"Meena Patel fromCascade Chronicle," a South Asian woman with magenta hair said from the front. "Rumors are circulating that your ex-fiancée, Monica J. is seeing her bodyguard, Kieran Kline. Do you have a response?"
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Barely.
"Who Monica sees is entirely up to her. You said it yourself, she's myex-fiancée."
My eyes flicked to our team social media director, the one with tattoos and blue hair that reminded me of cotton candy. Dani something. She was a stark contrast to blondie—I meantClarke—both in size and stature. Her outgoing personality more than made up for it.
She waved at me from the back of the room, miming an exaggerated smile. I caught the hint.
"And I wish her nothing but the best, in all professional and personal endeavors."
Phones and cameras clicked when I flashed what was hopefully, a charming smile.
I could handle it, though—any shit they slung my way. I'd dealt with it for years. There wasn't anything these gossip mongers could say that would throw me.
"Are you nervous about a repeat of your performance in Atlanta?"
Except maybe that.
There was no hiding the twitch in my eye or the clench of my jaw. Knowing my luck, some recap podcast probably captured the sound of my molars grinding together in high-resolution.
Last Halloween, I had taken my sister's kids trick-or-treating. Her three-year-old, Penny, had gone as Mirabel fromEncanto,her favorite movie. A movie that we had watched together over and over and over again, to the point where I memorized everyline of every song. And just as, "We don't talk about Bruno," I didn't talk about Atlanta.
"No."
"Care to elaborate?"
"No." I stood abruptly, the scrape of my chair echoing throughout the press room. "I've got a practice to get to."
So much for keeping my cool.
Tense silence descended over the room. I wasn't about to wait around for somebody to break it. Instead, I tore out of the press room, careful to keep my focus rooted on the door in front of me and not the blonde beside it.
I knew a thing or two about bad news. My career, or what was left of it, was living proof of that.
Clarke had bad news written all over her.
Every. Mouthwatering. Inch.
We were on our third set of sit-ups when Pink opened his big mouth. Honestly, I was impressed he had waited this long. “Did you guys hear that Sinclair gotbless your heart-ed this morning?” he asked on his next up.
“Fuck, seriously?” Tuck asked.
“That’s embarrassing.” This from our first baseman, Roman Garcia.
“Sh-it,” Matty said, drawing the word out into two syllables. “What did you do, man?”
Matty Miller was Mr. Irrelevant, aka the very last pick in this year’s draft. But as the only Southerner on our team, hailing all the way from Scratch Ankle, Alabama—and yes, that was the real name of a real town—his opinion was perhaps most relevant. Atleast in this circumstance. I might have a decade on him, but he spoke Southernisms fluently.
On my next up, I draped my arms around my knees. “I didn’tdoanything to her.”
“But you want to,” Pink said before lying back. On his next up, he added suggestively, “Don’t you?”
Nosy fucker.
I rolled my eyes. Pink wasn’t a bad guy, but he was predictable. I’d dealt with guys like him my entire career. Hell, I’dbeenthat guy back in my early twenties. They craved attention, fed off it really. They weren’t looking for a fight—not most of them anyway—but rather a response, recognition.
But I wasn’t going to feed his already overinflated ego.
