Team Player

by Julianna Keyes

  His heart clenched. “Gwen—”

  She strode out and the door slammed closed behind her with a definitive bang, confirming that things could, in fact, get worse.

  CHAPTER 21

  JUST AS QUICKLY AS the story of the rumored affair had surfaced, it was smothered by what remained of the Thrashers’ public relations team. And just as quickly as Gwen’s world had been upended by Marge’s death last year, it was turned upside down again. Only now she couldn’t use the Thrashers to escape her heartbreak; they were the cause. And she couldn’t bury herself in the busy work of selling a house, because she’d moved in less than a year ago and she liked her house, even if she was still being badgered about her poor gardening skills and the definitely-dead rosebushes marring her front lawn.

  But even though she now had nothing but time on her hands, she felt no motivation whatsoever to go outside and dig in the dirt. Being fired from a job so intense and demanding was like hopping off a speeding treadmill and feeling your legs spin out from under you, the limbs unable to comprehend that the workout was over. Her brain still raced, her fingers automatically typed updates, she instinctively knew when it was seven o’clock and a game was scheduled to begin.

  And even if every cell of her body wasn’t in sync with the Thrashers clock, the team’s bounce back after the Rays’ beating meant they were the talk of the town, every newspaper, every website, every television station, every radio program. Thrashers. Thrashers. Thrashers. It was like being haunted, except worse, because her ghost was on billboards and magazines and television commercials and he followed her everywhere, even when her eyes were closed. Especially when her eyes were closed.

  The week and a half after her firing had been the longest of her life, but Gwen had done her best to keep busy. She painted the hallway. She bought a rug for the living room. She replaced all the bed sheets, then the pillows too, just for good measure. A new mirror for the bathroom, a coat hook for the entryway. And it was all for nothing, because no matter how desperately she didn’t want to think about the Thrashers, they’d been part of her life for too many years and her whole heart wanted to watch them play. So she broke down and turned on the television, and closed her eyes whenever the camera panned to Ty. He’d called her twice a day, every day, for that first week, and she’d let them all go to voice mail and deleted them without listening. She told herself she was happy he’d stopped calling. He, at least, still had a job to do.

  Besides. Their stupid fight and the humiliating meeting that ended with him being fined and her being fired was all the proof any sane person would need to know that ridiculous fantasies of a happily ever after were just that—ridiculous. Their worlds were too uneven to ever line up in any truly meaningful, believable, enduring way.

  And apparently the strategy had worked, because after stumbling badly against Tampa, the Thrashers had rebounded in spectacular fashion and won their next two series, with Ty posting his best stats of the season.

  Now, on September thirtieth, the final game of the regular season, the Thrashers were tied for the second Wild Card spot. Tampa had secured the first berth, and the Minnesota Twins and Thrashers were battling for second place. It was the third game of a three-game series, and they’d split it a game apiece. The winner advanced. The loser was done for the season.

  Gwen held her breath as she watched. The self-righteous part of her soul wanted to root for the Twins, but the Thrashers were in her blood, in her heart. Marge had imbued in her a love of the game, and somehow, in the past year, that game had helped her grieve. Any sports fan knew love and loss. Knew the delicate balance of hope and despair, the insane, addictive quality of showing up for game after game, season after season, knowing the odds were stacked against you but daring to believe anyway. And so Gwen knew that though her heart was in tatters now, it would mend. It always did.

  They played nine innings of shut-out baseball. Jae-Hwa Kim pitched eight and gave up just two hits. Blanche closed out the ninth, and they went to extra innings tied at zero. Strip sent Blanche back out for the tenth, and Gwen paced her living room, eight steps from side-to-side, her eyes on the television, until she crashed into her coffee table and bruised her shin. She slumped onto the couch, unable to blink when Blanche gave up a deep fly ball. The stadium was dead silent as Reed ran it down at the warning track, jumping high and snagging the ball before it went over the fence. The crowd went wild. Tie game, bottom ten.

