Chapter 3

Sleeping is too hard during the summer. Blankets are too warm, but without blankets I’m vulnerable to monsters.

-Sway’s secret thoughts

Sway

I arrived at the stadium on time, and immediately headed down to the field.

The team, as well as all team personnel, were to be here on the field at one p.m. on the dot to film a freakin’ commercial for ESPN.

I’d just stopped about halfway down the stairs that would lead me out onto the field when I looked up and spotted Hancock.

Parts.

What the hell did he want to be called?

Personally, ‘Parts’ was kind of hard to call someone. Which was why I started referring to him as Hancock in my mind.

Nobody called him Hancock, though.

Not the coaches. Not the news reporters. Not his teammates.

When he was addressed, he was Parts or Peters, his last name.

I felt particularly naughty addressing him as Hancock in my mind.

“Well, hello there, Half-Pint,” Hancock drawled from the bottom of the stairs he was moving up. “What’s going on?”

I smiled at him.

“We’re to be here for a commercial, aren’t we?” I asked, trying not to sound out of breath from the trek from my car to the stairs.

I was hopeful that they didn’t actually want me to be here.

I was already incredibly uncomfortable in what they asked me to wear.

It was April, in the middle of fucking Texas.

With the owners requiring us to wear jeans, I was already sweating my ass off, and I’d only made a small hike from the car to the air-conditioned building.

It was enough to make me a sweaty mess, and I hadn’t even made it to the eventful part of my day.

“Yes, we are,” he agreed. “Well, you are. I’m not.”

“Mr. Peters!” someone called from further down the stairs that led to the field. “Mr. Peters! Wait!”

Hancock looked over his shoulder, agitation clearly written all over his face.

“I’ve already told you I won’t be doing it,” Hancock informed the small man.

And he was small.

Maybe not compared to a normal man; but standing next to Hancock, the man looked positively minimal.

“Please,” the man continued as if Hancock hadn’t even spoken. “We’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars and months planning this commercial. Surely, you understand that we’re doing it for…”

“Craig,” Hancock growled. “I am not doing the Harlem Shake. Do I look like the kind of man who does the fucking Harlem Shake?”

Craig, who I guessed was the head of PR, smiled soothingly.

“Parts,” he held out his hands placatingly.

I wondered again why he was called Parts, but I wasn’t ever going to ask him.

It was weird, and it was also a big freakin’ secret. Everyone in the entire league wondered and speculated about why he was called Parts. Nobody knew the story behind his nickname, though.

“I’ll be there. But only if I can sit in the back and nobody sees me,” Hancock conceded. “And don’t try to move me, or I’m leaving. Capisce?”

Craig nodded his head urgently.

“How much time do we have until we start?” Hancock continued to question Craig.

“Oh, about twenty minutes or so. Do you need me to bring you anything to drink?” Craig looked hopeful, happy now that he’d gotten his way.

But I knew that Craig hadn’t gotten his way.

Far from it.

If I had my guess, Hancock wouldn’t even be in the commercial.

He’d literally stay on the sidelines and make it a point to stay out of every shot, just like he did after games when reporters were hoping to interview him.

Then there were the photos that featured him in them.

None of them were taken with his permission.

Other than his official team portrait, the one that the MLB used to show his stats during games, I’d never seen one picture of him looking at the camera.

“No, no drink, Craig. Thank you,” Hancock waved Craig off.

The moment Craig was dismissed, he hurried back in the direction of the field, a freakin’ skip in his step.

When he rounded the corner, I turned to face Hancock fully again.

“What?” I asked, wondering what that look on his face was about.

“I’m not doing the Harlem Shake,” he repeated.

I held up my hands in understanding.

“I’m not much of a dancer, either. You and me can hang out in the back like the losers we are,” I teased.

I hadn’t meant that either of us were necessarily real losers or anything, and the moment the words left my lips, I realized how it sounded.

“I’m sorry,” I said, holding up my hand. “In no way, shape, or form am I accusing you of being a loser.”

He grinned.

“It’s okay,” he winked. “I don’t dance. I don’t do pictures. In fact, if I had my way, I wouldn’t even be here right now.”

I smiled shyly at him.

“Sway!” someone called. “Let’s go! We have to sit together in the front.”

Sinclair, the one man in the entire complex who I didn’t want to see, was standing there sneering at me.

“She’s not sitting in the front, Sinclair. She’s sitting with me in the back. We have to talk about what I expect out of her this season,” Hancock rumbled, stopping me with a large hand on my arm when I went to move around him.

Sinclair’s face twisted in annoyance.

He wasn’t my biggest fan.

I’d beaten him out for the job as head athletic trainer for the Lumberjacks, and he was, technically, my assistant when it came down to it. Needless to say, he was most unhappy about it, too.

“That’s just the memo I got from the management team,” Sinclair said sweetly. “I’m assuming it’s okay that she sits with you, but you may want to make sure it’s okay before she gets in trouble. I would hate for her to lose her job.”

With that parting comment, Sinclair disappeared out onto the field, and I was left walking after him.

“Where are you going?” Hancock asked, latching on to my arm once again.

I tried to pull away, my heart starting to pound due to the amount of touching me he was doing today.

“If I don’t go sit with him, he’s going to try to make it seem like it was my fault that I wasn’t sitting with them and probably over here screwing your brains out. He’s been trying to get me fired since I got this job. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to start a rumor about me seeing one of the players under my care.”

His brows rose.

“He’s that vindictive?” Hancock asked.

I nodded my head.

“I worked my ass off for this position. I’m not screwing it up because I don’t want to be on national television.”

He watched me walk away.

I could feel his gaze burning a hole into my back the entire way.

And he sat in the back for the entire commercial, too, not even tapping his foot to the beat.

Me? I probably looked ridiculous, but if I had to dance like a jackass to keep my job, then I’d do it.

Every freakin’ day of the week.

***

Game 2 - later that evening

“This is like that time when Nolan Ryan hit Ventura with a pitch, and he stormed the mound only to have the snot beat out of him by an old man,” I gasped in awe.

The man next to me, Jessup Steel, snorted.

“This is what they call the pissed off grizzly bear in him coming out,” Jessup Steel was on his feet now.

All of us were. The entire team. The coaches. The other athletic trainers.

They were all waiting to see the outcome of the altercation.

The only thing holding the men in the dugout, at this point, was the coach and the assistant coaches.

“Have you seen my batting gloves? I had them, and then…oh, shit!”

The moment the first fist flew, the entire team, including the coaches, were out of the dugout.

I stood up, ready to do whatever I needed to do as well, but managed to stay on the top step of the dugout while the fight erupted.

I, however, wasn’t stupid enough to get in between the flying fists and men.

I was a woman. A woman who’d never been in a fight in her life.

I wasn’t shitting anyone. I was soft, and everybody knew it.

I wouldn’t be able to stand up to the punches that were flying, whether I wanted to or not.

“You staying?” Sinclair sneered at me.

“Yep,” I agreed.

“Stupid cunt.”

Then he was gone, leaving me staring after him with hatred in my eyes.