Pitch Perfect: Boys of Summer, Book 1 (29 page)

Emmy preferred the romance of the game to the business of it, and that’s why she had no love for New York baseball. She’d been spoiled growing up in Wrigley, and it made her wary of anything without history.

She sat cross-legged on a bench in the bullpen watching Tucker throw warm-up pitches while she made a chart of the day’s exercise schedule and who on her staff would be stretching out which players. Tannis had made a complaint about Ramon’s language, so now Emmy needed to reassign the first baseman’s routine to someone else.

He couldn’t have stuck to swearing in Spanish?

Tucker stopped throwing and stretched his shoulder up, rolling his head back and forth to work out his neck. “I’m stiff,” he announced.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.” She crossed off Tannis on the schedule and wrote Jasper’s name in her place, then texted each of them to let them know they’d be swapping Ramon out for Chet in the rotation. Jasper’s response would have appalled Tannis.

“No. My arm is stiff.”

Emmy’s head jerked up, and she focused on his right arm instead of his face. “Your shoulder or your elbow?”

“Shoulder.”

She released the breath she’d been holding. If his elbow was acting up, it could be a sign of delayed issues from his surgery. A sore shoulder was likely from an improper cool down after his last game and not enough stretching in between starts.

“There’s plenty of time. Just pay attention to any changes while you’re throwing, and we’ll do some more mobility exercises before you go on tonight.”

He drew out his arm in front of him, then up over his head, fanning his fingers wide. “I can’t risk anything taking me out of this game.”

“You’re not going to be taken from the game, Tucker. That’s my call, and a sore shoulder isn’t reason enough to yank you. Are you feeling any twinges in the muscle? Any tingling in your nerves?”

“No.”

“Are any of your motions limited?”

“My fastball feels a little…forced.”

“Okay.” She got up and took the ball out of his hand, throwing it into the nearby bucket. She braced a hand on his chest then moved his right arm through a series of motions. Clasping her hand in his, she pushed his arm backwards. “Resist,” she instructed. “I want you to push back into me.”

He did as he was told, and once she felt like he was giving her his real force, she released his hand. “You’ll be fine. Throw a few changeups first, then pick up the heaters slowly.”

She sat down again, pulling the clipboard back into her lap and continuing to text her staff with their assignments. Jasper kept replying a few choice words about what she wanted him to do, but he was all bluster. Her staff might have opinions, but they were all dedicated and loyal.

“How’s your head?”

“Peachy keen.” He collected a new ball and went through the motions of throwing without releasing it. When he did finally throw for real, she paid attention to his face to see if he showed any signs of pain or discomfort.

The three changeups he threw all went through the holes on the pitching target, and his face remained hard with concentration, but there was nothing to suggest he was injured.

“Perfect,” she said. “You’re going to be perfect.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” He winked.

Chapter Thirty-Four

San Francisco at New York, Record 90-58

Late September was cool in New York, and the sun was on its way down when the game started, painting the skyline behind the stadium a deep orangey pink. The glare of sunlight had faded from the field and the spotlights had been turned on, creating megawatt secondary suns all around the park.

Tucker jogged into the outfield in front of the bullpen and met Alex and Mike. Alex was already stretching out, preparing for a three-hour squat behind the plate. Tucker ran a few quick sprints in front of the bullpen while Alex got ready.

When they started throwing warm-up pitches, he used the extra time to tune out the sounds of the stadium. As anticipated, the crowd in the right field was shouting every manner of rowdy cuss and insult at him. Tuning out fans at an away stadium was a lot like working with an old radio. He had to find the station the stadium was on, then turn the knob until all he could hear was static.

Yankees fans operated on a very…boisterous frequency. He couldn’t turn down the volume, but he could dull the words. It helped that so many people were shouting things at once, since being told he was
shitty
and
couldn’t hit a strike zone from five feet away
was par for the course.

Not a lot of originality in baseball fans unless name puns counted. Jeers were jeers the country over, and he was able to ignore a lot of nasty stuff.

“You’re making friends today,” Alex noted, stretching his leg behind him as Tucker approached.

“I’m a friendly guy.”

“Give them all a big smile.”

Tucker shook his head and adjusted his cap. He had a big welt on his forehead from the line drive, and though it was shrinking, he’d still needed to get a bigger hat to keep pressure off the bump. His head was throbbing in spite of the larger hatband.

They spent fifteen minutes tossing the ball at varying distances while the Yankees’ pitcher and catcher did the same in the left field. When the outfield guys wrapped up their stretches, Tucker and Alex took a pause and looked around the ballpark.

A few orange-and-gray shirts dotted the skyline—brave Felons fans showing their support in a sea of navy and white. Tucker smiled, mostly to himself, but also to those who had turned out to see him win.

He was going to win it.

Not for his own career, but for
them
. For the fans back in California arriving home from work and getting their dinner ready for the night. Some would be listening to game updates in their cars, fighting San Francisco traffic. Those fans were the reason he loved his city and he loved those damn ugly colors.

Everything went quiet. He couldn’t hear the yelling against him or the cheering for the home team.

The rest was silence.

“I need my gum.” Tucker stalked around the dugout, hunting through the buckets of candy on the back shelf. He’d sent a batboy to look through his bag in the clubhouse, but he’d somehow managed to forget to bring the one thing he needed. His stupid, goddamn, grape bubble gum.

He shook a bucket of gumballs, all bright orange, yellow and pink. He would have accepted a shitty, soap-tasting grape, but nothing in the bucket would work. There was no grape gum.

His heart sank.

