With his mastery at hitting home runs, rumors of steroid use have followed Carter Fox, the Houston Sluggers’ star batter, for most of his major league career. Until now, those rumors have remained just that—rumors.

In an exclusive, Lone Star State Baseball has obtained evidence that may lend credibility to those rumors. The evidence, which Lone Star State Baseball has strong reason to believe is credible, was obtained from an unnamed witness close to Carter. The witness has come forward with a syringe that contains traces of, what that our own experts have determined is a performance enhancing drug that is prohibited in major league baseball.

The most damning potential proof is the blood on the syringe that contains DNA evidence, which points the finger in the direction of Carter Fox. According to the unnamed witness, he has personally watched Carter Fox “use performance enhancement drugs since his first season with the Houston Sluggers.” The combination of this eye-witness testimony and the blood on the syringe that is very likely a strong match to Carter Fox’s DNA, doesn’t look good for the Sluggers player.

Major league baseball players are tested every season during spring training, then again randomly during the season. Considering the fact that certain drugs can become undetectable in as little as three weeks, it’s not unlikely that Carter may have, thus far, been lucky enough to avoid having his use discovered.

With so much damning evidence, it seems that Carter Fox may join the ranks of other beloved major league baseball players who have disappointed fans, such as….

Carter stopped reading when the punch in the gut hit him yet again. Doping? Performance-enhancing drugs? DNA proof? The whole thing was so absurd he couldn’t even wrap his head around it. Carter would normally be inclined to dismiss any of Lucas Grabow’s articles as nothing more than trash, but these were serious allegations. Even Grabow wouldn’t dare print such a damning piece without at least some proof.

And apparently, he had proof.

How? Just, how the hell…how?

He hadn’t been given a moment’s peace since the article went live. Phone calls. Texts. Knocks on the door of his hotel room. Teammates. Miles Derrick. His mother. He had ignored them all while he sat in his hotel room, looking at his phone, re-reading the article.

Then came the call he couldn’t ignore.

“We need to address this right, fucking, now!” Michael Snyder had literally screamed into the phone.

For once, Carter couldn’t argue with the man.

* * *

Once again, Carter found himself sitting in Michael Snyder’s office. They had immediately pulled him out of spring training and flown him right back to Houston. This time it wasn’t just Snyder, it was the entire Sluggers’ legal team.

Today, there would be no smart-assed comebacks. Today Carter was out for blood. This mess had to be cleared up, and cleared up soon.

Fortunately, Snyder was letting the lawyers take the lead. Carter was so wound up, he wasn’t sure he could keep himself from leaping over the desk and breaking Snyder’s goddamn neck if he heard one pretentious peep out of the man’s mouth.

“Obviously, our first concern was libel,” began Marc Scher, who seemed to be heading the group of business-suited clones sitting around the table next to Snyder’s desk.

“Your damn right, libel!” Carter roared, standing up in anger. He pulled himself back down into his seat as the man flinched in response.

Keep it together.

“Well, it’s only libel if it’s untrue,” Scher gave him an uncertain look as he said that, then continued when he saw Carter’s expression. “Although Lone Star State Baseball refuses to reveal the source of their…evidence. They did realize that it would be in their best interest to allow an impartial party to have access to it,” Scher gave Carter another slightly apprehensive look, “if only to test and see if the DNA actually matches yours.”

Carter’s green eyes turned to steel as he gave the man a measured look. “It won’t.”

“You’d better hope it doesn’t” Snyder chimed in, shutting up when Carter turned the hard stare in his direction.

“Of course it won’t,” Scher said, flustered. “We already have the press release ready to go out to every news agency in the country,” his look of apprehension deepened, “once we’ve actually performed the test.”

Carter began rolling up the sleeves to his shirt. “Well let’s go. Do it right now. I want this shit nipped in the bud—today!”

The table of lawyers blinked rapidly and looked at one another.

“We can’t test you for drugs now, not when there is a chance you’ve had time to clean out your system. No one would trust it. We just have to make sure the blood on that syringe isn’t a match.”

“Then test my damn blood. I can guarantee you that won’t point the finger at me either.”

“The test won’t be done here, Carter.”

“Then why am I sitting here with my dick in my hands talking to you?” Carter got up out of his seat, causing the entire table of gray suits to collectively shrink back. “Let’s get this rodeo going,” he continued.

Scher looked around at the table. “We, ah…we just need to make sure—”

“They need to make sure the match to the blood will be negative, Carter,” Snyder said, giving the table of attorneys a withering look of annoyance. “You know, before we all end up standing around with our dicks in our hands looking like a bunch of assholes.”

“Don’t worry, you can keep your zippers closed,” he growled. “It won’t match.”

Scher continued. “Right now we have plausible deniability. They have an ‘unnamed source,’ which the public is bound to be suspicious of anyway. And they have a syringe that they claim has your blood on it, but have yet to come forward with real proof. They’re just trying to force our hand. We can walk away, ignore it and still save a little face, basically treat it as something not worth responding to. Put the ball back in their court and see what they do with it.”

“And have my fans think I’m doping, or worse, a coward?” Carter raged. “No fucking way. Let’s do this—now!”

“Of course, of course,” Scher said, giving his team a look that held some silent communication. Then he turned back to Carter. “In law, we like to deal with certainties. You know: don’t ask a question you don’t already know the answer to. Before we go ahead and do this DNA test, we need to know—for certain— that the result will be negative.

