Team Player

by Julianna Keyes

A minute later they were seated on opposite sides of the manager’s cluttered desk, the possessed doll stowed safely in its box, Ty’s reluctant signature on the bottom of the page.

  “...best of the bunch,” Gwen was saying as she fished inside the large manila envelope Allison had given her. “It’s called Babies & Baseball, and all the players—”

  “Babies?” Ty interrupted.

  “Yeah. First they had Boys & Baseball, but we don’t want to discourage young girls from following their dreams, so we’re going with babies—”

  “Babies don’t even know they’re at a baseball game.”

  “You’re the baby,” Gwen said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She finally found what she was looking for and pulled out a sample picture of what would ultimately be blown up on the massive screens in the outfield. There was a stock photo of a baby in a baseball hat with the name Shawnee Lewis printed beneath it, next to Center fielder, his position.

  “We’re asking everyone to provide a baby picture,” Gwen explained, “and we’ll share them throughout the game. It’ll show kids it’s never too early to love baseball, and we can use it to promote Superstar Saturdays while we’re at it.” Superstar Saturdays were already a big hit, a morning where kids could run the bases and meet the players before Saturday home games.

  “Everyone else has signed off on this?”

  “You’re the only hold out.”

  “I haven’t even heard about it.”

  “That’s because you blocked Allison’s emails.”

  “I—”

  “And her phone calls.”

  “That’s—”

  “And you hide in the showers when she comes down to look for you.”

  “She knows all that?”

  “She knows everything.”

  Ty signed the release form. “I’ll try to find a picture. I don’t have a lot of stuff from...back then.”

  “I know.”

  Ty’s childhood wasn’t a secret. He’d lost his parents in a plane crash when he was seven, then entered the foster system. He’d gotten lucky and been placed with a couple of nice families, but it wasn’t until he was twelve that he’d started playing baseball again, fourteen when he’d started getting noticed, and fifteen when Connor had been placed with the same family. That’s when his life got rebooted and the world finally looked hopeful again.

  Gwen slipped the signed forms into the envelope and closed it. “Okay,” she said, sounding relieved. “Thanks.”

  She started to stand, and before he knew he was going to, Ty blurted out, “Did you know I’m sitting again today?”

  “I saw the lineup.”

  “Strip said it’s because I didn’t apologize enough.”

  She rolled her lips, and he suspected she was trying not to laugh. “Are you going to play tomorrow?”

  “If I behave.”

  “So fifty-fifty then.”

  Ty hid his smile. “I don’t know what they want from me. I said what you said to say. I apologized. I even retweeted Ibanez’s stupid picture of his homer.”

  “The first or second?”

  “Ha ha.”

  Now it was Gwen’s turn to not-smile as she stood. “Go to the bar,” she said.

  Ty blinked. “What?”

  “After the game. You didn’t go yesterday, and people are talking about it. Go out with the team. Smile for photos. People say you’re not winning because you haven’t gelled as a team yet. Show them you’re making an effort.”

  Ty gestured at the bobblehead demon. “I’m making a hell of an effort.” He waited for her to laugh, but she didn’t. Maybe he was a little rusty at this flirting thing. “See what I did there?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Never do it again.” But he was pretty sure he saw her mouth quirk.

  He smiled, feeling a bit more confident. “Are you going to the bar?”

  “No.”

  “You should,” he said, the closest he’d come to asking out a woman in eight months.

  Gwen had her hand on the door, like she knew this was a deal with the devil and she shouldn’t even be considering it. But she didn’t leave, like maybe she was curious too. “Why’s that?”

  “To support the team,” he lied. “And because if I have to go, so should you.”

  She lifted a brow, stern and pretty and not at all buying it. “Right.”

  “So, I’ll see you there,” he said.

  “Probably not,” she said, but this time she smiled.

  CHAPTER 5

  ALLISON WAS AT THE elevator when Gwen returned to the ninth floor. She stepped aside for her boss to get on, but this time Allison wasn’t waiting for the elevator, she was waiting for Gwen.

