by Sierra Dean
He kissed her.
What kind of amateur, asshat move was that? Now she’d started keeping her distance from him again, only talking to him as much as was necessary and polite for them to work side by side.
And what was worse, it was totally screwing up his game. Every time he’d gotten to the plate in the three weeks since Chicago, it was a fiasco. He’d build up for a fastball and then he’d think about her patient instruction and how she’d walked him through the physical mechanics of how to fix his pitch.
That’s when he’d lose it. The pitch would go wild, and he’d fall back to the knuckleballs. He was still doing okay, and the team was cutting him a lot of slack by assuming his dodgy performances were due to the year he’d taken off.
But the real reason he wasn’t playing up to his full potential was standing in the dugout, quietly watching as he got worse and worse. Sure, it was only three bad starts, and he’d managed to go into later innings in two of them, even pulling the wins, but it didn’t matter. He knew he could pitch better than what he was doing, and anything below his best was garbage.
Now he understood why for the longest time women were considered bad luck on boats. He’d tried to bring one onto his ship, and suddenly he couldn’t find north to save his life.
Considering he could shut out the noise of forty-two thousand fans and play in spite of their jeers, it was all the more fascinating that one woman’s silence was all it took to knock him on his proverbial ass.
After striking out the third batter in the bottom of the fifth, he walked slowly off the field while everyone else jogged, and without stopping went right through the dugout, down the stairs and into the clubhouse.
It was unclear how long he’d have, since an inning was only as short or long as the side made it, but he needed a minute to himself if he had any hope in hell of finishing the game with a W.
The fates were against him though because he reached the clubhouse and walked into Emmy carrying an armload of fresh towels. She was so surprised to see him she dropped half the stack on the floor.
“Tucker, what are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
“My job?”
That was a stretch. He’d become accustomed to Emmy’s habits, and she was in the practice of spending at least the first seven innings of each game in the dugout, preparing to handle major injuries. If she was already here in the fifth, it meant she was hiding.
From him.
“You don’t need to avoid me,” he said.
“I do.” She knelt in front of him to pick up the fallen towels.
With her down on the floor, Tucker was painfully aware of his dirty cleats right in front of her face and how bad he must smell, soaked in sweat. He wasn’t at his peak level of attractiveness right then.
“Why?”
“Because…” She hugged the thin white towels to her chest, and he was vaguely aware that towel service definitely wasn’t a job for a head athletic trainer. “It’s safer,” she admitted at last.
From the field, a loud, collective gasp drew her attention to one of the overhead television sets airing the game. It took less than a second for both of them to process what had happened. Chet Appleton had taken a nasty pitch directly to the neck and had fallen to the ground. Emmy dropped the towels and rushed past Tucker, up the stairs and onto the field. He was right on her heels, but the girl could move. In spite of being in the clubhouse when the injury occurred, she got to Chet at the same time as Jasper and Chuck, and was the first one bending over him when he rolled onto his back.
Tucker didn’t follow as far as the field, waiting for them in the dugout as was the general rule of thumb. Because of the distance he didn’t know what she was saying to Chet, but he watched as she touched the reddened skin of his neck delicately and asked him a series of questions. She said something to Chuck, who waved to the dugout.
They’d put in a pinch runner for Chet, which meant the hit was bad enough to take him out of the game. One of the rookies grabbed his helmet and jogged to the place on first base Chet had earned by taking the hit.
Emmy helped Chet to his feet and draped one of his long, gangly arms around her shoulder, walking him back towards the dugout. When they were within earshot, he heard Chet ask, “Did anyone get the plate on that truck?”
Emmy patted his back and smiled. “A truck? No, that was nothing but a big old bee. Stung you pretty good though, didn’t it?”
Chet winced. “’Cause I’m sweet like honey.”
“You sure are.” She eased him down the stairs, and the hometown crowd gave him a hero’s cheer as he exited the stadium. “Fans love honey too.”
“Fans love me ’cause I’m so pretty,” Chet added, and Emmy chuckled as the pair of them vanished into the clubhouse.
Tucker felt like a first-class scumbag, because his friend was hurt and all he could think about was how jealous he was of Chet making Emmy laugh.
Chapter Eighteen
Detroit at San Francisco, Record 35-29
Emmy was beginning to understand that living in San Francisco was very different from living in “Sunny” California. For starters, it was a rare occasion for her to see the sun, unless it peeked its face out briefly while she was at work—usually just long enough to burn off some of the fog.
Her morning started with a walk from her modest apartment in the Mission—the top floor of a renovated house—to a nearby coffee shop. Living in the Mission was a surprising move to those who knew San Francisco’s neighborhoods, but Emmy had only seen a good deal and a somewhat charming area.
The Mission was filled with hipster kids riding their fixed-wheel bikes while wearing thick coke-bottle glasses they didn’t need. There was a wide assortment of novelty restaurants like a mac-and-cheese bistro and a Chinese-Soul Food fusion diner.
She’d learned after her first month there she wasn’t in the right place, but she still wasn’t sure how long her stay in San Francisco would last, and she’d signed a yearlong lease on the apartment.
