I’ve noticed that she hasn’t once come to the dugout before a game this week. I noticed that she hasn’t accommodated a single request for joint interviews with me. I noticed she hasn’t been around the clubhouse much, instead staying upstairs in her office during this home-stint.
I also noticed that she hasn’t made a move to trade Harrison Kaiser.
Reese is clearly pissed at me for not having her back last week, but I’m just as pissed that she continues to prove me right. I’m pissed that she doesn’t hold an attachment to any part of thisbaseball club that I love so much. Not the staff and, clearly, not the players.
“Monty,” Kai says, earning my attention. “Did you hear me? Do you know who you might want for middle relief tonight?”
I keep my eyes locked on her, watching her smile and enjoy whatever conversation she’s having with someone who isn’t me.
“No.” EvenIcan hear the distraction in my voice. “Game-time decision, I guess.”
Out of my periphery, I watch as Kai follows my line of sight. “Do you need to go speak with her?”
“Nope.” I clear my throat, attempting to refocus on this meeting with my pitching coach.
But I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes off my window, wondering if the reason Reese is down here, near my office, is because she’s finally going to talk to me.
She ends her conversation with a kind smile to her employee before her attention drifts to my office window.
First to Kai, who earns a polite grin and a small nod of her head in greeting.
Then to me, which is when her expression completely shifts.
To nothing.
It’s neutral. Blank. I don’t get a smile, but I also don’t get that scowl I kind of miss.
Reese doesn’t seem angry.
No, she seems entirely disinterested with me, and I hatethateven more than if she were fuming at me.
Reese’s eyes meet mine for only a fraction of a second, not letting them linger in the way I’ve caught her before. Almost instantly, she pulls her attention away and leaves the perfectly framed spot outside my office window. And I’d bet money she’ll be up in her office for the rest of the night, watching the game from her million-dollar view.
“So, by ‘you don’t need to talk to her’ what you meant is ‘she won’t give you the time of day.’” Kai laughs. “What the hell did you do?”
“Nothing. We had a disagreement last week and neither of us has gone out of our way to smooth things over yet.”
“Kennedy raves about her, and from what she told me, Reese seems level-headed. Especially for all the shit she’s getting online for her new position. Your disagreement must have been pretty heated for her to react to you like that.”
“It was nothing. We’ll both get over it eventually.”
“Don’t you two have the commissioner’s conference coming up?”
I audibly groan, head falling back. “Fuck me. I almost forgot about that.”
Toward the beginning of every season, the commissioner of the MLB hosts a gathering for all the teams’ owners, baseball presidents, and field managers. And since Arthur has always held two of those positions, I’ve gone to the last seven conferences with only him.
And this year, I’ll be going with Reese.
The location never changes and neither does the schedule. The commissioner hosts a few lectures throughout the day then a mixer at night, giving all the teams a chance to get together just once without a competition attached to it. There’s no getting out of it for either of us, and I already know that Reese and I are going to have to at least pretend to be a united front while we’re around all the other teams.
Kai laughs. “I’d apologize before you go if I were you.”
“Except I don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“If you say so.”
My pitching coach refocuses on the strategy for tonight’s game, but there’s something nagging me again, the way it has all week. Something that Reese said in our heated argument.
