“Hello!” he said way too loudly, shoving open the door and startling her so she almost toppled off the table.
She grabbed for the remote but it bounced away, stopping her from changing the channel. She muttered something that sounded like “I hate you,” then said, “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for ice and ibuprofen. I’ve been grievously injured.”
Her brown eyes scanned him from head to toe. His shorts covered the bruise, and when he wasn’t moving, he looked fine.
“I see.”
Now he did move, hobbling toward the bar fridge in the corner and fishing out an ice pack, then dumping a couple of painkillers into his hand from the assortment that sat on the counter. He swallowed them before levering himself onto the second table, revealing his bruise.
Gwen gasped, though it sounded more appreciative than sympathetic.
He hadn’t taken the time to admire the massive lump, already swelling purple and red like a summer storm cloud. He hissed as he rested the ice pack on the heated skin and dropped his head back while he waited for the cooling to take effect. It wasn’t a serious injury, and he’d be back in the lineup tomorrow. In the meantime, he would welcome some sympathy.
He counted twenty ceiling tiles while he heard Gwen change the television channel and rewind to the moment of his injury. Because he was a sucker for punishment, he tipped his head so he could watch, too, seeing the hard grounder bouncing toward him, his glove in position, the ball evading the mitt and crashing into his thigh instead. To his credit and satisfaction, he reacted immediately, snatching up the ball and making a perfect toss to first.
“Remarkable, huh?” he said, eying Gwen. They were seated perpendicular to each other, their feet meeting at the corner of the room.
“Astonishing,” she replied.
“We can watch your baking show if you want. I won’t tell.”
“I was watching the game.”
“I can use tips on how to make a perfect meringue, just like the next guy.”
She cut him a look that was meant to be scathing, but just made him grin.
“What happened to you?” he asked as the commercials ended and the bottom of the inning began. Reed strolled up to the plate as Ibanez waited in the on-deck circle. He’d never admit it, but there might be something to the sock thing. He and Reed had each gone 2-2, contributing two of the Thrashers’ three runs with back-to-back doubles, and Ty coming around to score on Girardi’s base hit. It didn’t really matter. He had a million socks. He could afford to spare some to humor Reed’s superstitious beliefs. As long as they were winning.
“So?” he prompted, eyeballing the ice pack on her foot. “What’s your story?”
She didn’t take her eyes off the television. “I twisted my ankle chasing after baseball players and begging them to sleep with me.”
“You should try Price,” Ty suggested, naming the stocky Thrashers first baseman, notoriously slow on the base paths. “He might even let you catch him.”
She glared and he smiled, though his smile faded when Reed struck out, Ibanez doing the same behind him.
“Seriously,” he said now. “Put the other show back on. I don’t want to see this.” Gwen hesitated and he added, “Please?”
“Only because you insist,” she said, changing the channel back to the baking show. It was returning from commercial, the brightly colored logo splashed across the screen identifying it as Baking Bonanza. The host was a plump woman in a red and white polka dot dress, with coiffed hair and cat-eye glasses. She stood in the center of a large room decked out like a 1950’s kitchen with futuristic appliances while a dozen people hunched over the work stations that dotted the perimeter, frantically mixing and pouring and other chores Ty didn’t have names for.
The camera zoomed in on a skinny redheaded man, sweating profusely as he watched his stand mixer beat a growing white concoction. The name Andy appeared on the screen. “I over-whipped my egg whites,” he explained to the camera, looking near tears, “and now my meringues won’t rise. I have to make a new batch. I’m not sure I’m going to have enough time to finish.”
“Forty-five minutes on the clock!” the host called, tottering around the room to monitor the bakers’ progress. “The judges want to see fifteen perfect meringues with your unique personal touches!”
Andy groaned. “Oh my God. I’m going to die.”
The camera moved to an older lady with gray hair and a smudge of egg white on her cheek, the name Glenda stamped in the corner of the screen. Glenda stared morosely at the floor where a bowl sat upended on the ground, its red liquid contents spreading in a morbid pool.
“Those were the only strawberries I had!” she cried. “I don’t have anything to make a new coulis. I just—I just—” She scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to compose herself.
Another cut and they showed a carefully styled man, baking in what appeared to be a vest and tie beneath his apron, artfully arranging his perfect meringues on a silver platter. A bowl of untouched strawberries sat next to his arm.
The host approached, smiling brightly. “Hello, Todd. How are things progressing?”
“Just great,” he replied, concentrating on his task.
“And what have you made?”
The tip of his tongue poked out of his mouth as he used tweezers to apply a fleck of gold leaf to a single blueberry. “Blueberry meringues with a lemon curd filling, topped with crème fraiche and gilded berries.”
“That sounds impressive.”
“I hope so.”
“Do you have a use for your strawberries?”
He hesitated for the briefest second, revealing that he was very much aware of Glenda’s plight. “Maybe as garnish.”
The host’s smile flickered. “Well, then. Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Ty sat up a bit straighter. “Well, just give her the fucking berries, Todd.”
“Todd never shares,” Gwen said. “Not even information.”
“What an asshole.”
