Team Player Page 2

  It was more than she’d ever dared hope for, like encountering your favorite celebrity in person and learning they were kind.

  Her feet started to move again, propelled forward by the sheer magic of her surroundings. The soles of her shoes stuck to the floor, but that didn’t matter, because the field. The field was incredible.

  She’d seen it before, of course. On television. From the stands. But never right here, inches away, so close she could reach out a hand and scoop up a fistful of orange clay and crumble it in her palm...and get fired. So she didn’t touch the clay, but she folded her fingers around the padded blue bar that topped the short fence that protected the dugout from stray balls, and she peered at the trampled infield, the white bases, home plate, the faded baselines. The grass looked greener, the lights brighter.

  Marge would have loved it.

  Gwen swiped at her sudden tears, turning her head away from the group and ordering herself to get a grip. Her fingers squeezed the bar so tight her knuckles went white, and it took a full thirty seconds to get her emotions somewhat under control.

  She still didn’t know why Strip had ordered her to follow, but she no longer cared. He could fire her in front of the whole world—hell, he could set her on fire—and it would be worth it. He’d spent twenty years in this dugout and probably forgotten its power. Gwen never would.

  But Strip was ignoring her, standing in the corner of the dugout nearest home plate, as he fielded the same questions he always did.

  Joanna Liu thrust out her microphone. “You took issue with the strike zone in the second inning—what did you say to the umpire?”

  “That it sucked.”

  “You challenged the tag play at first in the fifth inning, and got it overturned. What did you see that we didn’t?”

  “That he was safe.”

  “Denzel Reed grounded into two double plays tonight. What are your thoughts?”

  Strip bit down hard on the gum in his mouth, then blew out a breath. This was typically the part where he’d grumble about management overpaying and not consulting him on player acquisitions. Now he nodded stiffly and said, “He just needs time to settle in and showcase the talent we know he has.”

  “He swung at three consecutive strikes in the dirt—”

  “He’ll get there. These haven’t been a great couple months, but it’s not a crystal ball. The future is bright.” A pause. “My hopes are high.”

  Joanna Liu sounded like she was trying not to laugh. “Your hopes are high, Strip?”

  Strip glanced at Gwen, so quick she would have missed it if she hadn’t been gaping at him.

  Then he turned back to the cameras. “Oh, absolutely, Joanna.”

  CHAPTER 2

  TYLER ASHE LEVERED himself out of the ice bath with a groan. He was thirty-one—too old for achy joints and lame excuses about why he couldn’t go to the bar tonight—but here he was. Last year the scenario would have been so far-fetched he’d have laughed at anyone who suggested it. Last year he had his best friend, his choice of supermodels, and six multi-million dollar advertising contracts, hawking everything from coconut water to sunglasses to underwear. Technically he still had the contracts, but the success wasn’t as fun without someone to share it with.

  The television on the wall was tuned into the local sports network, and when they wrapped up the dugout interview with Strip, they switched over to show the American League East rankings, the Thrashers dead last and five games back of the fifth-place Orioles. Strip’s statement about April and May’s stats not being a crystal ball was weird but not inaccurate, and going from a heart-breaking loss in last year’s World Series to looking like a joke the following spring was an embarrassing fall from grace. Of course, Ty had lost far more than the championship last October, and while he’d never admit it, he missed his best friend far more than he’d ever miss a World Series ring.

  He toweled off and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a Thrashers T-shirt, carefully pressing his ear to the door that separated the treatment room from the clubhouse. Ice baths weren’t his favorite thing, but he’d made up the excuse that he needed to jump in right away so he could avoid the customary round of interviews that followed most games. He’d promised to chat after the bath, but he’d been lying. His plans for the evening involved turning off his phone, sneaking out the service entrance, and heading home alone. Again.

