Team Player

  COPYRIGHT

  THIS BOOK IS A WORK of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Julianna Keyes. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher at info@juliannakeyes.com.

  Visit our website at www.juliannakeyes.com.

  Cover design by Khoi Le

  ISBN 978-0-9950507-7-8

  First Edition March 2019

  TEAM PLAYER

  Don’t hate the player...

  BOTTOM NINE

  Gwen Scott wants to love her job with the Charleston Thrashers, the MLB team she’s worshiped since she was a kid, but she can’t. Hateful colleagues and mind-numbing work make her days unbearable—until her head for baseball gets her exclusive access to the Thrashers’ clubhouse and she comes face-to-face with Tyler Ashe, the team’s sexy shortstop and baseball’s most ineligible bachelor.

  BASES LOADED

  Ty has sworn off relationships in order to focus on his all-star career, but with his best friend gone, his team struggling, and the press blaming him for every loss, the most recognizable man in the majors is in a slump. Until he starts spending his time off the field with a stern blonde who recites baseball stats for kicks and sees through his arrogant façade.

  TWO OUT

  As the Thrashers’ season gets into full swing and Gwen adjusts to her new job, their fun banter and friendly teasing turns into stolen kisses and countless steamy nights. The team’s strict policy against player-staff relationships throws a curve ball into the mix, but they can’t hide from their feelings any more than the most famous man in baseball can hide from the spotlight...

  DEDICATION

  For Natalie. Of course.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  TEAM PLAYER

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  FUN FACTS

  THANK YOU!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BOOKS BY JULIANNA KEYES

  CHAPTER 1

  NOT FOR THE FIRST, fiftieth, or very last time, Gwen Scott considered making a run for it. She thought how easy it would be to stuff her water bottle and her phone into her bag, tuck her heels under her arm, and bolt for the elevator. It was just fourteen and a half steps from her cubicle to freedom, but before she could make the dream a reality, she was interrupted by Allison Whyte, manager of Public Relations, Promotions & Social Media Strategy for the Charleston Thrashers, South Carolina’s major league baseball team, a tyrant, and Gwen’s boss.

  Allison peered down her nose, aided in part by her four-inch heels, and eyeballed Gwen. “What are you doing?”

  Everyone knew Allison was the most competent and frightening person in the entire Lennox Building, and Gwen was not immune to the fact as she tried to think of an answer other than “I’m considering running away again.” “Oh,” she said instead. “Um...”

  Allison thrust a folded piece of paper into Gwen’s hand. “Bring this downstairs. And don’t just slip it under the door this time, make sure Strip takes it, and opens it, and reads it, and says the words out loud when the cameras are watching. Understood?”

  In reality, it was just a piece of white paper with a handful of bulleted speaking points typed on one side. But in another reality—the reality that awaited Gwen on the Thrashers clubhouse level—it was a death warrant. With her name on it.

  “Gwen? Why are you still here?”

  “Well—”

  Allison was already walking away. “It doesn’t matter. Get downstairs before the post-game.”

  Now, instead of looking like a beacon of hope, the elevator doors looked like the gates of hell. Gwen’s finger wobbled as it pushed the down arrow, her breath coming shallow as she stepped into the empty car and rode down to the clubhouse.

  She exhaled miserably as the elevator descended. To a lot of people, a job in a major league baseball organization was just a dream. Permission to even visit the clubhouse would be a dream come true. But lately, Gwen’s life had been more nightmare than dream.

  Her aunt Marge had loved baseball. Loved it so much she’d painted her house in the team’s black and teal colors, and had memorabilia featured in every room of her home. When nine-year-old Gwen had first arrived in Charleston, she’d been at a loss for words. Because Marge was sixty-five and had never been married, she’d been led to expect a house of cats and knitted afghans, bowls of potpourri and digestive biscuits. Instead she’d gotten a Thrashers season ticket, a glove, and a jersey with her name on the back.

  Gwen still couldn’t catch a ball, but she’d rival anyone in the building with her baseball knowledge. In a new country, with an aunt she’d never met and not a single friend, she’d sobbed helplessly every night until Marge had taken to reciting baseball stats to help her sleep. Almost twenty years later, Gwen still knew the ERA of every member of the Thrashers’ 2001 starting pitching rotation.

  The elevator dinged brightly as it reached the clubhouse level, the doors gliding open. The familiar ninth-floor smells of paper and ink, perfume and coffee were gone, replaced by sweat and mildew, testosterone and more sweat. Gwen adjusted her blazer and tugged at the hem of her teal camisole. Her red heels clipped loudly on the cement floor as she stepped out of the car, heralding her arrival.

  Not that anyone cared.

  The players were in the clubhouse, being yelled at by Rex Stripley, who had been the Thrashers’ manager since the team’s inception twenty years earlier. The only people fortunate enough to be in the corridor were training staff making themselves busy as they avoided the all-too-common angry ranting.

