Fastball

by V. K. Sykes

  It was a testament to the strength of their bond that Nate had gone miles beyond the call of duty to support Jake during his rehab from the devastating ankle injury. If anything, Nate was probably happier than Jake was when he finally made it back to the big leagues.

  “Man, you are absolutely murdering the freakin’ ball,” Nate said with a lazy grin as Jake took his seat. “God, I’m just glad I don’t have to pitch to you except in spring training.” He gave Jake a frat boy punch in the shoulder. “You make me think there’s hope for all of us.”

  Jake shot him a puzzled frown. “Hope? What the hell are you talking about?”

  Nate shrugged. “You know—hope that we might still be able to play a bit when we’re really old bastards like you.”

  “Asshole,” Jake tossed back genially. He was happy to take the ribbing. As long as he was able to hit like he’d been doing since being called up, everybody would be happy. There was no doubt the team had some high expectations for him, but he didn’t think anybody had expected him to have such a dynamite start to the season—first in Triple-A, and now in the majors.

  Nate widened his eyes. “What? I’m just telling the truth, old man.”

  “Jesus, I’m only thirty-one, but I guess to an emotional adolescent like you anybody over thirty is an antique.” Jake donned a serious face. “Now the difference between you and me, my boy, is that I actually live my life as if I want to still be around at forty. You haven’t quite figured out yet that a hard workout isn’t going out on the town and then having sex all night with your latest and greatest squeeze. It’s just that sort of unhealthy living that will ultimately lead you to a life of riding buses in the minors instead of maintaining the lofty heights of those of us who have overcome our baser instincts.”

  Of course, the idea of Nate Carter riding minor league buses was about as probable as an asteroid destroying Earth.

  Nate howled in protest. “Oh, yeah, right. Saint Jake Miller. How could I forget? Sure, maybe I push the envelope a bit, but last time I checked you weren’t exactly a virgin anymore either.”

  Jake let his jaw drop open. “Push the envelope—that’s an interesting way to put it. How about ram the envelope through the shredder?”

  They both laughed. Nate had been teasing Jake about being a baseball senior citizen for a couple of years already. Jake, in turn, had ragged Nate non-stop about his penchant for a life of barhopping and one-night stands. He knew his pal was an immensely talented pitcher, one who would be a dead-cinch for the Hall of Fame if he kept his act together. But he couldn’t help worrying that Nate might burn himself out with his lifestyle, as so many talented young players had in the past. What Nate needed was a good woman to keep him on track, maybe a woman like Maddie Leclair.

  Jake mentally groaned. Jesus, he could not keep his mind off the woman. When Nate threw him a quizzical look, he just scowled and pulled his book out, hoping his friend would let it drop. Yeah, he was acting like a jerk, and the antidote for his jerkdom was sitting only a few rows away, ignoring him for all she was worth.

  * * *

  Maddie stared blearily at her laptop, ignoring the buzz of male voices all around her on the team plane. She had been up until almost four in the morning. Once she had started working on the Jake story, she didn’t stop until she was so exhausted she couldn’t keep her eyes open. She’d played the recording of the interview over and over to jot down notes and help her write or rewrite sections. But she also found herself replaying it because it gave her such pleasure just to hear Jake’s voice. It carried a quality she found difficult to describe. Deep and smooth, yes, but there was much more to it than that. She found the quietly masculine, confident tone mesmerizing, even hypnotic.

  After a few hours of sleep, she’d woken up, ordered breakfast from room service, and gone right back to her laptop, finishing the piece before noon. She’d put her heart into it, and had no doubt it was one of the best things she’d ever written. She emailed it to her editor at the Post, crossing her fingers and toes that he’d get what it was about.

