Scout told them you weren’t one hundred percent.
Finn’s words ring in my ears. So does the laugh I gave him that faded off when I realized he was serious.
I swing the bat. Wood meets leather and red seams. My grunt echoes off the concrete walls and the vibration from hitting the ball travels up my arms.
That’s why she had that look on her face when I barged into the conference room. Shocked. Fucking. Guilt.
My cell rings. It hasn’t stopped. The reporters are relentless. But I don’t have it in me to walk the twenty feet to turn it off.
Or smash it to pieces.
Easton. The way her voice said my name echoes in my head. It drowns out the way she moaned it yesterday morning. Talk about adding insult to injury.
I swing again. Connect again. But I feel nothing but anger. I know nothing but rage. I’m nothing but hurt.
It’s all such bullshit.
Useless fucking bullshit.
None of it makes sense except for her expression when I went in to confront Tillman. Now that? The shocked guilt and wide eyes. They make perfect sense now.
Swing and miss.
The TV drones on. The announcers discuss Drew’s bat speed. I tune it out but can’t turn it off. It’s like I need to watch Santiago behind my plate to know it’s really happening.
It’s all too goddamn much.
I step outta the box and reach for the bottle of Jameson I set on the ledge behind me. The sting of the whiskey has nothing on the hole burning its way through my gut.
I look at the bottle. The downside—it’s half empty. The upside—at least there’s more liquid Novocain to numb me, and God, how I need the pain to be dulled.
How could she?
The machine pitches the ball and it hits the backstop with a thud the same time my cell phone starts ringing again. Or maybe it never stopped. I can’t fucking remember because all I keep thinking is she spooked.
I told her I was falling for her—asked her to move in with me for fuck’s sake when I’ve never offered that to anyone else before—and she fucking spooked. Instead of having the guts to tell me she couldn’t do it, she went the easy route.
She got rid of me a different way.
My chest hurts like a motherfucker. Another swig of the bottle. A twist of the bat in my hands that irritates the broken and raw blisters on my bare palms. I welcome the pain so I do it again as I step back into the box.
The pitch comes. This time I’m so angry, so unfocused, I miss the ball completely. The sound of hitting only air—whiff—is deafening, and I welcome the temporary reprieve from the noise in my head.
She sold me out to push me away.
Away from my home.
Away from my team.
Away from my family.
Away from her.
I’m sitting here with my ass in the wind, waiting to see where the fuck my new home is going to be when this is my home. With my batting cage here and my glass-wall view of the stadium upstairs I thought I’d play in forever. This is my home. I can’t be upstairs where I’ll see what I don’t want to see. Where Scout’s perfume clings to the T-shirt on my bed and her lipstick stains the pillowcase she kissed the night before last as a joke. Now it’s like a damn beacon making me wonder if that was actually her goodbye.
Like she knew.
“Fuck!” I shout the word out with the next swing and then walk away from the plate with the bat braced over my shoulders, the whiff of the machine still pitching balls every twenty seconds.
How am I going to take care of my mom now?
I take another swig of Jameson. My hands ache and the ringing phone is a constant reminder that Scout’s somewhere on the other end of it. It takes everything I have not to take my bat and obliterate it into a million pieces. Not just so I don’t have to listen to it, but so I’m not tempted to pick it up and hear her voice like I desperately want to.
Whiff. Thump.
Right now I need someone who gets me and fuck all, she gets me.
How screwed up does that make me? My laugh bounces off the concrete walls and my own hysteria echoes back to me.
Whiff. Thump.
The ringing starts again, and I do the only thing I know to drown it out. Ignoring the sting of my open blisters, I step in the box and swing with everything I have.
Grunt. Thwack. Ring.
Over and over until my arms feel like rubber and exhausted beyond reason—but I still feel—and so I swing again.
“It’s not the ball’s fault you know.”
Whiff.
Fucking Finn. “Leave me alone.”
“You ever pick up your phone?”
“If I wanted to talk to you, I would have. But I didn’t.” I take a piss-poor swing at a pitch and barely connect. “Go away.”
“It was either me or your old man getting the building manager to let us in here and so I figured, you’d prefer me.”
Whiff. Thump. Ring.
“I told you I didn’t want to speak to you until you have answers, so you better start talking or you can get the fuck out.” I grunt with my swing this time and am so tired I could collapse right here, but the whiskey is way more fucking tempting than sleep right now.
“I’ve been in communication with the team.”
I drop the bat from my shoulder and turn to grab the bottle. “I’ve been in communication with the team,” I mimic in his formal tone before I take another drink. “This is my life we’re talking about, Finn, not some goddamn negotiation. So tell me, do you know where the hell I’ve been traded to?”
Whiff. Thump. Ring.
