Curveball (The Philadelphia Patriots)

by Sykes, V. K.

  God, he missed her, more than made sense given how brief their acquaintance was.

  Across the room, a heavy, blue door swung open and Dev meandered through in that sullen, brooding posture and gait so prevalent among teens of seemingly every age, sex and socioeconomic group. Dressed in slashed-up jeans and a black tank top, she looked in his general direction but her gaze seemed to be lost in space. But that was fairly typical—avoidance of eye contact when she was unhappy had been her thing for as long as Ryan could remember.

  She’d changed her hair since he saw her a few weeks ago, at least the color if not the cut. Where the front left side used to be electric blue, now it was a dark, angry-looking shade of reddish-purple. She had her collection of piercings in, multiple loops on both ears and one small ring on each eyebrow. One of the bargains she’d driven with Ryan was that he wouldn’t make her go to any school that outlawed piercings or tattoos. She didn’t have any of the latter—none that he could see, anyway—but he figured it was only a matter of time before she got into body art, too. He hated the metal, hated the whole look, but he figured she was a lot more likely to grow out of it if he kept his mouth shut rather than riding her about it.

  Ryan met her halfway across the room, sweeping her into his arms and hugging her tight. She was like a flower in his grasp, so thin and delicate—delicate compared to him, anyway. But despite her stick-like five-six frame, Devon was toned and tough. She’d always worked out hard in their home gym, and she’d obviously kept her training up at Edenwood. Lately, when he saw her—and she seemed to grow an inch every time—he couldn’t help thinking about Rooney Mara in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

  “I’ve really missed you these past few weeks,” he murmured, still holding on tight. “More than ever.”

  Devon wedged an arm between their bodies and pushed a little until he broke the clench. “You look terrible,” she said, taking a step back. “Your eyes are red and your hair…”

  Ryan hadn’t bothered to look in a mirror for a while. He snorted and ran a hand back through his hair, as if that would do much good. “Give me break, honey. I just drove twenty hours straight to see you.”

  “Yeah, well, you shouldn’t drive like that,” she said sharply. “And you didn’t need to come at all. I told you that on the phone.”

  Yes, but he hadn’t really believed her. Now he did.

  “How about Starbucks?” he said, trying to ignore her stinging words. “It’s only ten minutes to that one we went to last time in White Plains.” Devon could never resist a caramel frappucino. “Or we could go straight to dinner.” He felt a shower of guilt wash over him. “I’m sorry I can’t stay very long. I need to get to Philly in time to rest up for the game tomorrow. It’s a big day for me.”

  “Coffee is fine.” She slung her lightweight camouflage jacket over her shoulders and led the way out of the dorm.

  The conversation on the short drive into White Plains was even more strained than usual, with Ryan not wanting to dive in with a bunch of unwelcome questions and Devon not offering any information about what was troubling her. When they reached the Starbucks outlet and got their drinks from the barista, Devon headed straight outside to a small patio. Ryan followed, though given the chilly end of March weather he thought she might freeze in her thin, worn jacket. He wasn’t exactly dressed warmly enough either, since it had been in the eighties when he left Florida. The breeze today was crisp, and the temperature was falling from what his car had said was sixty degrees.

  Ryan blew on his steaming cup of medium roast. “I’m going to look for an apartment in Philly as soon as I can.”

  Devon raised a brow. “You’re not going to get a house?”

  He shook his head. “It makes more sense to just rent an apartment for this season since I don’t know what’s going to happen after that. If the Patriots give me a new contract, we’ll go house-hunting together then.”

  “Whatever.” She sipped her calorie-laden concoction, focusing her eyes on the nearly-empty street as if she expected a parade to pass by anytime.

  “It would be great if you could get away and help me look for an apartment. It’s got to be someplace you’ll be happy with because you’ll be there all summer and some weekends, too.”

  Devon inhaled deeply then blew out a sigh that seemed far too large for her thin body. “Listen, Dad, I know you’re really trying, but there’s only one thing you can do that would make me happy.”

