Team Player

by Julianna Keyes

  “You coming?” Lewis asked, admiring himself in the mirror as he slipped a sparkly silver tie around his neck. Only Shawnee Lewis could wear a sparkly tie and look good doing it.

  “Going to The Rack?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “The Rack is where the racks are,” Ibanez said, strolling naked through the clubhouse.

  “You’re uninvited,” said Girardi.

  “I was talking about pool,” Ibanez retorted. “Where you rack the balls.”

  “You don’t even know what that means.”

  “Do too.”

  “Are you bickering again?”

  “Everyone bickers with Girardi,” Ibanez pointed out. “No one likes a guy who spends half his income on hair product.”

  “If you spent half your income on pants, we’d appreciate it,” Blanche called from his locker to a round of applause.

  Ty swapped his sweats for a suit. He kept a couple in his locker for nights like this, though lately he hadn’t had much occasion to use them.

  “Hey,” Reed said, stripping off his jersey as he approached his locker. “Good game.”

  “Yeah. You too.”

  Reed sat on the bench to pull off his cleats, hesitating as he rolled down the striped socks. He held the one Ty had given him in his hand, frowning.

  Ty glanced over. “If it smells, that’s all you.”

  Reed rolled his lips, then shook his head. “Nah, whatever. Thanks.” But he carefully folded the dirty sock and rested it on the bench while he tossed the rest of his dirty uniform into the laundry bin.

  “If you want a trophy, I’ll sign a ball,” Ty said. “Saving the sock is creepy.”

  Reed stood and pulled on a pair of boxers. “You superstitious?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Oh. Good. Me neither.”

  “Good.”

  “Great.”

  Movement at the door caught Ty’s eye, a blond head bobbing past, short ponytail bouncing. He knew he shouldn’t ask her if she was going to the bar tonight—definitely couldn’t ask if she wanted to go with him—but the adrenaline still pumping through his veins had his feet moving before his head could talk him out of it. He was barefoot in a four thousand dollar suit when he reached the doors and skidded to a halt.

  Strip looked up from where he was talking to Gwen, the familiar page of talking points clutched in his hand. He frowned when he saw Ty.

  “Where are your shoes?” he demanded.

  “Ah...”

  The sharp click of heels had them all turning to see Joanna Liu striding down the hall. After years of Thrashers coverage, she’d learned to find the manager, not wait for him to find her. “Where’s the interview, Strip? Dugout again?”

  “Yeah,” he said, crumpling the talking points in his hand and tossing it in the general direction of a garbage can it came nowhere close to hitting. “What do those say?” he asked Gwen.

  She stared forlornly at the paper on the floor. “Um, you’re not replacing Whitman, you’re rebuilding. Three wins is good momentum, the outfield played better tonight, the future is promising, you’re optimistic.”

  “Rebuilding, not replacing. Rebuilding, not replacing,” Strip repeated, striding down the hall in the direction of the dugout. “Rebuilding, not replacing...”

  For a second they stood alone in the hall, like shy high schoolers not sure how to say hello the morning after a first kiss. Then Gwen’s eyes, like Strip’s, drifted to Ty’s bare feet. “Where are your shoes?” she asked.

  Ty blushed and stuck his hands in his pockets, his palms damp. He didn’t know when he’d gotten shy about talking to women. He had plenty of practice talking to them, but far less experience actually getting to know them. “Oh, ah, in my locker,” he said finally. “We’re just getting ready to go out. Are you coming to The Rack again?”

  “No, we have a lot of work to do for the Toronto series—”

  “Gwen! What’s the delay?”

  They whirled to see Allison stalking down the hall toward them. Her dark hair trailed in the breeze, long sweater flowing behind her like a cape. She looked like an angry superhero.

  “What’s your favorite ice cream?” Gwen asked out the corner of her mouth.

  “What?”

  “Your favorite ice cream. Quick!”

  “Ah...vanilla.”

  Allison stopped two feet away. “Well?” she demanded.

  “Vanilla,” Gwen said.

  Allison frowned at Ty. “Really?”