“New York? Florida? Minnesota?” My pitch escalates with each city. So does my temper. “Huh, Finn? Have you got answers for me yet?” I turn to face him.
Whiff. Thump. Ring.
“Will you turn all that shit off so I can concentrate?” he shouts.
We glare at each other through the batting cage nets. The memory of making love to Scout against them is like another fucking knife in my back.
So I shift my focus back to Finn. He looks exhausted—hair sticking up, shirt wrinkled and unbuttoned at the collar, eyes weary—when he’s typically always the picture of perfection. Good. At least I’m not the only one who looks like hell.
Whiff. Thump. Ring.
“Why weren’t you there today?” I ask him the same question I’ve asked him three times already, needing to see his face this time when he responds.
“You don’t trust me?” His voice is ice cold but to hell with him.
“I’m finding out trust and loyalty don’t have a whole lot to do about nothing these days,” I say with a fuck you shrug to my shoulders.
He takes a step closer, wraps his fingers in the net so his arms hang above his head as he stares at me through the barrier. “I was told the meeting started two hours later than it did. I double-checked all my notes. My voicemails. They said three p.m. You had a game starting at two, so why have the meeting after it started? I should have fucking known something was going on. Tillman’s such a shady fucker. I should have questioned why,” he says with a shake of his head and runs a hand through his hair. “And Wylder, if you ever insult me again by questioning my loyalty, you can find yourself a new goddamn agent.”
The bite to his tone surprises me and tells me exactly what I needed to know: he is in my corner
“Yeah, well, something was definitely going on,” I say, ignoring his threat, my laugh that follows loaded with sarcasm.
Whiff. Thump. Ring.
“Easton, please turn that shit off so we can talk.”
I hold his eyes for a second longer before turning to flip the switch off on the wall behind me. The soft whirl of the machine slowing down fills the space while I walk to silence the ringer on my cell.
The screen is filled with calls as I scroll. Reporters. Teammates. Finn. My dad. For each one of those, there seems to be about five from Scout. Voicemails. Texts. The sight of them makes my chest ache, because one thing still remains, she sold me out.
I grab the bottle to ease that ache but leave my cell as I emerge from the batting cage for the first time in over three hours. I head straight for the bathroom without saying a word to Finn. When I come out of the john, he seems to take a closer look at me.
“You look like shit.”
“Yeah, well, can you blame me?” I shrug, glancing over to the wall of my Little League jerseys. It’s so much easier to look there than at him. “Just trying to make sense of shit that makes no sense so . . . looking like it seems fitting.”
“Fucking Tillman.”
“That’s putting it nicely.”
“The prick won’t talk to me until tomorrow morning. I have a nine o’clock meeting. Fucking nine o’clock,” he shouts. “Like you were some castoff instead of their franchise player.”
“That’s what I don’t get,” I say and take a drink. “It’s like they don’t have anything set up. Like they didn’t even expect to trade me.”
“That’s what I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around. There has to be a catch here that we’re missing,” he says as he folds his arms and leans his hips against the wall. “In all my years, when a trade is made, you’re told right then and there to pack your bags and move on to the next team. All they told me was to have you clean out your locker by ten tomorrow.”
“Before the guys get in.” I snort. “Such a chicken-shit move. God forbid I’m there when the team comes in to see how disloyal their fucking club is to its players. What about Boseman? Where the hell was he in all of this?” I ask about the team’s owner. The man who has been like an uncle to me and is no-fucking-where when I need him most.
“Still on that trip to the Amazon, reinventing himself or some billionaire shit like that. I’ve left a dozen or so messages when I couldn’t get face time with that asshole Tillman until tomorrow.”
“Fucking bad juju, man,” I say as I yank the bottle out of his reach when he goes to grab it from me.
“In case you didn’t know, it’s only six o’clock, East,” he says, motioning to the windowless room. “You’re already a full bottle in tonight. I need you to pace yourself. Slow it down some.”
“Ah, so that’s why you’re here . . . to come and ruin all my fun?” I roll my eyes.
“I need you somewhat sober in the morning.”
I stare at his hand held out, and with my eyes on his, I slowly lift the bottle to my lips in rebellion and smirk. “It’s not like I’ve got a job to go to or anything.”
“You never know. They could have you hopping on a plane first thing in the morning and headed God knows where—”
“That’s the whole fucking point, Finn. God. Knows. Where. Do you know?” I shout at him, arms thrown out to my sides, patience—and what feels like my sanity—gone hours ago. “Because I don’t know shit. And neither do you for that matter. I mean this is so fucked up in so many ways and—”
“Look, I know you’re upset, but we’ve got to make the best—”
“Upset?” I yell at the top of my lungs. The temptation to throw the bottle is stronger than the will to drink it. “I gave my goddamn heart and soul to the Aces and for what? For what?” It’s as if a tornado of anger is ripping through me. “To be given away?”