If things panned out, she’d pack up in the off-season and move to Berkeley. The commute would suck, but she’d come to love the small, charming houses and their overgrown yards, and how every street seemed to end in an amazing restaurant or handmade yarn store. Berkeley was definitely where she wanted to be.
The Mission was where she was.
She walked past a small grocery store with a brightly colored display of luchador masks, and took a left at the corner. A streetcar buzzed by her, the electrical lines overhead snapping and crackling in the damp morning air.
It was June, but Emmy wore a thick cable-knit sweater and didn’t regret it for a moment. That was the sneaky thing about San Fran—it was gorgeous in the most peculiar months. She’d worn her capris and T-shirts in April, and now spent most of her days in jeans and sweaters.
Coming from Chicago, Emmy had believed she was made of stronger stuff. They didn’t call it the Windy City for nothing, and when a cold gust came in off the lake, it was like living inside a cruel science experiment.
She was starting to appreciate that San Francisco was just a different iteration of the same experiment. The fog would creep in over the mountains and slither down through the streets, and the wind would come up from the Bay. There were days she didn’t see daylight and might have preferred to wear a winter jacket instead of a summer dress.
Strange place, the City by the Bay.
Emmy strolled up to her favorite coffee place and joined in the huge queue. There wasn’t a Starbucks in sight in the Mission, and she sort of liked that. Starbucks required no guesswork to her coffee, but there was no element of happy surprise either. She couldn’t sample something new every day and determine what she did and didn’t like.
This place, Philz, was different. They had about fifty roasts on the menu, and would grind the beans and hand pour the coffee made-to-order. She’d never known how many different milks and sweeteners existed. She almost felt guilty for liking her coffee bla
ck when someone else ordered a light roast with agave syrup and almond milk. It sounded so exotic.
It was probably disgusting, but it sounded amazing.
She pulled out her phone while the line slowly advanced and flicked through her work emails. A few questions from the management staff about Chet’s injury the night before, the standard stuff she got every morning in response to her nightly reports, an interview request from a women’s magazine—more fallout from Simon’s article—and an email from her father’s girlfriend, Melody.
What was Melody doing sending her an email?
It was one line, but the few words were ones that shouldn’t have been delivered by email.
Emmy, Vin had a heart attack. Chicago General.
Her father was in the hospital and his idiot girlfriend couldn’t be bothered to pick up the phone? That’s what happened when a septuagenarian dated someone younger than Emmy.
She backed out of line, stumbling into the person behind her and apologizing without even seeing them. Out in the street the fog was creeping down, turning the morning light an ashy-gray color. Emmy clutched the phone in her hand, not sure what to do next.
Her first thought was to call Simon, but it was still a little early in Chicago, and there’d been a late White Sox game the night before. For some stupid reason Emmy thought it would be rude to wake him if he’d been working into the wee hours. If she was going to fly home—of course she was going to fly home—she’d call him from the airport in Denver and have him meet her at O’Hare.
But what was she supposed to do here? She didn’t know anyone in San Francisco. She had nobody here to calm her down and tell her this was all going to be okay.
She tried calling Melody, but her father’s girlfriend didn’t pick up, either because of the time or because something terrible had happened to Vincent and Melody was afraid to answer Emmy’s call.
Emmy stared at her phone. She was standing on the sidewalk on 24th Street, and there was a BART station barely a hundred feet away. She should get on a train. She should go somewhere. Find Jasper and have him take her to the airport.
Instead she tabbed to the contact list on her phone and called Tucker Lloyd.
Twenty minutes later Tucker pulled up in front of the coffee shop. Emmy hadn’t moved except to sit down on the park bench outside and stare stupidly at the street. She’d thought once or twice about going to the train station but changed her mind when she realized she’d get lost in thought and end up God knew where.
She considered walking home since it was only five minutes away, but her feet refused to follow through on the notion. So she stayed at Philz, with no coffee, and stared at her phone, waiting for something to happen.
When Tucker pulled up, she didn’t react to the presence of his car. He parked illegally in front of the shop and climbed out, coming to crouch in front of her on the bench. She was still holding the phone in both hands, the screen showing his profile.
“Do you need anything from home?” he asked.
“No.”
“A change of clothes, some ID?”
Emmy shook her head. Because she traveled so often she had a fast-pass for security which she kept in her wallet. It might not be the most secure place, but it meant she never lost the small, laminated card. It also meant she could leave for Chicago without needing to stop at home first.
“I can buy anything I need when I get there,” she assured him. Emmy glanced back down at her phone, where the photo of Tucker smiling looked very different from the Tucker in front of her. The real Tucker seemed tired, and his brow furrowed in unmasked concern.
“Are you—?”
“Please, Tucker. I want to go.”
He helped her to her feet without further arguments or any helpful suggestions, and led her to the unlocked Prius. It was an unusual choice of car for a rich and famous athlete. Based on the stereotype, Emmy had assumed he’d be driving a Porsche.
She also must have voiced this out loud, because Tucker smiled faintly—the expression a distant cousin to his usual toothy grin—and opened her door for her.
“You’d have to be an idiot to drive a nice car in San Francisco, unless you plan on keeping it under lock and key and never taking it out. I’d prefer to have a car I can use, not a museum piece.”