  He tried to look like he understood. “Yes? No? Definitely?”

  She rolled her eyes but pulled a notepad from her back pocket and scribbled on it. “We’re saying bubblegum,” Allison muttered. “No kid’s going to get excited about Tyler Ashe vanilla ice cream.”

  “I like vanilla!” Ibanez protested as he emerged from the clubhouse in a cloud of cologne.

  Allison sneezed. “How much cologne did you use?” she demanded. “How many sprays?”

  Ibanez hesitated. “Like, four. Teen.”

  “Fourteen?” She sneezed again. “That’s thirteen too many. No—” Another sneeze. “Fourteen. Knock it off. People don’t need to smell you coming, and they definitely don’t want to smell you when you’re gone. Understood?”

  Ibanez pouted. “I understand.”

  “Good. Now go. I’m breaking out in hives.”

  Ty tried not to laugh as Ibanez fled down the hall.

  “And you,” Allison said, pointing a warning finger in his direction.

  “I’m not wearing cologne!”

  “Check your email. We have ice cream night on Thursday, and I needed your flavor three weeks ago.”

  “Why didn’t you just send someone to ask me?”

  “We did. Strip fired them all.”

  “Oh.”

  But Allison had already lost interest. “Anyway,” she said, jerking her chin at Gwen. “Let’s go. You need to order a hundred gallons of bubblegum ice cream.” She glared at Ty. “Put on some shoes, then go out and socialize. We need pictures.”

  She strode down the hall toward the elevators, practically dragging Gwen in her wake. Before they rounded the corner Gwen glanced back, shooting him an apologetic smile.

  Ty watched until she was out of sight.

  CHAPTER 7

  WELL, TY MAY HAVE KINDA sorta asked if she was going to The Rack last night, but he certainly hadn’t wasted time finding other company when she’d gotten stuck at work.

  The following afternoon, Gwen was at her new window-side cubicle, ignoring the field she had once been desperate to view, and scowling at her computer monitor. More specifically, scowling at the photos from last night’s team outing. Eager to counter the media’s claims that the team hadn’t gelled since its off-season roster changes, Allison was now capitalizing on their recent successes and had sent a photographer to The Rack to capture the camaraderie on camera. It was Gwen’s job to scroll through the two hundred and eighty-six photos and choose a handful to share on social media. The task was simple: make sure as many players as possible were represented and make sure they looked happy and team-like but not drunk. The problem was that there wasn’t a single photo in which Ty wasn’t posing with a beautiful clubgoer (or two or three or six), and it was hard to pick one that didn’t make her regret absolutely everything that had happened two nights earlier at that very same venue.

  Gwen dropped her head in her hands and massaged her sore temples. She knew she’d made a mistake kissing Tyler Ashe. Not only could she lose her job, she knew his reputation and falling for him would only result in serious heartache. There were some people who could have a one-night stand, shake hands and act like mature adults the next time they saw each other, but there were other people who had two glasses of champagne, made out with a celebrity, and considered burning his jersey when she saw him flirting with other women.

  “Ugh,” she groaned, forcing herself to squint at the chosen pictures again. The only person not featured was Ty, and it would be
weird if she didn’t include the Thrashers’ biggest star. She’d managed to narrow down the Ashe possibilities to five, but hated them all.

  “Another late night?” Brandon asked, propping himself on the edge of her desk and peering at the screen. Gwen, Brandon and Chad had nursed fierce headaches all day yesterday, and the shared misery had the unexpected side bonus of helping them bond.

  “No,” Gwen admitted. “Just having trouble choosing the last photo.”

  “Because Ashe is so dreamy you want them all?”

  “Ha ha.”

  Chad appeared over the cubicle wall. He’d conceded his spot reluctantly, then agreed only to move to the opposite side of the divider so he still had prime access to the water cooler and any errant gossip.

  “Did someone say dreamy?” he asked.

  “We’re not talking about you,” Brandon said.

  “Whenever anyone in this building says ‘dreamy’ they’re talking about one guy, and one guy only,” Chad replied. “The guy who puts the Ashe in Thrashers.”