“I know, man. I know. It makes no sense to me either. I’ve got your dad on my ass, I’ve got the press breathing down my neck, and Scout refusing to speak to anyone but you. All the while, the damn organization is taking their sweet time doling out the details of your trade. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
My feet stop when I hear her name. The betrayal is still fresh and confusing, and I don’t know what the hell to think about it, so I pace and then sit and then stand again, unable to remain still.
The smile and kiss she gave me as she left my place earlier is burned in my mind. Why would she lie?
I change gears, have to, because I can’t think about her anymore. “What about my mom? How am I going to take care of her when I’m in—”
“We’ll figure something out.”
“And find a place to live—”
“Most teams have a neighborhood where the transitional guys stay—”
“And then there’s . . .” And then there’s fucking Scout.
Or rather, was fucking Scout.
I have to move to abate how everything about me revolts knowing that whatever this was between us is over. Finn lets me be until I stop, hang my head, and attempt to come to grips with everything.
His hand is on my shoulder, squeezing in support. “Let’s go upstairs. I’ll get you some food while you take a shower. Then we can talk some more if you want. Or not.”
“Nah. I’m fine.” I can’t stomach going upstairs for the next few hours. The stadium lights will be on for the cleaning crew. The last thing I need to see is how they brighten up the sky to remind me of the game I missed. The game I was supposed to make my comeback in. Add to that, I’m nowhere near ready to face the many pieces of Scout scattered throughout my place. Shrugging off his hand, I begin to move again.
“Come on, let me order you food. I’ll get some sushi from your favorite—”
“No!” More damn memories come to mind. Scout on the couch trying sushi for the first time. Scout sitting between my legs watching a movie. Scout reading fortunes from cookies about as likely to come true as my trade being a bad dream. “I’m not hungry.”
“C’mon, let me do something here, East,” he pleads.
“Get me answers.”
“I’m try—”
“I know, I know. I just don’t get why she lied and said I wasn’t one hundred percent when last night—Jesus fucking Christ, just this morning,” I rant, more to myself, losing track of time in this concrete tomb, “she told me she couldn’t wait to see me on the field again.”
“You slept with her?” Finn’s asks as he starts piecing together the words I said. Guess I just let the cat out of the bag. I break in stride for a beat and then ignore his question.
“What if they changed the terms of her agreement?” I deflect as I reach the pitching mound and turn back around. “What if they told her Doc Dalton wasn’t going to get the team contract?”
“I thought you were tolerating her.” He digs in deeper, ignoring my questions. “I thought you were going to put those ear buds in your ears and listen to one of your damn audiobooks to pass the time so you didn’t have to deal with her. What the fuck happened to that, Easton?”
He blocks my path and I stride around him but not before he reaches out to grab my bicep. My opposing arm is cocked back in a second—fist ready to fly. My temper is sick of being tested.
He doesn’t flinch, even though so much of me needs to get a reaction out of him. Instead he just holds my stare for a beat before looking at my fist and then back to my eyes with a lift of his brows. “Please tell me you weren’t just royally fucked over by your physical therapist because of some kind of lover scorned bullshit.”
I lower my arm slowly and scrub my hand over my face, but I don’t answer.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asks with a disbelieving laugh as I turn my back to him and stare at a photo of my dad and me, both in our Aces jerseys, on the last day we shared the field together before he retired. Finn groans, and I can follow him pacing by the sound of it. “What happened? Did you have your fun and then were done with her while she was hoping for somewhere over the goddamn rainbow with you?”
“Not exactly.” The vision of her standing in my bedroom, shoving a curling iron into her bag with those sexy shoes on, and that shy smile on her lips that shocked to an O when I asked her to move in with me, fills my mind.
“Then what? Throw me a goddamn bone, East, so I know what I’m working with here.”
“Drop it.”
“No. I won’t drop it,” he says, getting in my face and ripping the bottle from my hand. “This is my job. To get to the bottom of shit so I can figure out the next step while you get on the field wherever the hell they’re going to send you. That’s how this goes. So what the fuck happened here, Easton, because I need to know where to start.”
Jaw clenched, I shake my head, not willing to admit defeat out loud. I can see the wheels of his mind turning, figuring, assuming. He takes another guess.
“She told you she loved you, and you said no fucking way and so this was her way of getting back at you not wanting to commit to anyone?”
My pride wars with the necessity to tell him the truth I’d rather not admit. “Actually, quite the opposite.” My voice is a whisper but the widening of his eyes and surprise in his expression tells me he heard me loud and clear.
“Ah shit,” he says in sympathy.
