Page 47 of Wild Hit (Wild Baseball Romance #3)

AUDREY

I , and a few other back office employees watching from the clubhouse, jump to our feet the second Miguel is hit. The difference between us is that I run to the dugout.

A mess of people blocks me right at the entrance.

Franklin and the rest of the physical therapists team, including Hope, make their way through the players to go on the field.

I don’t know if everything is silent because it really is, or if all sound is drowned by the buzzing in my ears.

I try to jump a little, see if I manage to get a clearer view, but of course I don’t stand a chance among the sea of giants.

My sneakers make a horrible squeaky sound as I pivot back to the clubhouse.

Now I’m the one elbowing my way through people to see the screen.

The cameras are trained on Miguel’s face, scrunched almost in anger.

But I’ve seen him really angry before—every time Henry showed his face and grubby hands—and this is different. This is a mask of pain.

I’m going to freaking murder that pitcher.

Franklin and Hope get in the way of the cameras for a moment as they verbally assess Miguel. He’s not a showboat in his pain like other players, who start jumping or rolling around to really milk the beanballs. Rather, Miguel is stoic by the plate other than how he sometimes shakes his head.

I only realize that the place was really silent until the audience starts booing again.

The camera pans to the Longhorn pitcher, who looks completely stunned by what’s happening.

I don’t know if he really intended to hit the best baseball player of our time, or if it was an accident.

I’ll murder him anyway, but after I make sure to check on Miguel.

The minutes after that pass excruciatingly slowly. Lucky scores our first run and the bases are still loaded, and now that the pitcher’s caught in whatever his game was, we move through the batting order until eventually the inning finally freaking ends.

Then I take off for the dugout again.

“Make room, make room,” someone’s saying. The team moves like a school of fish, absorbing Miguel into the mass as the inning ends and blocking him from view.

He startles a little upon finding me there, waiting for him. Our eyes meet and it’s like a conversation that happens in a single second. In my mind, I ask if he’s fine, he responds that he is, and I don’t believe him.

“Go back to your places, everyone,” a clear voice cuts into the tense quiet. It’s Logan with his team captain voice. “The game’s still going.”

“You heard the man, let’s go.” One of the managers starts shooing people off, players back to the dugout, staff members back to work. Even the back office folks get sent away on the off chance that anything they see may leak to the media.

He finally turns to me and stops cold. I fold my arms. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Uh, right, boss.” He clears his throat, checks one last time that the only ones in the clubhouse are Miguel, Hope and her boss, and me, and returns to his place outside.

Franklin gets to work right away. “Garcia, we need the kit and the cooling pads.”

“On it.” She rushes to the trainers room.

Miguel is calm as he pulls up his jersey off his pants, but I don’t miss the tiny flash of frown that appears on his face before it’s gone. He works the tight undershirt off, exposing gleaming brown skin covering rippling muscles—and the bruise already forming at his ribs.

I fuss without making a sound, fluttering at a distance as Franklin digs his gloved hands in different places to check on the extent of the injury.

“Does this hurt?” he asks Miguel.

He answers honestly, “Yes, but like a five out of ten.”

“What about here?”

“Nothing there.”

Hope returns with a case that she splays open on the floor, reaching for a tub of something.

Hanging off her shoulder is a long gel ice pack.

She’s so fortunate that she gets to do something .

All I can do is watch and pray that this isn’t a major injury, and also that I don’t commit a felony after this.

“You’re lucky that the ball hit your elbow pad first,” Franklin says, getting the tub from Hope and opening it. “I do have to check in with Beau to see if he wants to bench you for the game, though.”

Miguel sighs, throwing his head back and exposing his neck, like the prospect of not playing is more exhausting than that of playing with a fist-sized bruise on his ribs.

“I think he shouldn’t play again tonight,” I blurt out, calling their attention to me. Miguel’s eyebrows rise. “For all it’s worth, I mean. He’s probably running on adrenaline right now. We need to see if the damage is actually worse than he feels right now.”