  “How’d it go?” Allison asked.

  Gwen passed her the bobblehead prototype and the envelope with the signed release.

  “Great. He signed off.” It was nice to feel like she’d done a good job at something, for once. Or maybe she was still feeling the aftershocks of a conversation with Tyler Ashe that may have been bordering on...flirtatious? She hadn’t flirted in so long she really couldn’t be sure of the signs.

  “Um,” Gwen said, when she got back to her desk and discovered that not only had Allison followed, but Chad and Brandon had come along as well. “What’s going on?”

  Allison propped a hip against the cubicle wall and fixed her with an appraising stare. “I didn’t know you knew Tyler Ashe.”

  Gwen blanched. “I don’t.”

  “He seemed to know you.”

  “He doesn’t,” she said too quickly. The idea that she might get in trouble for breaking the rule against fraternizing with players when she hadn’t fraternized with anybody in months was equal parts hilarious and tragic. “He was with Strip when I brought down the talking points last night, and I gave him some talking points, too. That’s all.” That really was all, but somehow her skin was tingling like there was more to it.

  Allison considered the words, and if Gwen looked close enough, she could almost see the wheels turning behind her boss’s eyes. Being sent down to be Strip’s whipping boy—girl—was bad enough. If Allison thought she was—

  “This is perfect,” Allison said.

  Gwen, Chad, and Brandon blinked in unison. “Huh?” one of them said. It might have been Gwen, but Brandon was also looking very confused, brow wrinkled beneath his backwards baseball hat. Chad had twisted his skinny tie around his skinny finger in anticipation of Gwen’s firing, and now looked like he was about to choke.

  Allison tapped her chin, the gesture made more alarming by the tip of her blood red nail matching her lipstick. “You can be our mole,” she decided.

  “What?” Chad said.

  “Her?” Brandon said.

  “No,” Gwen said.

  But Allison was nodding along in agreement with her own idea. Gwen had seen her do this before, thinking out loud, spinning a beautiful PR web of words, trapping them all in her gossamer threads. Gwen didn’t want to be trapped. She didn’t want to be a mole. She didn’t even know what the hell that meant.

  “We’ll give you a title,” Allison continued. “Public Relations & Promotions Liaison to the Manager. When you bring down the talking points, you can also pitch the promotional ideas. With the way the team’s playing, we’ll need more reasons than ever to convince people to come to the park.”

  “It’s just been a bad spring.”

  Allison arched a perfectly shaped brow. “Is that what your crystal ball tells you?”

  Brandon frowned. “Crystal balls look into the future, not the past.”

  “Shut up, Brandon.”

  Allison’s eyes were locked on Gwen. She knew she’d given Strip the crystal ball line. She knew everything. She always did.

  “You can write the talking points going forward,” she added. “You seem to know what to say.”

  Ironic, since words were eluding Gwen now. “I-I don’t—” she stammered.

  “And of course, to get the best perspe
ctive on the games, you’ll need a front row seat.”

  Gwen’s protest died on her tongue and her eyes flickered automatically to the window, too far from her desk to actually see the game being played below.

  “Switch desks with Chad. He’s only using the window to admire his reflection.”

  Chad opened his mouth to protest, but Allison’s look cut him off.

  “And maybe,” Allison continued, “if things work out, we can get you tickets to some of the away games, too. Do you like the Rays?”

  Gwen felt her heart tumble around her chest, then drop into her stomach. The last fraternizing she’d done had been with the hitting coach for the Tampa Bay Rays when they were in town last fall. Three drinks, two consenting adults, one night in his hotel room. But no one knew about that. Allison definitely couldn’t know about it. She barely knew Gwen was alive most of the time.

  “Sure,” she made herself say. “I like Tampa. I like everywhere.” Everywhere that wasn’t exactly where she was standing in that exact moment.

  “Good,” Allison said. “Then it’s settled. You’re the Thrashers’ newest Public Relations & Promotions Liaison to the Manager. Congratulations.” She started to leave, then stopped. “We’ll go over this in greater detail tonight at the bar. If you’re going to be part of this team, you’ll have to act like it.”

