The Dugout

I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at the ‘designer-meets-famous-ex’ premise—until about 30 minutes in, when Childs flipped the script. This isn’t a story about a woman swooning over a celebrity; it’s about two deeply flawed people who *hurt* each other, and the audiobook’s strength lies in how unflinchingly it sits with that discomfort. Mia Madison’s performance is the standout here. She nails the heroine’s professional polish cracking under pressure, especially in scenes where she’s negotiating contracts by day and dodging Ryder’s apologies by night. Her delivery of the line, *“I don’t forgive you, but I miss you”* is so gut-punch quiet, I actually rewound to hear it again. That said, the pacing stumbles slightly in the middle. The baseball subplot (a contract negotiation crisis) feels like a detour from the real story, and C.J. Mission’s narration occasionally tips into *too* much gravel-voiced brooding—like Ryder’s permanently on the verge of a growl. But the last two hours? Perfection. The way Childs weaves in callbacks to their teenage love letters (read with aching tenderness by both narrators) turns what could’ve been a standard HEA into something earned and bittersweet. If you love romances where the emotional payoff feels *hard-won*—and where the narrators make silence as electric as dialogue—this one’s worth the listen. Just maybe skip the play-by-play baseball scenes if you’re not a sports fan; they’re the only part that drags.