“Exactly.” Franklin finishes applying the ointment thing and wraps some sort of adhesive patch on top as if it was an open injury. “I’ll bring the news from Beau in a second. Garcia, I trust you with the rest.”

“Yes, sir,” she says, already at work at wrapping the cold pack around his ribcage.

Miguel cooperates by raising his arms, but clearly he’s not pleased by the development. “I really am fine. I once played with a broken clavicle and trust me, this doesn’t feel anywhere near that.”

“Miguel!” I bark, almost the same way that our All-Star catcher would. The two of them jump to attention. “You’re always taking care of everyone else. Can you just let us take care of you for a damn second?”

Once Hope recovers from the shock, she snaps her mouth shut and her lips curl into a very Lucky-like smile. “That’s right, Miguel. Let your friends and your wife worry about you, hmm?”

He clears his throat, Adam’s apple bobbing hard. “Um, okay. Yes.”

“Atta, boy.” Hope pats his shoulder when she’s done, like he’s a good doggo. She tosses me a lopsided smirk as she heads back to the dugout, saying, “Tag, you’re it.”

I huff. I don’t know what she means because I can’t do anything for this man. Can’t magically heal him. Or wave away his frustration. Or really commit murder as I’d prefer.

My arms squeeze so tight around my ribs that it starts to hurt.

“Give it to me straight, Machado. Are you pretending like you’re okay or are you really okay?”

“Wow, last name basis, even.” He has the nerve to smile. “I really am fine, though.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I know you don’t. I like that you don’t. It means you’re really worried.”

How dare his eyes and his smile soften like that, like he’s just watching a tiny kitten fumble around, and not like he genuinely gave me a fright.

“Of course I’m worried, you’re our best player. Our entire postseason run hangs on you.” Something flashes in his eyes that dulls him just a notch, enough for my chest to squeeze painfully. “Marty would also kill me if something happened to you, you know?”

It doesn’t improve his mood. It’s not like he’s upset, exactly, more like pensive.

Looking into my eyes like the answer to his questions is in there somewhere.

He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his stark white pants, almost in a casual way.

But there’s nothing laid-back in the air around him.

Rather, it’s like I’m a pitcher and he’s calculating what my next move will be.

Then he opens his mouth. “And you? How would you feel if something really happened to me?”

My breath hitches.

A million possibilities circle in my mind, too fast to grasp each one, but every one worse than the previous ones.

All I know—all I can feel—is how my heart beats painfully and my body grows cold, colder than it’s ever been.

And I wish I could just walk up to him and melt into his chest, absorb his warmth, his strength, and know that he’s not going anywhere.

But I don’t know how to say any of this. I do know that I shouldn’t. And as he waits, steps echo behind me and Franklin appears into the picture again. “Beau agrees that you’re done for the night. Cool down and go home. We’ll assess you again tomorrow.”

Miguel turns his attention to the other guy. A muscle jumps at his jaw, until he nods. “Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Franklin also bids him farewell with a pat on Miguel’s shoulder.

My whole body is fluttering with nerves.

I don’t want to answer Miguel’s question.

If I admit how horrible I’d feel if something would truly happen to him, he may either freak out or be glad.

I’m not ready for the consequences of each scenario.

I’m not ready for things to change between us.

I wish we could be like this forever, happy together but not together enough that all my fears and flaws will be exposed, and that I’ll get attached to someone so precious that losing him would be like dying.

I’m not ready.

I’m just not ready.

My voice almost comes out as a sob while I turn around. “Take your time, I’ll wait for you in the car.”

But I’ll have to face it. We came together to the facilities today.

We’ll drive home together, and the silence will only be filled in with the conversation I left hanging.

I speed walk out of the clubhouse and then take off running to the admin building, as if I could outrun a truth that is about to be revealed.

What I feel for Miguel is something I didn’t think I had the capacity to feel at all, and I’ve never been more scared in my life.

