“I didn’t know whether you would do that or not…” That proved to be the biggest mistake of all. He thought about it often in the next few days. The words had come out, but he hadn’t meant them. Just a few short days of knowing her had told him one thing. Maisy Gray was the most honest person he knew. She was not the kind of woman who would ever give herself to someone when she was with another man. He’d blown it.
A muffled scream rose from Maisy’s throat.
“Wait—” He stepped forward to explain.
“Good-bye, Sam!” Maisy barged past him toward the door.
He moved to follow her and forgot about his bad toe. He lost his balance and landed on his desk, scattering meeting notes, a protein bar, and a bottle of Whammo.
When he recovered, she was gone. Shit.
He lay back and stared up at the ceiling and once again ticked off all the reasons he was doing the right thing. The Turbos were hot. His boss was happy. The fans were thrilled. Tickets were already sold out for the next home game. And Maisy would find a good man who was worthy of her.
He still felt like shit.
Sam crawled off the desk, feeling like an old man. Tristan and Joanie peered through the doorway, darting nervous glances his way.
Sam scooped up the earrings, her dress, some sort of slip, and her pink shawl from his chair. He shoved all of it into Tristan’s arms.
“What do you want me to do with this?” asked Tristan.
“I don’t give a damn,” Sam said, limping back into his office. He slammed the door so hard the drywall rattled.
Hushed voices in the hallway told him that his staff had heard everything. He didn’t care half as much about them hearing Maisy’s brilliant tantrum as he did about the fact that she was gone. Damn.
For the rest of the day, he went through the motions of caring about the budget and advertising and ticket sales. But he was so tired even Whammo did nothing for him. Sam’s chest felt tight. He couldn’t breathe. Maisy had sucked everything out in her wake.
Sam couldn’t even find the energy to care about his Fitbit that showed zero for today’s activity count. Moving was pointless. Nothing mattered.
Even baseball felt…less. Just less.
Chapter Fifteen
“Another year, another bottle of Prozac,” joked Heather, walking into Maisy’s classroom with a woeful expression on her face. “That was the shortest summer ever.”
For Maisy, it had been the longest summer ever. Especially since the gala over a month ago. She stepped off the chair where she had been hanging a poster of Lin Manuel Miranda as Hamilton. “Admit it. You’re as excited for the school year to begin as I am.”
“Only because I have to get away from my kids! My god, Drake put a slug in Jacy’s bed last night. I can’t wait to get away from the little trolls.”
“Those little trolls are wonderful.”
“Easy for you to say…” Heather spied a vase filled with zinnias. “I don’t get it. School doesn’t start until next week and already you have flowers?”
Maisy picked up another poster and moved the chair. “Those are from our esteemed principal.”
“What? I didn’t get any. How come she likes you better?”
Maisy hopped on the chair and pulled a piece of tape from the roll around her wrist. She centered the poster. “She’s just happy about the donation of school supplies and donuts from Charlie Zumaeta.”
“Oh…that.” Heather groaned, plopping into the chair behind Maisy’s desk.
“Are you still mad at me?
Heather had been very vocal about the fact that Maisy had not spilled any juicy details from that weekend. “I am your best friend. If you can’t talk to me, who can you talk to?”
“I told you everything. There’s nothing more to say.” Maisy felt guilty for holding back. But what was she supposed to say? I had a fling that lasted six hours with a super-hot guy who was using me to advance his career. And I am not over it because I will never trust myself with a man again. And I really liked him.
“Hmmmm.” Heather’s hmmmms always lasted about ten seconds when she wasn’t buying it. “At least you could have brought that gorgeous dress home with you. How could you do that to me? Now, I have nothing to borrow for Lamar’s bowling party.”
Maisy finished hanging the poster and stepped off the chair. “The color was all wrong for you.”
Heather leafed through a new math textbook, pretending to study it. “Are you sure you’re all right with this whole visit from the Turbos when they deliver the check next week?”
“Why should it bother me?” Maisy asked, sitting on her desk.
Heather slammed the book shut. “Come on, Maisy. The Turbos are practically filming a commercial in our school. That has to bother you.”
“It’s just a few pictures of Zoom giving donuts and backpacks to the kids. They’re using it for social media and PR. No big deal.”
A week after her weekend in Indianapolis, she’d received a phone call from the Turbos director of marketing. Zoom wanted to present his ten-thousand-dollar check in person. Maisy found it ridiculous that a man who didn’t even know he was donating the money until the gala would suddenly make a big deal of his generosity. But Dr. Harding, the principal of Joy Elementary School, absolutely loved the idea. Eager to get this whole chapter over with, Maisy had said yes. For ten thousand dollars, she would handle seeing Zoom with his over-the-top personality. The only person in the organization she never wanted to set eyes on again was the general manager. And after the way she’d skewered him with the four-inch heels, he would stay far away for sure.
“So, this won’t be a problem for you?” Heather raised her hand. “Swear it to me on behalf of Queen B.”
“I swear on Queen Beyoncé that I am over the Turbos and over Kevin Halderman.” Maisy held up her hand and they did the single ladies’ flick off together.
