BOTTOM OF THE 9th

When a career-ending injury forces a former MLB All-Star back to his Ohio hometown, he discovers his new co-coach for the youth softball team is the girl whose heart he broke ten years ago—and she’s the only one who won’t forgive him.

Connor Hayes doesn’t do small towns anymore. He doesn’t do coaching kids. And he definitely doesn’t go back to Pine Haven—the town he left the day after getting drafted, choosing baseball over the girl who begged him to stay. Until his brother dies in a car accident, leaving Connor guardian to his grieving twelve-year-old niece. Until a torn rotator cuff ends his career at thirty-one. Until he has nowhere left to run except home.

Ella Montgomery has spent ten years building a life without Connor Hayes. She’s got her family’s sports store, her softball team with a shot at the championship, and a town full of people who stayed when things got hard. She doesn’t need the hometown hero breezing back in, looking broken and beautiful, reminding her of everything they could have been. The problem? Eight weeks of co-coaching. Three practices a week in the place where he first told her he loved her. And his niece Maddie asking pointed questions like “Why does Coach Ella look at you like that?” and “Are you staying this time?”

Except the late-night conversation at The Dugout happens—Connor admits he thought about her every single day, that leaving her was the biggest mistake of his life. The first win happens where they accidentally hug and neither wants to let go. The championship game happens and afterward Connor takes Ella to the quarry where they were seventeen, and he whispers “I choose you. I choose this. I’m not that scared kid anymore” and kisses her like he means it.

And when a college in Chicago offers Connor an assistant coaching position—his ticket back to baseball, back to being somebody—he lies about it. Doesn’t tell Ella for two weeks. She finds out from Maddie who overheard a phone call. They fight publicly at practice. Ella says “You always leave” and walks away. Connor sits in his truck staring at the Chicago coach’s number and realizes: he doesn’t want Chicago. He doesn’t want baseball. He wants the girl who stayed, the niece who needs him, the town that’s always been home. He calls Chicago and says no. Then he goes to find Ella.

Six months later they’re engaged, running a baseball academy together in the building where her store used to be. Connor coaches at the high school and comes home to Ella every night. Maddie thrives, calls him Uncle Connor with pride, asks if the wedding can be at the softball field. Because some loves are worth staying for. Some loves are worth choosing over glory and fame and everything you thought defined you. And some loves—built on friendship and forgiveness and showing up when it’s hard—are worth coming home for. Even if it took ten years and losing everything to figure out that home was never a place. It was always her.

TROPES:
• Second Chance Romance
• First Love
• Sports Romance (Baseball/Softball)
• Small Town Romance
• Forced Proximity
• Friends to Lovers to Strangers to Lovers
• Right Person Wrong Time
• Guardian Uncle Hero
• Career-Driven Heroine
• Found Family
• Championship Stakes
• The One That Got Away
• Emotional Slow Burn

HEAT LEVEL: Sweet / Fade to Black