  The Thrashers’ number nine hitter, Price, lined out to the third baseman for the first out. The crowd was on their feet as the lead-off hitter, Shawnee Lewis, approached the plate, their heartbreaking groans palpable when Lewis grounded out to first. The camera panned to Denzel Reed in the on-deck circle, head ducked as he and Ty spoke, hands covering their mouths, no doubt discussing the pitch selection. After their initial difficulties at the start of the season, they’d been a stellar two-three combo and the crowd’s cheers were deafening and hopeful. Gwen’s heart rattled so hard in her chest she could barely hear them.

  Reed surprised everyone and swung at the first pitch, sending it into the gap in right center and sliding into second well before the throw for a two-out double. The Thrashers players were going as wild as the crowd, leaning over the dugout fence and waving their hats as they screamed. Reed was grinning but Ty was stoic as he walked to the plate.

  The catcher went out to talk to the pitcher, and Ty adjusted his gloves while he waited. The camera stayed in close on his face, his blue eyes inscrutable, his mouth set, his concentration absolute. Gwen had asked him once how he could stand to be in the middle of the maelstrom, the cheers, the jeers, and he said he didn’t hear them when he played. He had a job to do, and he was paid well to do it. His first love was baseball. His second love was baseball. Period.

  The first pitch was outside, the second was low. The pitcher threw back to second and the crowd booed at the stall tactic as Reed dove back in safely. The third pitch was a slider that broke too late, hanging out over the center of the plate, and Ty was all over it, hitting it sharply into left field, between the shortstop and third baseman. The crack of the bat split the air, and with two outs, Reed was off on contact. The Thrashers players looked frozen in time, paused mid-celebration, their arms up, their mouths open, as Reed raced toward home. The throw to the plate from the left fielder was a good one, but Reed slid hard and swiped his hand across the edge of the plate a split second before the tag. When the umpire threw his hands out to the sides and shouted “Safe!” the stadium exploded.

  There were tears on Gwen’s face. Tears of happiness, sadness, a tsunami of pent-up emotion with no other outlet. The Thrashers players poured onto the field and Ty charged in to meet them, tossing his helmet in the air as they yanked off his jersey. Girardi dumped a vat of blue electrolyte drink over his head and blamed it on Escobar. Ibanez danced with Reed. Blanche and Kim hugged like they hadn’t seen each other in years.

  Gwen watched through blurry eyes, unable to look away, to turn the channel. Seeing them was like peeling off a bandage too slow, tearing at her skin, making it hurt. They were just a twenty-minute drive away, but now a part of her past. But not everything had to stay that way.

  THE MAGPIE WAS A DINGY sports bar that had reluctantly cleaned itself up just enough to lure in college students for Tuesday Trivia. Gwen hadn’t been to trivia night in over a year, hadn’t stepped foot through the bar’s heavy wooden door since last summer. Now, on the night of the American League Wild Card game, she stood on the sidewalk and tried to muster up the courage to walk into a bar alone. She prayed that her old friends were still inside, and that they’d be her friends again, and that if they weren’t there, that she’d have the nerve to sit at the bar alone and watch the ball game.

  She took a deep breath and pulled open the door, a blast of air conditioning and a wave of sound welcoming her. The Thrashers pre-game show played on four large screen televisions positioned around the room, and eager fans in jerseys and ball caps filled the booths and clustere
d around high top tables. For a second, Gwen thought she could do it. She could start over, again. But then the announcers mentioned Ty and his face splashed on the screen as they began to discuss how great he’d been playing. How sharp his focus was. How singular his intentions. And as it did every time, the sight of him cracked her heart, right down the middle, a new battle wound, raw and painful. He was the best mistake of her life and she didn’t know how to deal with it.

  Gwen wanted to run, wanted to get away from the whole miserable experience of falling in love with somebody you couldn’t avoid, and being forced to confront those feelings every single day. Edgy, aching memories threatened to overwhelm her and she froze by the door, waiting to see if the feelings would ebb. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t, and sometimes they rose up and loomed over her, menacing and mocking, wreaking havoc on her tender heart before slowly slipping away. It hurt, but progress was often painful.