He had a valid point. Emmy’s own Honda hadn’t exactly been a gem when she’d arrived in her new city, but it had taken only a few weeks before she accepted there was no hope in hell of her maintaining any semblance of a paint job.
Her rear and front bumpers were scuffed and mildly dented from ill-judged parallel-parking attempts—and every attempt made at a ninety-degree incline was ill-judged. Her doors on both sides were dented from cyclists, and her side mirrors were scraped from people passing too close to her on the narrow streets. At first she’d thought she was doing something wrong, but after some investigation she discovered every car in the city had the same war wounds as hers.
Of course Tucker, a long-time resident, would know this about his own city. But it still surprised her he wasn’t flashier with his money.
“Very pragmatic,” she said, and her voice caught in her throat.
They drove in silence while she watched her phone, trying to will Melody to call her back. She’d even be grateful for a simple text at this point. Instead, the slim Samsung mocked her with its shiny black screen, and they continued their staring contest—she and the phone.
Their route to the airport took them by the Bay, over a stretch of road that was so surrounded by water it should have fallen in at some point, and the Felons Stadium sat near the pier like a red-bricked crown. It looked so different from the older buildings, too new and fresh to blend in. But the place was beautiful, and probably the single fanciest ballpark she’d ever set foot into.
And she was running away with no notice.
Solemnly, as Tucker took the airport exit and guided them away from the water, she called Chuck. She explained there was a family emergency and she would brief Jasper on anything he didn’t already know. When she hung up, she texted her assistant A.T. and said, Vince in hospital. Game on you. Call if you need me.
Tonight was the first of a four-game stretch against the Detroit Tigers, and Emmy was hoping to only miss one. Thinking about work was her way of coping with the scary reality of the situation. If she imagined herself missing a single game, that meant she’d get to Chicago and her dad would be fine.
If she made a contingency to be gone longer, she was opening herself up for the reality something could have gone really, really wrong. The notion of planning a funeral would rear its ugly head, along with settling hospital bills and sorting out her father’s estate. It was too much. Much too much to think about while in a car with someone who was barely even a friend.
But who could be so much more.
She still hadn’t called Simon.
Since she didn’t have a flight booked she didn’t know where they’d go, but Tucker pulled up in front of the Delta gate and stopped the car. “I checked flights before I came to get you. There’s a ticket reserved at the desk for a flight leaving in ninety minutes,” he told her.
Emmy wanted to cry. She’d been horrible to him, ignoring him, all because she couldn’t come to terms with what she felt for him. And here he was picking her up and driving her to the airport, taking care of her when she needed it. She didn’t know how to deal with his kindness right then because it just made her tired and sad.
“Thank you.”
Inside there was a long, twisting lineup to the ticket counter—not an unusual sight at SFX—and Emmy clenched her phone in her hands, nervously waiting for the people ahead of her to collect their boarding passes and move on.
When she got to the counter, she gave them her name and slid her ID across the counter.
“Will you be checking any bags?” the attendant asked.
“No.”
“And what about the gentleman traveling with you?”
That grabbed Emmy’s atten
tion away from her phone. “You must have the wrong booking. I’m traveling alone.”
“No,” came a strong, masculine voice from beside her. Tucker emerged from the crowd and stood by her side, handing the girl at the counter his own fast-pass. “I won’t be checking any baggage.”
Emmy stared at him, dumbfounded. “What are you doing?”
Tucker looked down, his mismatched eyes in sync when it came to gazing at her warmly. “I’m coming with you.”
Chapter Nineteen
Hospitals reminded Tucker of his surgery.
They smelled too clean, like the antiseptic was being overused to cover up all the nasty smells that made a hospital real. Blood and puke and shit. Those were the honest hospital smells.
Even Tucker had been keenly aware of his own awful scent when he’d been stuck in a bed after his surgery. Sitting with Emmy outside her father’s room, he was reminded of the ripe, unwashed fragrance.
He didn’t like it here.
Why had he volunteered to come with her?
She was staring at her hands, twisting the hem of her blue shirt between her fingers so often he was sure she’d worry a hole right through the cotton. On instinct he reached out and took one of her hands in his. For a second she hesitated, her hand going perfectly still, and then she yielded to the gesture and wove her fingers through his. The fidgeting stopped.
They hadn’t been allowed in while Vince was resting, and they were currently waiting for his attending physician to arrive so she could explain what was happening. Melody—a lithe twenty-something Emmy introduced as her father’s girlfriend—had run off at the first sight of them, claiming she’d be back with coffee.
Tucker weighed the options of what was best to say in a situation like this and came up blank. He’d lost his own father a few years earlier, but it hadn’t been a shock, and Tucker didn’t think talking about death was the smartest thing. He also didn’t want to be overly cheerful in case the doctor arrived with grim news.
Emmy letting him come along without sending him home at the airport was enough of a miracle, he didn’t want to screw things up any further. Why had she let him come? Was it the audacity of his gesture, and her mind being too occupied elsewhere to think of refusing him? Or was it that deep down Emmy really wanted him along?