate my personal Gatorade mule or made some offhand comment about pitchers finally learning what manual labor looked like.
But underneath the jokes, I knew what he would’ve said. Don’t flinch. Just because one man hurt you doesn’t mean they all will.
I pressed my fingers to my lips, thinking about that kiss, about Nate’s hands at my waist and the way he looked at me like he was memorizing the moment. I wanted to believe in it. I really did. Even if I wasn’t sure what I wanted to commit to.
My phone buzzed against my thigh and I snatched it up, heart lurching. It wasn’t Nate.
Amanda.
Amanda: Okay are the rumors freaking true? My brother won’t answer me. I knew this was possible but not like, a reality.
Amanda: IT CAN’T BE TRUE. We are JUST getting started here! We mapped out the next three years of events in Phoenix, Cass. We can’t … it must be a rumor. TELL HIM TO CALL ME NOW.
My pulse jumped. I had no idea what she was talking about. I opened socials and searched his name. It was already trending.
Nate O’Brien to New York?
Gila Monsters expected to make a move before the break.
The video auto-played. One of the same radio hosts from earlier this week, the one who always talked in measured, smug certainty.
“… look, if you’re the Gila Monsters, this is a business decision. You move him before the window closes. His numbers are elite. The return package could rebuild your pitching core. You don’t wait. You don’t let nostalgia win.”
The breath left my lungs in a slow, uneven exhale.
Trade him. Like right now.
He hadn’t told me that was an option.
I paused the video, thumb hovering over the screen, and stared at the reflection of my own face in the glass. My mouth was still parted, like I was waiting for someone to say it wasn’t true.
I stared at the screen until the image blurred, my vision stinging as the audio kept looping in my head, even after I closed the app. I set the phone down gently, like it might detonate if I held on too long, like letting go could somehow stop it from being real.
But it was real.
My body tightened all at once, a full-body clench I couldn’t unwind.
My legs curled under me. My arms wrapped tight around my shins.
I folded into myself on the couch, pressing my forehead to my knees, trying to keep everything in.
I couldn’t stop the way my throat ached or how my ribs squeezed in like they were trying to crush the air from my lungs.
Nate being traded gutted me.
The idea of him packing a bag, flying across the country, wearing a different jersey, laughing with a different set of teammates ripped something loose inside me. I was building a life here, finding out who I was in this city, without my dad. And he was leaving?
Not seeing him again, not having him here all the time, not getting to kiss him when he walked into a room or send him videos while he was on the road? That hurt in a way I wasn’t ready for. Sure, he traveled for games but those were temporary. Hoping on a flight to see him just didn’t sit well.
He didn’t owe me anything. Not his plans, not his future, not even an explanation. We hadn’t defined it. There were no labels. No terms. We were this hazy, tangled maybe that lived in stolen time. But that didn’t matter. Because I was in it. Completely.
The realization hit me so hard I almost gasped. I was falling in love with him.
Not the casual kind. Not the fun, flirty, let’s-see-where-this-goes kind.
This was the kind of love that crept in unnoticed until it pressed against every corner of your chest. The kind that made you rearrange the furniture in your life to make room for someone else.
The kind that made you ache at the thought of losing it—because now you had something to lose.
I pressed a fist to the center of my chest, like that would ease the pressure building there.
I didn’t want to be the last to know. I didn’t want to be the one sitting in the dark, piecing things together from strangers and headlines. I didn’t want this to be another Mathias. Another moment where someone made a choice without me and I was left scrambling in the aftermath.
I didn’t want this to feel like losing my dad all over again—one more person I couldn’t hold onto, even when I wanted to.
I stood up quickly, too fast, my balance shaky as I walked to the kitchen.
I pulled a bottle of wine from the rack, poured a glass, then just stared at it.
I didn’t want it. I didn’t want anything but to feel normal again, but the skin on my arms felt wrong, too tight, like I was wearing a body that no longer fit.
I set the glass down without taking a sip and braced my hands against the counter, the cool granite grounding me just enough to stop the spiral.
That’s when the knock came. Soft, almost hesitant.
I didn’t move at first. Just blinked at the door. My body refused to process anything beyond the ache behind my ribs and the echo of the words in that clip.
I padded to the door in bare feet, heart climbing higher with every step, not sure if I was hoping or dreading who I’d see when I opened it.
But I already knew.
It was Nate.
He was still in his gear. Shirt wrinkled, hat low, like he’d driven straight from the stadium without bothering to change.
His jaw looked tight enough to crack and his shoulders didn’t move when he breathed.
There were shadows under his eyes like he hadn’t slept, or maybe like sleep hadn’t done anything to fix the weight he was carrying.
“Hey,” he said, voice low and scraped thin.
