Page 87 of Rain Delay

The first ten minutes had the regular October fare.

“What’s the strategy at the plate?”

“How does the crowd energy impact your rhythm?”

“Does your injury still linger? How are you handling that?”

Wyatt handled them with precision. He gave them short, clinical answers that didn’t offer much room to ask anything else. He knew what he had to do up there in order to make this a breeze.

Then, this girl in a yellow sundress, unfamiliar to me, near the front row raised her hand. She wasn’t one of the regular beat writers. She had one of those flashy lanyards that indicated she was from one of the major national sports networks, and she looked way too confident with herself.

“Wyatt, your numbers since coming off the injured list have been some of the best of your career,” she starts, her voice cutting through the hum of the room. “But there’s been a lot of chatter online about a shift in your focus. Specifically, photos have surfaced of you with your social media manager, Eliana Romano, outside team functions. In a high-stakes postseason like this, is a rekindled personal relationship becoming a distraction to your preparation?”

The room went dead silent. The regular beat writers all turned their heads to her, then looked over at Wyatt; they knew better than to poke the bear before the beginning of playoffs.

My heart sank into my ass. My fingers tightened on the arms of the chair. I felt a sudden, suffocating wave of heat rush to my face.

I looked down to Wyatt. His mask didn’t change. The air in the room seemed to shift ten degrees colder in the matter of seconds. He didn’t blink. He just stared at her, letting the silence stretch for a second until the girl shifted her weight, suddenly looking a little less confident of her question.

“My preparation is exactly where it always has been,” Wyatt said, glancing up to quickly get a gaze at me. “And the only ‘distracting’ thing in this room is a question that has absolutely nothing to do with what happens on the field tonight.”

He leaned forward just an inch, his eyes narrowing into this razor-sharp gaze that made the reporter visibly nervous.

“Eliana Romano is the best social media coordinator in this league, and she’s the reason this club’s name is finally getting the proper recognition it deserves,” Wyatt continued, his voice steady and proud. “But what she is to me is none of your business. I don’t play for your front page headliner, I play for myself and the team I love. Next question.”

This overwhelming feeling of pride surges through me. I was so proud of the way he handled that. It could’ve gotten really ugly really fast, but Wyatt held himself in such a professional manner.

He didn’t look back at the reporter. He raised his eyes, ignoring the soft whispers among the media, and his gaze traveled over to where I was sitting again.

For a second, that focused, playoffs Wyatt Mitchell had disappeared. There was this protective warmth in his eyes – he wasn’t hiding me, and he wasn’t going to let us turn into a cheap tabloid story. He was drawing the line and setting boundaries in front of the entire country.

The PR director quickly called on a local reporter to ask about defensive strategies, and the room seemed to find its rhythm again.

When the conference ended, Wyatt stood up, gave a brief nod to the room and said thanks before walking out the door without a backwards glance.

My phone buzzed as I walked out.

Wyatt: Stairwell 8. Now.

I turned around from the direction I was walking and made my way to that stairwell.

The moment he saw me, he stopped. In two long strides, he closed the distance between us, his hands coming up to frame my face, his thumbs wiping over my cheekbones.

“Are you okay?” he rasped, his eyes scanning my face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even know they were going to ask that. I should’ve told them to blackball that network. I would’ve –”

I put my hand over his, pulling him to me and shut him up with a kiss. I felt his body relax as he sighed against my lips. “Wyatt,” I looked up at him. “You need to breathe. I’m fine.”

“She called you a fucking distraction,” he muttered, his jaw locking so tight, I swear I saw a muscle tick. “Like you’re just some random person. Like you were just –”

“You handled it,” I whispered, leaning into him. “You told them exactly who I am. And I appreciate that.”

“I only told them a fraction,” he pressed his forehead hard against mine. He was mad, and I just wanted him to calm down. “They don’t get to know the rest. They don’t get to see the Eliana I know. They don’t get to see how you look when you wake up next to me, or how you hold me close when my headaches are bad. That’s my Eliana. Only mine.”

He kissed me – a hard, breathless kiss that tasted of possession and devotion. When he pulls away, his eyes are back on me.

“You need to go out there tonight and kick some ass, I said, my voice a little shaky as I ran my hands down his arms. “Steal bases and make plays so the reporter has to write a thousand words about how great of a baseball player you are instead of about your personal life.”

Wyatt flashes a little smirk at me. “You know I love a little revenge and fun, baby.”