“Right now, you’re just talking to us as attorneys. Everything in this room stays in this room as far as the press and the public goes. We can deal with Lone Star State Baseball.

“Once we do the test, the Sluggers would have no choice but to suspend you if it’s positive. Granted, this wouldn’t be an official league test. However, our priority here is to protect the team, specifically the team’s image. It would mean an eighty-game suspension, the same as the league would give for a first offense. You, of course, would have your image to consider too.”

How many ways did Carter have to clue them in?

He walked slowly to the table and leaned in, resting his body on his balled up fists. “I don’t...fucking...dope.”

Scher took a gulp and turned to Snyder for the okay.

Snyder just shrugged. “You better hope it’s negative, Fox.”

“It will be,” he grumbled, not taking his eyes off Scher. “It will be.”

* * *

Positive.

Fucking positive!

The test had been done privately. Despite Carter’s assurances, the legal team wasn’t stupid enough to make it public before the results came in. Now, they had snapped right back into C.Y.A mode, circling the wagons around the team and leaving Carter Fox to survive in the wilderness.

Carter had offered to drop his shorts right there and pee into a cup. It didn’t matter, and he couldn’t blame them. Of course his urine would be clean during the off season, and in preparation for any test they’d want him to take in light of this new development.

News of the test had somehow gotten out. Carter had been under a media telescope since the Lone Star State Baseball article had come out, so all anyone had to do was put two and two together. Or just grease the hand of a lab tech.

It didn’t matter now. All that mattered was the test was positive, and now the media knew.

Once the leak in the dam had started with that first article, the entire thing had collapsed, leaving Carter Fox drowning in a river of shit. Suspected doping was news. Confirmed doping was front page, headline news.

Carter was camped out in his home. The crowd of reporters outside the fence to his property was probably giving his neighbors more of a headache than even his wildest parties ever had. He wasn’t giving them the satisfaction of even making an appearance.

The Sluggers’ had no choice but to give an official statement, the gist of it being exactly what they had threatened: out for 80 games. It might as well have been the whole season.

Hell, it might as well be his whole career. How on earth could he step up to bat in a stadium full of fans, when they thought he was nothing more than a dirty, rotten, juicer? He’d made the mistake of going onto one of the baseball forums. It took him less than 5 minutes to close it out. They had been brutal. Now at least he had a better idea of what Jordan had gone through.

The thought of her made him even angrier. No doubt she had heard about this. Who the hell hadn’t? Did she believe any of it? That thought killed him more than all of his other fans combined.

And not a word of it was true.

Carter was still in a state of bewilderment. His DNA on a needle filled with steroids. How?

For the most part, he had avoided any and all forms of communication.

His phone once again lit up at the news. Teammates, corporate, his agent, his mother. He’d finally put it on silent. He couldn’t face any of them. Not right now. He needed time to process, time to figure this whole thing out. Time to find out who the hell was out to get him.

In the meantime, he made full use of his bar. Watching the DVD set of Cosmos, while three sheets to the wind drunk was surreal—and he couldn’t stop thinking about Jordan the whole time.

He’d picked up his phone, pulling her number up to call multiple times. She was the only one he could think of with no ulterior motive.

His teammates, most of them friends of his, had their own careers to think of. Carter couldn’t taint them with his mess. They’d all be under suspicion by association.

Miles Derrick would be a voice of reason, but he was on the Sluggers’ payroll, and ultimately had to fall in line with them.

His mother? Christ, he didn’t even want to think about that. Especially not after their last meeting. He hadn’t talked to her since she dropped in unannounced on Jordan and him. She was not the warm, welcoming into the bosom type.

At some point, Carter would be in no holds barred, warrior mode.

Right now he just needed someone to make him feel right...feel normal.

He fell into an alcohol-induced slumber in one of the seats in his home theater. As Neil’s soothing voice droned on, he held a bottle in one hand, and his phone in the other.

He snapped awake sometime around noon the next day. His head was giving it back as hard as he had abused it the day before. Just one more notch on the belt he planned on using to whip the fucker who’d sullied his name.

Fortunately, bad boy Carter knew exactly what to do from past experience: eggs, coffee, and bit more liquor. Hair of the dog. It wasn’t a cure-all but it would suffice.

He stumbled his way into the kitchen like the zombie he felt like. No time to cook the eggs; straight down his gullet, raw. Coffee…fuck it. He wandered back to the bar and grabbed a random bottle.

One swig.

Second swig.

He let the burn go down his throat, shaking it off physically.

He smelled himself. Jesus.

A shower would definitely help.

One more swig.

Up the stairs. Into the bathroom. Turn on the shower. Hot. Scalding. That should do the trick. Clothes ripped off. Yikes! Maybe not that hot, but it had certainly woken him up.

He stood there as water came at him from all sides, washing away the funk, the pain, the worries. That was good. So, so good….

He snapped awake. His body felt numb. The water had been hot. He turned it off, stepped out, grabbed a towel, managed to wrap it around his waist. Fell face first on the bed.

Sleep.

Two hours later his eyes blinked open. The room was darker, the sun on the other side of the house. His head felt surprisingly clear. He could actually think.

It was time to act.

He grabbed his phone.

That’s when he saw the message.