“Hey, don’t you dare!”
I swat Walker’s hand away, knowing he’s about to dive straight for my sweet potato fries.
“Oh, come on, just a few.” He gives me the puppy dog eyes that he’s been using as a tactic since he was seven.
Shaking my head, I pop one in ketchup and put it in my mouth. “I don’t know why you don’t just get your own order. You know how sacred fries are to me.”
“Fries don’t taste as good when they come from your own plate. Same as salads you make in your kitchen, or ice cream scooped by your own hand. It’s always better when someone else makes it, or if you’re taking it off someone’s plate. Everyone knows that.”
I tilt my head to the side, considering this. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. I tried to make pizza at home the other night, it was so mediocre that I didn’t even finish it. Imagine that, not finishing pizza? It’s just not as good as having it delivered.”
“See? So you have to give me some fries. It’s the rule,” my cousin points out.
My eyes roll as I pluck three off my plate and put them on his tray. As if he needs more food on there. We’re sitting in the player’s only dining room, having lunch together in the middle of my workday and his practices, and Walker has basically taken every single item off the buffet that was prepared today. I only eat in here when I’m with him, most days I pick at a salad or sandwich while elbow-deep in emails or contracts. But he convinced me to come down here, if for nothing more than to watch him stuff his face with every available cuisine they stock at this stadium.
“How was practice?” I ask.
“We don’t talk shop, remember? That’s also a rule.” Walker levels me with a stare that says I should know better.
He’s right, we have set that boundary before. Not just because he’s a player and I’m the general manager now, since he wants to keep what happens within the team confidential from me. I respect that space and trust he gives to his teammates. But we’ve decided not to discuss our jobs because then it would be all we talked about.
Since we both technically work for the family business, it’s easy to get swept up in it. But Walker and I have been tight since we were babies, and we’re an outlet for each other. He’s my best friend, the brother I never had. When we were in elementary school, Walker was the one who would punch bullies for me, and I’d let him cheat off my spelling homework. Later on in life, Walker was the one I’d cry to when my mom walked out on us right before my freshman year of high school. I was the one who drove him to and from physical therapy appointments when he fractured his wrist our senior year. We’d decided to attend the same university, and he was one of the only reasons I ever left my dorm room.
I don’t have many people I am truly close to, even though I have a huge extended family. But I have Walker.
“Hey, have you seen Hannah Giraldi lately?” he asks, his eyes becoming hooded with concern.
My heart thumps with panic. “Actually, yes. Why do you ask?”
Walker looks around, almost as if to make sure no one is within earshot. “I witnessed something the other night. I can’t be sure but … no, I’m sure. I’m pretty certain I walked up on her and Shane having a knockdown, drag out fight in the parking lot. And I’m pretty sure he shoved her into the side of their car.”
Bile rises in my throat, and that gut instinct you know to rely on as a human kicks in. “You’re sure?”
I don’t mean to question Walker, but as a general manager, I can’t just go around gossiping about my players. Especially, if it’s something as serious as this.
His eyes, the same shade of brown as mine, flame with fury. “Yeah, I’m sure. He shoved her, Col, like a rag doll. Then took off, leaving her in the parking lot. I helped her up off the pavement. She was shaking like a leaf, but kept blaming the argument on herself. Kept repeating over and over again ‘please, don’t tell anyone about this.’ I could kill him with my bare hands. Watching a man do that to a woman, especially one as gentle as Hannah …”
He trails off. He’s known Shane a long time, I have too. Damn, we were both guests at Shane and Hannah’s wedding six years ago. It makes me want to cry, or hurl up my lunch, just thinking about that bruise on her wrist.
“I’ll … I’ll try to look into it. Discreetly. You can’t act on this, Walker. We don’t know what’s going on, you can’t be sure of what you saw—”
“I know what I saw, Colleen,” he says sharply.
There haven’t been many times in our lives that we’ve argued, but I can see he’s raring to go about this.
I lay my hand over his. “I know, I know. I’m going to try to do what I can. But we can’t … you can’t just come out swinging. It could make things worse for Hannah, and those are serious accusations to bring against someone. We have to do our homework.”
“While she just takes abuse?” Walker is smoldering, I can feel the temper coming off him in waves.
“If it isn’t my two favorite people.” A smoky, low voice comes from across the dining room.
Our heads turn in unison, the seriousness of the moment lifted as soon as I see Sinclair walking toward us.
The tension dissipates, and I hope Walker heard my plea to hold off on acting hastily, but he smiles when he sees his brother.
Walker pretends to check a nonexistent watch on his wrist. “Wait a minute, Col, it’s before three p.m. Surely that can’t be my brother walking around the land of the living?”
Sinclair gives a sarcastic chuckle as he pulls out a chair, joining our table without being invited. “Your humor is on par, per usual, big bro.”
I try to swat my other cousin’s hand off my plate, but Sinclair grabs a handful of fries and shoves them in his mouth.
“How did you even get in here?” I scowl, annoyed at my stolen lunch.
“Good to see you, too, cuz.” He blows me a kiss. “I still have my ID badge from when I worked here as an intern. Dad apparently hasn’t revoked the access.”
