I laugh. Less than usual, although, not by much. I’ve never been a great sleeper. I wake up early and think about baseball from morning to night. “No.”
“Well, something has softened your bark.”
“The day is still early,” I growl.
“That’s more like the Jeff Rosehill we knowand fear.” She points me down the hall. “They’re waiting for you. Analytics has some new stuff for the road trip, fyi.”
Great. The scouts will be thrilled.
The batting coach falls into step beside us. “Atlanta has a new pitcher that we’ll see day after tomorrow.”
“I was just telling him,” Helen says.
He nods. “We’ve got his data loaded into the Trajekt.”
All right, then. We need a bit more time carved out of the morning for batting practice. And just like that, the day is underway.
Midmorning, after a frustrating practice where a couple of our young call-ups don’t seem as open to feedback as they should be, I have a quick notes session with the batting coach and then head to the front office area in search of Molly.
In search of my wife.
I was full of big talk this morning, about patience and waiting six months, but I can’t go six hours without wanting to see her and claim her as my own.
She’s in a meeting, so I make myself comfortable in her office since she’s done that a couple of times to me.
I smile to myself as I sit in her chair. Our first in-joke as a couple, the workplaceambush.
In the distance, through the productive hum of the office, I hear someone say Molly’s name.
I stand up, and then I hear her voice as she approaches. “Yep, I can show you how to make the vertical content videos for social media. It’s pretty easy once you get into a routine. It’s all about getting a system on your phone.”
“I hate working on my phone,” the person she’s talking to says. A man.
I frown.
“And I’m not as pretty as you, so…”
My frown deepens and I step into the hall just in time to see her duck as someone wearing an Outlaws polo shirt leans in and waggles his eyebrows.
“Get your hands off her,” I growl.
He pivots, a comically frightened look crossing his face. “Coach Rosehill!”
“I’m fine,” Molly says hastily, her eyes wide. “Hi.”
I step between them, pausing a moment to give her my undivided attention. “Hi. Give me a second.”
“Don’t—”
But I’m already doing it. I grab the front of that soft polo shirt that wears the logo of the teamItook to the fucking World Series, and I fist it tight enough that he makes a whimpering sound as I shove him against the wall with a satisfying thud. “Who are you?”
“Owen Fisker,” he wheezes. “Family Services and Team Support.”
“What did you do to make her duck, Owen Fisker from Family Services and Team Support?”
“Nothing.”
“Not. Fucking. Nothing.”