  The announcers repeated his name over and over again, like they were trying to torture her. Gwen gripped the door, ready to flee. It was too soon for this. She knew it was important to pick up the pieces and get back on her feet, that she’d grieved for too long after Marge and not to make that mistake again, but maybe she’d start tomorrow. Today was one day too soon.

  “Gwen!” someone called.

  She blinked tears from her eyes and tugged, but the door was so fucking heavy, it had to be a fire hazard. It had to be illegal to make a door this heavy.

  “Gwen!”

  She heard her name more clearly the second time, still not sure she wasn’t imagining it, but she glanced over her shoulder, just in case.

  It was Liz, one of her friends from trivia night. And behind Liz was Tom, and behind him was Jodie, and they all looked pleasantly surprised to see her.

  “Did you come to watch the game?” Liz asked, pushing through the crowd and folding Gwen in a beer-scented hug before she could answer.

  Tom glanced around for a waiting date. “Are you meeting someone?”

  “Um, no,” Gwen said, then shook her head and tried again. “Yes. I mean, yes and no. I’m here for the game. I’m not meeting anybody. I was hoping...”

  “Where else would we be?” Jodie said, answering the unasked question. “Dollar wings and three dollar beers!”

  They led the way back to a booth where other friends waited, faces she’d thought were forgotten—or had forgotten her—but neither was true. Someone filled a glass with beer and passed her a sticky menu, and part of the wound she worried would never heal stitched itself back together, just a little bit. Moving on could do that.

  “What’ve you been up to?” someone asked. For a second, the room spun as recent history reared its ugly head. It was hard to believe that the thing that had upended her life had been barely a blip in the real world, that Tyler Ashe hooking up with an assistant meant nothing to anyone outside the organization, when it had meant so much to her. But no one here knew about that, and she wanted to keep it that way.

  “I bought a new house,” Gwen answered, sticking to the part of the truth that didn’t make her lower lip wobble. “I’ve been fixing it up. Making it feel like home. My garden is lacking, though, if anyone knows how to revive a dead rosebush.”

  There was laughter and questions about why she needed a rosebush, so she told them about the self-appointed beautification committee, and then someone else told a story, and somehow, just like that, she was moving on.

  IT WAS ONLY POSSIBLE to avoid Ty for so long when they were in a bar specifically designed to make watching the Thrashers unavoidable. Especially when it was a do-or-die game against their division rival, where every pitch, every play, every swing of the bat could change the outcome.

  They were tied at two in the eighth inning, until Tampa’s second baseman sent a ball high into the upper deck to give the Rays a one-run lead going into the ninth. Tension was high, and on television the Rays fans were on their feet as Ty walked to the plate. They booed and jeered him like it was the national pastime, and Gwen tried to ignore the dueling feelings of sympathy, righteous anger, and satisfaction that rose in her chest.

  But if Ty cared about the boos, his face betrayed none of it. The camera zoomed in to catch every detail as he adjusted his gloves, took a few practice swings, and stepped into the box. The first pitch was way inside and far too high. Ty turned, but there was no escaping the ball, which nailed him in the shoulder. The crowd in the bar grimaced as Ty flinched at the impact, took a few breaths, then tossed his bat toward the dugout and jogged to first. The Rays fans were torn between celebrating the hit and bemoaning the fact that the Thrashers now had their leadoff man onboard.

  Escobar followed with a fly ball to center that was caught easily, and not hit deep enough for Ty to tag up. On the first pitch of Girardi’s at bat, Ty stole second, sliding in headfirst just ahead of the tag. The Thrashers players went wild in the dugout as Ty got up and dusted himself off.

  Girardi hit a hard grounder up the third base line, but the third baseman made a stellar diving grab and threw across the diamond to get Girardi by half a step. Two outs.

  The air in the bar was thick with nerves and adrenaline, whispered prayers and incantations. The air in Tampa was full of applause and cheers, the fans on their feet to encourage their team to get one final out to win the game and end the Thrashers’ play-off dreams.