  Too bad Thrashers management didn’t share his vision. They felt that his hefty paycheck meant they owned him, and that he owed them. He’d honored his contract since the moment he signed it, showing up to play every single day, rain or shine, injured or not. His name sold seats, his face sold merchandise, and there wasn’t a day he didn’t scribble dozens of autographs for fans. But he’d been faking his smile since the day Connor was sentenced, and he didn’t know how to change it. Connor was more than his teammate and his best friend, he was the closest thing he had to a brother. The only thing he had that resembled family. And now he was gone, and Ty couldn’t reach him. He called. He wrote letters. He sent fucking care packages.

  No reply.

  A million fans, two dozen teammates, but not a single friend.

  He’d sooner say he had “high hopes” than admit he was lonely, but that was the truth. In a stadium of 40,000 fans, a quarter of whom had his name on their shirt, he was lonely. And he didn’t know what to do about it.

  The chatter had died down in the clubhouse so he slipped through the door, relieved to find just a few players lingering as they took their time getting dressed. Ty headed for his locker on the far side of the circular room. Teal-colored benches lined the walls, the center of the room dominated by a cluster of oversized couches. Four large-screen televisions hung suspended from the ceiling, showing live games across the country. There were three laundry bins for dirty uniforms, two fridges of free drinks and snacks, and one escape route, flanked on either side by burly security guards.

  Ty yanked on a gray hoodie, stuck his feet into sneakers, and slung his bag over his shoulder. He said goodnight to the guards and strode down the hall. The service elevator was just past Strip’s office, and Ty held his breath as he approached, feeling like he had when he was a kid being sent to see the principal.

  A blond woman backed out of the office as he neared, white pants, red heels, dark blazer. Her hair was pulled into a short ponytail, and she nodded at something Strip said, looking marginally less-terrified than the other assistants he’d fired. Ty was often lost in his own world these days, but a limited number of non-players had access to the clubhouse, and he was pretty sure he’d have noticed her before if she was a fixture down here. He had a thing for legs, and hers were a mile long in those heels. Plus it had been months since he’d been on a date, never mind had sex, and there was something about the way she...

  ...ran away.

  She said goodbye to Strip, took two normal steps out of the office, then bolted down the hall as fast as humanly possible in those heels. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen someone flee from Strip, but Ty still took a moment to enjoy the view. Sometimes it was the little things that counted.

  “Ty!” Strip bellowed from his dingy office. He wasn’t even in eyeshot, but like always, the man knew when Ty was plotting something bad.

  Ty pasted on an innocent expression and leaned against the doorframe. “Hey, boss. What’s up?”

  Strip was hunched at his desk, jabbing at his phone with a meaty finger. He paused to glare at Ty. “Have you ever counted calories?”

  “Ah, sure.” Most of the players followed careful diets. And even if he didn’t technically count calories anymore, he knew how to eat well. And when to lie.

  “Well, I’m supposed to use this app my wife downloaded—” He said app the way people said Voldemort— “and it says I’m 400 calories over my daily limit, and I haven’t even had my post-game snack.”

  Strip’s idea of a post-game “snack” was a double cheeseburger, but Ty wasn’t about to recommend he eat an apple.

&nb
sp; “Maybe the app is broken,” he suggested.

  “You think?”

  “Yeah. Totally.”

  Strip scowled. “That must be it. Thanks.” He scooped up his desk phone, an old blue rotary he’d probably saved from childhood, and dialed four numbers for the building’s kitchen before he hung up. “Your interview’s down the hall,” he said.

  Ty paused, halfway out the door. “What?”

  “Your post-game. It’s in the dugout. I did mine, now they’re waiting for you.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I know. I talked to them. It went well.”

  “Great. See you tomorrow.”

  “Bye, Strip.”

  Ty felt bad about lying, but not bad enough to turn around and stroll into the viper pit that awaited him in the dugout, eager to ask him the same crappy questions about his same crappy season. Instead he carried on down toward the service elevator, just in time to see a red high heel disappear inside. Behind him he could hear the familiar snap of Joanna Liu bossing around her cameraman, having deduced prematurely that the punching bag of the night wouldn’t be making his scheduled appearance.