I gripped the edge of the doorframe, steadying myself before I nodded. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer right away. Just stood there for a second like he didn’t trust himself to speak. Then he shook his head. Not a big, dramatic no. Just a small, honest one. Like he was tired of pretending.
I stepped back to let him in. He moved past me with slow, uneven steps, not like a man who had somewhere to be, but like someone whose center of gravity had shifted without warning. The door clicked shut behind us, and even that sound felt louder than it should’ve been.
He didn’t speak.
He reached for me.
His hands found my waist, tentative at first, like he needed to be sure I was real.
His forehead dropped to mine and I felt his breath stutter between us.
He didn’t kiss me, not right away. His hands slid to my back, grounding himself there.
I could feel the tension in his fingers, the way he held me like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
“I need to tell you something,” he said, voice rough.
I nodded, not pulling back. “Okay.”
He didn’t let go. Just stayed pressed against me, his arms a little too tight, his body too still.
“J.O. called me in today,” he said, and that alone made my stomach twist. “Toronto made an offer. So did New York. There’s a third one coming, probably by next week. He didn’t say it directly, but … it’s real now. The front office is listening.”
My mouth opened, then closed. The breath I took in didn’t go anywhere. God, my stomach ached as the rumors were coming to life. “They want to trade you.”
He nodded again, this time slower. “It’s not done. But it’s close. I have a few clauses in my contract where I can say no to some teams.”
His voice cracked near the end of the sentence. Just barely, but I heard it.
“I’ve spent my whole career here,” he said, pulling back enough to look at me.
His eyes were raw, not glossy or shining—just bare.
“I’ve spent ten years building my life in this place.
I bought Amanda a house five minutes from mine so I could be there if she needed anything.
I know every inch of that clubhouse. Every shitty patch of turf on that field. I’ve given everything to this team.”
His throat worked around something thick, but he kept going. “And now I finally have a chance at a ring. A real one. A playoff rotation. I’ve wanted that since I was six years old. But all I can think about is what it would mean to leave. And who’d be left behind.”
He looked at me like that was the part he didn’t know how to explain.
Emotions swirled in his green eyes, a tortured storm brewing.
I couldn’t stop myself, I had to reassure him despite my own heart breaking.
I interlaced our fingers and kissed the back of his hand, hoping it brought him strength to continue.
“All I’ve ever done is chase the next level,” he said, his voice quieter now.
“The next game, the next win, the next shot at something bigger. And now I’ve got it.
I could go to New York, and they’d put me in the rotation tomorrow.
I could help win a title. I could end my career the way every kid dreams about.
But I’d have to leave everything I’ve built.
I’d have to leave her—Amanda. And this.”
His hand curled around mine, his gaze darkening. “And you.”
I didn’t say anything right away. I couldn’t. There was too much in my chest and not enough air to move through it. I curled my fingers around his and tugged him gently toward me.
He didn’t resist.
I kissed him softly. Not to distract, not to erase, but to remind him he wasn’t alone in this, that I was with him, supporting him.
He held me together so many times, it was my turn now.
He leaned into me, his mouth parting and I slid my tongue against his, wanting to tell him without words that I loved him, that everything would be okay.
When I pulled away, I held his face in my hands and let him see the whole of it. The confusion. The ache. The part of me that was terrified he would go and the part that wanted him to chase everything he’d ever wanted.
“You’re allowed to want both,” I said, my voice low but steady. “You’re allowed to want the dream and the people you built your life around, new and old.”
His mouth curved, a sad smile gutting me. “My sister—”
“Is fine. I’ll be here to watch over her.
” I narrowed my eyes. “You can’t use her to make a choice that is only meant for you,” I said, my voice growing stronger.
Despite my heart shattering that yet again, someone I was starting to love would leave me, I couldn’t let him throw away his dream for someone like me.
A flight risk. Somone who still didn’t have shit figured out.
Someone who was just now growing up and trying to become something.
“You’ve talked about your dream of winning a world series for years, Nate. ”
He took a shaky breath, his jaw tightening. “I know. God, that makes me so proud of her, and you.”
I pulled him closer, resting my forehead against his as I whispered, “You don’t have to decide tonight.”
He nodded once, and his arms wrapped tighter around me. He didn’t speak again. Just breathed me in, hands flexing at my back.
We stood like that until the quiet stopped feeling heavy. Until his breathing evened out. Until I felt his body finally begin to rest against mine instead of brace.
“Stay,” I whispered again, softer now.
He didn’t move. He just pressed his mouth to my temple, then my jaw, then the corner of my mouth, and followed me when I took his hand and led him to the bedroom.
Not because we were ignoring what was coming. But because, for tonight, we needed to remember what was already here.