  Gwen had been on this level once before, and knew Strip’s office was in the direction of the yelling. She eased down the hall that way, walking slowly to muffle her footsteps. The last time she’d been sent on this particularly dreadful errand was the day Strip had fired his fourth assistant of the still-very-early season, a skinny guy named Leo who’d had the unfortunate task of delivering these very same talking points. He’d had a lot of other unfortunate tasks as well, namely being anywhere on Strip’s radar, but Human Resources had found hiring a new assistant “a challenge,” so after Leo’s departure, the talking points were emailed to Strip.

  Except Strip didn’t trust computers, so he needed a hard copy.

  And Gwen was the low woman on the totem pole. They hadn’t even bothered printing her name on the access pass, knowing she likely wouldn’t survive more than a few trips.

  Strip’s gravelly voice echoed off the blue cinderblock walls as she tiptoed down the hall and hesitated outside his empty office. The cramped room consisted of a cheap desk littered with paper, a computer that was more for show than actual use, and a wall of Thrashers photos that spanned the last two decades. From a brand new organization with a miniscule budget, they’d grown into one of the most popular teams in the league. Four trips to the post-season in the past five years had culminated in their first-ever visit to the World Series last fall.
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br />   A trainer walked past and gave her a sympathetic smile, and the donut Gwen had eaten earlier curdled in her stomach. She was the next Leo. And as much as she loathed her thankless job, quitting felt like an insult to Marge, who would reach down and punch her in the boob for being such a baby. Also, Gwen really had no idea what she’d do if she did quit. When Marge died last summer, the bottom had fallen out of Gwen’s world. She’d had plans to continue with school, to get her Masters and find a career, but with Marge’s passing, those plans had gotten lost in the bleak gray haze that was her grieving.

  A sudden heart attack meant that the only person who’d ever acted like a parent, like they loved her or cared for her, was abruptly gone, and just like that Gwen was a scared kid again, lost and alone, staring at the walls of a house covered in Thrashers pennants and signed baseballs and wondering what the hell to do with herself. So with Marge’s favorite bottle of whiskey in one hand and an old glove on the other, she’d drunkenly applied for a job with the Thrashers, the only thing on the planet Marge had loved more than Gwen. What she’d gotten was a junior role in the Public Relations, Promotions & Social Media Strategy department, where she was assigned all the jobs no one else wanted to do.

  It wasn’t that bad, at first. She’d been lucky enough to start in August when the Thrashers were dominating the American League East division and fans were excited to read her Twitter updates. Though her brain was on autopilot and she moved like a zombie, she knew baseball through and through and had handled the tasks easily enough, even with a broken heart. Her posts had gotten thousands of likes and comments, making her feel like she was doing something right, and helped to distract her from her grief.

  This season, however, was a much different, much sadder story. Two months in, the Thrashers had posted dismal 7-21 records in both April and May, their worst spring in team history, and her tweets were no longer popular. In fact, sometimes it felt like people blamed her for the team’s losing streak, which currently sat at five games. Six, as of ten minutes ago.

  If she somehow managed to survive the errand, she already knew what would come next. She’d go back upstairs and sit in her stuffy little cubicle, the only one on the whole floor that didn’t have a view of the field. Tough loss! she’d tweet. Bowers takes the mound tomorrow—a new day, a new start!

  Suck a new dick, someone would reply. And four hundred strangers would retweet it.

  Gwen was so lost in sad thoughts of the past that she almost forgot her even more sad present situation.

  “Who the hell are you?” The same voice that had been berating the players was now coming her way, made even more frightening by the thunderous storm cloud that hung over Rex Stripley’s head as he stalked toward his office.

  “Ah...I...” Gwen stammered, not just out of fear, but because she was trying to think of a fake name. Unfortunately, all that came out was, “Here.”

  She thrust out the page of talking points and Strip arched a bushy brow as he stopped a few feet away and snatched it from her. He was still in his uniform, tonight’s jersey dark gray and teal, and he smelled like sweat, tobacco, and spearmint gum. She’d seen him on television for years, sat in the second row, third-base side, for too many games to count, and watched him stomp around the field, fighting with umpires and other managers, sometimes with his own coaching staff. But she’d never been this close. This was like walking through the forest, tripping over a log, and realizing it was a bear.

  If possible, Strip’s expression darkened even further as he read the notes. Gwen hadn’t actually read them, she realized. Not that she needed to. They were the same inane platitudes the PR team had been issuing for the last two months. Growing pains. Transition period. Too soon to tell. The future is bright. We have high hopes for the season!

  “Growing pains?” Strip read aloud. “We have high hopes? What the hell are we hoping for? A miracle?”

  “Um...” Gwen smoothed her hair back into its stubby ponytail and avoided his glare. Then she realized the question was not rhetorical and it was her actual job to answer. “Yes, of course,” she said, with more conviction than she felt. “It’s, ah, early.”

  “It’s the end of May. We’ve gone 7-21 for two consecutive months—”

  “Twenty-two,” she corrected absently.

  Strip faltered, then shook his head. “You know the last time the Thrashers held that record? Never. We have never been this bad. Not in history.”