  Gwen pinched the bridge of her nose. The hangover was gone, but the headache was most definitely back. “I’m choosing this one,” she said, enlarging a photo of Ty posing with a gorgeous smiling woman. They beamed at the camera, so attractive it hurt.

  “Nah,” Brandon said, tapping one of the thumbnails. “Let’s see this one.”

  Gwen hesitated, then clicked the picture he indicated. It was a shot of Ty and a set of twins in matching teal dresses that barely covered their asses. Paired with Ty’s dark shirt, they were walking Thrashers colors, a fact Gwen should have noticed instead of zeroing in on the way Ty’s hand rested too low on one of the girl’s hips. Brandon was right: from a professional standpoint, this was the best picture.

  “Thought so,” Brandon said, nodding his satisfaction. “They’re super hot.”

  “Plus this makes it look like the Thrashers still have two fans,” Chad added.

  Gwen dragged the photo to the small album she’d compiled and got to work on captions as her colleagues wandered off. As soon as they were gone, however, she put her head back in her hands and willed herself to get a grip. She’d taken this job simply because it was a job, and it made her feel close to Marge. She hadn’t been enjoying herself, but things had gotten a little better in the past week. Allison had given her tasks that didn’t include Twitter, she’d gotten to see the dugout, socialized with her coworkers, “socialized” a little too much with one. But no more. She wouldn’t sabotage what minor progress she’d made by getting her feelings bruised by ten fleeting, ill-advised minutes with a player. Going forward, she wouldn’t think about Tyler Ashe at all. As much as was possible in a city with his six-pack splashed all over billboards, in a building with fifty foot posters of his face, and a job that involved non-stop reminders of him, she would forget him completely.

  “Excuse me, I’m looking for Gwen Scott?”

  Gwen peered around the edge of her cubicle to see a short man in khakis and a button-up shirt standing near the elevator, clutching a large manila envelope. Someone pointed vaguely toward the windows and the man started forward.

  Frowning, Gwen rose to meet him.

  “Gwen Scott?” he confirmed.

  “That’s me.”

  “Then this is for you. Please review and sign. I’ll come back tomorrow to collect it. Have a nice day.”

  He was gone before she could formulate a question, and she slipped back into her cubicle before her coworkers could pose their own. The man hadn’t been in uniform and there was no return address on the envelope. She wrinkled her forehead as she pulled out two legal-size pieces of paper and started to read. After a second, her jaw dropped. And ten seconds after that, she was on her feet, stalking to the elevator.

  Forget about forgetting Tyler Ashe.

  She was going to kill him.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, Gwen was storming the halls of the clubhouse level with a nondisclosure agreement clenched in her fist and so much rage steam had to be whistling out of her ears.

  Most of the players had arrived at the field for that evening’s game, but despite the fact that Ty’s face could be found on nearly every available surface, now that Gwen wanted to see it, she couldn’t find him. Though her business down here wasn’t exactly professional, fury and indignation had provided enough fuel to have her peeking into the gym, two of the physio rooms, the video room, and even the clubhouse. The only benefit of being hand-delivered a sexual nondisclosure agreement from a pompous asshole with whom she’d been fortunate to not have sex, was that it made her forget that she’d been briefly—barely—jealous. Now she was irate.

  “Hey,” Ty said, strolling down the tunnel from the direction of the field, glove in hand. He wore shorts and a Thrashers tee, a dark vee of sweat on his chest. “What brings you—” His smile faltered and the question trailed off when he saw her stormy expression. He held up his hands defensively. “Don’t be mad. I emailed Allison my baby picture on time—it’s not my fault if she doesn’t like it. It’s the only one I could find.”

  Gwen gritted her teeth. It would be impossible for her to care less about the Babies & Baseball promotion right now. “Is there somewhere we could talk?”

  The guards flanking the clubhouse doors were openly listening and she couldn’t very well say what she was about to say with an audience.

  “Okay...” Ty glanced at the paper balled in her hand. “Are those talking points? Because I haven’t said any—”

  “Privately?”