  THE RACK WAS A RECENTLY renovated high-end sports bar just five blocks from Lennox Field. It was dark and loud, with high ceilings and exposed duct work, and massive television screens displaying various games from around the country. The walls and furniture were glossy black, the light an iridescent blue, the drinks and food alarmingly overpriced. Gwen knew this because she’d spent approximately one minute inside before scurrying back out to the sidewalk and skulking there for the past fifteen minutes.

  The Rack had always been a sports bar, but it was only in the last few years that it had transformed itself into one of the city’s hot spots. Before then it was a dive, boasting cheap beer and wings and old arcade games, the perfect place for broke students to spend their last dollars. Gwen had spent too much money on those games in her college days, reliving some of her more pleasant childhood memories. Her old circle of friends had moved onto a new bar and new hobbies, and, lost in the grief of Marge’s death, Gwen had opted not to go with them, despite their frequent invites and inquiries.

  Now the people who came to The Rack were polished and gorgeous, arriving in imported cars and designer clothes, their hair and accessories perfectly styled. It was obvious to everyone that Gwen, in her skinny jeans and white Thrashers tee, did not belong there, even with the red heels and her best black blazer. She touched her ponytail self-consciously as a woman who could only be a supermodel smiled at the bouncers and strolled inside. Gwen had come straight from work and barely had time to reapply her lip gloss.

  “You’re blocking the way,” someone said behind her, knocking her out of her reverie.

  “Sorry.” She shifted to the side, strongly tempted to keep shifting until she was one block, then two blocks, then five blocks away, back in the Thrashers’ staff parking lot with her rusted little car, shifting gears until she was home.

  “I’m kidding.”

  She turned to see Ty standing there, dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, no tie. His hair was damp from a recent shower, and when he smiled he looked just like he did in his Swiss watch commercial. Even the people flowing into the bar, also gorgeous and rich, paused to gawk at him.

  “Oh,” Gwen said lamely. “Right.”

  “I thought you weren’t coming,” he remarked as he passed his car keys to a valet.

  “I was told to.”

  Ty’s mouth quirked. “Me too. We have so much in common.”

  Gwen laughed out loud at the thought, and Ty looked surprised, then amused. “Sorry,” she said, gesturing between them. The light glinted off the gold watch on his wrist, and that one item alone probably cost more than everything in her house. “It’s just... Right. Sorry.”

  Ty nodded toward the doors. “Are you going in?”

  “Allison will fire me if I don’t.”

  “You can just admit you were waiting for me.” The glint in his eye told her he was kidding, and Gwen scoffed, some of her anxiety ebbing.

  “Am I that obvious?”

  He smiled. “Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.”

  Ty pulled open the door and waved Gwen through, and for a moment she felt like a girl in a movie, being told she was a princess and ushered into a brand new world, where everyone and everything was perfect, and somehow they thought she was, too.

  The roar of half a dozen competing sports programs spilled out of the bar, along with the smells of alcohol, perfume, and sex. Gone were the wings and beer and arcade games. Gwen could spot a dozen Thrashers players in the crowd, easily outnumbered three-to-one by women and fans hoping to meet a player.

  Allison, Chad and Brandon sat in a booth along the far wall. The Thrashers had won again today, but the bottle of champagne sitting in a bucket of ice on the table seemed like overkill.

  “What are you drinking?” Ty shouted, touching her wrist as he shifted through the crowd toward the bar. The spark that traveled up her arm was probably only static electricity, but Gwen still checked her skin for a burn mark. Unfortunately, that hesitation was all it took—they’d made it no more than five steps before Ty was swarmed.

  Ibanez emerged from the throng, wearing a bright white suit and a blindingly pink shirt, two gold chains around his neck. “Look who showed up!” he crowed, slinging an arm over Ty’s shoulders. “It’s Tyler Ashe!”

  Cries and greetings rang out, and in a flash, Ty was absorbed into the crowd of beautiful people. The mob blocked the door but allowed an inconveniently clear path to the PR table, and when Brandon spotted her and waved her over, Gwen had no choice but to approach.