Heather finished by pumping the air with her fist. “Thank God. I was worried he who must not be named was knocking on the door again.”
“Kevin? We can name him now, Heather. He only cares about two things. Baseball and Kevin. Seriously. Did you think I was still upset about him?”
“I didn’t think it, but I was worried.” Heather sighed and put her arm around Maisy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Maisy.”
“About Kevin?”
“No. About the other guy. Sam.”
Maisy pulled away. “What makes you think I’m upset about Sam?”
Heather pinched Maisy’s chin. “I’m your best friend. You don’t have to tell me. I know you.”
Maisy stubbornly pressed her lips together.
“I knew something was bothering you. It was a simple process of elimination.” She pointed to the textbook. “Like fourth-grade math. I factored one of two possibilities you weren’t talking about after that weekend and played it by you to see if the numbers added up. They didn’t. So, I went with the obvious.”
Maisy removed the roll of tape on her wrist. “It doesn’t always have to be about a guy, you know. For all you know, my car needs a new transmission or my horse threw a shoe.”
“Logic, girl. You would talk about both of those things. You talk about almost everything to me. The one subject you never want to talk about is your love life.”
Giving up, Maisy put her hands across her face and looked through her fingers. “Damn, you’re good.” Hopefully no one else had figured it out.
Heather pointed to her forehead. “That’s why I teach accelerated math.” She put her hands on her hips. “No pressure. I’m gonna give you time, but at some point, you have to confess. If you don’t, I’ll put my mama on you. She’ll find out what happened between you and this Ryan Gosling dude. And when she does, she’s gonna make him regret he ever hurt you.”
“I love you, Heather.” Maisy gave her a hug and blinked back the mois
ture that collected behind her eyes. She hadn’t cried yet and she wouldn’t now. Men weren’t worth it. “Maybe you should just put your little trolls on it. Jacy would pulverize the guy.”
When Heather left, Maisy slunk down in an undersized classroom chair and closed her eyes. The Turbos had won again last night. Four home runs and a shutout by the newest rookie pitcher had sealed the win. It had been more than a month since she had made her disastrous visit to the stadium. They were tied for first place in the AL Central Division.
If Heather’s logic made sense in other ways, she should be off the hook as the Turbos’ lucky charm. But thanks to the media and a few fervid fans, the credit for the turnaround was going to her. Maisy was feeling less and less like a lucky charm and more like a voodoo doll. Every time they won, she felt a stab of pain.
Less than a month. Then the season would be over — if they didn’t make the play-offs. Which unfortunately was a real possibility. This was the longest baseball season ever.
There’s still next year and the year after that, her evil twin warned her. What did it take to join the FBI’s Witness Protection Program? If she disappeared and changed her name, no one would bother her again.
Including Sam Hunter.
He had called once since that weekend. She’d been too mad to answer. He’d left no message. It infuriated her that he hadn’t said anything. At the very least, he could have apologized for misinterpreting her intentions that night. Or he could have asked her to call back.
Which she absolutely would not have done.
For the past few weeks, her mother had been looking at her with concern. Like Heather, Mom’s hypersensitive radar was detecting the fact that something was not right.
Maisy tried her best to gloss over everything. “Going to the game ended up being fine, Mom. And the gala was fun. You should have seen what they did with the centerpieces.” Maisy filled her mother in on all the details of the game and the dinner and said nothing about Sam. But they had talked about Kevin.
Last night, they’d sat on the porch swing and Maisy confessed to her mom that she had no idea what she’d seen in Kevin for all those years. “He’s only wrapped up in himself and he’s kind of dumb about everything that isn’t baseball. How could I have such bad taste in men?” What she’d wanted to add was that the blazing-hot affair she’d had with Sam showed an even bigger lapse in judgement.
Mom had finally admitted how she felt about Kevin. “He was rather self-absorbed.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“If you will remember, Margaret Mary, your father and I sat you down several times in high school and later when you moved to Indianapolis. We told you we were concerned that you were sacrificing too much for Kevin. You were both so young.”
“Youth wasn’t the culprit. Judgement was,” Maisy had said. “I can’t believe how weak I was.” And still am.
Mom had put her hand in Maisy’s and played with her fingers like she used to do when Maisy was a little girl. It was one of the ways she soothed Maisy when she was upset. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, honey. It’s not weak to fall in love. It’s weak to be too scared to love in the first place. And you, my daughter, are strong. You’ll be ready to love someday, whether you know it or not.”
That night, Maisy woke up to flickers of heat lightning and the rumbling of a late-summer storm gathering in the distance. As the wind picked up and the raindrops started to fall, she thought about how her attraction to Sam was like a momentary charge in the air. A few positive and negative ions that fed a fast-moving storm. It would be over soon.
She closed her window to the rain and wind that pelted the farmhouse and returned to bed, staring at the ceiling and counting the time between thunder and lightning, like she had when she was a kid. The distance between the two always determined if the storm was coming or going. She fell asleep before she figured it out.
***
Sam reviewed the monthly promotions budget for the fifth time. He couldn’t concentrate. It didn’t help that every five minutes someone popped through his office door to express their enthusiasm for the winning streak that was making the team the talk of Major League Baseball.
