Team Player

by Julianna Keyes

  “No. There was no warning. They just posted the video. We haven’t even heard from them.”

  “And they’re sure it’s the same person?”

  She nodded. “It looks like it, yeah.”

  “Why would someone do this if they’re not after money? What do they gain?” Ty had had too many people to count attack him since he’d gotten famous, but the motivation was almost never truly malicious, just financial.

  “I don’t know,” Gwen answered. “But now that they’ve found out about the hacks, the IT team can work backwards to find the source.”

  “Talk about too little too late.”

  “I know.” She put her hand on his knee, the connection the tiniest thread keeping him tethered to reality instead of the surreal nightmare that had become his life. Then she took a breath. “That’s why we have to do what we can to mitigate the damage in the meantime.”

  “Gwen—”

  She looked at him seriously. “The Keelie Karr thing wasn’t my idea. Trust me. I argued against it. But Allison and management—they made the call. They really want you to do it. Just for a few weeks, maybe a month. Until this blows over.”

  “Again.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you mean to tell me I’ve been spending all that time with Ibanez for nothing?”

  Her mouth twitched. “He really likes you.”

  “Why is no one else grossed out by this?” he demanded. “I’m thirty-two. I looked up Keelie Karr, and I don’t care if she’s twenty, she looks like a kid. Has anyone asked her how she feels about all this?”

  “It was her idea. Her team reached out.”

  Ty sat up straight. “What? Her entire brand is about how wholesome and pure she is!”

  “Just because she wears a promise ring doesn’t mean she’s not a shrewd businesswoman. She’s trying to be a star, and dating Tyler Ashe can work wonders for a woman’s career.” She paused. “Or, I mean, it can put you on a plane sent to convince him to date a twenty-year-old.”

  “Pretend date.”

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “Totally fake.”

  He met her eye. “A hundred percent.”

  She held his stare. “No kissing, no touching. You probably shouldn’t even get her phone number.”

  Ty felt that strange thing that had taken up residence in his chest grow and spread, wrapping around his ribs, his arteries, his organs. And this time he let it. This time he wanted it there.

  “I don’t want her phone number,” he said, finally giving voice to words he’d wanted to say for too long. “I don’t want a fake girlfriend. I don’t want to mess things up with my real one.”

  Gwen’s cheeks turned pink and she smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners, happy and maybe a bit relieved. “You’re not,” she assured him. “She’s very kind and understanding.”

  Ty couldn’t stop his own smile from spreading. “Well, then. I guess we’re official. But totally secret, because officially, I’m dating Keelie Karr.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “It was your idea.”

  She laughed just as his phone beeped with a new message. He opened it so they could both see the cartoon video of a woman masturbating with a baseball bat.

  “Shit,” Ty muttered, frantically fumbling for the delete button.

  “Wow,” Gwen remarked, her tone dry but not angry. “Dating a baseball player is so romantic.”

  CHAPTER 19

  GWEN HUNCHED LOW IN her seat as Allison stalked the length of the PR office, back and forth, faster and faster. Each time she neared Gwen’s desk, she looked a little worse for wear. At least she’d taken off her high heels. The first couple laps had sounded like machine gun fire.

  “Again,” Allison snapped into her phone, “we don’t comment on players’ personal lives. If you want to know if Andrew Girardi is in a consensual, three-way relationship with both Fiona Woo and Stacia Raine, you’ll have to ask them yourself. Oh, they won’t talk to you? No kidding.” She hung up the phone, and just as quickly it rang again. Her voice faded as she stomped toward the elevator.

  Chad rose up over the dividing wall. “She’s losing it,” he whispered.

  “She hasn’t had a day off in three months,” Gwen whispered back. “I’d lose it too.”

  “None of us have had a day off,” Brandon chimed in, no longer bothering to pretend to fill his water bottle when he wanted to gossip. “That’s the problem with the Thrashers winning.”