  It hadn’t taken long to find out. When her cell phone buzzed shortly after two o’clock, it was Martin James, the long-time Post sports editor. Martin’s voice had boomed so loudly in her ear that Maddie had winced in pain. “Maddie, it’s fantastic and I love it. How in God’s name did you get Miller to open up like that? He’s never given anybody that kind of access before. This is great, great stuff,” he’d gone on, almost breathlessly. “We’re going to run it tomorrow. Full page. No reason to wait.”

  A huge surge of relief had rushed through her. “Well, thanks, Martin. I think it’s one of my best, too. Miller was very kind, and totally cooperative. I don’t exactly know why he decided to be so open with me. I suppose he felt more comfortable talking with me for some reason than with other reporters.” She hadn’t been about to tell Martin what was really going on, though she figured he was plenty smart and savvy enough that he might put two and two together.

  Fortunately, he’d taken the dodge. “Whatever it was, it’s great. Anyway, I gotta run. Congratulations, Maddie. I wouldn’t be surprised if this one turned out to be an award winner. See you when you get back.”

  Though she was still on a high from that call as she sat waiting for the team to board the plane, her sense of uneasiness remained. It was a great story, but she’d broken the rules to get it. That might not have bothered a lot of the reporters, but it bothered her. She’d been raised to respect rules, respect authority, and to do things the right way. Sneaking around behind the team’s back to meet clandestinely with a player was not something she’d ever thought she’d do. Now, she just hoped it wouldn’t come back to haunt her. A great story was one thing, but her credibility in the small, tight world of professional baseball was far more important in the end. The fact that she was so damn attracted to Jake made the guilt that much harder to bear.

  So, when she looked up and saw him standing a dozen rows away, grinning at her, her instinctive reaction was to nod and duck her head. In what seemed only a second, she looked back up, but by then Jake was sliding into his seat, his back toward her.

  Crap. Why did she just do that? He’d been nothing but kind, and she’d just been unbearably rude. Maybe she could blame part of it on fatigue, but the other part was simply stupidity.

  The short flight to Phoenix was over mercifully quickly, and Maddie was able to avoid Jake completely by staying on the plane for a few minutes longer than she normally would have. She knew that what she ought to do was walk by Jake and give him a genuine smile, but she felt too embarrassed by her earlier behavior to even make eye contact with him again tonight. When she finally deplaned, she strode quickly through the terminal and grabbed a cab to the Wyndham Phoenix, praying to God she wouldn’t run into anyone on the team.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Maddie jerked awake, the harsh ring of the hotel phone pulling her out of a restless sleep. As she grabbed for it—more to silence the noise than anything else—she cursed the idiot calling her room at this hour of the morning.

  A quick glance at the clock and she winced. It was already nine. Not exactly dawn, but altogether too early for her since it was nearly three by the time she got to the hotel and turned in last night. She held the receiver to her ear only to pull it back when the booming voice of Charley Cameron, director of media affairs for the Patriots, came over the line.

  “Maddie, we need to talk.”

  She held back a sigh. Obviously her morning was going to start with a chewing out. “How can I help you, Charley?”

  “My secretary just emailed me a copy of your story on Jake Miller in today’s paper. It’s a nice piece of work. You really captured Jake better than anybody I’ve seen so far.”

  His frosty tone didn’t match the congratulatory words. Not that she’d really been expecting kudos. Still, she played it straight. “It’s kind of you to say that.”

  “It’s praise well-deserved. You’re a good writer and you showed it again today.” H
e took a pregnant pause.

  Here it comes.

  “I’m puzzled about one thing though,” he said. “When did you manage to get all that information and those quotes from Jake? You didn’t ask me to set up an interview. So, how exactly did that happen?”

  She fell back onto the pillow and stifled a groan. It was just as she had feared. Now she had to confront—and fast—her lingering doubts about Jake’s suggestion that she lie and say they’d done the interview over the phone. Maddie was pretty sure Cameron would be skeptical at best. There was so much detailed, in-depth information—the kind normally not the stuff of a phone interview. It was the kind of piece a reporter writes after spending hours, or possibly even days, with her subject.

