The Problem with Sports

by M. E. Clayton

  “Well, there is football, hockey, and-”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I laughed. “I get it, son.”

  Grant grinned. “Since you’ve been a real trooper, we can watch Ridiculousness tonight,” he graciously allowed.

  “Deal,” I agreed because I really did love me some Ridiculousness.

  Chapter 4

  Nathan~

  I wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to be able to listen to this.

  Jansen Hillman?

  Seriously?

  Now, don’t get me wrong. I absolutely adored the man. He was good people, and always the first to offer his help with anything. But the best player on the team? Sure, his average was impressive as hell, but it’s not like he was playing a perfect game or hadn’t fucked up a time or two.

  And good?

  Whoever the female was, she was right. You had to be better than good to even be considered for the Hall of Fame of any sport.

  You didn’t get in there by just being good.

  And that was how I found myself standing in front of the door of apartment 903.

  All the condos came with balconies, and I had been enjoying mine when the wind had picked up my neighbors’ voices and had carried them upward, so that I could hear their conversation. Now, I didn’t hang out on my balcony often because I had roof access to the pool and social amenities that had come with the penthouse purchase, but I had felt like enjoying the cool breeze that didn’t happen often in July.

  Then their voices had made it to my ears, and I couldn’t just stand by and let this poor child be led astray. Clearly, his father was doing him a disservice by not setting him straight, so here I was.

  About to set this kid straight.

  I knocked on the door and waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  I knocked again after about an hour (which was probably only really ten seconds), and finally I could hear the lock disengage as someone was getting ready to open the door.

  I stood there, waiting patiently, and when the door swung open, I was greeted with a sight that threatened to turn me stupid.

  She could only be topping at, maybe, five-foot-four, and she was petite as hell. Around thirty, or so, she had blonde hair and brown eyes, and she was just plain fucking stunning. She was dressed in a loose-fitting blue t-shirt, baggy ass jeans, and she was barefoot, with toenails painted a pale yellow.

  “May I help you?”

  Fuck yeah, she may help me.

  I mentally told my dick to shut the hell up and snapped myself out of my blonde-entranced stupor. “Do you have a kid in here?”

  Her brows shot up and she started blinking rapidly. “Uhm…pardon?”

  “A kid?” I repeated. “A very misinformed, misguided, confused child. Is he in there?”

  “Excuse me?” she choked out.

  “Mom, who is it?” came the misinformed, misguided, and confused voice behind her. Since ‘Mom’ was so much shorter than I was, it wasn’t hard to see behind her. And, there, stood a boy about eight-years-old and recognition flashed in his eyes.

  I invited myself in (by just brushing past ‘Mom’) and stood in front of the kid. “Jansen Hillman is not the best player on the Condors,” I argued. “His average is great, don’t get me wrong, but the best?”

  The kid had the nerve not to take my word for it. “The only thing stopping him is his injury,” he replied. “If he hadn’t been injured, he’d be killing it.”

  “You’re not even considering the PWA or PGP,” I accused.

  “The entire team’s player win average had been affected with the recent retirements,” the little twerp fired back. “And Jansen’s player game percentage has been compromised by his injury.” He crossed his arms over his little chest. “I’d think you would know that.”

  The sound of the door shutting behind me reminded me that we weren’t alone. And I was quickly reminded of it when the boy’s mother came to stand in front of me. “Excuse me,” she snapped. “Who in the hell are you? And what are you doing in my home?”

  Who was I?

  Was there no end to the insults?

  “Mom, that’s Nathan Hayes,” her son said, cluing her in on who I was.

  She turned back to face him. “Who?”

  Christ on The Cross.

  They’d just been talking about me.

  The kid walked over to stand next to me. “Nathan Hayes, Mom,” he repeated. “Remember? He just retired and is probably going to be in the Hall of Fame.”

  She shook her head, then looked up at me. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  Was she for real?