  Normally a sentence that included the words “Thrashers,” “winning,” and “problem,” would have sounded like blasphemy to Gwen, who, with her whole heart, wanted to see the Thrashers take home their first World Series win, but for once, Brandon wasn’t completely wrong. It seemed the better the Thrashers played, the more leaks the team’s ship sprung. It was only two weeks since Ty’s tape had been made public, and already it felt like a distant memory. The faux-mance with Keelie Karr and an interview with Landon Thom on the importance of celebrities keeping their privates private had done their part to calm the most anxious advertisers, allowing them to move on to bigger problems.

  A loud shriek, followed by a smash, had everyone turning to see Allison glaring furiously at her phone, now lying in a dozen pieces on the ground near the wall where she’d hurled it. It was the fourth one to meet such a fate.

  “You three!” she snapped, jabbing a finger in the general direction of Gwen, Brandon and Chad.

  Gwen slumped lower in her chair, as though by being less visible, she would be invisible. “Um, yes?” she answered, when no one else did.

  “My office. Now.” Without waiting for a response, Allison stalked down the hall. “And someone get me a phone!” she bellowed.

  Gwen massaged her temples. Allison was fielding the worst of the PR issues and fending off management’s increasingly shrill complaints about the team’s publicity nightmares, but no one was immune to the stress. Gwen hadn’t slept more than five consecutive hours for far too long, and while she hadn’t taken to destroying phones, she was starting to see the appeal.

  The three stood slowly and stared at each other as though determining who should lead the way to the lion’s den.

  “Hurry up!” Allison shouted as they trudged down the hall. She had a corner office with windows on two sides and a stunning view of Lennox Field. At least, in theory she did. At the beginning of the season, the room had been dominated by a large desk and chair, with tasteful artwork on the walls. Now the furniture and window were barely visible behind boxes of promotional materials, mountains of paperwork, crates of coconut water, and empty phone boxes.

  “Ah, hi,” Gwen said, slipping inside nervously, Chad and Brandon hovering behind her.

  “Close the door.” A heap of paper toppled onto the floor, and Allison appeared behind it, turning one of her two computer monitors so they could see the display.

  Gwen’s heart turned to lead in her chest. Frozen on the screen was the first slide of her pitch presentation, displayed for everyone to see. To read. To judge.

  “We presented the pitches to management last night,” Allison said, fiddling with her keyboard.

  Gwen gulped. She’d had no idea.

  “Twelve pitches from twelve departments, ranging from the inspired to the insipid,” Allison continued. “But only one stood out. Only one captured exactly what it is we want to convey to our fans and to the world—that the Thrashers love baseball. And so, I present—to be kept secret until it’s officially rolled out next spring or I will fire all of you—the new Thrashers slogan.”

  The weight in Gwen’s chest only grew heavier as the slideshow played. Hours of working and reworking, trying to strike just the right tone to convey how much this game meant to her, and now it was semi-official. Allison hadn’t even acknowledged the pitch when Gwen emailed it to her weeks ago. She hadn’t given the slightest indication she’d reviewed it, loved it, hated it. Gwen wasn’t even sure she’d watched it.

  Sitting there, with all the secret pieces of her h
eart rolling across the screen, was like waking up on an airplane and being told you were going on your greatest adventure. It was wonderful, but it was terrifying. She wasn’t ready yet.

  But none of that mattered, because it was already happening.

  Twenty years, read the scrolling text, accompanied by a picture of bright and shiny Lennox Field before its first-ever home game. 2 million fans. Photos of fans cheering, their faces painted. Young and old. An elderly couple in matching jerseys. A toddler with an oversized glove. Friends. A shot of Escobar posing with young fans. Family. Ibanez’s mother in the stands, wiping her eyes during her son’s first major league game. Forever. A series of shots of the Thrashers players in dramatic, toe-curling action. Some things never change. A picture of four-year-old Blanche, followed by a current shot, with the same bright white hair. Seven-year-old Ty wearing his number 8 tee-ball jersey, paired with him in his Thrashers jersey with the same number. The photos slowly melted together to form a collage heart, scripted text appearing over it as the heart disappeared to leave just the words on the screen as the music faded away.