The time continued to tick down as the bakers frantically plated their meringues, and by the time the judges did their rounds, Ty’s ice pack had melted and he’d forgotten his injury. Glenda had filled her meringues with fresh cream and topped them with a mint leaf—not quite as impressive as the other displays, but enough to earn a few pleasant remarks from the judges. There was only praise for the dreadful Todd, who won the lame title of Bonanza Baker for the week, and Andy was sent home for his flat, crunchy meringues.
“Well,” Ty remarked, when the credits began to roll. “That was interesting.”
Gwen switched back to the baseball game. It was the bottom of the eighth inning and the score was still tied at three. “I find it relaxing.”
“Relaxing? That was anything but relaxing. Who could relax watching Todd be such a dick?”
Her mouth twitched. “I like watching people bake.”
“Can you bake?”
“Not to save my life.”
A moment passed and she didn’t say anything snarky, so Ty tried again. “You going to tell me what happened to your foot?”
Gwen sighed. “Strip and I turned a corner at the same time and crashed into each other. He stepped on me. I tried to go back upstairs, but he insisted I hang out in here.” She held up her phone. “I can tweet and ice.”
“Can I see that?”
“See what? My phone?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t put your number in it.”
“In your dreams.”
Gwen warily passed over the phone, already logged into the Thrashers Twitter account. He searched, found what he was looking for, composed his message, and tweeted it. “There,” he said, feeling satisfied as he passed back the phone.
“What’d you do?”
“Righted a wrong.”
Gwen’s phone started pinging with likes and responses, and Ty smiled as she scanned the screen. “@BakingBonanzaTodd SHARE THE DAMN BERRIES, TODD!!” She g
lared at him. “What is the matter with you?”
“I’m sticking up for Glenda.”
“This is a professional account—”
He grinned. “Bet now you wished I gave you my phone number, huh?”
“Never.”
A cheer from the television had them both turning to see Lewis sliding headfirst into third base with his first triple of the season. Even inside they could hear the roar of the crowd, but instead of smiling, Gwen was frowning as she typed on her phone.
“You didn’t delete it, did you?”
“No,” she muttered, thumbs flying.
“Then what are you doing?”
“Working. Or trying to.” After a second she grudgingly shared, “The talking points.”
“You write those?”
“I do now.”
“Well, it can’t be worse than the crap they were trying to convince Strip to say before.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
She stopped typing and refocused on the game. With one out, Strip sent in Escobar to pinch hit for the rookie catcher. “This is a good match up,” Gwen said, almost to herself. “Escobar had three hits off this guy last year.”
Ty’s eyebrows lifted as the stats displayed on the screen a split second after Gwen spoke, confirming that Escobar had indeed gone 3-7 against Toronto’s ace reliever the previous season.
“Where’d you learn about baseball?” he asked, keeping one eye on the game.
“Um...” She scowled and shook her head as an inside pitch was called for strike one. “My aunt,” she said. “Marge. She was a big fan.”
“No kidding.”
“Yeah. She passed away. She had season tickets, third row. She wore a teal wig to Tuesday night games—”
“Wait—that was your aunt?”
“You knew her?”
“I knew the wig. Plus one time she called me a hairless pussy for not tagging up on a fly ball. You don’t forget that kind of thing.”
Gwen’s expression turned from concentration to astonishment. “What?”
“I kid you not. That’s a direct quote.”
Her head dropped back as she laughed. And laughed. And laughed. “I guess you did know her,” she said eventually, wiping her eyes. They were shiny with tears, far more than a laugh could justify. It was clear her wound was still raw, and Ty could more than relate. Plus now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen that teal wig all season.
“Did you come to games a lot?” he asked.
“Yeah. All the time. But I didn’t wear wigs and I didn’t curse at the players. You see your sixty-five-year-old aunt get escorted out by security a time or two—or eleven—and you learn to keep your mouth shut.”
Their attention returned to the television as Escobar lifted a fly ball to the warning track. Lewis waited until it was caught, tagged up at third, then took off for home, scoring easily to give the Thrashers a 4-3 lead.
“Well,” Gwen said. “Not a hairless pussy.”
Ty coughed out a startled laugh. “I—You—” Then he shook his head. He could not think about...that...right now. Not with her. Not after what she’d said about the NDA, about how it wasn’t his reputation that would suffer.
Not that he didn’t desperately want to. The more time he spent with her the prettier she got, the sharp cut of her stubborn jaw, the cute stub of her ponytail, the dark spread of her lashes. It had been a long time since he’d just hung out with somebody, male or female, and it was nice. Plus she hadn’t once asked him about his income or implored him to buy her a gift or invite her back to his place for “whatever he wanted.”
“So where’d you learn about baseball?” Gwen asked, still smirking after making him stammer.
“Ah, foster care,” Ty answered without intending to. He’d been asked the question a hundred times in his career—a thousand—but he’d always refused to discuss his time in the system. It was behind him. He had his own money now, his own home, his own control. He didn’t want to remember the days of insecurity, the days he felt like he didn’t belong, no matter how kind people were. It was only when his baseball talent began to seem like something that might actually turn into a future that people forgot he was the kid with dead parents and saw him as a ballplayer. It had been his identity ever since. “I joined a team,” he said, as the inning ended and the game cut to a commercial. “And I fell in love. Do you play?”