  Every muscle in Ryan’s body seemed to tense simultaneously. He was pretty sure he knew what was coming, but chose not to say anything.

  “Get me out of that stinking goddamn school,” she spat. “Like today. One more hour there is one too many.”

  Ryan grimaced. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked him to let her leave Edenwood, but her tone had definitely changed. Hardened.

  He wanted to chastise her for using such coarse language, but he figured now wasn’t the time for a fatherly scolding on the small stuff. From the look in her eyes, when Dev actually turned her head enough for him to really see them, he could tell she was a lot more serious now than she’d been the previous times she’d thrown out that bitter request.

  “Dev, you’ve got barely more than a couple of months left until the end of the school year. Besides, what other school would take you at this point in the year?” He was working hard to keep his voice even, not betraying the deep frustration he felt. In fact, Ryan wanted to ask her how she could even think about doing that to her father when he’d just been completely uprooted from his team and his life. But this wasn’t about him, was it?

  “I don’t care,” she snapped. “What does it matter? I can start over in the fall.”

  “And lose your whole year?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Like I said, I don’t care,” she said to the empty street. “I just want out of here, and to go back to public school where I don’t have to listen to these stupid packs of bitches, much less live with them. I was crazy to listen to you and Dr. Rose. I should never have let you deliver me to this asylum for spoiled little princesses.”

  Ryan had worried that Devon wouldn’t fit with the type of silver spoon crowd that mostly populated Edenwood, but the staff at the school had been so impressed by her marks and test scores—and maybe even her father’s celebrity—that they’d accepted her with enthusiasm. And he was sure that the strong recommendation from Dr. Juliet Rose, class of 1998, had played a major role, too.

  “You’re tough, Dev. You can’t let a few morons pull you down.” As much as Ryan’s heart ached for her, what he said was true. Running away from adversity invariably led to a loss of self-esteem.

  “You’re right, I’m tough,” she said in a thickening voice. “That’s why I’d rather leave than deal with them.” She blinked three or four times, punctuated by a sniffle. “Do you really want me to deal with them, Dad?”

  He knew what she meant, and it wasn’t about giving her enemies a stern talking-to. “No, I want you to go to the school authorities. We’ll go together. They’ll put a stop to whatever crap they’re pulling on you.”

  “No!” she snapped. “That would just make it a hundred times worse. Those girls think they can get away with anything, and they’re right. Mommy and Daddy will always make sure they do. I’d just end up looking stupid and weak and whiny.”

  Ryan closed his eyes and counted to ten, trying to rein in his anger and growing sense of despair. He wanted nothing more than to drag Devon in front of the Head of School and demand that action be taken to stop the bullies. But how could he do that with a daughter who would refuse to cooperate and would hate him for doing it?

  A helpless feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. He opened his eyes and took a long drink of coffee to give himself more time to think, but it tasted sour now.

  He could think of a dozen obvious reasons why it would be a terrible move to yank her out of school now. Plus, the timing couldn’t have been worse for him. He needed the kid to cut him a break.

&n
bsp; “Okay, Dev, then listen up. Either we go to the school authorities or you tough it out and take the crap from those girls for another two months. As for taking matters into your own hands, believe me, I know what you’re capable of. So, for God’s sake, don’t do it or those people will rain holy hell down on your head.” Ryan wanted her to stand up for herself, but Devon had gotten herself in trouble before at previous schools for physical retaliation to taunting.

  A tear trickled down her cheek, splitting his heart in two. “Then get me out of here,” she said in a choked voice. “It’s not working, and I’m freaking miserable.”

  Talk about a fucking rock and a hard place.

  When he could break it down coldly and analytically, Ryan thought he’d been a decent parent, especially given the hand he’d been dealt. But parenting Devon rarely lent itself to such dispassionate thinking. Most of the time, he felt like he was a failure to her, barely able to deal with the demands of his career while trying to somehow cope with raising a daughter on his own. The only thing he gave himself a measure of credit for was that he’d never once been tempted to give up on her, or himself. And he never would.