  “Doing what you so obviously are failing to do,” I informed her. “Someone needs to set this young man straight about his baseball facts.”

  Her chocolate-colored eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

  “I was out on my balcony, minding my own goddamn business, when I heard voices spreading fake news.” I glared down at her son. “Specifically, a male voice.”

  “It’s not fake news,” he argued. “It’s researched opinions.”

  I narrowed my blue eyes at the kid. “What’s your name?”

  “Grant,” he supplied, narrowing his little green ones right back.

  “And where is your father, Grant?” I asked before glaring back at his mother. “Someone needs to right this wrong.”

  “He’s probably at home,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not wrong.”

  “Oh, but you are,” I informed the poor little confused dude.

  “Opinions can’t be wrong,” he flung back. “They’re opinions.”

  “Okay, that’s enough,” his mother said. She peered at me with those brown eyes of hers and you could see her visibly take a deep breath. “You need to leave, sir.”

  “Mom,” her son rushed out, “you can’t kick Nathan Hayes out of our house.”

  She turned to face him. “I’m pretty sure I can, Grant,” she said, breaking the news to him. “I don’t care who he is. He doesn’t just get to come into our house and…and…” She looked at a loss. “…challenge you on your right to have your own opinions.”

  “I’m not challenging his opinions,” I lied. “I’m trying to set the kid straight since you obviously don’t care enough to do it.”

  Her brown eyes narrowed at me, the threat in them clear. “It’s just sports,” she spat. “We’re not talking about the fate of humanity here.”

  Did she just…?

  Did she just say…?

  Just sports?

  I pointed a finger at her. “I’m going to go,” I announced. “But only because I can’t even look at you right now. Just sports? Really?”

  “He’s got a point, Mom,” Grant said, the precious, adorable child that he was.

  “Oh, sweet Heaven,” she mumbled.

  “I’m going to go,” I repeated. “But I’ll be back.” I pointed towards Grant. “I am not going to just stand by and let you…leave him to his own devices.”

  “Are you insane?” she asked.

  I ignored her uncalled-for question and looked back at Grant. “This weekend-”

  “I’ll be with my dad this weekend,” he said, cutting me off. “I go with my dad on Thursdays and don’t come back until Sunday. When I’m going to school, I go with him on Fridays and come back on Sundays.”

  “So, he’s the one who takes you to games?” I asked.

  Grant shook his head. “No,” he replied. “We’ve never been to any games.”

  “Baseball games?”

  He shook his head again. “No. No games. For any sport.”

  I glared back at his mother. “I just can’t with you right now,” I growled at her before walking out of their condo, slamming the door behind me.

  What kind of fucking father didn’t take his kid to sports games? Especially, a kid who was so obviously into sports. I couldn’t even throw the kid off with the PWA and PGP references.

  I clearly needed to get to the bottom of thi
s, and I was not going to let his hot as fuck mother distract me from what was important here.

  No matter how hot she was.

  No. Matter. How. Hot. She. Was.

  Chapter 5

  Andrea~

  I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation.

  I mean, I’ve had a lot of strange conversation with Rachel over the years, but this had to be the strangest by far.

  “So…then…he just left?” she asked just as confused as I had been when Nathan Hayes had stormed out of my condo last night.

  After the Nathan Hayes had slammed the door behind him last night, Grant had been appalled-absolutely appalled-that I had just let him leave like that. When I had broken it to Grant that I hadn’t let Nathan do anything, he had pointed out how I’d failed to offer the man any refreshments, enticing him to stay. But before I could defend myself, he had gone full-blown fanboy on me and had lost his mind over knowing that Nathan Hayes lived right above our condo.

  And what a Nathan Hayes he was.

  I was only five-foot-four, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t tell that he was at least foot taller than me. And he wasn’t lanky tall either. The man was a mountain of muscles and masculinity with a dark brown hair and bright blue eyes combo. His face was chiseled perfection, and he looked like he belonged on a box of Wheaties.