  Ibanez adjusted his helmet as he walked to the plate. His strut was still cocky, but his nerves showed, and before stepping into the batter’s box he glanced out at Ty, who gave him a barely perceptible nod of encouragement. Ibanez squared up and took the first pitch. It was a little high, but called for strike one. The second pitch was in the dirt, and Ty took a few extra steps toward third, but hustled back to two when the catcher smothered the ball. The next pitch was a hanging curve ball and Ibanez jumped on it. The screams in the stands abruptly cut off when he made contact, the fans turning as one to watch the ball sail toward the wall in left center. With two out, Ty took off for home, running like his life depended on it. Ibanez rounded first, eyes on the ball as he watched it hang up just a little too long, the center fielder and left fielder converging. The center fielder waved his arms frantically, calling off his teammate, then dove as the ball started to sink, catching it in the edge of the webbing of his glove as he hit the ground. He skidded, head jarring, but kept his glove up, the ball squeezed precariously at the end like a scoop of ice cream.

  No one breathed. No one moved.

  The ball stayed in the glove.

  Out number three.

  Tropicana Field exploded in applause and cheers as Rays fans celebrated. Ibanez stood on second, staring at the outfield in disbelief.

  The camera cut to Ty, helmet in his hand as he made his way back to the dugout. Strip waited for him at the top of the steps, patting him on the back, murmuring a few words. They turned as Ibanez finally came off the field, head hung, still too young to take the loss in stride.

  The atmosphere at The Magpie quickly turned somber, everyone’s hopes just as crushed as the players’. Gwen didn’t know how to feel. As a fan, she was devastated. As someone who’d recently been fired by the organization, she felt a bit smug. But as someone whose heart was still in pieces and whose ex was on television seven nights a week, she felt relieved. They said time healed all wounds, but so would not seeing Ty’s face every day.

  Someone turned up the volume as Joanna Liu approached Ty, the camera zoomed in so close the sweat at his temples was visible. The strain around his mouth, the sad lines around his eyes. The urge to reach out and touch him was so strong Gwen had to curl her fingers into the edge of her shorts to keep from extending a hand toward the screen and making a fool of herself.

  “Tough loss,” Joanna was saying, her expression equal parts empathetic and professional. “What do you make of tonight?”

  “It was a good game,” Ty said, nodding as though to convince himself it was real. “Great teams, amazing effort from everyone. We saw some clutch hitting,
smart base running, and phenomenal plays in the outfield. We wish them the best of luck going forward.”

  “It’s been an exciting season for the Thrashers,” Joanna added, adjusting her mic. “A lot of struggles at the beginning, then a truly spectacular turnaround. What do you attribute that to?”

  Ty pushed his damp hair out of his eyes. “Hard work,” he said. “Team work. All around. Everybody on the field, in the dugout, behind the scenes. Everyone in this organization worked their ass—ahem, butts—off to make this team succeed, and never lost hope. They don’t get the credit they deserve, but we’re grateful to them. And the fans, of course. The people who love this team, they provide the fuel we need to get out there every day and do what we do best.”

  “Thank you so much, Ty. You’ve been fantastic this season. What are you up to now that it’s over?”

  “I’ll probably do what I always do,” he said, with another nod, more conviction. “I’ll spend a few months in Miami, kick back, relax, and have some fun.”

  “Will you be watching the post-season?”

  “Of course I will. And I’ll be reading, too.” He pointed at the camera. “Join Reed’s Readers.”

  Joanna laughed. “Of course. Have a great off season, Ty.”

  “Thanks, Joanna. You too.”

  He gave a small smile, then slipped off camera out of sight, done for another year.

  THE HEADLINES THE NEXT morning were predictable. Thrashers Season Comes to Early End! Tampa Thumps Thrashers to Head to Division Series! Ninth Inning Surge Comes Up Short!

  Gwen scrolled through the results on her news feed, feeling decidedly more smug satisfaction than was healthy. Then she stopped, eyes widening as she read a different headline, one that was most definitely not predictable. Thrashers public relations woes blamed on PR manager’s hormonal shifts due to upcoming gender reassignment surgery!