“No. I was on a team when I was younger, but I haven’t played in a million years. I wasn’t very good. But I was very bossy.”
“No. You?”
“Believe it.”
“Hey,” Ty said, more seriously.
She glanced over. “What?”
“I’m really sorry about the NDA. I didn’t know that was going to happen, and I’d have stopped it if I did.”
She looked away. “It’s fine.”
“And I get your point about how it’s gross that I—”
“It’s fine, Ty. You have problems other people don’t. I remember that article with the model—I get it. It just felt...presumptuous.”
“Well,” he said. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted.”
“And for the record, if you ever wanted to try again, I’d sign every NDA in the world.”
Her lips parted, but for once she didn’t snap at him. “That’s not a good idea,” she said finally, eyes flicking back to the television.
“I know,” he agreed, as the Blue Jays went down in order in the top of the ninth and the Thrashers’ luck turned around.
CHAPTER 9
A WEEK AND A HALF LATER, Gwen was breathing much easier. The Thrashers were on the road for the second half of a ten-game road set, and she could roam the halls of the Lennox Building without worrying about bumping into Ty. After their impromptu Baking Bonanza bonding session, she’d wanted nothing so much as to wisely run away as fast as she possibly could and, less wisely, to hurl herself into his arms as she’d done at the bar, this time without the unwelcome interruptions. That, of course, could only be bad news, not just for her reputation, but for her heart. Tyler Ashe had been quoted no fewer than a dozen times in his career saying his first and only love was baseball, and while Gwen was more than capable of enjoying a fling, she was considerably less confident in her ability to watch said fling move on with a parade of women as she faded into the background.
She’d spent the week after their conversation doing her utmost to creep around unnoticed, and was finally able to take a full breath when the Thrashers left town. To be fair, Ty hadn’t actively been seeking her out so much as she’d been actively hiding. Fortunately, Strip’s history of firing assistants—and messengers, and coaches, and random strangers—provided a believable cover for her overly cautious behavior.
Less pleasing about her current situation was that her “mole” job title had turned into something of a catchall phrase, seeing her dumped into any situation in which they needed an extra set of hands. She’d spent four hours scooping bubblegum ice cream when two of the scoopers failed to materialize; endured a terrifying evening being berated by fans who showed up late and didn’t get a Tyler Ashe bobblehead on giveaway night; and countless hours running around to buy items for the auction baskets. Though it was part of her job to know the Thrashers players, she’d really gotten to know some of them through this process. Shawnee Lewis, for instance, loved all things Elvis, evidenced by his basket picks of peanut butter, banana candy, a jar of pickles, an Elvis CD, a box set of Elvis movies, and a front row ticket to join him at an Elvis impersonator’s event in the fall.
South Korean starting pitcher Jae-Hwa Kim favored a special fermented milk drink made only in one small town in South Korea for which he couldn’t remember the name but absolutely had to include in his basket (along with seven extra crates for himself). Gwen had spent hours unsuccessfully searching for it online before bribing the Korean interpreter with a ticket to the Elvis show for his assistance locating the product.
&nbs
p; Denzel Reed loved nothing so much as himself, opting to include a signed jersey, ball, bat, shoes, no fewer than three posters of himself in various states of play and undress, and something he was calling the “Denzel Reed Experience,” where one lucky fan got to experience a day in the life of Denzel Reed.
Ty had, of course, not provided his list, and Gwen, of course, had been tasked with getting it. Fortunately, he was in Atlanta finishing a three-game interleague series, then off to Tampa for another three before heading home. If she sent him ten emails a day for the next four days, she could avoid him, claim she’d made a solid effort, and keep avoiding him. It had been a long time since she’d felt the things he’d made her feel in the arcade, but the fact that hooking up with Ty was a bad idea in a myriad number of ways couldn’t be ignored, either.
“Hey,” Allison said, filling her glass at the water cooler.
Gwen looked up from the website where she’d been ordering a rare pasta for Anthony Girardi’s basket. “Hi,” she said, suddenly anxious. Allison had the uncanny ability to instill fear with one normally harmless syllable. It didn’t help that Chad and Brandon were obviously lurking on the opposite side of the cubicle wall, pressing their ears to the linen so hard the wall was actually starting to tip.
“I can see you,” Allison said, and they sprung up, looking much too innocent to be anything other than guilty. She returned her attention to Gwen. “I have good news.”
In the past week, Allison’s “good news” had included instructions to scoop ice cream, draft a press release downplaying a story about an “unnamed” Thrashers player who was rumored to have gotten a young starlet pregnant, then fetching the “unnamed” player and bringing him upstairs to Allison’s office so she could ream him out and give him a box of condoms or a bag of diapers, depending on how the story developed.
“What is it?” Gwen asked warily.
Allison smiled, and that was even scarier. “You’re going to Tampa.”
“Huh?”
“I promised,” Allison reminded her. “Remember? When I gave you this promotion?”
Team Player Page 9
