Pitch Perfect: Boys of Summer, Book 1 (9 page)

“Why not?”

When she did focus her attention on him, he couldn’t decide if she was angry with him or sad about the topic he was drudging up. Emmy stepped closer and picked up Tucker’s pitching arm, extending it fully so he felt the stretch in his armpit and down his ribs. She knew precisely when to stop though, riding the fine line between a good stretch and pain.

“When you’ve been with someone as long as Simon and I have been together, I guess you just assume the relationship is easier to maintain than it is to end.”

“How long have you been with him?” He was watching her carefully, trying to judge how involved in the relationship she was. Clearly Simon provided a level of comfort to her, but nothing she had said had any spark of passion to it. Whenever she talked about her boyfriend, it was with the same fondness he used to talk about his sister and the kids. Love, but not
love
. Nothing about Simon seemed to burn Emmy up inside.

But maybe that was Tucker’s wishful thinking.

A lot of things about Emmy resided in the wishful-thinking part of Tucker’s brain, but it would be a lot easier to lust after her from a safe distance if he didn’t feel like a jackass for doing it. He’d been cheated on—it wasn’t a fun feeling. And he had no feelings about Simon one way or the other, but he wasn’t about to be the dog who chased someone else’s Frisbee.

“We’ve been dating almost four years.” She continued to bend and stretch his arm, sometimes causing him to wince. Her fingers cupped his elbow, and her short nails dug lightly into the skin below his scar, ever so carefully avoiding it. The scar didn’t hurt anymore, but he liked that she was aware of it.

“Four years and he couldn’t try to find a job in California?”

“Blackhawks don’t play in California often enough to make it worth his while.” She made him lift his arm and leaned against his side, straining the limb higher. Her hair brushed his cheek, distracting him from the pain of moving his arm in such an unnatural way. She smelled like clean laundry and something sweeter, like sugary lemonade, and her hair was soft against his skin.

“Hockey fan?” His voice caught in his throat with a hitch, and he coughed to cover it.

“He’s all about hockey. Baseball is just something to keep him busy between April and October.” She laughed at her own statement, her breath warm against his ear. “Funny, because baseball is
all
that keeps me busy from February to November.”

Emmy lowered his arm, pushing herself away from him. Her fingers trailed down the sensitive skin of his underarm.

“Do you have anything in common?” Tucker asked, more to distract himself than really wanting to know.

Emmy bent his fingers back, stretching his palm and wrist. “I’m sure we did. It sort of stops being about that after a while though, you know?”

Tucker did not know. He hadn’t been in a long-term relationship in years. Honestly, short-term relationships were even more hassle than he was able to commit to. “Sure,” he lied.

“Our schedules worked together. We knew how to coexist. He makes me laugh, and he remembers to buy toothpaste when it’s out. There’s something to be said for that.”

“Hire a funny assistant.”

“Cute.”

“I guess I don’t see the logic of staying in a relationship with someone you never see. Not when…” He drifted off before he said too much.

“Not when?” Emmy had stopped stretching him but was still holding his elbow. Her hand was warm.

“Not when there are other people who—”

Jasper came in clutching two plastic bags from CVS and two Starbucks cups stacked on top of each other. “You would not believe the pains I took to find civilization.” He dumped the bags on a nearby table and thrust a coffee in Emmy’s direction. “Hey, man.” Jasper nodded at Tucker, completely oblivious that he’d walked in on anything. “Don’t know how you can drink the toxic sludge this one makes.”

“I don’t know,” Tucker said as Emmy released his elbow. “I’m pretty fond of her way.”

Chapter Twelve

Emmy leaned against the dugout fence with Alex Ross beside her and Tucker one spot down. The April air was cold in Missouri, and she had a Felons beanie pulled down over her ears but nothing to keep the chill off her cheeks.

Miles Cartwright was in his third inning, and he was making things interesting. The young pitcher—in only his first start in the majors—was keeping the score at nothing, but giving them all a heart attack by walking at least one batter each inning.

Alex was in a forced off day and watching the backup catcher take wild pitches off the newest member of the Felons bullpen. He kept cursing under his breath and gnawing on his hoodie sleeve to keep the words from showing up on national television.

Next to him Tucker was dead silent, having not moved a muscle since Miles first stepped to the mound. Emmy was having trouble deciding which part of the performance was bothering him most. It might have been the erratic way Miles was handling himself, but Emmy suspected it had more to do with how goddamn good the kid was when he got his shit together.

A 103-mph fastball was…well, it wasn’t just unusual, it was a lethal weapon for a team struggling to regain their former glory. A pitch that fast couldn’t be hit. It took an eighth of a second to get from the pitcher to the catcher, and there was no way for a batter’s brain to react quickly enough to swing on time. It didn’t matter how many millions he was paid.

Emmy watched batter after batter succumb to the nasty fastball Miles was throwing, and all the while she could practically read Tucker’s mind.

The fastball used to be his pitch.

She’d seen him throw a ball that fast after nine innings once. A complete game shutout and he was still pitching over 100 mph. That kind of stamina was unreal.

She wondered if he had that kind of stamina in other situations.

What was it he’d been about to say in the therapy room before Jasper had walked in? Something about other men? There was something going on between them she couldn’t ignore—no matter how hard she tried—but was he after more than just sex?

Alex grumbled something next to her, derailing her thoughts.

“What?” Emmy didn’t actually need to know what he was complaining about, but talking to him seemed better than thinking too hard about what Tucker’s expectations of her were.

Whatever they were, it was time for her to start reconsidering her relationship with Simon, because it wasn’t fair to either of them if she was spending day in and day out thinking more about Tucker Lloyd than about the man who was supposedly her boyfriend.

