Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Nate
“If you don’t catch the ball, you catch the bus home.”
Yogi Berra
September play off clinch game
The air wasn’t just heavy. It was suffocating, like the whole fucking stadium held its breath and had been for the last hour.
This was the kind of pressure that seeped into your skin and stayed there, anchoring to your spine and tightening everything that used to feel automatic.
Top of the ninth. Two outs. Bases loaded.
The scoreboard glared down like it was daring us to fuck this up: 1–0. We had to end this. Now.
The odds of us making it here were less than ten percent. No one, and I meant no one, predicted we’d be in the running with the shitty season we had midway through. We broke records. We had momentum. And it was this moment that determined everything.
I wasn’t on the mound anymore. My night had ended in the seventh with one hit allowed, and eight strikeouts.
I’d pitched my heart out and left everything I had on that damn hill.
But it didn’t matter now. The ball was in Alfaro’s hand, and I was behind the dugout rail with my arms locked so tight my forearms ached.
If we won this game, we were going to the playoffs.
It was the final series of the entire season and it all came down to this game for a wild card spot.
Every breath I took felt too shallow, too fast. I was sweating like I’d never come out of the game.
My jersey clung to me. My cleats felt heavier than they should have.
Every muscle in my back was coiled tight.
This was it. My career. When I chose to stay in Phoenix, it was to win it all with the boys.
Garcia crouched behind the plate, still and focused, like he always was in moments like this.
You’d think he was meditating back there.
But I knew him. I’d thrown to him too many times.
His foot was angled slightly out of line.
His fingers flexed between every pitch. He was rattled too. We all were.
Alfaro looked good, but I knew better than to trust optics. He’d gotten two outs clean, but then a weak-ass single, a walk, and another walk had loaded the bases. Just like that, our one-run lead became a landmine. One swing and this whole season could collapse under us.
Chicago’s dugout looked alive. Jittery. Hungry. Their third baseman stepped in. Young. Sharp. The kind of batter that didn’t flinch. He’d fouled off everything Alfaro had thrown at him, including two sliders that kissed the edge and a four-seamer up and in that nearly knocked his helmet off.
It was a full count now. One more pitch.
One mistake and the lead was gone. One mistake and we’d be remembered as the team that almost made it. That almost had it. That couldn’t close.
I gripped the rail so hard my knuckles went white. My chest hurt from the way I was breathing. My teeth were clenched tight. I didn’t move. I didn’t blink. I didn’t pray—I didn’t have anything left to bargain with.
Alfaro took the sign. Exhaled. Set his feet.
Then he froze.
That moment. That pause before the pitch.
It was the longest goddamn second of my life.
I could feel my pulse in my ears. I could feel Cassidy in the stands somewhere, probably clutching the edge of her seat.
She sat in her dad’s seats now, so I could see her.
I thought of Amanda, probably pacing her living room in slippers as she screamed at the TV.
I thought of every time I pitched to save something and wondered if Alfaro felt that weight too.
He threw. It was a slider. Tight and fast, diving late and hard into the inside corner. The batter didn’t swing. Garcia didn’t move.
The ball hit the mitt with a slap so loud it echoed through the quiet like a shot fired into the sky.
The ump raised his hand and made the call.
“STRIKE THREE!”
And the world exploded.
I didn’t hear the first part of the roar. My head was too full of white noise. But when I let myself realize what had just happened, when it actually hit, I was already vaulting over the dugout rail.
We’d done it.
We fucking did it.
We were going to the playoffs.
I sprinted toward the mound, vision blurred, lungs burning. Alfaro had both fists raised, roaring toward the sky like he’d summoned the win from some divine plane. Garcia leapt onto him mid-celebration, knocking his mask sideways and screaming, “YOU DID THAT. YOU DID THAT.”
Pavin came flying in, limbs flailing like he forgot how to coordinate basic movement, and jumped straight onto my back. “WE’RE GOING TO OCTOBER, BITCHES!”
I stumbled under the weight. “Jesus, Pavin.”
“You love it!” he yelled in my ear, practically frothing.
Wells launched himself next, chest-bumping Garcia, who immediately started slapping him with his glove. “Don’t care if I pull a hammy,” Wells shouted. “I’m gonna body slam all of you.”
I was laughing, or maybe shouting. I couldn’t tell anymore. Someone dumped a cooler. Someone else threw a glove like it was a bouquet. I caught a glimpse of the bullpen sprinting full-speed from the outfield, one guy waving a towel above his head like a lasso.