  But at the end of the day, she was a fourteen-year-old kid and it was his responsibility to make the right choices and decisions to guide her through to adulthood. Giving in to what she was begging him to do was tempting. Hell, he never wanted to deny Devon anything she asked for, especially because she didn’t ask for much. But both his head and his gut said that running away from Edenwood now would ultimately end up as another damaging setback for her. She might be happy now, but she’d look back on the decision in a few years with anger and regret at the opportunity the two of them had let slip away. Getting through Edenwood would not only be a character builder, it was virtually a guaranteed ticket to an Ivy League college for smart girls like his daughter.

  He reached across the table and, with as much gentleness as he could muster, turned her chin so she faced him. “Two months, Dev. Then we’ll see how you feel in June. I figure you’ll be glad by then that you won’t have to repeat your year.”

  Devon’s lower lip trembled and tears started to flow in earnest. “I can’t do it, Dad. Don’t try to make me.”

  “Yes, you can. You’ve got to, honey.” Ryan got up and tried to pull Devon up into his arms.

  “No!” She twisted out of his light grasp easily, grabbed her bag and headed for the street.

  A block down Main Street, Ryan caught up with her as Devon slowed her pace, possibly realizing that he’d never catch her with his bad knees. He grasped her by her thin shoulders. “Devon, come on. Be reasonable, honey.”

  She shook her head so hard her hair flew in all directions. “I’m done here, one way or the other.”

  His stomach coiled into a knot. “What does that mean?”

  Her tears had vanished, replaced by a hard look that came from someplace Ryan didn’t even recognize. “It means I won’t be here for long, Dad, so if you want to do something, you’d better do it quick.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  Fourteen years old and she’s giving me ultimatums. How did all this go so wrong?

  He didn’t answer right away, instead simply staring into her eyes as she implacably held his gaze. “I’m going to need some time to think,” he said, scrambling to find the right words. “Figure out a good solution.”

  Yeah, he’d need some time to think, all right, because right now Ryan felt like his tired and battered brain cells were about to go into full meltdown.

  16

  IN THE TOP of the sixth inning, the Patriots were down 1-0 to the Nationals after a misplayed grounder by Josh Gavin led to an unearned run off Nate Carter in the fourth. Taylor could only hope her guys weren’t about to perpetrate an April Fools’ Day joke on their rabidly loyal fans. She watched from the GM’s suite as the sold-out stadium rocked to blaring music and the incessant hum of alcohol-fueled excitement. There was nothing quite like opening day of the baseball season. Every team, even the biggest dog in the league, started out on equal terms with an unblemished record. Today, at least for a few hours, anything was possible.

  For the Philadelphia Patriots, losing their opener would particularly suck because nothing short of a World Series berth in October would satisfy fans that had grown used to winning since the beginning of what had come to be known as the Carter Era. The brilliant left-handed ace had kept them super-competitive even when the team had suffered through a couple of injury-plagued seasons. Now, with a Murderer’s Row hitting lineup to support Carter and the eleven other talented starters and relievers, pre-season prognosticators had tapped the Patriots to win over sixty percent of their games, even though that constituted an extremely high bar for any professional baseball team. As legendary Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda once said, no matter how spectacularly good a team is, it’s going to lose one-third of its games. Unlike football, there was never going to be an undefeated season in baseball.

  As usual, Taylor watched every play with rapt intensity, but when the Patriots were in the field, she had difficulty focusing on anything but Ryan Locke. It was the first time he’d played a regular season game at first base, so she’d expected him to be a little nervous. But not this nervous.

  All game long, Ryan had been practically jumping out of his skin as he paced and kicked dirt and hammered his fist into his glove like he wanted to kill it dead. For some players, that indicated nothing but the ferocity of free-flowing testosterone, but she’d seen enough of Ryan to know that his actions were as much about nerves as fiery competitiveness. Even a base hit to center field in the first inning hadn’t seemed to calm him down, and a strikeout in the fourth had made it worse. So far he’d fielded his position well enough, but then again he hadn’t faced a challenging play, either.