“He’s leading with his leg too soon,” Alex responded, pointing at Miles with a pinky finger. “It sets him off balance, and he’s fucking up half his goddamn pitches.”

At first she wanted to ask what the hell Alex knew about pitching since he’d never done it, but she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and watched Miles’s setup more closely. He drew up his knee and lunged out, but Alex was right. His step went ahead too far before his arm was in motion, giving him a slight wobble on his delivery.

Emmy straightened up, trying not to draw attention to herself, and pulled away from the fence. She found Mike Anson—the pitching coach—and tapped him on the shoulder.

“’Sup, Em?” he asked, his tone gruff but not unfriendly.

“It’s Miles. His delivery is…off.”

“You’re telling me.” Mike spit a wad of tobacco onto the dugout floor next to Emmy’s feet.

“No, I mean it’s off in a
real
way.” She pointed to the field where Miles was building up for his pitch, and she and Mike watched him throw the same way he had previously. It was good for a strike, but the wobble was still there.

“Well, son of a bitch,” Mike said, rubbing his short white hair. “How’d I miss that?”

“He’s going to hurt himself if he keeps it up.”

“He’s hurting
us
if he keeps it up,” the coach replied. “It’s a goddamn miracle he’s gotten anything into the catcher’s glove throwing that way.”

Mike signaled to the catcher, who called a time-out with the umpire, then he waved to Emmy.

“Me?”

“Come on, girlie, I ain’t got all day here.” He walked slowly onto the field, and Emmy had little other choice but to follow him.

She didn’t miss Tucker staring at her as she bounded up the dugout stairs and onto the field. The Kansas City fans hooted and booed over the pause in game play, and she tried to ignore the din as she met Mike at the pitcher’s mound. The backup catcher, Jeff Craig, was standing next to Miles, waiting for them to arrive.

“Hey, coach,” Miles said sheepishly.

Sometimes Emmy forgot how young these guys were. Miles was a high school prospect who had been groomed in the minors. He was only twenty-one. Pitching in a big park, for a team with the prestigious history the Felons had? It was a lot of pressure for anyone, let alone a kid who was barely out of his blackhead phase. He gave her a nod. “Hiya, Emmy. Er, Mrs. Kasper?” He didn’t quite know how to handle her. Most of the guys had made the adjustment to having a woman around, but Miles was still uneasy, that much was obvious.

“Ms.,” she corrected. “And you can call me Emmy, Miles. Honestly.”

He bobbed his head and fidgeted on the mound.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Well, son, that depends on what your definition of a strike zone is, now doesn’t it?” Mike asked. His gravelly voice made the words sound harsh, but he coughed out a laugh at the end, bringing some much-needed kindness to the situation. “You’re doing good, but we need you to make a change.”

“Now?”

It wasn’t standard procedure for a pitching coach to ask his pitcher to make a form change in the middle of an at-bat. Typically they would wait until after the game when there was more time to let the pitcher make adjustments naturally. Emmy was surprised they were out here and Mike was willing to rattle Miles’s cage with a major form shift.

Mike casually explained what they’d noticed and turned to Emmy from time to time to get her agreement and have her explain what risks Miles was posing to himself. It felt good to be needed, and to have her opinion respected by an old-timer like Mike.

“You think you got it, kid?” Mike asked.

“Yessir.”

“You gonna go ahead and strike this guy out?”

“Yessir,” Miles said, like Mike was a drill sergeant. This time though there was more pep in his voice, edging on excitement. Miles wanted to prove he could apply the lesson they’d delivered to him. Emmy was hopeful for him. If he could get a handle on his delivery, he had a hell of a future ahead of him.

Mike gave the young pitcher a friendly pat on the behind, and Emmy opted to squeeze his shoulder.

“You’ve got this,” she assured him.

“Thanks.”

Emmy jogged back after Mike, and when she reached the dugout, her space next to Alex had been filled, leaving only a standing position beside Tucker.

She leaned against the railing, hoping to see Miles improve his stance, but was distracted by the sensation of Tucker’s gaze rapt on her. She adjusted her focus so she was looking at him from the corner of her eye rather than at the field.

“What?”

“You’re something else,” he said.

She turned her face fully so she was staring right at him. For the first time since the game had begun there was something like a smile on Tucker’s lips.

“Is that a good thing?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Oh yeah.”

Chapter Thirteen

San Francisco at Chicago, Record 7-6

Tucker loved how a stadium felt when it was empty.

During a game he had to shut out the noise of the fans and focus on Alex, concentrate on delivering the perfect strike each time he threw. He had to be on his game every instant, even in the dugout.

But in the hours before the game, there was a kind of peace he couldn’t find anywhere else. The seats were vacant and the service staff hadn’t arrived yet to start cooking hot dogs and tapping beer kegs.

He’d arrived ahead of Emmy and her crew, and none of the other players were in the ballpark yet, giving him time alone with his thoughts. And with his arm.

In the visitor’s bullpen he had a sack of balls next to him and a pitcher’s target lined up at the end of the grassy patch. Normally he’d warm up with a bullpen catcher, but there was no one else there, and he was grateful for that. If he was going to make a fool of himself, he didn’t need to have anyone witness it.

The small black cloth rectangle with two yellow-outlined cutout boxes mocked him from sixty feet, six inches away. The exact distance between home plate and the pitcher’s mound, and the exact distance by which a pitcher could measure success or failure.

Sixty feet, six inches was all that stood between him and the end of his career if he couldn’t figure out how to get his fastball back.

Tucker picked up a ball and rubbed his calloused fingers over the stitches, following the red path around the circumference. His fingers hooked naturally, nails digging in behind the stitches in a perfect knuckleball hold.

But his time as a knuckleball pitcher was winding down.

He straightened his two bent fingers so they were in line with the red seams and tucked the ball into his glove, sucking in a breath through his nostrils.