  Love & Baseball.

  “Whoa,” Chad said, when the slideshow ended. “That was amazing.”

  “I thought so too,” Allison said, turning back the screen so she could admire it. “So did management.”

  Gwen tried to keep her expression neutral. Apparently she was the only one who didn’t know it was amazing.

  “Love and baseball,” Brandon echoed, nodding slowly. “That’s like, everything I love.”

  Allison pressed a button and the screen went dark. “Anyway,” she said brusquely. “That’s what I wanted to show you. You can go now.”

  Gwen stood on numb legs, not sure how to feel, or even if she could. They’d chosen her slogan. Of course they didn’t know that she’d grown to love more than just the game, but—

  “You stay,” Allison said, flicking a hand at Gwen. “I have to talk to you some more.”

  “Ooh,” Brandon said under his breath. “Somebody’s about to get fired.”

  “Get out, Brandon.”

  “Can I have your chair?” he whispered.

  “That’s my chair!” Chad snapped as they shouldered each other, trying to get through the door first. “She stole it when she stole my desk!”

  Gwen slumped back into her seat and stared at Allison for what felt like the longest ten seconds in history. Finally the bickering in the hall faded and they were alone.

  “It’s a great pitch,” Allison said. “Love & Baseball. It’s simple, it’s eloquent, it encompasses everyone and everything we’re about.”

  Gwen swallowed, still not sure how to feel. “Good.”

  “It’s better than good, Gwen. It’s great. And I know you had the unfortunate task of reading through the fan submissions—because I read them too. And that was not among them.”

  “I know.”

  Allison smiled. “I didn’t tell Chad and Brandon it was your original submission because I don’t want them to be even more petty than they already are. But I did tell management, and not to worry—you’ll be fully credited and compensated. You did good work and you should be proud.”

  Now Gwen was feeling too many things. Pride. Elation. Excitement. Terror. Her words, her idea, her heart, about to be splashed all over Lennox Field for everyone to see.

  “Anyway,” Allison continued, fumbling beneath her desk for a bottle of coconut water. “That’s not all I wanted to talk to you about.” She took a sip of the water and grimaced. “I hate this stuff,” she said, gesturing with the drink. “I hate Ashe for promoting it. I hate Girardi for going Hollywood. I hate Blanche for bowling. I even hate Reed for reading.”

  “It’s been a rough month,” Gwen agreed carefully.

  There were only two days left in August, and the Thrashers were just a game out of second place in the American League East. September was the last month of regular season play, and though they were eight games back of first and unlikely to close the gap, they suddenly had a real, viable shot at one of the Wild Card spots.

  Allison shook her head. “It’s been a rough season,” she corrected. “For all of April and May, all I did was pray things would get better. Then they did, and everything got worse.”

  “Was it like this last year?”

  “No. It was crazy, but it wasn’t like this. This is like sitting in a leaky canoe, bailing out water as fast as you can, while someone swims around, making new holes.” She exhaled, sipped the coconut water, winced, and tossed it in the trash. “I’m good at my job, Gwen.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m amazing at my job. And there’s no way to say this without sounding like I’m justifying things or making excuses or just plain insane, but someone is sabotaging this team. No, not the team. Me. This department.”

  Gwen’s eyebrows shot up. “What? You—”

  “Just think about it. Someone canceled the venue for Blanche’s fundraiser, then canceled the new location as well. I spent days trying to fix it. Someone hacked into Reed’s Reading page and posted that the new book of the month for the kids to read was that R-rated one that’s been in the news. Someone leaked the story about Ty’s sex tape, then the tape itself, after going through the effort to hack into Legal’s encrypted files to steal it. And that’s just the past few weeks.”

  Gwen’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Allison was right. Sabotage did sound like an excuse—but it also sounded possible. And it would explain why the person who leaked Ty’s tape had never asked for a ransom.