Because this isn’t just something that would only affect my life, or his, but also his daughter, who has claimed me as her best friend and who deserves a much better one.

I’m just a broken shell of a woman, and all that leaks through the cracks is fear. Of being abandoned again. And worse, of letting them down.

Grabbing my stuff from my cubicle, I somehow manage to hold it together until I find Miguel’s modest but trusty SUV in the parking lot. That’s just like him, unassuming despite his greatness, so reliable that it robs my breath. He robs my breath. Somehow, he also took my heart.

“What am I gonna do?” I fully sob into the steering wheel once I’m safely alone inside the car.

My body heaves with great sobs. Somewhere in the back of my mind I know I’m being melodramatic, that nothing’s happened.

That I have no right to be acting this way, like I’m mourning something that hasn’t come to pass.

Like this was the most difficult moment of my entire life—not every time I was neglected or shunned by my parents, not when I lost my only brother, not when I was bullied by the other rich kids who didn’t find me enough.

It’s like I’m mourning the Audrey who could consistently close off her heart no matter what. Because the moment to really bare it is here. I can’t run away from this conversation, not today or tomorrow, or the day after that. I have to be honest with Miguel.

And then I have to pick up the pieces.

By the time he joins me in the car, taking the passenger seat, I’ve already calmed down enough that I can drive.

I wait until he straps in before getting us in motion.

The radio is off, all that fills the silence is the engine and the dampened sound of traffic.

Miguel is large enough that his left arm has no choice but to take up most of the space of the console between us.

He’s turned away to the window, watching the lights go by as I drive us through downtown.

“We need to talk,” I say, finally breaking the silence. Even as my attention stays focused on the road, I feel him shift to watch my profile.

“I’m all ears,” he says softly. His voice raises goosebumps on my skin, and I’m glad to be wearing a sweatshirt.

“I think…” I trail off, swallowing hard. “That we should stop this.”

Miguel doesn’t fill my pause with questions, but I gather my nerve to answer them anyway.

“It really struck me in there, at the clubhouse,” I explain, my voice steady but only as strong as a whisper.

“You deserve someone who genuinely worries for you, and puts you and Marty first. Right now, and if we continue playing this marriage game, I’m just getting in the way of that.

We should… we should get a divorce. For real. ”

Still, he doesn’t say anything. We’re stopped at a red traffic light and I can’t face him. I keep my eyes firmly on the license plate of the car in front of us.

“Marty’s already settling into her new school with new friends, and Consuelo is there for her.

But she deserves a proper mom. Someone who can be a good example to her, who even knows how to be a good mom.

And you…” The light turns green, and I struggle to find my voice.

It takes a few tries to finish with “you deserve the world .”

He does. Gosh, Miguel deserves the absolute best. At least someone who can give him back as much as he gives. Someone mentally and emotionally healthy and confident and full of love. Someone who is entirely the opposite of me.

Finally he joins the conversation. “Is that what you meant back there? When you said you were just worried for our postseason?”

A stab of pain crosses my heart, breaking it in two halves.

My hands squeeze the steering wheel, keeping me from falling into a pit of my own making.

That’s not what I meant at all. It was just a diversion. The depth of my own fear of losing him numbed my wits. And now it has become the perfect exit strategy so that I can protect him from myself.

But I will never treat him like he’s just another player, some figure on TV that makes anchors and watchers lose their minds.

“Of course,” I say, no longer managing to hold the wobble in my voice. “But we’re friends, Miguel. I also care about what happens to you.”

The words taste worse than candy infused vomit in my mouth. I’ve never hated myself more than in this moment.

“I see.” He turns back out to the window and takes a moment. He sounds calm as he asks, “Do you want to divorce right away?”

“No!” I exclaim, unable to hide the truth for a quick second. I clear my throat. “After the postseason. I don’t want to invite drama into it.”

“Makes sense. That’s the most important thing.”

No, it’s not. It’s you— you . Only you. And you’re better off without me .

My chin trembles. “Right.” And that’s the last word for the rest of the drive home.