  “Hold the doors!” he called, starting to jog. His cold joints ached, but he would gladly suffer this pain than field the reporters’ questions about his poor performance and his locked up best friend.

  The blonde stuck her head out the doors and spotted him, and from the way her eyes widened, she also spotted the descending flock of reporters racing after Joanna down the hall.

  Ty leapt in the car and jabbed the arrow to close the doors, then hit the button for the main concourse level. He was parked in the players’ lot, but Joanna probably had someone waiting for him there, and he wasn’t in the mood to fend her off. The veteran reporter had been his cheerleader for a long time, but she was a journalist first, fan second, and some of her questions hit harder than the fastball he’d taken to the ribs tonight. The growing bruise throbbed as his heart pounded, nerves and stress and too many other emotions rattling around inside him.

  Ty slumped against the wall as the car bumped its way up three levels, and finally got a good look at the woman opposite him. She was in her mid-to-late twenties, minimal makeup, pretty brown eyes reflecting the same sadness he saw in his own each morning. And afternoon. And night.

  “It’ll be all right,” he heard himself say.

  She glanced around. “What? What will be?”

  The car jerked to a halt, the doors groaning as they slowly slid apart, and Ty opened his mouth, but had no answer. “Nothing,” he said finally. “I don’t know why I said that.”

  Then he pulled up his hood, slipped on a pair of sunglasses, and blended into the throng of disappointed fans leaving the field, their shoulders equally slumped.

  CHAPTER 3

  IF THERE WAS ONE GOOD thing about Gwen’s job, it was that the PR team occupied half of the ninth floor of the Lennox Building, and that half overlooked the field. Gwen’s cubicle was, of course, on the far side of the floor so she could barely see the blue sky from her seat, but if she lingered at the water cooler, she could find an excuse to watch an at-bat or two.

  The next afternoon she was hunched at her desk live tweeting another disappointing game, and between updates she was refilling her water bottle and squinting down at home plate. They had two televisions on this floor, both of which showed the game in much greater detail than she could see from this height, but she loved the live game, even from far away. It was in her blood; she couldn’t help it. Nor could she help the fact that the Thrashers were trailing 6-1 in the bottom of the third.

  Bowers, the starting pitcher, gave up a first-inning grand slam that had the fans slumping in their seats, and even Jorge Ibanez’s answering solo shot in the bottom of the inning hadn’t gotten them back on their feet.

  She got some more water and watched the players take the field as the Thrashers prepared for the top of the fourth. The fans were dejected because of the team’s poor performance, but many still came to see Tyler Ashe, and were surprised and disappointed to learn he’d been scratched from the lineup at the last minute. Instead, Jorge Ibanez, who normally played third, got the start today, and was making the most of his opportunity to show the team why he should take over at short while Ashe—and the rest of the players—struggled to find their rhythm. He’d already turned a stellar double play and made an ovation-worthy over-the-shoulder catch that was guaranteed to show up on year-end highlight reels.

  “...crystal ball line wasn’t mine. Who wrote it?”

  Gwen kept her eyes on the field while her ears tuned into the conversations going on around her. After eight months in her job, she was used to being ignored, talked about, and talked around even on the best of days, which meant eavesdropping was one of her new hobbies, along with not making eye contact and trying to be invisible.

  While dozens of people worked on this floor, Gwen was primarily grouped with Brandon and Chad, both of whom had gotten their jobs through their fathers, who worked in other departments. Brandon was the typical sports fan, favoring jerseys and backwards baseball hats, more into the game than its promotion. Chad was the consummate hipster, preferring skinny ties and even skinnier jeans. He had zero interest in baseball, but an undying love of any and all free perks. Last year they had teamed up to create the most spectacularly unsuccessful promotion in Thrashers history, ordering thousands of cheap little mesh baskets made with signs that read “Put the ball in my bashe-ket, Ty!” so fans could try to catch Tyler Ashe’s home run ball.