  The man was simply gorgeous all over.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “It was…weird.”

  Rachel chuckled. “I still don’t understand how you didn’t know who he was.”

  “I don’t follow baseball, Rach,” I reminded her.

  “You don’t need to follow baseball to know who Nathan Hayes is, Andie,” she laughed. “Everyone who’s ever lived in this town knows who Nathan Hayes is. He’s a local boy who made it to the pros. There have been a million interviews with him about his life, family, and career.”

  “I guess I never paid attention,” I muttered.

  “Jesus, Andie. The man is a legend,” she went on to inform me. “His parents live here and one of his brothers is even a firefighter for Silias County. The other one is an engineer or something.”

  “I really have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told her.

  “That’s the problem,” she joked. “The man just retired and the news about it was everywhere. Which goes to prove that you need to get the hell out of your house, Andie.”

  “Rach-”

  “Or, better yet, you know where the man lives,” she kept right on rambling. “Make your way up to his door with some sexy lingerie and get laid, girl.”

  I choked out a laugh. “Rachel, if what all you’re saying is true, the man is a famous athlete,” I pointed out. “I’m sure he’s covered in that department.”

  “The stuff I am saying is true,” she insisted. “But what does that matter? You’re sexy as hell, Andie. He’d be crazy to turn you down.”

  Sometimes I wondered if she listened to the things that came out of her mouth. It was a wonder Charlie didn’t muzzle the woman. Of course, Charlie claims to have fallen in love with Rachel at first sight, so there was very little she could do wrong in his eyes. They’d met their sophomore year at Columbia, when Rachel had stormed into the student advisory office to dispute her dorm assignment, and Charlie had been the poor bastard who had been working the student advisory. She had called him an idiot, and he had chased her for three months before she had finally agreed to a date.

  Over ten years later, he still adored the hell out of her.

  “Rachel,” I said, sighing, “I am thirty-years-old, divorced, and have a kid who left plenty of proof of his existence on my body. I seriously doubt Nathan Hayes, retired professional baseball player, is going to even look at me as an option.”

  “And-”

  “And before you scold me because you think I’m being too hard on myself, I’m not,” I told her. “I’m stating simple facts, Rach. That man can get any woman he wants. He doesn’t need to resort to single mothers who don’t know anything about sports.”

  “How do you know he doesn’t want something different?” she challenged.

  “Different from perfection?” I asked, the sarcasm obvious.

  “Don’t judge a man you know nothing about, Andrea,” she chided.

  “I’m not judging him, Rachel,” I denied. “But I know you know what the man looks like.”

  “Okay, so, yeah, maybe he looks like he should live on Mount Olympus, but-”

  “Maybe?”

  She sighed. “Fine,” she exhaled dramatically. “He’s beyond perfect and can get any woman he wants. But still, that doesn’t mean you can’t be that woman.”

  Rachel was forgetting one very real and serious concern. “Rach,” I said sternly, “the man barged into my home and started arguing with Grant over baseball opinions. He’s clearly taken one too many bats to the head.”

  “Why does he have to be crazy?” she countered. “Why can’t he just be passionate about the subject? He is a retired baseball player, after all.”

  “Did you miss the part where he knocked on a stranger’s door to challenge an eight-year-old?” I reminded her. “He’s clearly crazy.”

  “Oh, please,” she scoffed. “If you had even a tiny inkling that he was dangerous or really crazy, you would have called the police, Andie. That man is not crazy.”

  While she did have a valid point, I still couldn’t dismiss how he had barged into my home, like a lunatic, to argue baseball with a child. However, he hadn’t come across mean or threatening. He had actually seemed upset that Grant hadn’t chosen him as the best Condors player ever.

  I shook my head. Maybe retirement was making him loopy.

  And then a thought occurred to me. “Rachel, you can’t tell anyone Nathan’s my neighbor,” I blurted out. “If it gets out that he lives here, this place will start crawling with tabloid vultures and gold-diggers.”