“We did it,” I choked out, breathless.
Garcia shoved me toward the mound and shouted, “Say it louder for the assholes in the front office!”
“I SAID—WE FUCKING DID IT!” I roared, and the crowd, as if on cue, erupted again.
Pavin was still on my back, holding on with one arm while filming with the other. “I am never getting off this man. He is my personal playoff donkey.”
“Get off me,” I said, but I was laughing too hard to make it convincing.
“You almost got traded,” Wells said, pointing a champagne bottle at me like a sword. “We did it for you, brother! You could’ve walked away, but you didn’t.”
I grabbed the bottle from him, popped the cork, and let it fly in a high arc over the dugout. “And yet—I’m right fucking here.”
“Like a legend,” Pavin said, finally sliding off me. “A very old, grumpy, still-hot legend.”
“Did you just call me hot?” I asked, stunned.
“You pitch like a god and your forearms are ridiculous,” he said, deadpan. “You know what you are.”
Garcia wheezed. “He’s not wrong.”
Wells was already dragging the Gatorade cart toward the dugout tunnel. “Y’all better hydrate before the locker room turns into a scene from The Purge.”
I bent over, hands on my knees, and felt the weight of the moment press through every rib. The disbelief. The gratitude. The fucking relief.
Not traded.
Not forgotten.
Not done.
The speakers overhead blasted music—some pulsing victory anthem I’d never be able to hear again without thinking of this exact second. The fans weren’t leaving. They were still here. Screaming. Crying. Holding each other because we’d just given them something sacred.
I looked around and saw Cassidy standing at the edge of the field, both hands clapped over her mouth. Her eyes were wide, shining. She looked like hope.
Cassidy.
On the edge of the field, hands over her mouth, eyes wide, heart in her eyes. She wasn’t in a dress tonight. No red carpet, no heels. Just jeans, sneakers, and my old warmup jacket tied around her waist. She looked like home.
I jogged to her, weaving through bodies. She met me halfway, already crying.
“You did it,” she said, laughter and disbelief cracking in her voice. “Holy shit, Nate. You did it! I’m so proud of you, oh my god.”
“We did,” I said, then grabbed her and spun her in a circle while she clung to my shoulders. She smelled like flowers and popcorn and I squeezed her hard. She’d been my rock the last few months. Since I chose to stay, we’d been inseparable.
I wouldn’t have been able to do this without her. “Fuck, I love you so much,” I growled, cupping her head and kissing the hell out of her.
I didn’t care who saw. Her hands were in my hair. My arms were locked around her waist. The taste of her was better than any win. She smiled against my mouth and kissed me back with as just as much energy as she lived her life.
“Okay, we have to stop or your teammates are going to start howling,” she whispered, breathless, her blue eyes glistening with joy.
“They’re already howling,” I said, not letting her go, kissing her again.
Pavin ran past us with a full bottle of champagne, spraying it at no one in particular and screaming like he’d been set on fire. Garcia dumped a cooler over Alfaro’s head and shouted something about destiny. The locker room was going to be chaos, but no one was moving toward it yet.
J.O. walked onto the field with that look on his face—equal parts pride and surprise. He found me in the crowd and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Glad you stayed and fought for it,” he said, no hesitation. “You made the right choice.”
I nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
“You stayed. You led. You delivered.”
“Would’ve felt wrong anywhere else,” I said. Cassidy nuzzled under my arm, giving my waist a squeeze in a you got this gesture.
He gave me a look, somewhere between proud and grateful. “You’ve still got more in the tank.”
“Damn right I do.”
“We’ll talk soon,” he said, smiling. “You win this whole fucking thing first, then we talk options.”
“You got it.”
“Oh my god,” Cassidy said, giggling against me. “He’s intimidating. I mean, he’s handsome for an older guy but terrifying.”
I hoisted her, wrapping her legs around me as I kissed her again. “Do not call another man handsome in front of me.”
“I love it when you’re all bossy.”
“Fuck, I want to celebrate with you.” My chest ached. “We need to go to the gravesite, tell your dad everything.”
“You are perfect.” Cassidy’s voice softened as she cupped my chin. “I love you, I love that you even said that. We have time to do that, sweetie. You need to go celebrate with the guys first. You earned it.”
“Wish you could sneak in with me.”
She snorted and tapped my arm so I’d set her down. “I will politely decline but I’ll wait for you and we can leave together. Does that sound okay?”
“Who will you wait with?” I scanned the crowd, hating the idea of her waiting alone. Or with other men.