“Maybe he’s thinking you’ll man up and get a real job.” Walker narrows his eyes.
It’s no secret that Sinclair is the slacker of the family. The black sheep, the party boy. He is partly the reason that the Callahan family is regarded as a bunch of rich snobs. Well, at least before my dad went to prison. But Sinclair is the typical trust-fund baby if I’ve ever seen one. While the rest of my cousins, aunts, uncles, and all the other various Callahans have real jobs, whether it’s working for the family business or otherwise, Sinclair does … nothing.
If you consider partying, drinking, and getting into trouble with the tabloids something, then I guess he does something. But after a failed string of jobs, both inside the baseball team and from connections my uncle Daniel has, Walker’s younger brother is a total slacker. Most days, Sinclair doesn’t wake until five p.m., and then immediately starts his night of drinking and debauchery. He throws massive parties almost nightly at the enormous house he bought with some of his trust money, and Walker seems to think he’s getting involved in some shady crowd that could be involved with drugs.
For a twenty-six-year-old man, he lives like he’s an eighteen-year-old getting their hands on their first taste of freedom.
“Fat chance. You guys want to come to the party I’m throwing tonight?” he offers.
I snort. “Fat chance.”
Sinclair tilts his head. “Yeah, the last time I saw you at one of my parties was … well, I don’t think ever. It could be good for you, Col. You look like you could use a stiff drink and a stiff—”
“Okay, enough.” Walker smacks his brother upside the head.
I keep my mouth shut, but why is everyone all of a sudden pointing out how much my sex life needs to improve?
15
Colleen
It’s unusual for me to sit down in the lower levels, even at a Pistons’ home game.
But tonight is a special ceremony for one of our retiring coaches, a pitching coach named Stan who has contributed his life to the sport of baseball, and I felt it nec
essary to honor him by sitting right by the away dugout at our game tonight.
We’re in Houston, playing a divisional three-game series, and the crowd is jovial. It’s a scorching Saturday afternoon, and Hayes is standing a little bit aways near second base.
He’s protected his position all afternoon, making play after play and saving the pitcher some major embarrassment. The guy on the mound was someone Grude had called up from the minors, and his rookie jitters are clearly visible.
But Hayes, who despite his refusal to be a leader on this team is one by default anyway, has backed him up and essentially is carrying the team on his back today.
Watching Hayes play baseball is like watching a virtuoso pianist. Where the musician’s fingers fly over the keys, his brain seeming to work faster than his body can make sound come out of the instrument, so does Hayes mesmerize when he’s out on that field. You can tell that this man was made to play this sport. Everything he does is so fluid, from the way his eyes track to the ball, to his seamless throwing motion, to the way he can calculate the exact timing of pitches soaring toward his bat when he’s up at home plate.
I find myself getting lost in those muscular thighs bending to field a grounder, in the way his jersey clings to his biceps as sweat trickles down the ropey muscles of his neck. I’m parched, and I keep fanning my face. Even Uncle Daniel, who is sitting beside me in one of the few times I’ve ever seen him this close to the field, keeps asking me if I’m okay.
Call it heatstroke, because if I can’t, I’ll have to admit what it really is.
I’m severely attracted to one of my players, one who’s made it known he doesn’t particularly care for me in the politest of terms.
It’s two months into the season, and though there is still weekly news about my father, his crimes, or the Pistons’ organization, I feel like we’ve done a lot to bring the reputation of the club up a few points. There have been fewer boos at our home games, fewer reporter questions about our ethics as a team, and less animosity in the polls we’ve been conducting with our in-house PR staff.
Though, this week, I had to make a difficult decision. One of the players my father traded away was owed money against our cap, and we just couldn’t make it happen. I had paid out as much as I could, but with the way our budget was in flux from all the underhanded wheeling and dealing Dad had done, I just couldn’t scrape together enough.
Publicly, I made the apology to the player and his family. I called him personally, expressing my deepest regret and promising to try to right this by the end of the season. I was told, in no uncertain terms, to go to hell. Ever since, the player has been speaking out about me in the media, personally attacking me, and trashing both the club and the Callahan family.
It’s been difficult to stay quiet and try to keep calm. I know that’s what’s needed of me in my job, to be a clear and level-headed scapegoat when it requires it, but our former player is going low. Making comments about me working my way to the top on my back, or with a silver spoon in my mouth. Even today, I’ve been booed or insults have been thrown at me since I decided to sit down here among the fans.
But it’s important to show a united front, to hold my head high. I didn’t do anything wrong, and can only be the punching bag absorbing blows from my father’s victims. I understand their anger, and it’s the only way I’m able to harness my upset at the ugliness they’re pinning to me.
The rest of the game moves relatively smoothly, and the Pistons’ win with a three-run lead.
Uncle Daniel has already made it clear that I’ll be participating in the post-game interviews. Not only to celebrate Stan and remember him with a few good quotes for the journalist’s articles, but to put an end to all of this speculation around the payout news.
