Pitch Perfect: Boys of Summer, Book 1 (28 page)

“Talk to you later, Simon.” She hung up.

When the phone rang again, it was the GM’s number.

Meeting the GM in visitor ballparks was becoming something Emmy didn’t want to make a habit of. She would have preferred keeping him at arm’s length, communicating in short daily emails. Face-to-face made him too real.

He had Tucker’s career—and hers—in his hands. To Darren, she and Tucker were just names and finances, and she was well aware how little it would mean to him to send them both away.

Especially if he knew about their relationship.

She was betting a trainer screwing around with a pitcher was a whole new kettle of fish the management wasn’t prepared to deal with, and though there was nothing
against
it in the contract, she was fairly certain the GM wouldn’t hesitate to ship her away if he caught the scent of blood in the water.

Emmy met him in a makeshift office and sat on a folding chair across from his particleboard desk.

“Not the nicest digs. Apologies.”

She placed her hands in her lap. “No need to apologize.”

“I’d have met you in the box but…” He shrugged. “No game.”

“Of course.” Emmy kept her face neutral. Just like with Simon, she wasn’t sure what the motivation behind the meeting was, and she didn’t want to make any assumptions. “How can I help?”

“I didn’t get a status report last night.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Tucker’s health was my first priority.”

“Naturally, naturally. And that’s why I’ve asked you to meet me here.”

“To discuss Tucker’s health?”

“I got the press release right after I called you, so I know what your official word is, but I want to hear it from you.”

“You want me to repeat what I wrote?”

“I want you to tell me the whole truth.”

“Sir?”

“Let’s be frank with each other, Ms. Kasper. You and Tucker are close. You spend a lot of time helping him, and you’ve made great advancements with his arm. We’re very grateful to you for that. But I’m sure in your time together you may have developed a…friendship with him. It’s natural, when you spend so much time with someone.”

“I’m perfectly capable of maintaining a professional detachment from someone I work with daily.”

“I don’t doubt you are, but you understand why I need to be clear about this. I need to know you’re not…covering for him.”

Emmy might not have been a fan of the GM, but she also hadn’t actively loathed him. He had given her a fantastic opportunity with her job, and because of that she’d given him a certain amount of leeway when it came to his personality. But she was convinced he’d just asked her if she was
lying
about Tucker’s head wound to help the pitcher stay in the game.

She got to her feet, appalled at the accusation but trying hard to maintain some façade of professionalism rather than reaching across the desk and smacking him in the face.

“It would be
very
difficult for me to
lie
about the results of an MRI. Sir.”

His face went smooth, devoid of any trace he was offended but also not showing any surprise at her for calling him out on what he was suggesting.

“Now, now.”

“Tucker is fine.”

“It’s your professional opinion that Tucker Lloyd is fit to play the remainder of the season?”

“I’m telling you Tucker is fit to play this season, and the next, and every damn season from now until forever.”

He gave her a thin-lipped smile, his mustache quivering. “We’ll see about that. Forever is an awfully long time, Ms. Kasper.”

“Not for a ballplayer’s career.”

“No, I suppose that’s true.”

“Tucker will be fine for his start in New York. I’ll monitor him personally. He will be better than fine.”

“Well, that’s all I needed to hear.”

“Good.” She turned and left the room before he had a chance to say anything that might make her lose her cool.

Tucker had been right. The GM had it in for him, and she had to do everything she could to ensure his performance was above par for the rest of the season.

She wasn’t sure what she
could
do, but she wouldn’t sit idly by while someone waited for Tucker to trip. Not if she could somehow keep him standing.

Chapter Thirty-Three

It didn’t matter how often Tucker visited New York City, he always found something to be impressed by. He lived in a big city and was well versed in how to function around a lot of people and all the traffic, but New York was different from San Francisco in so many ways. The people were more hurried and brusque. The buildings felt more cramped and taller somehow.

All the same, he liked visiting, even if he couldn’t live there personally. He liked the food and the grit of the streets. He liked wandering the sidewalks at night and seeing how differently things worked on the East Coast.

He’d travelled extensively in his life, a pleasant perk to being wealthy, but sometimes he didn’t have to leave the country to find a unique culture. San Fran and New York were on opposite sides of the country, and they were as different as two major cities could be.

He liked that.

But he didn’t like playing the Yankees.

No
official
rivalry existed between the Yankees and the Felons, but all the same he felt like there was bad blood there. That kind of hostility was something the Yankees brought out in other teams. The blue blood ran deep in New York, and Yankees fans were the most hotheaded group of fans in America.

At old Yankee Stadium he remembered stories about fans hurling batteries at opposing teams. He’d never experienced it himself, but it made him wary. They certainly booed more than any other single group of sports fans he’d ever faced.

He was pretty sure Spike Lee had once personally called him
Fucker Lloyd
for striking out Jeter.

Since they weren’t in the same division it was a little less hostile than it might have been otherwise. But the Yankees were on top in the Eastern division—as they usually were—and the Felons were leading the Western division, so it seemed likely they’d be facing each other in the playoffs.

With that on the horizon, the previous night’s game had played out like it was war. The fans screamed and cursed, the players stared each other down like enemies rather than challengers, and it had gone for eleven innings before the Felons finally won.

Their first win was going to make it all the more difficult for Tucker that evening. The Yankees would be looking for weakness, and since he’d been injured recently they’d be expecting him to falter.

There was so much on the line, and it wasn’t even a playoff game. The Felons had a five-game lead in the west, and unless they went on a losing tear for the remainder of the season, they were assured a place in the playoffs.