  “In June 2005 you went 10-18,” Gwen replied, like the ghost of Marge had slipped into her body and wrested control of her tongue. “But the following month, you won twenty games. April and May haven’t been great, but they’re not a crystal ball. Maybe hopes aren’t high, but they aren’t dead.”

  Strip stared at her incredulously, and Gwen felt pinned to the wall by his gaze, a butterfly splayed on a felt board, cruelly murdered in its prime. She was vaguely aware of the players trickling down the hall, slipping past as they tried to head home without incurring more of their manager’s wrath.

  Instead of putting her out of her misery, Strip strolled into his office and flipped his hand, indicating that she should follow. Gwen took half a step into the cramped room and hovered at the threshold.

  “So what do I tell ’em about Reed?” Strip asked, crumpling the talking points into a ball and tossing it into the overflowing trash. They’d overpaid for right fielder Denzel Reed in the off-season, a knee jerk reaction to losing one of their star players, and the press took pleasure in reminding them that the investment wasn’t paying off.

  “Tell them to simmer down,” Gwen answered automatically. Half her life had been conversations about baseball. Baseball over pancakes. Baseball over grilled cheese and tomato soup. Baseball over dinner pancakes. It was what she knew. “He’s not Connor Whitman, so stop expecting him to be. We signed him for a reason—give him a chance.”

  “He’s three for forty.”

  “And he’s gone 0-4 in each of the games following an interview in which you tore into him. He’s aware he’s struggling. Give him some breathing room.”

  “You think I should bench the guy we paid seven million dollars to play right field this year?”

  “No, I think you should leave him alone. When the press asks about him, ignore them. Talk about someone else. Talk about—”

  “Ashe?” Strip rolled his eyes as he sank into his chair. The springs screeched their protest as he reclined, the seat back struggling to support him. “We’ve got twenty-five guys on the roster, and all anyone wants to talk about are the two biggest pains in my ass.”

  “You could talk about Ibanez,” Gwen suggested. When their starting third baseman sprained his ankle on the second day of the season, they’d brought up Jorge Ibanez from Triple A, and the twenty-two-year-old had been one of the few bright spots in the Thrashers’ dismal spring. “Focus on the future. The potential, not the past.”

  Strip stared at her over his steepled fingers. “They give you this stuff upstairs?”

  “What stuff?”

  He flicked a finger in her general direction. “These opinions.”

  And finally Gwen remembered she was standing in Rex Stripley’s office, on the clubhouse level of Lennox Field, the state of the art sports complex in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, and all she was supposed to do was give him a piece of paper.

  She cleared her throat. “Well, anyway. You have the talking points.” They both glanced at the trash. “If you want them.”

  She started to ease back out of the office, but bumped into something soft and fragrant. She turned, so lost in the exchange that she hadn’t even heard the reporters approaching, nearly a dozen men and women, and even more cameras and microphones, gathered behind her. Joanna Liu, the Thrashers on-field reporter, ignored Gwen and flashed a picture-perfect smile at the manager.

  “Hey, Strip. Is there a player Q&A today?”

  Strip grunted as he stood. “No.”

  “Are we doing the post-game in here?”

  Gwen
tried to squeeze past the horde, but they were clustered too tightly, trapping her in the middle of the chaos.

  “No,” Strip said again, and when he approached, the group moved back, like magnets repelled by his energy. “In the dugout.”

  “The dugout?”

  “That’s what I said. Head down there. Now.”

  The reporters exchanged confused glances with their camera crews, but hurried down the hall toward the concourse that led to the home team dugout. For a second, Gwen felt the tension in her chest release. She’d done it. Given him the talking points and not died. It was a small victory, but she’d take it.

  “Come on,” Strip said, crooking his finger. “You too.”

  Gwen blinked. “Me? But...why?”

  “Because I said so.” He was already shuffling down the hall, gray pants sagging at his hips, jersey straining over his belly. He adjusted his cap and glanced back over his shoulder to make sure she followed.

  All of a sudden, being pinned to a board in the prime of her life didn’t sound so bad. Being led to the guillotine was definitely worse. But because she was free-but-not-really, Gwen trudged after Strip, waiting for the ax to fall. Maybe he just wanted to fire her with an audience. With microphones. And cameras.

  The smells of the hallway gave way to the smells of the field as they approached the concourse, a dim, cool hall about thirty yards long. Even now, twenty minutes after the game, she could still hear the murmur of the straggling fans, the grounds crew rolling out to prepare the field for tomorrow’s game. She smelled the crisp spring night, the grass, the clay, the thrill of wonder and excitement that hung in the air and never seemed to fade.

  Gwen’s heels clipped over the concrete, pocked from years of sharp cleats. Her heart pounded as the stadium lights came into view, then the sprawling stands, then the bright green grass, and, finally, the dugout stairs.

  She hesitated on the top step, gazing into the dugout like she was staring at heaven. The wooden bench was sticky with spilled electrolyte drinks, sweat, and saliva. Sunflower seeds and tobacco spackled the floor. Empty paper cups spilled out of the trash cans, and discarded balls and batting gloves languished beneath the bench.