Page 95 of Soft
My attempts at remaining calm didn’t last long. I replayed the exchange with the reporter more times than I could count. Royce had been kind enough to call me from their phone so I could hear the full interaction while keeping my distance.
As much as I wanted to stand beside my Daddy – who had to be THE Paxton Wells in the moment – I let other people handle the problem. Didn’t mean I was going to be in the dark about stuff.
Paxton had been steady through all of it. He’d stood there with a reporter pointing questions at him like weapons, and not once did he flinch. He also didn’t deny me or minimize what we were by offering the reporter lies.
I’d stood there listening with a mix of pride, anger, and utter need. How did one man elicit such emotions from me without even trying to?
I wasn’t the one who had faced the question, yet I felt just as victorious when the reporter was put in his place. When he’d passed by me on the way out, I went so far as to raise my bottle of water his way as if toasting his loss.
To be fair, that’s probably why he went ahead with the article.
I was Paxton’s agent. He was barely a few months into a contract with a new team in a city he had moved to partly because of me—not that anyone aside from his dad knew as much. He’d walked into a professional relationship with me that was already complicated by what we both wanted personally, and he had navigated it with more grace than most people twice his age could manage.
And now there was a news story intent on tearing us down. Ugh! No wonder Cheyenne had reached out.
Guilt settled over me as I pondered how this needed to be handled. My business mind wanted to fix it all as fast as possible. My Little mind wanted to have Daddy come over to cuddle and tell me it would be fine.
I got up eventually because staying in bed was doing nothing productive. The thoughts I kept rotating were too jumbled. I showered, made coffee, then I stood in the kitchen in my softest socks and watched the backyard through the window.
It was peaceful. One of my favorite things about Bellport was how beautiful the town really was when you stopped to look around. Even better were early mornings like this when every bit of nature appeared to be just waking up. The calming effect was well worth the mortgage I’d paid.
My phone buzzed on the counter, pulling me from the relief. I looked at it without moving for a moment, half expecting it to be Cheyenne with a detailed breakdown of the press cycle or Moseley with a list of things he thought we should do.
Instead it was Daddy.
Daddy:Still asleep?
I picked up the phone.
Grizzly:No. Up for a while. Are you at practice?
Daddy:Heading in now. Wanted to check on you first.
I stared at those words. He was heading into practice, and he wanted to check on me first. The man played professional baseball. He was a top-tier athlete, who obviously took his craft seriously.
And yet I was on his mind.
Grizzly:I'm okay.
Partially true.
Daddy:Baby.
I exhaled through my nose.
Grizzly:I feel responsible. I know that's not entirely rational. I just do.
The three dots appeared and stayed for a moment.
Daddy:I know you do. That's why I'm not arguing with you about it. But we're going to talk about this properly tonight. It deserves more than a text. Okay?
Grizzly:Okay, Daddy.
Daddy:Don't spiral all day.
Grizzly:I'm not spiraling.
Daddy:You're standing in your kitchen holding cold coffee and staring out the window, aren't you?
