Someone always needed something. In the game that must go on, the players’ minor needs are often crucial to our success. I heard the cheer of the crowd and quickened my return, my push on the dugout door in tandem with my toss of the inhaler, caught easily by the man.
“Struck out. Ramirez is up,” Franklin updated without my asking, my glance at the scoreboard confirming. The opponent’s first base coach looked my way and smirked, his eyes skating down my front. I smiled, giving him a front-row view of my middle finger, the crack of a bat distracting us both, and I watched the ball soar high and left—a foul.
I stared at Dad and willed another out to happen. One out, then we just needed the big man upstairs to hand out a four-run miracle.
2
Baltimore
“We need help.” Pre-calculus got covered up by a meaty hand with a long career of cleat scars. I looked up into Shawn Tripp’s face and pulled the pencil from my mouth.
“Fernandez is having a breakdown over his wife. We tried.” He shrugged, and I was pretty sure that had been the full extent of any trying done.
“I’ve got…” I pushed his meat cleaver to the side. “Three more problems.”
“Come on, Ty.”
I glanced across the room at Fernandez, who tipped back a beer. “What idiot gave him alcohol?”
“It’s Fernandez.”
I snorted. “Fair enough.” I stretched, pushing back the textbook, and stood. Fernandez’s wife was on her third or fourth affair, but the first he had found out about. It hadn’t been pretty. We’d all dealt with the aftermath, through Boston, then Toronto, and now here.
I pulled at the chair next to Fernandez and sat. Reached over and stole a scallop off his plate. He raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
“Want to talk?”
He shrugged. “Nope.”
I hitched my chair closer to the table. “You finished eating?”
He lifted his chin in a nod, and I grabbed a fork. Went to work on the remainder of his plate and met his eyes. He watched me warily, a good five minutes of silence between us before he let out a loud sigh. “You think I should leave her?”
I chewed his final scallop, musing over the question; my advice on affairs limited to midnight reruns of Dr. Phil. “Are you going to change?”
“Me?” He lifted his eyebrows.
“Yeah. Bring her on the road with you. If I was stuck at home for nine months a year, I’d cheat too.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” His thick accent was so adamant, I laughed.
“I might.” I reached for his beer, and he held it out of reach. “You don’t know me, Fernandez.”
He snorted. “Please, pepito. You wouldn’t.”
I leaned forward. “You would. You do.”
He avoided my stare. “I’m…”
“A guy? A future Hall-of-Famer?” I scoffed. “Don’t give me that shit. It’s the same. You don’t get a free pass because you have a bat of gold.”
“So what?” He looked me in the eye. “Two cheaters. What does that mean? We’re meant for each other?”
I stand up, my wisdom fountain almost dry. “Think about whether you’re ready to stop. If you’re ready to behave. That’s what you need to think about.”
He said nothing, just slouched in his seat and worked at the label of his beer. I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Love you, F.”
“You too, Ty.”
I did. I loved them all. I would do anything for those forty guys. And they would fight to their end for me. This team was my family, my soul. And I think that was what made everything that happened so damn complicated.
3
Chase Stern leaned forward, sliding the mane of red hair over the shoulder of the woman, tapping a line of white powder down her spine, a dot between each vertebra. She giggled, squirming beneath him, and he put a hand on her ass, squeezing hard, holding her still. “Don’t move.”
“Hurry.” She bounced back on his cock, the wet slide reawakening him, and he chuckled, leaning forward and taking the line, momentary spots of black in his vision before everything became blindingly, perfectly, clear. The squeeze of her around his shaft. The bounce of her breasts as he rolled her onto her back. The slow blink of eyelashes as she groaned, taking him fully in, the push of his thrust deep. The dig of her heels into his lower back, the gasp of her mouth, the taste of her skin as he lowered his mouth to her.
“Oh my God, Chase.” Nails scraping across his back. A sharp tug of his hair. Slick skin rubbing, his stomach against hers, her breasts hard against his chest. Her teeth dug into his shoulder. She contracted around him and screamed his name, shrill and sharp, over and over, a record on terrible repeat.