“Yeah,” I say as I shrug my shoulders and walk away from him. “Lost my team and got fucked over by my girl all in the same day, so let me be and give me my bottle back, will ya?”
“I’m sorry, man. That’s fucking rough.” He hands me the bottle and falls quiet, thinking so hard I swear I can almost hear it. Then again, that may be the Jameson talking. “It still doesn’t make sense though. If you’re not one hundred percent and reinstated, then Dalton’s Physical Therapy doesn’t get the contract . . . so unless those terms changed, she fucked herself too.”
“Exactly,” I say in a frustrated growl. “That’s why I’m at a loss.”
“There’s one way to find out.” He points to where my cell sits.
“I don’t want to fucking talk to her right now.” I struggle with believing myself.
“Rip the Band-Aid off. It’s easier knowing than wondering.”
“No.” I’m adamant. Or at least my tone is because fuck if I don’t want to tear into her and pull her close all at the same time.
That has to be the alcohol talking.
“I’ll give you tonight, but we’re going to need answers from someone since God knows I won’t trust a damn word coming out of Tillman’s mouth in the morning.”
I grunt in response.
“We can talk tomorrow before I head into the meeting.” He takes a few steps. “You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna go a few more rounds with the machine.” And even that doesn’t seem like an escape anymore.
“Okay. I’ll send over some food in a bit.” He looks at his watch and then back to me. “I’ll try to time it after the ballpark lights are out.”
He knows. Understands. And doesn’t think I’m stupid for it.
“Thanks, Finn.”
“Get some rest.”
I watch the elevator doors close behind him and drain the rest of the bottle. My hands hurt like a motherfucker but I walk to the cage anyway. This kind of pain I can deal with.
I’m used to it.
“It’s gotta be the fucking papers.” Finn’s voice startles me just as I pick up a new bat to check it for splinters. “They have to be the catch.”
“What?”
“I knew Tillman was pulling a fast one. I knew it in my gut when I got that addendum you signed. I wanted to go to Boseman and you told me to drop it . . . but, East, I think that’s the key.”
“What?” Speak English, please.
He strides across the space with a purpose that tells me he’s figured something out, but there’s not much to get excited about even if he has. I’m still traded. Still removed from my life here. “I need you to think hard about this,” he says, voice serious, eyes intense, and all I give him in response is a chuckle.
“The bottle’s empty.” I throw it up and it lands with a thud onto the turf. “You think I can remember shit, right now?”
“I’m fucking serious, E. When you got hurt, you told me you signed papers. The club sent copies to me. It was a two-page doc with your signature in agreement on the second page.”
“Not this shit again,” I groan. “We’ve already beat that horse to death, Finn. I fucked up. I signed on the dotted line, and now I’m paying the goddamn consequences for it.”
“That’s exactly right. You signed on the dotted line. But how many dotted lines were there? You’ve always called them papers—plural—and I just assumed you meant the two papers I received . . . but it just hit me . . . the way Scout said ‘the papers’ like they were the be-all and end-all. Do you remember how many times you signed your name?”
My head is spinning—from the Jameson and from what he just asked. I think back and all I remember is pain, blacking out from it, and then coming to in the locker room with papers in front of me, a pen shoved in my hand, and blank spots in my vision. “Fuck, Finn . . .”
“It’s important, Easton.”
The words on the pages blurred. My need for the OxyContin to dull the pain surpassed the need to understand them.
“Two . . . maybe three . . . but two for sure.”
“Goddamnit!” He smacks his hands together and the sound echoes around the room. “Tillman’s stink is all over this. He pulled something over on you. I know it. I’ll bet your ass Scout saw it.”
“And you weren’t there.” The words are accusatory although he’s already explained why. I’m so sick of excuses when my world’s been turned upside down by first a dirty play and now what looks like a dirty deal.
“I’ll make this right,” he says, but I stare at him, knowing he can’t. “If you won’t talk to Scout, I will.”
“Do whatever you want. It’s not going to change a thing,” I mumble.
“But I’ll have ammunition when I go in there tomorrow instead of an empty barrel.” He pulls out his phone. “What’s her address?”
“Can you just go?”
“Yeah. Sure. I’m on the right track. I can feel it. I’ll talk to her, East, and get to the bottom of this.” His smile fades like I should be as excited as he is that he figured this out. But I’m not.
I’m fucking devastated.
Tears burn the backs of my eyes, and I shove that shit away as fast as I can because it’s not worth crying over.
Women come and go.
Teams are teams. I can still play ball anywhere.
But it’s not just some woman. It’s Scout. The one who gets me.
And it’s not just a team. It’s the Aces. The one whose blood I’ve bled since before I was born.
What the fuck is happening?