I take my seat at the press table on one side of Uncle Daniel, and on the other side of him is the head coach, Terry Grude. It’s not uncommon for the three of us to address the press together, but today I’m almost sure I’ll be facing a firing squad of questions about the contract negotiations I doled out to our former player last week.
What is uncommon, though, is that Hayes walks in just seconds before the press conference starts, and takes a seat next to Terry. I’m not sure if it was mandated that he be here, or if Grude asked him to come in because he played a great game. Those blond locks are still wet and glistening from his after-game shower, and they hang past his shoulders now. His eyes are greener than the last time I glimpsed them, but it’s probably because I’ve been avoiding looking in them as of late. And there is more than a slight overgrowth of stubble on his cheeks and jawline. Everything south of my waistline tingles at this rugged man.
But the minute the public relations rep from our side says we’ll allow questions, after both my uncle and I give anecdotes about Stan, the questions are fired at me from every angle.
“Ms. Callahan, why could you not free up more money to pay Luis Lozoto what he was owed?”
“Have you spoken with Luis in the last day or so? What is your response to his allegations that you did not earn your position?”
“Do you have a plan for how you’ll pay back the rest he’s owed?”
“Is it true that you were not qualified for the position? Both your father and now Mr. Lozoto have said—”
Someone clears their throat at the other end of the table, and I glance down to see Hayes leaning toward his microphone.
“If I could just say something?” he asks, shooting a glance at the three executives sitting beside him.
Uncle Daniel gives him a slight nod, as if he’s the one who can give Hayes the green light. As if Hayes cares about getting green lights from anyone, especially a Callahan.
My heart beats against my rib cage, because I have no idea what he is going to say. I’m shocked he’s even going to speak at all, much less voluntarily.
The reporters turn their attention, and their recording devices, toward one of the league’s star players.
“I will admit, I had qualms about staying here after the indictment and sentencing of Jimmy Callahan. I’ve stayed quiet throughout this, but anyone should know that what happened to me, and the other players caught up in this scheme, was not fair. And then to have to stay in the organization? It’s safe to assume I wasn’t pleased—in the slightest.”
My hands begin to sweat, and that sickly sweet feeling of nausea creeps its way up the back of my throat. Is he about to confess every bad interaction he’s had with me, just to prove Luis’ point? I cannot let myself cry in this presser.
“That being said, I have watched the management here, and Colleen Callahan in particular, work to remedy the gaping black hole their former general manager left behind. They have not only met with every wronged player still under the team’s umbrella, multiple times at that, but are working tirelessly to mitigate the glaring errors that have been left on their books. Say what you want about her father, and I’ve only known her for the short time since I’ve been playing for the team, but Colleen does not strike me as someone whose morals or work ethic are in the wrong place. And I’ve been around a lot of people in this industry. She is honest with her staff, her players, and I’ve personally noticed she has the first one in, last one out mentality. For being thrust into a position like this with little warning and the hurricane with which she had to ride up on, I’d say she’s doing a pretty good job. I think we all get paid enough, don’t you? Luis Lozoto will be fine having to wait for his other two million to come in by the end of the year. In fact, I’ll take a million of my salary and donate it to a charity of his choice. So, he only needs to wait for one million more from the Pistons’ organization. Does that sound fair?” Hayes smirks like he’s the cockiest asshole to sit in the dugouts of the major league.
I know I said I wasn’t going to cry in this presser, but damn, Hayes just initiated the waterworks. In all my time working for the organization, in all my time as general manager … hell, probably in all my life, I’ve never had anyone stand up for me like that.
<
br /> Rapidly blinking, I look down at the table containing my shy smile. With all the ups and downs the two of us have gone through in our short time knowing each other, there was no obligation for him to say those things. But he did. Which just speaks to how noble of a man he is.
The journalists are silent for a moment, and then they start peppering him with questions, mostly about his time as a Piston, his vow to pay a million to charity, and about today’s victory. I’m thankful that they seem to have taken his recommendation and put their grilling of me to rest, at least for the time being.
But I can’t help sitting rooted to my spot, playing his words over and over in my head, as the interview continues for the next thirty minutes or so.
It was getting dangerously murky, whatever was going on between Hayes and I, and he just further complicated the relationship. I’d put a no-cross boundary on myself when it came to him, but he’s gone and trampled right over it with that little speech.
There’s no ignoring the lopsided gallop of my heart every time I slide my gaze down the table to him.
16
Hayes
Dark has settled in by the time I make it out of the stadium, my muscles sore and aching with every step.
Tonight’s home game was hard fought, and I got not one, but two pairs of cleats to the shin throughout the eleven innings. We played into extras, which, when you’re in it, sets your bones on fire with adrenaline and the will to pull out a victory. But afterward, these types of games always leave me exhausted, especially as I get up there in age.
I’m not old, not by any standards, at thirty-two, but in terms of baseball, I’m ancient. A lot of guys don’t even get to have as long of a career as I have, and for that I’m lucky. While I know that, there is still so much I want to do. But I feel the aches, the pulls, the way my body doesn’t recover like it used to. I’m aware that every day the stopwatch is ticking down, counting the days that I still have left in this league.
Warning Track: The Callahan Family, Book One Page 8