  “Firstly, I know better,” she retorted. “And secondly, I doubt he would have bought that penthouse if he hadn’t believed it was safe and private.”

  “Well, if everyone knows he retired and has come back home, then-”

  “Andie, he’d have the problem of being famous, no matter where he lived,” she pointed out. “I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”

  The entire thing was…weird.

  And not that there was a chance he’d ever be interested in me, but I couldn’t deny it was a nice fantasy to indulge in. If I was going to fling the chastity belt off, who better with than someone who was built like Nathan Hayes? One look at the man, and how could you not think about wall sex?

  “Well, even if I were interested-”

  “You have a pulse. I don’t see why you wouldn’t be,” she interrupted.

  “-I seriously doubt Nathan Hayes is the guy to take the training wheels off with,” I retorted. “I need a nice, boring, mild-mannered CPA or something to practice with first.”

  Silence.

  Complete silence.

  “Rach?”

  “Are you telling me that, after over two years without sex, you want your first time to be with someone who’s going to insist on keeping his socks on?” she asked incredulously. “You want your first time to be boring?”

  “Not boring,” I denied. “Just…something tells me sex with Nathan Hayes would be explosive, and that would suck-”

  “What?”

  “All I’m saying is it would be a tough act to follow,” I clarified. “The last thing I want to do is have mind-blowing sex, then have to make do with average afterwards.”

  Rachel snickered. “So, you’re saying Nathan Hayes would ruin you for all other men, huh?”

  “Are you saying he wouldn’t?” I harrumphed

  “Good point,” she finally conceded.

  “Okay. As fun as it’s been fun discussing my dry spell and how Nathan Hayes has to be at least a little bit crazy, I gotta go,” I told her. “I have to drop Grant off in a couple of hours, and I need to get my lovin’ in before he abandons me for thr
ee days.”

  “You really need a man,” Rachel advised before just hanging up. I let out a laugh as I placed my phone on the kitchen counter.

  For all of Rachel’s good intentions, starting something with Nathan Hayes was as likely as me starting to play for the Condors.

  A professional baseball player? Really?

  Chapter 6

  Nathan~

  I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. But then, who else would I be talking to about this?

  One of the problems of being famous was that you never knew who’s willing to sell you out for a dollar. Even as much as I trusted my best friend, Sergio Hernandez, a fellow Condor, I couldn’t guarantee that he’d never sell me out if the price were right.

  There were only four people on the planet I trusted completely: Mom, Dad, Sayer, and Gideon. And while I also trusted Monroe and Leta, knowing Sayer the way I did, there was always a good chance he could piss Monroe off to the point where she’d burn my entire family to the grown, so there was that.

  So, sitting in my penthouse, I was telling my brothers all about my neighbor downstairs and the disservice she was doing her son by letting him walk around with wild ideas and misinformed opinions.

  “So…you just barged into their home and went toe-to-toe with an eight-year-old?” Gideon asked, missing the point entirely.

  “Jansen Hillman is not the best player on the team, Gid,” I informed him. “He’s good, don’t get me wrong, but the best?”

  “Maybe we’re being a bit sensitive that the kid called you good instead of great?” Sayer suggested. He was on his three days off rotation, and usually he spent every free second he had with his wife and stepdaughter, but they were having a spa day with Mom, and no one was stupid enough to deny Mom anything.

  Dad would slaughter us all.

  “But he did say you’d end up in the Hall of Fame,” Gideon pointed out.

  “His name is Grant, and I’m not being sensitive,” I denied.

  My brothers shared a look before Sayer cleared his throat. “You barged into their home, Nate,” he reiterated. “You’re being sensitive, or you’ve turned crazy. Either way, you can’t be just barging into people’s homes and arguing their opinions.” He popped a grape into his mouth as I narrowed my eyes at him.