Page 79 of Home Run

Reaching out, I took her hand in mine. “I can’t imagine how hard it was to lose your dad, but that’s not the reason to put your life on hold, and he wouldn’t want you to either. You need to have more faith, Mills. We are going to make mistakes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them too.”

Millie stared at me, slowly blinking while her brain weighed up the argument. I could almost see the cogs spinning as she chewed her lip.

“I don’t know, Tan, we’d need to start so slow.” She said eventually.

“You want to let me take you home and show you exactly how slow we can start?”

Her pupils dilating was all the answer she needed to give.

I signaled the server for the check. “Eat up.”

SEVENTEEN

MILLIE

“How does anyone stay on this?”Radley moaned, followed by a loud thud and another moan. A more pained one.

Glancing around, I found her on the floor, and the yoga ball rolled over by the wall.

Pushing off my knees, I grabbed the remote and hit Pause on the YouTube video I’d found and tried to figure out why yoga for pregnant women was so hard.

“Maybe we should have gone to the class,” piped up Scout, who was lying prostrate on her ball but had been in that position so long she could easily be stuck. “Then they’d tell us where we were going wrong.”

“No way, I have to embarrass myself in the comfort of my own home first. I’m not making the mistake of going to that class never having done this before. Not after what we witnessed.”

A legitimate point, I thought.

It started earlier this morning. The boys had left for practice ahead of the next series, so Radley and I haddecided to have a girls’ day before they returned to watch the final Braves versus Nats game, of which they’d be playing the winner in the NLDS. This would be followed by theSaturday Night Liveseason opener, which Holiday was hosting.

Since Parker and Scout hadn’t been an official couple for long, and Scout traveled almost as much as the boys, Radley and I invited her to join us for brunch so we could get to know her better. On the way to the restaurant to meet Scout, Radley declared she wanted to check out the pregnancy yoga place she’d read about.

There happened to be a class in session, full of women in their later stages of pregnancy all with bumps way bigger than mine as they rolled on their yoga balls, stretching and moving so gracefully, it could have been ballet. Even peering through the glass I could feel the gentleness and calm, while a nimble instructor almost floated around the room with a poise I’d never had.

It was wholly and entirely intimidating.

At no point in my almost five months of pregnancy did I feel calm or gentle. I felt sick, puffy, and sweaty at the very least. Maybe it was something that came in the third trimester, but I couldn’t see how, and there was no way I was attempting anything like that with witnesses. Therefore, I decided to get the practice in at home and persuaded Radley and Scout to join me.

Maybe I could learn to be graceful.

Scout rolled to the side of her ball and fell off, proving gracefulness was virtually impossible, and those women were not normal. “I vote we make popcorn, get cozy, and put a movie on. The boys won’t be back for a while.”

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” agreed Radley, jumping up. “We have salty and sweet, and extra buttery.”

“You guys pick the movie,” I said, because it was likely I’d fall asleep anyway. “I’m going to get a sweater.”

When I walked into my bedroom, the afternoon sun had dipped in the sky low enough that it was hitting the buildings, covering the city in an orange blanket. It was stunning.

October had always been my favorite month.

I loved the smell of leaves on the wood burner, the cool fall air when you could get cozy on your own terms with little more than a blanket, before the bitingly cold eastern weather hit for the winter. But I’d admit I was a little excited to be pregnant over the holidays, when I wouldn’t need any excuses for hunkering down under a blanket wearing stretchy pants.

After peeing for the hundredth time today, I picked up a hoodie Tanner had left this morning, and let myself breathe him in. Woody, amber, and warmth, it was the scent of fall. The scent of happiness.

This scent is what made me calm. Not yoga.

Radley and Scout were huddled down on the couch when I walked back out, a huge bowl of popcorn on the table in front of them, plus three mugs of steaming hot chocolate topped with marshmallows.

“This is the dream,” I announced, plopping myself down next to Radley, plumping up a cushion, and pulling one of the throws over me. “What are we watching?”

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