  She couldn’t help worrying about him. And wondering. What had happened over the weekend—most of which he’d apparently spent on the road coming north—to ramp him up like this? As a veteran, even the transition to a new position shouldn’t have made him so thoroughly wired.

  The last time she’d seen Ryan—and the only time she’d spoken to him since that fateful meeting in Sand Key Park—was following the final exhibition game on Friday. He’d made a monumentally bad throwing error that afternoon, and she figured he’d be beating himself up about it for days. Barely realizing she’d made her way downstairs, she’d found herself outside the Patriots clubhouse after the game, fretting over whether she should butt her nose in. When Ryan emerged, she’d sucked it up and tried to give his morale a little boost, nervously telling him that the error was no big deal and that the team was in fact pleased with his play so far. He’d been polite but coolly reserved during the short, tense meeting, so she wasn’t sure whether her words had done the slightest bit of good.

  When she’d asked him about his plans for the trip north, Ryan had told her he was driving up on Saturday and heading straight to New York to see his daughter before arriving in Philadelphia late Sunday evening. Taylor couldn’t help thinking that meeting had something to do with Ryan’s obviously agitated state.

  “Carter always struggles a little when the weather’s this frigid,” Dembinski said from his seat beside her.

  “Just about everybody does,” Rick Clark chimed in. “It’s colder than a hooker’s heart out there tonight.”

  Taylor winced at the turn of phrase, but there was no denying that this was another of those northern city opening days when coffee and hot chocolate might outsell beer in the stands. The temperature had been forty-two degrees at game time, and was no doubt quite a bit lower by now. She missed Florida already.

  “The last thing we can afford is to go two or three down with only twelve outs left,” Dembinski said. “We really need the damn double play.”

  After battling Carter for a walk to open the inning, the first batter had promptly stolen second on a wide throw from Nick Rome to second baseman Esteban Nunez. Carter, obviously bearing down hard after the error, had then struck o
ut the next batter for one out. Next, the fleet-footed Nationals shortstop hit a slow grounder straight up the middle and managed to beat out the second baseman’s throw, even though Ryan had stretched his long body as far as he could to receive the ball. With runners now on first and third with one out, the best way for the Patriots to get out of the inning would be a double play, as Dembinski had said. To that end, the Patriots’ shortstop and second baseman played deep, while Ryan and the third baseman had to play nearer to the bag to hold the two runners close.

  When the next batter hit a sharp ball almost straight down the first base line, Taylor gasped. But Ryan reacted by throwing his body toward the line, his big glove extended. Though he got his glove on the ball, the hard landing took its toll and he was a little slow getting back on his feet after the jarring impact with the infield dirt behind first base. Still, Taylor thought he should have time to throw out the lead runner at second to start the double play.

  But her heart fell to the floor when Ryan pumped his arm twice before letting go. And when the ball finally left his hand, it curved well to the right of second base, past the shortstop’s outstretched glove, skittering away into the outfield. The runner on third scored in a trot, and by the time the ball got back to the infield, there were Nationals on second and third with only one out.

  It was a disastrous error—a blown opportunity to get out of the inning.

  A chorus of boos cascaded down from the stands, every one of them aimed at Ryan Locke.

  * * *

  RYAN’S GUT TWISTED tight and his blood felt like it was boiling through his veins, from his cap all the way down to his cleats. But he refused to hang his head. He couldn’t blame the fans for booing him, but he’d quit baseball before he’d ever let his disgust with himself show on the field. Getting your ass kicked by fans was part of the game. Not the fun part, that was for sure, but everybody went through it—even the all-time greats. Instead of moping, he stared daggers into the Nationals’ clubhouse, focusing his rage on the enemy instead. There would be plenty of time for self-recrimination once the game was over, as well as worry over why he couldn’t throw a baseball straight anymore when it counted.