“What are you freaking out about?” Emmy took the container out of his hands and replaced it with the hat he’d left on the bench.

“I forgot my gum.”

“You’re going this nuts over gum?”

He gave her an impatient glower. She of all people should know why the gum mattered. Hadn’t she been the one, on their first day together, who asked what kind of weird superstitions he had? What she’d need to know to work with him?

Tucker stopped searching. “I forgot my gum.”

Emmy braced her hands on his shoulders so he held still. “You don’t need it.”

“I
do
need it.”

“Tucker, it’s gum. You don’t need it. You’re better than gum. Miles is better than the stupid card in his sock.” Her hands dropped, and she gave his a squeeze. “You make your own luck, okay?”

Tucker felt her small hands in his, her skin dry against his clammy palms. She stared at him, her hazel eyes warm and patient, and he knew she was right. He did make his own luck.

Because he’d found her, and he loved her, and that might be all the luck he needed.

Changeup. Changeup. Fastball.

Curveball. Slider. Changeup.

Fastball. Fastball. Changeup.

One, two, three in the first.

Fastball, pop up, out.

Changeup. Slider. Fastball.

Curveball. Fastball. Slider.

One, two, three in the second.

Tucker didn’t like to watch box scores when he played. In the top of the third, while the Felons cycled through their batting order, he wasn’t reading the hits and walks. He wasn’t interested in how well the Yankees were protecting the outfield, though their center fielder was a marvel to behold, making catches no man should be able to.

What Tucker did was sit.

He took his place on the bench and sat with bouncy knees, staring at the game without absorbing any of it. He was thinking of his pitches. Going over the rest of the Yankees’ line in his head. In the third he’d face the bottom of their lineup—arguably the worst players—but he still thought about stats, and what he knew.

Every player had shortcomings, and these guys were no exception. He’d faced them all once or twice, some of them dozens of times, and a highlight reel played in his head, taking him through all those old games, telling him what he could do to bring them down.

They all had weaknesses, and he would figure out exactly how to exploit them.

Bottom of the third rolled in, and he made his slow walk to the mound, head down. He stood on the small hill, thumbed the brim of his cap, tugged his ear and took a deep breath.

Three up, three down.

One-two-three innings were a dime a dozen. There was one in almost every game he’d ever played, usually more. The Yankees had already played one against them that game, and in turn Tucker had thrown two. A one-two-three was the ultimate goal of a pitcher. Striking out the side was most ideal, but whatever it took to get the players out in order would do.

Back-to-back one-two-threes, or even a half-dozen, weren’t out of the ordinary. Honestly, Tucker barely registered them anymore aside from the way they abbreviated how long he was out on the field. And the less time he spent in per inning, the fewer pitches he threw, and he’d have a better chance to stay in for all nine innings.

That was all he wanted.

Nine innings to show he belonged and wasn’t too old to play the game.

He watched Alex’s signals, shaking off a call for another changeup. He’d been using a lot of them, and he was familiar with the batter—Frank Richie—who had an uncanny skill for hitting the slow balls. Alex had spent less time against Frank, but Tucker remembered him from their earlier years in the game.

Alex signaled for a slider, and Tucker considered it, then shook his head on that call too. He knew Alex well, and the way he waved his hand was the politest way he could give Tucker the finger while they were both on national television.

Finally Alex signaled for a straight-up fastball, and Tucker gave the nod. Frank Richie squinted from under the brim of his batting helmet, and for a moment he and Tucker locked eyes. Richie raised one brow and smiled, a leering, cold grin. Tucker didn’t like the cockiness of the batter’s smirk.

Tucker mouthed the words
Strike out
, and Frank Richie’s smile faltered. He readjusted his grip on the bat and cracked his neck side to side. Alex must have seen the change in attitude as well because the smile shifted from Frank to the catcher, and Alex winked at Tucker.

It hadn’t been Tucker’s intention to play dirty and get into Frank’s head, but whatever worked was fine by him. If a player didn’t have enough spine to keep his shit together in the batter’s box, he deserved to get struck out.

So Tucker struck him out.

And the next two batters as well.

Back in the dugout there was a lot of back patting and some high-fives, but no one said much else to him. He took his place on the bench, and Alex—who had batted in the previous inning—came to sit next to him. Tucker kept his cap pulled low over his eyes, trying to ignore the pulsing throb in his forehead.

“You feeling good?” Alex asked.

“Headache.”

“Arm is okay?”

“Yup.”

Alex pressed a paper cup of Gatorade into Tucker’s hand, and they leaned back on the bench, watching as Ramon clobbered a home run out of the park. The handful of Felons fans in the stadium cheered louder than Tucker thought possible—or maybe he was just tuned to the right station to hear them—and the dugout erupted in raucous celebration. It was one run, but it was a run they had the Yankees didn’t.

After their run, the Felons played like they had a fire lit under their asses. The next man up—second baseman Jamal Warren—hit a ground ball that rolled past first. He ran like hell for second to get the double—not an easy feat given his bulk—and was forced to slide into the plate. When he got to his feet, though, there was a limp in his step.

Tucker lifted the brim of his cap, staring at the scene on the field like it was a frozen tableau. He looked for Emmy, but she was already bounding up the stairs and meeting the third base coach at second so they could see what had happened.

Emmy was crouched in front of Jamal
,
squeezing his ankle with her delicate fingers. She was watching Jamal’s face for reaction, as she did with Tucker whenever she stretched out his arm. What she saw on the second baseman didn’t relieve her because she got to her feet and addressed Chuck and the third base coach.