Ava is already up when I wake. I hear her in the kitchen, the particular low noises of someone making coffee with full attention, the way she does everything. I find her at the counter in an oversized robe, hair pulled up in a knot she clearly didn’t think about, studying something on her phone with the focused expression of a woman reading something she’s decided has her full engagement.
She doesn’t look up. “You’ve already trended twice.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“Somebody got footage of the family section during the seventh stretch. There are seventeen articles with screenshots.” She sets her phone down and meets my eyes. Her expression is not panicked. It’s the same expression she used on theSportsCenterproducer, the calm, considered look of someone deciding how much weight to give something. “Zoe has texted me fourteen times.”
“Is she supportive?”
“She’s using all capital letters, so either furious or thrilled. With Zoe, the syntax is the same.” She hands me a coffee without being asked. She remembered. She always remembers. “Are you ready for today?”
I take the mug. “Yes.”
“Completely?”
“Entirely.”
She studies me for a moment in that thorough, unhurried way. Reading me the way I’ve watched her read clients before asession, patiently, without jumping to conclusions, trusting the information she finds.
Then she nods.
She gets dressed while I shower. When I come out, she’s back at the kitchen counter with her sketchbook open, pencil moving, already working. Ava is in her studio clothes—black jeans, tank top, leather jacket hooked over the back of her chair. She’s not coming with me to the press conference. Neither of us has discussed it because neither of us needed to. Ava has clients today. She has work. Her presence at the stadium last night was the statement. She doesn’t need to sit beside me while I make mine.
I pick up my jacket from the chair and stop beside her on the way out. “For the record…” I say, “… you have ink on your left forearm.”
She looks down. Looks back up. The corner of her mouth moves. “I was sketching last night while I waited for you.”
“What were you sketching?”
She closes the book before I can see. “Nothing you get to look at yet.”
“Yet?”
“Yet.” She picks up her pencil again. “Go. Don’t be late.”
I kiss her once, properly, and she lets me, one hand coming up to grip my jacket lapel briefly before releasing.
“Reece.”
“Yeah.”
“Be honest. Not careful. There’s a difference.”
I hold her gaze. “I know.”
The press conference room in the Wildcat Stadium media wing smells like burned coffee, camera equipment, and the particular recycled air of a space used too often by too many people. Folding chairs fill three-quarters of the capacity. Cameras line the back wall in a row, broadcast units with logos, phone cameras, and a couple of independents I don’t recognize.
I sit at the long table at the front of the room. Coach Bishop is already there when I arrive, two seats down, a glass of water in front of him, and an expression I’ve learned to read as deliberately neutral. Our PR coordinator, James, gives me a brief nod from his position off to the side.
Mack is standing against the wall near the back. He has absolutely no reason to be at a post-game press conference for pitchers. He catches my eye and shrugs with the completely unashamed expression of a man who came specifically to watch this and will not pretend otherwise.
I set my water down and wait.
The first questions are exactly what they always are—mechanics and strategy, pitch selection, the curveball in the third inning that generated the most replays, my strikeout rate through the seventh, the bullpen’s performance earlier in the game. I answer all of it thoroughly and specifically.
Then the shift.
It comes from the second row, a reporter I recognize from a major sports network, someone who covers the league with the particular thoroughness of a journalist who does actual work and not merely reaction content. He’s been taking notes through the whole thing.