The Turbos had won five of their last seven games. Starting pitchers were throwing deep in their games and Kevin was doing so well he was in the running for the Cy Young Award. The heart of the lineup was batting a combined 3.45. Everyone was thrilled.
Sam was more measured. If the Turbos stayed even for the rest of the season, they could make it to the play-offs. But even if they didn’t, it had been a successful season. It could all end now and most people would be satisfied. Except him.
It didn’t make sense on paper. The team should have been blown out of the water in the Minnesota Twins series. They’d won all three games. The Seattle Mariners were at the top of the Western Division and should have beaten them handily. But the Turbos had won two out of three.
This was the time of year he would normally start dumping his better, higher-paid players to other teams for their play-off bid. Instead Fuzzy and his coaches were starting to scout players who might be willing to jump to the Turbos for the rest of the season. He was working on details of possible television network coverage in the postseason. It was surreal.
Of course, everyone except Sam, and maybe Fuzzy, who was as incredulous as he was, thought the reason for the Turbos’ success was all because of one woman who had christened the ballpark again.
Maisy Gray.
Zoom was heading out to “bestow” his money for school supplies on her students next week. After confronting Sam over the donation he hadn’t agreed to, Zoom had decided to make it a spectacle. Sam tried to dissuade him from including Maisy, but Zoom was determined to capitalize on her popularity. He had several people in the administrative offices coordinating with Donut King’s marketing department to film the event. The Indianapolis press was included. The event would highlight the Turbos’ community outreach campaign and give Donut King a boost as well.
Maisy was going to hate every minute of it.
Fuzzy poked his head in. “Hey, you got a minute?”
Sam pushed away the paperwork. “Sure.”
Fuzzy adjusted his hat and took a seat across from him. He leveled Sam with the speculative blue gaze that reminded Sam of his high school English teacher. “You’ve barely been down to the locker room. Not since before the Yankees series.”
Sam shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”
Fuzzy looked down his long nose at Sam and the cluttered desk. “No more than usual, I’d bet.”
“You’d be surprised,” Sam said. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? You’re lonely for my company?”
The older man paused. “Yes. And No.”
Sam sat back and crossed his arms in front of him. “Shoot.”
“I got a lot of weird stuff happening down there. It doesn’t sit easy with me.”
Sam tipped forward in his chair. A year ago, there had been an outfielder with an addiction to painkillers. The impact of his habit had rippled through the clubhouse, and the media had been unrelenting. “Do we have another drug problem? I can get our doctor—”
“No. no. That’s not the issue.” Fuzzy waved him off. “I’ll spare you the details and the headache. It’s a bunch of shit that isn’t something you need to hear about. I mean, if guys are into magic and good luck charms, who am I to judge?”
Sam ran a hand over his eyes. He was so tired of this superstitious crap. “I’m not sure I want to know then.”
“Good. But I’m feeling some friction and I need to know if there is something I should be dealing with.”
Sam was too tired to handle this today.
Fuzzy continued. “Kevin Halderman has been acting strange ever since that gala. The guy has always been vain and into himself. But he’s suddenly taking an interest in reading.”
&
nbsp; “Reading? Isn’t that a good thing? We want our players to be semi-literate.” It came off more sarcastic than Sam meant it to.
Fuzzy regarded Sam through narrowed eyes. “That would be beneficial. The weird thing is, he’s reading children’s books. I caught him reading Winnie the Pooh the other day!”
Sam couldn’t stop the grin that came to his face. Picturing Kevin reading Winnie the Pooh in the locker room was priceless comedy. “I’ll bet the guys are having fun with that one.”
“You have no idea…” Fuzzy joined him in a laugh that ended in a rough cough from Fuzzy. Thanks to Lorraine, he’d quit smoking years ago. He still had a smoker’s cough. When he finished, he grew serious. “Like I said, Kevin’s been acting strange ever since the gala. Gossip in the clubhouse is that all is not well with that model girlfriend he parades around town.”
Sam had a moment of regret for Alexa. She seemed like a nice woman. Way more insecure than he would have thought a supermodel would be.
“I’ve spent my career keeping track of more than just statistics and numbers like your sidekick, Tristan, measures. The mental well-being and the mood swings that affect my players’ performance are far more important to me than all that.” Fuzzy shifted to the edge of his chair. “I’m going to be honest with you, Sam. I track you, too.”
Crap. Sam rubbed his forehead absently. He’d never been in therapy or seen a psychologist, but a tiny wave of anxiety rolled over him as if he was being psychoanalyzed just the same.
“Young man, I saw you watching Ms. Gray at the gala.”
Sam shrugged. “I was keeping an eye out for her.”
“Of course you were. Like a wolf guarding his mate. Two things struck me that night. The odd way you and Maisy Gray reacted to each other and the way you let Zoom throw her to Kevin. She didn’t look happy about it. And neither did you. But you let it happen just the same.”
“I didn’t allow any—”
Fuzzy put a hand in the air. “You are avoiding the locker room for a reason. Kevin is acting like a sick puppy. And nobody’s heard from Ms. Gray since that night.”
Come Back to the Ballpark, Maisy Gray Page 19