  The team had been promptly and publicly scolded for being insensitive to people with speech impediments, and Ty, who had nothing to do with the promotion, had offered a public apology and visited three elementary schools to emphasize the importance of inclusion and awareness. He had been notoriously uncooperative with any and all promotional efforts since.

  “Well?” Allison prompted, when no one spoke up. “Who wrote the crystal ball line?”

  “Not me,” said Brandon, eyes on the game outside.

  Chad, who didn’t even care about baseball, had the prime cubicle next to the window, where he could deliberately not watch the games and prevent other people from doing so comfortably. He finally chimed in, sounding bored. “Me either.”

  “Well, it was good. And it was nice to hear Strip sound sincere for once.”

  “Oh,” Chad said. “I mean, maybe it was mine... I jotted down a bunch of things.”

  “Me too,” Brandon added. “I also made a lot of good points.”

  No one waited for Gwen’s response.

  “Right.” Allison’s dry tone made it clear she wasn’t buying either story. “In any case. Get back to work. I want your promo pitches in an hour.”

  Gwen returned to her desk and called up the live game on her computer. The cameras zoomed in on Ty, scowling as he leaned against the same padded fence she’d rested on the night before. Strip had yanked Ty from the starting lineup with no warning and no explanation, and fans and commentators were busy wondering why. The most popular theories were a) so Ty could read a book about hitting and remember how to swing a bat, b) because somewhere between October and June, Ty had aged twenty years and was being replaced by a younger model, and c) because Strip wanted his team to fail and so had benched their best player.

  The Thrashers got out of a bases-loaded jam and Gwen loaded up her prepared gif of a player wiping his brow. That was close! she tweeted.

  You suck, was the first response.

  Denzel Reed, the arguably overpaid right fielder the team had acquired to replace the incarcerated Connor Whitman, led off the bottom of the fourth. Now in his late twenties, Reed had exploded onto the scene at the age of twenty-one, earning himself the Rookie of the Year award and a trip to the All-Star game. He’d continued on that way for the next six years until a spring training injury the previous season kept him on the disabled list into July, at which pointed he’d returned to post an abysmal .179 batting average and tied for the highest strikeout rate in the majors. With his cont
ract up, the Astros had opted not to re-sign him, and Thrashers management had decided to. The decision was widely mocked by fans, many of whom now booed loudly as Reed approached the plate.

  But then something unexpectedly wonderful happened. Reed hit the ball. He hit it off the wall in right center, and when the fielders couldn’t decide who should play it and wasted precious seconds figuring it out, Reed took advantage and slid headfirst into third. The same fans who’d booed him were now on their feet as Edwin Escobar, the Thrashers’ veteran catcher, approached the plate. He jumped on the first pitch and singled up the middle, cashing in the second Thrashers run of the game. The fans went wild as Andrew Girardi, the left fielder, stepped into the box, and, following Escobar’s lead, sent the first pitch sailing down the left field line, rattling around in the corner for a double that put two runners in scoring position.

  Gwen could hear the roar of the crowd as Jorge Ibanez strolled up the plate, more confident than any twenty-two-year-old had a right to be, especially when filling the cleats of their most famous player. He grinned as he adjusted his helmet. Gwen’s bottle was still full from her six previous visits, but she scurried over to the cooler anyway, gulping half the water so she could refill it slowly as she watched. Two feet away, Chad had his back to the field, a game of solitaire open on his monitor.

  Ibanez took the first couple of pitches outside, waiting for the fastball he liked. He got what he was looking for on the third pitch, and sent the ball into the upper deck for a three-run home run. The fans screamed, and Gwen was smiling as she returned to her desk to tweet. Fourth inning thrashing! she wrote, accompanied by a clip of the Thrashers mascot, a giant bird, hip-checking one of the grounds crew during an old game.

  Fuck off, someone replied.