  “You made it,” Allison said, sliding across the leather seat so Gwen could sit beside her.

  “Yeah,” Gwen said. “Sorry I’m—”

  But Allison was looking past her, to some vague space in the crowd where Ty probably stood. “Did you come together?”

  Gwen tried to stifle her panic, wondering how she kept finding herself in this situation. She didn’t know Tyler Ashe. Did she? “No,” she said. “We just walked up at the same—”

  Brandon was laughing. “That was a joke. We know you didn’t come with Ashe. He doesn’t come with anybody.”

  “Leaving, however, is a different story,” Chad said, sipping his drink and smirking.

  Gwen kept her expression neutral, but she knew what they were talking about. Ty and his best friend, Connor Whitman, had a well-known stance on relationships: nothing came before baseball. They dated, sure; there were very few weeks in which a tabloid didn’t blast photos of Ty with a model or an actress or a singer or designer or obscenely pretty girl. But as far as Gwen was aware, none of those women appeared in photos for more than a month or two, though they all seemed perfectly content with the arrangement. There’d even been an article years earlier, during Ty’s second season in the majors, where a one-night stand shared details of their encounter with a sleazy tabloid. The article had boasted the not-so-witty title Smashed by Tyler Ashe—The Best Sex of My Life!

  Rumor had it there was video to go with the story, but Ty’s team had intervened and managed to keep it private. People were disappointed, but it hadn’t harmed the publication: the issue was one of the best-selling magazines of the year. Gwen wasn’t proud of herself, but she’d read the article. Twice.

  She cleared her throat. “What’s the champagne for?”

  “We’re celebrating,” Allison replied, gesturing for Chad to start pouring. “To the mole!”

  “To the mole!” Chad and Brandon echoed.

  They all clinked glasses, and Gwen half-heartedly tapped hers against the others. She didn’t want to be the mole. She didn’t know what she wanted to do exactly, but it wasn’t that.

  “Al
l right, enough fun,” Allison said. “Now for your first mission.”

  Gwen glanced around. She had missed the fun entirely. In fact, she couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d had fun since Marge died. She’d lost touch with her friends, felt the crushing disappointment of the Thrashers’ World Series loss, and spent the winter on the ninth floor, being ignored by—and, if she was being honest, ignoring—her coworkers. Tonight was the first time in months she’d gone out for drinks, and even that was because she’d been equal parts threatened and bribed. She hadn’t “fraternized” since October, and that was just one night. She was, she admitted, as she looked around the crowded bar, lonely. The kind of loneliness that only intensified when you weren’t alone at all.

  She picked up her champagne and downed it. The bubbles stung her nose and made her eyes water, but made her feel marginally better, and Chad actually smiled at her as he refilled the glass. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” he whispered.

  Gwen shot him a watery smile in return, and took a careful mouthful. Maybe this was what her life had been missing. Alcohol.

  A loud burst of laughter exploded from the far side of the bar, and she turned toward the sound. It was hard to see in the dim lighting, but it looked like Ty and a couple of other Thrashers players were holding court for most of the bar’s population. Even with the low lights and the neon glow of Ibanez’s shirt, it was still impossible not to see Ty. He was smiling at something, his teeth flashing white, a gorgeous blonde hanging on his arm. He looked happy and in his element.

  At least the “go to the bar” order had helped someone.

  “Back to business,” Allison said, rapping her knuckles on the tabletop. “We have to start preparing for the Thrashers Dream Auction. As always, we’re going to include personalized baskets, one for each player, and put them up for bidding. Your job is to get input from the players about which items they’d like to include. We’re starting early, because it’s going to take months to get answers from some of these guys. Last year we got generic crap like a signed ball and a bag of popcorn. We want insight. We want thoughtful. We want heart. And we need it more than ever, if this season keeps going the way it is. So make some friends and figure out what they want to include. And not some lazy half-assed items they can buy in the team store. Things they really, really want.”