Yet he couldn’t help but think this was his last shot to prove he belonged with the team. If they won tonight, and if he could go the whole nine innings without showing any weakness, then perhaps he would be able to stay.

Tucker wasn’t sure what it would take to make an impression on the GM and the higher ups. A good performance was one thing, but he wondered sometimes if the men with the power would know a good performance if it bit them on the ass.

Emmy had told him about her meeting with the GM and his accusation she was lying to keep him in the game. After that kind of show, Tucker wasn’t sure if he even wanted to stay with the club anymore. If they wanted him gone so badly they would suggest he was willing to lie about a potentially fatal brain injury, maybe he’d be better off on a different team.

But he had to remind himself the team was more than the owners and the upper management. The real team was Alex and Ramon, Chet and Miles. It was the guys he spent eight or nine months a year with. It was the fans who made those terrible Tucker pun signs and wore jerseys with his name and number on them.

That’s why he played for the Felons. GMs came and went. Tucker had outlasted four of them in his career. He’d been with the team longer than the current field manager and most of the coaching staff.

If Tucker could outlast one doubtful GM and avoid any further injuries, then maybe,
maybe
he’d be able to play out the remainder of his contract in the place he thought of as home.

He’d planned on walking from the hotel to the ballpark, but considering how the previous night’s game had played out, he didn’t want to run the risk of meeting up with any bitter Yankees fans who might recognize him.

And since they’d moved the park to the Bronx it was a
much
longer walk.

He stood in front of the hotel waiting for a town car when Emmy came down the steps and stepped to the curb, raising her arm to hail a cab. She was so focused on her mission she completely failed to notice he was standing ten feet away from her.

Since they’d avoided being busted in his room their first night together in Cleveland, they’d continued the nightly tradition of hotel room hook-ups throughout the road trip, swapping whose suite they would meet in to avoid too obvious a routine.

And the team continued to win, further solidifying his opinion she really was a lucky charm.

Emmy’s cab arrived before there was any sign of his town car, so as she ducked into the vehicle he climbed in beside her, surprising her as he shut the door.

“
Excuse me,
” she snapped, hugging her duffel bag close to her side and looking ready to spit venom before she recognized it was him.

“You get into the New York spirit quickly.” He relieved her of the bag and put it on his opposite side, sliding close to her so their hips were touching.

“You sneaky bugger.” Emmy squeezed his thigh and gave him a kiss on the lips as they pulled away from the curb.

“No funny business,” scolded the taxi driver.

“Do you have a lot of people trying to have sex in the back of your cab at ten thirty in the morning?” Tucker asked, meeting the man’s disapproving gaze in the rearview mirror.

“Ten thirty in the morning. Ten thirty at night. No difference.
No
funny business.”

“Just giving my lady a little PG-13 loving. Nothing immoral, I swear.”

The driver grumbled something but stopped lecturing them, and Tucker took the risk of further cabbie vitriol by slipping his hand between Emmy’s thighs. The soft material of the yoga pants she wore before games left nothing to the imagination. The firm, toned muscle of her legs and the heat radiating off her skin made him think about all the filthy things they’d recently been forbidden from doing.

Which made him want to do them all the more.

He kissed her neck and brushed his lips against her ear. “Want to get up to some funny business?”

Her fingers twitched on his leg, and he could feel her cheek rise up in a smile.

“Mr. Lloyd. We’re being watched.”

The cab driver’s glare filled the rearview mirror, and it was lucky they were in bumper-to-bumper traffic or Tucker would have worried about the cabbie not watching the road. Instead he gave the man a look of wide-eyed innocence but rubbed Emmy’s crotch with focused strokes of his pinky finger.

She pursed her lips and her hand went to his wrist, but she didn’t push him away.

Again he leaned close and breathed lightly into her ear. “I might need a little extra luck today.”

Emmy laughed loudly, bringing the full attention of the driver to the backseat and almost causing them to rear-end another cab ahead. “How about you win the game and
then
we see about you getting lucky, okay?”

He kissed her cheek, trying to tamp down his half-mast. “Seems like as good a reason as any to win the game.”

“I can think of a better one.” Her tone was more serious than it had been a moment earlier.

Tucker withdrew his hand and looped his arm around her shoulders. Emmy leaned her head against him, and they both sat back, watching the city crawl by.

“I’m going to do it, you know,” Tucker stated.

“Win?”

“Yeah.”

“I know you are. You like having sex with me way too much to lose.” She kissed his chin.

“If I’d known at the start of the season winning was all it would take, I’d have tried a hell of a lot harder.”

Emmy hadn’t spent a lot of time in old Yankee Stadium as a kid. Her father had played for a National League team, so most of her earliest New York baseball memories were of the Mets at Shea Stadium. Now Shea, like old Yankee Stadium, had been closed to make way for a newer, fancier park.

During her run with the White Sox, she’d gotten to know the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. But being raised a Cubs fan made her long for a ballpark in the city with real roots, and New York didn’t have one anymore.

For a city that could boast being home to two of the oldest teams in baseball, and the breeding ground for the L.A. Dodgers—formerly of Brooklyn—and other major league teams, they didn’t seem to have much respect for baseball history.

She loved old parks. Whenever she was in L.A. she visited Elysian Fields and reveled in the Art Deco glory of Dodger Stadium. All the fields in New York were too new, too glossy and corporate. They were more about selling merchandise and overpriced hot dogs than they were about being temples to the game.