  Ty peered at the guards, who were now studying their feet, then looked back at Gwen, his expression puzzled. “There’s probably a room free somewhere.” To the guards he added, “If no one ever sees me again, report this woman.”

  Gwen didn’t crack a smile and Ty looked appropriately wary as he started down the hall. She followed at a short distance, pausing as he opened doors, found the rooms occupied, and retreated. Eventually he came to a janitorial closet, not much bigger than a shower stall and lined on three sides with sagging wooden shelves hosting various cleaning supplies. He gestured her inside. A bare bulb hung overhead and he pulled the string to turn it on, making them both wince at the bright light.

  “Is it about the ice cream thing?” Ty guessed. “Because I’ll swear on my life that I love bubblegum—”

  Gwen thrust the papers into his chest. “What is the matter with you?” she demanded.

  He blinked. “What? I—”

  “How dare you send someone to my office with these—these—these humiliating, debasing, disgusting papers, and ask me to sign?” She managed to imbue each word with an increased sense of righteous hostility. “Do you really think you’re so special I would risk my job to gossip about you? Is your ego so massive that you—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Ty held up a hand to silence her and uncrumpled the pages. His brows narrowed in confusion as he read, then his mouth dropped open in a way that looked annoyingly sincere. “Oh no,” he said.

  “Oh no indeed,” Gwen bit out.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think they knew who you were—”

  “Why would that matter? Nothing happened!”

  “I know, I told them. I mean, I thought they were talking about the blonde from by the bar and so—”

  Her brows flew up, and even though he looked quite genuinely panicked, she was too upset to care. “So they picked the wrong blonde? How nice for you to have options!”

  “No! Nothing happened with her—with you—with anyone. I just—my agent has this thing—they follow me to make sure no one, well, if I meet somebody and—”

  “I know what it is, Ty. I read it. Both offensive pages.” Gwen had never actually punched anybody in her life and wasn’t about to start with one of the sports world’s biggest stars, but she couldn’t seem to unclench her fists.

  “All right,” he tried, raking his fingers through his damp hair. “Then I’m really sorry, Gwen. I’ll tell them again that nothing happened, and they’ll leave you alone. It’s jus
t been awhile and I forgot about—”

  “I don’t care about your excuses,” she interrupted, cheeks burning. “That is a legal document asking a woman to keep the privilege of your company a secret. Instead of worrying about the character of the women you’re ‘meeting,’ perhaps you should give some thought to the character of the person who requires this type of paperwork in the first place.”

  “I’m truly—”

  Gwen snatched back the pages and tore them in half, then in half again. “I’m not signing these,” she informed him, in case it wasn’t incredibly obvious. “And I don’t have the audacity to ask you to sign something.”

  Ty sighed. “I—”

  “But I would appreciate it if you never told anyone about what happened that night.”

  “I won’t—”

  His protests and apologies fell on furiously deaf ears.

  “Because,” Gwen continued, vibrating with rage, “you have to know that no matter what year it is, your reputation is not the one that’s ruined by these type of rumors. There’s no situation in which you actually pay the price for your own actions.” Though she’d been on the fence about her job since the day she started, the uncontrollable trembling in her limbs suggested that at some point she had started to care, more than she knew.

  Ty rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, looking beaten. “I get it. Jesus. It won’t happen again.”

  “Obviously,” she snapped, then stalked out of the room. She made it all the way to the elevator before she burst into tears.

  CHAPTER 8

  THEY LOST. IT WAS A shitty topper to an all-round shitty day. It was almost eleven o’clock at night and Ty was in the showers, letting the hot water pound his achy shoulders. More than six hours had passed since Gwen had reamed him out in the janitor’s closet and her words were still clanging around his brain. She was right, he knew. The nondisclosure agreement was tacky. But he wasn’t the only professional athlete who had one, and he was the one who’d given up his six-figure bonus to stop an enterprising young woman from shopping a secret sex tape to any porn site willing to make an offer. He’d been young, new to fame, and he trusted his management team. They handled the nondisclosures, he lived his life how he wanted, and no one screwed him over. The plan was working. At least, it used to be.