  “I didn’t call you in here to whine,” Allison continued, opening another bottle of water. “I called you in here to say how much I appreciate your help. You’ve been truly invaluable—this whole team has. And I know I don’t show it a lot, but your hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

  It most definitely felt like it had gone unnoticed, with more tasks being piled on top of all the other unnoticed efforts, but Gwen didn’t say so.

  Allison took a deep breath. “And there’s something I need to tell you. I’m not going to inform management until the end of the season, so please don’t mention it to anybody.”

  Gwen sat up a bit straighter. “Okay.”

  “I’m becoming a monk.”

  Of all the things Gwen might have expected to hear, the word monk was not among them.

  “Huh?” she said dumbly. “Is that even—can you—can women...?”

  “Not technically, but I believe I can do it.”

  “Um...”

  Allison folded her hands on the desk and exhaled calmly. “The day after the season ends, I’m getting on a plane, flying to Thailand, and living my life in service of the Dalai Lama.”

  At some point Gwen had stopped breathing, and now gulped in air. Allison might be terrifying, but she was also good. The team needed her.

  “Wow,” she said, when what she really meant was, What the hell? “I see. And you think that will make you...happy?”

  Allison gestured around the chaotic room. “Anything but this will make me happy.”

  Somewhere in the office, a phone rang, its sound muffled.

  Allison sighed. “I guess I’ll try to get that.”

  Gwen stood. “Okay. Well, thank you for telling me.”

  “Thank you for listening. And remember—not a word to anyone.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  Allison shot her a fleeting smile as she yanked open random drawers in search of the phone. “I trust you.”

  THE PSEUDO-HIGH OF learning her pitch had been selected lasted for all of thirty-six hours, until it was time to attend Blanche’s bowling fundraiser. Fans and donors had bought overpriced tickets to spend a night bowling alongside their favorite Thrashers players, and the bowling alley was packed. The lights were bright, the drinks were free, and the snack tables were overflowing. Gwen had pulled on her requisite bowling shirt and shoes and now plastered on a smile as she walked around the decorated venue. The team had done an amazing job, but she
couldn’t stop the sick knot twisting in her stomach.

  The entertainment portion of the evening was scheduled to begin in fifteen minutes, and Keelie Karr was due to arrive any second with her boyfriend. Tyler Ashe.

  Of course Gwen knew the arrangement was a set up. She knew the stories in the papers about Ty at the concerts and him sending Keelie flowers and her sending him handwritten song lyrics were plants. The photos of them leaving restaurants and theaters after romantic dates were carefully staged, and the “date” lasted no longer than the time it took to take the picture. Gwen knew that because when the Thrashers were in town, she and Ty spent every night together, and they laughed off the faux-mance as an unpleasant and inane part of the job. Still, this was the first time she’d have to watch her boyfriend fawning over another woman in person, and no matter how many times she reminded herself it wasn’t real, she couldn’t wait until this particular performance came to an end.

  Thrashers staff were allowed one alcoholic beverage that night, and Gwen decided her time had come. She waited in line at the busy bar, weighing her drink options and forcing another smile when someone said, “Great event, huh?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” she replied on autopilot. “It’s for a wonderful cause, and we’re all so happy to be able—” Then she saw it was Brandon and Chad and shut up.

  “—to be part of such a phenomenal organization. Now let’s have a blast bowling!” Chad finished for her.

  Gwen laughed. The sentiment was genuine, but after reciting the line a hundred times, it started to feel like torture.

  Allison strode by, her phone stuck to her ear, her expression stern as she reamed out the person on the other end of the line.

  “What do you think happened?” Chad asked.

  The caterer had been given the wrong address and sent to an abandoned warehouse on the far side of town. Allison had had to call in every favor from every person she’d ever met to get a helicopter to fly them from the warehouse to the bowling alley, setting out the food mere seconds before the first guests flooded in.