  When it came right down to it, she couldn’t lie like that. Even if she had it in her, she’d make such a hash of it that Cameron would see through it before the words were all out of her mouth. No, she had to own up to her misdeed and face the consequences. And she damn well wouldn’t dump the blame on Jake. He might have suggested the unsanctioned meeting, but she’d agreed to it. So this was on her.

  She cleared her throat, trying to get past the lump that had formed there. “I’ll be honest, Charley,” she said contritely, “I didn’t go with a formal interview because I thought I could only get the kind of story I wanted if we could talk in a place where Jake could really relax—”

  “What?” Cameron yelled. She again had to yank the phone away from her ear. “You know damn well that’s against the rules. Jesus, I can’t believe you did that.” He paused for breath, obviously fuming. “Miller should know better, and so should you. We have those rules for a reason.”

  So you can control all the interviews and make sure everybody stays totally in line with the appropriate spin. She swallowed what she really wanted to say, going for humble. “I know that. And I know it was wrong to break the rules. Frankly, I’ve been kicking myself ever since I did it. But it was a one-time thing, Charley. I guarantee that. It won’t happen again, I swear to God.”

  “Yeah, well, you might think this is none of my business, but I can tell you the team sure as hell thinks it’s my business to keep tabs on what the reporters and the players are doing,” he replied, sounding slightly mollified. “Management doesn’t like surprises, and they’re going to be damn unhappy about this whole thing. To say the least.”

  “I know,” she said in a low voice. “I regret my actions very much.”

  Now there’s a lie for you.

  “Okay, then, Maddie, but tell me whose idea was it to do this secret meeting—yours or Jake’s?”

  Truthfully, it would never have occurred to her to make such a proposition to Jake. But she hadn’t said no, and that made her equally guilty. She would not lay the blame on Jake under any circumstances. “Oh hell, Charley, it was my idea, of course. Are you happy now? I said it won’t happen again. Do you want me to go to jail, or would community service be okay?” She said it in a joking voice, even though her nerves jangled like wind chimes. This was bad. Really bad.

  Charley Cameron wouldn’t decide her ultimate fate. That would be left to the general manager, Dave Dembinski. She just hoped Charley would put the best possible spin on it when he talked to Dembinski.

  “Well, good for you for saying you’ll take the blame,” Cameron said. “But, sorry, I find it hard to believe that you instigated that little adventure. I haven’t known you all that long, but I’ve always thought you could be trusted to respect the rules and the standards. And I can’t see you wanting to flaunt them, even for a juicier story about Miller.”

  He was right of course. “Leave it alone, Charley,” she said softly. “I respect you and the role you have to play, but I’ve already apologized and said that kind of thing will never happen again. Isn’t that good enough?”

  She wasn’t going to grovel any more than she’d already done. If she wasn’t so worried about possible team sanctions, she’d have happily bit Cameron’s head off for grinding away at her after she’d apologized so abjectly.

  “You know everybody is going to believe Miller wanted to get you away from the park for his own reasons,” Cameron said in a voice that hinted of a sneer. “You can deny it all you want, Maddie, but nothing else makes any sense to me. In fact, it sounds a whole lot more like you guys were hooking up, not just conducting an interview. So, don’t be surprised if people from the team and other reporters start looking at you a little funny—and at Miller, too. If this thing is what I think it is, it could even wind up wrecking your career. So, a word of advice, Maddie: you’ll stay away from Jake Miller from now on if you’re smart.”

  Fury burned in her chest, but she clamped her mouth shut against the hot-tempered words threatening to escape. Jake had been right about one thing—their personal lives were nobody’s damn business.

  “You’ll be hearing from Dave Dembinski on this, Maddie. You know that, don’t you?”

  Anger warred with trepidation at the implied threat. “I’m not stupid, Charley. I get it.”

  She slammed the phone back into its cradle, then groaned and rested her throbbing head on her knees. A bad start to the day, and she suspected it would only get worse.

