The Rookie's Rival
A Betrayal, Fake Engagement Contemporary RomanceBy Nora Keating
Length7h 30m
About this audiobook
*"Bennett. You planning to pitch today, or just stand there staring at your phone?"*
Noah has read the first three words of his sister's message and that is enough to lodge a stone behind his ribs. *Dialysis moved up.* He shoves the phone into his duffel without finishing it.
The locker room smells like pine tar and old sweat. Dale Hargrove is holding court at the far end with a plug of tobacco in his cheek and eight years in the organisation behind him, explaining that the curveball is dead and he will be calling fastballs until somebody proves him wrong. Noah keeps his head down, finds locker forty-seven, and lets his fingers find the seam of a baseball on the shelf. He rubs it once, then twice.
Then his phone goes again. *Dr. Patel says there's a possible match. Not sure yet. Don't get excited.*
At McCormick Field the sun is still low across the outfield and the Blue Ridge Mountains sit hazy in the distance, and Noah stopped noticing them about three weeks into his first season.
The man leaning on a bat in the infield is new.
*"Javi Reyes. Traded over from the Cardinals organization. You're Bennett, right? The lefty with the fastball that's supposed to be something special."*
Javi watches one slider and tells him he is dropping his shoulder on the release, which is both correct and extremely annoying, and then invites him to cards. He is a shortstop who has seen a lot of pitchers miss their spots. He is also, by any honest reading of the depth chart, the last person Noah should be spending time with.
Because the general manager is Evelyn Torres, who does not call pitchers to her office with good news, and who says things into her phone like *if he can't stay healthy through June, he's not worth the roster spot.*
And then a hospital rings during a game, and Lily's kidney function has dropped again, and the number is seventeen percent.
A baseball romance between two men on a minor-league roster where everybody is competing for the same handful of jobs: a pitcher trying to hold a mechanical flaw and a family emergency in the same set of hands, an infielder who keeps showing up and staying, a veteran catcher who calls everyone kid, and a front office doing arithmetic on people. The romance is closed-door.
Audiobook details
GenreRomance, Biography and Memoir
Length7 hrs 30 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 15, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1 - The Door I Didn’t See Coming
2Chapter 2 - The Shortstop’s Wall
3Chapter 3 - The Weight of a Promise
4Chapter 4 - The Roommate Nobody Wanted
5Chapter 5 - The Fastball That Wouldn’t Come
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6Chapter 6 - The Weakness I Hide
7Chapter 7 - The Closer’s Whisper
8Chapter 8 - The Cover That Costs Me
9Chapter 9 - The Deeper Hole
10Chapter 10 - The Score I Can’t Settle Alone
11Chapter 11 - The Dossier on My Desk
12Chapter 12 - The Bargain I Shouldn’t Make
13Chapter 13 - The Leak in the Dike
14Chapter 14 - The Secret I Carry Like a Bruise
15Chapter 15 - The Month That Could Cost Everything
16Chapter 16 - The Festival That Unlocks Us
17Chapter 17 - The Call That Changes Everything
18Chapter 18 - The Black Moment on a Diamond
19Chapter 19 - The Gash That Won’t Heal
20Chapter 20 - The Test Result I Never Expected
21Chapter 21 - The Grand Gesture I Won’t Regret
22Chapter 22 - The Surgery We Face Together
23Chapter 23 - The Roster I Finally Earn
24Chapter 24 - The Beginning We Almost Missed
25The End
26About the Author
27Also by Nora Keating
28Acknowledgements
29A Note from the Author
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