  * * *

  Jake ignored the bedside phone for the first several rings, but finally rolled over and picked it up. “Yeah?” he said sharply. He was in no mood to be polite after less than six hours sleep.

  “Morning, Jake. It’s Charley Cameron. How are you?”

  Yawning, he rubbed his face. “Hell, I have no idea. I’m not even awake yet. What’s going on?”

  “Jake, I don’t suppose you know yet, but in this morning’s Post there’s a long story about you, written by Maddie Leclair.”

  Jake could tell Charley was upset since the edge in his voice came through the line loud and clear. He decided to yank his chain a bit. “So, is it any good?” he asked in an innocent voice.

  “Oh, sure,” Cameron shot back sarcastically. “It’s really well done. In fact, it’s so in-depth it sounds like you two must have spent hours and hours together. And I’m wondering why I didn’t know anything about it, especially since it’s my job to arrange all player interviews. Not some, Jake. All.”

  Jake knew Charley’s tirade was all about the anal team rules regarding the media. But frankly, he didn’t give much of a damn. He was thirty-one years old, for God’s sake, not some green rookie. And he’d been a star player. So, he wasn’t about to take any crap from Cameron or anybody else on the team for making his own decisions about how he would do an interview. “Give it a rest, Charley,” he said firmly. “I just woke up, I’m still groggy, and I really don’t need to listen to a tantrum from you. Go away now, please.” He started to hang up, but the next words he heard made his hand freeze.

  “Wait a minute, Jake. Just tell me whose idea it was to have your little secret meeting. Then I’ll let you go.”

  Jake grimaced and brought the phone back up to his ear. Cameron had probably called Maddie first and harassed her with the same questions, since he would see her as an easier target. He wasn’t about to fall into any trap, or contradict something she might have said. “None of your damn business. Goodbye, Charley.”

  “Jake, hear me out, please. It’s fine for you to be cavalier about this little stunt. You don’t seem to worry about how it might affect you, or the team, and thank God she wrote a good story. But even if that doesn’t bother you, you damn well should be concerned about what this could do to Maddie Leclair’s career. No team likes to have reporters flaunting their rules. This kind of thing could hammer her professionally.” He gave a little snort. “Besides, it sure doesn’t pass my sniff test. I was a reporter for a long time before I got into this job. You two decided to go around the rules and spend a lot of time together, and it’s making me wonder why. So, it’s going to make other people wonder why, too. There’ll be buzz, and that’ll be bad for both of you. Especially for her.”

  Jake stared up at the ceiling, a knot forming in his stomach. Wh
ile he really couldn’t care less about what the team or anybody else thought, he finally had to acknowledge he’d been an idiot for discounting Maddie’s repeated warnings. No wonder she’d been reluctant to do the interview away from the park. But he honestly hadn’t thought it would be as big a deal as it was apparently turning out to be. He sighed and sat up in bed, the sheet pooling around his waist. It looked like he was going to have to take Cameron more seriously.

  “Okay, I hear you. You make some good points.” Jake thought rapidly, figuring out the best way to deflect blame from her. “I’ll apologize for breaking the rules. Don’t blame Maddie, because it was my fault. One hundred percent mine.” He paused for a moment. “So, listen, you think I should go apologize to the GM?”

  “An apology’s a start,” Cameron said grudgingly. “And yeah, by all means talk to Dembinski and give him your mea culpa. If I were you, I’d try to nip this in the bud. And fast.” He hung up.

  Jake swung his feet onto the floor, resting his hands on his thighs as he mulled over the situation. He wasn’t the type of player who disrespected team rules. He knew there were regulations about how interviews were to be conducted, but he’d never really taken them seriously. Probably because he avoided interviews whenever possible, and generally didn’t give a shit about the press. Clearly, though, he’d been a selfish jerk for pestering Maddie to go AWOL with him, and now he’d have to make it right.