As the small guy walked down her pathway, she looked up at his house and stared as if she could see through the curtains to find him looking back at her. He didn’t move, couldn’t. This was the closest he’d been to her in days.
The next afternoon, he worked out in the players’ gym and then showered. Mundane tasks like that were getting easier. He was slowly learning to trust his movements, though he still felt betrayed by his own body. Doc Burningham assured him that was normal. Maybe it was, but that didn’t make it any less difficult to live through.
His phone beeped as he was dressing. He glanced at the screen.I’m around if you want to have that meeting.It was from Coach Andres, that head pitching coach. Brayden had sent an email asking for some time with the busy man. Andres was leaning toward retirement. He’d taken this job back when Harper Richmond Wolfe’s father first started the team, as a favor to her old man. There were a lot of guys like that in the organization. It created a feeling of devotion to Richmond’s memory and a deep love of the game. Brayden appreciated that these guys had been in baseball longer than he’d been pitching—and that was almost his whole life.
I’m in the building. Headed your way.
Good.
He finished slipping on his shoes, which he didn’t tie. He’d loosened the laces so they could come off and go on without him having to look at them. Dipping his chin was still a struggle. He put his phone in his pocket and stowed his bag before heading towards the coaches’ offices.
Andres’s office was the second on the right. He had a painting of a baseball framed behind him. His wife had painted it. Her talent was clear.
Brayden shook hands with Andres. The team was still on the road, but he’d stayed behind. There were rumors that his daughter was going through a difficult pregnancy and had been in and out of the hospital. He wanted to stay close in case something happened. “’Sup, Andres?” Brayden asked in greeting.
“Not much. What can I do for you?” Andres had short-cropped hair that had gone white at the temples.
Brayden took a closer look at him, wondering what was different. “You got glasses,” he blurted like a five-year-old. His ears warmed with embarrassment.
Andres took them off and looked at them. “Didn’t even realize I still had these on. I only need them to read.” He propped them on his head.
“Sorry,” Brayden mumbled. He folded his arms and spread his feet apart. “I wanted to ask you about coaching.”
“You’re after my job too?” He muttered something about sharks being in the water. The assistant coach, Harlen Warner, took over in the bullpen for the road trip. There were other rumors floating around about Warner’s push for a promotion to head pitching coach.
Brayden waved that off. “I mean, what made you want to be a coach?”
Andres looked up at the ceiling. He stared so long that Brayden was tempted to also look up and see if there was a message written on the tiles. “I guess you could say it was because I had more talent in seeing what others were doing wrong than in making myself do what was right.”
“I don’t get it.”
Andres laughed as he settled into the rolling chair behind his desk and leaned back. He motioned for Brayden to take a seat across from him. “I had a knack for evaluating a pitcher. I was a scout, did you know that?”
“No. I had no idea.”
“It was a long time ago, when scouts had to actually travel to see a kid throw. We didn’t have the Internet and video? Please. That was like watching blobs. The ball moved too fast to see on film.” He shook his head. “Back then, the only way to know if a kid had juice was to stand behind the catcher and watch him throw. Anyway, I started telling kids what they could do to get more speed, more movement on the ball. I’d sit with a kid for an hour or two after his game and work him through the paces.”
He pinched his chin with his thumb and finger. “One day, I realized that I was more excited about that one or two hours working with a pitcher than I doing anything else. I dreaded the meetings, the arguments with the GM, all of it. I lived for those two hours, and they only came along once or twice a month. So I decided to get into coaching.”
“Right.”
“Are you thinking of making this a full-time gig?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
Andres leaned forward. “Well, it’s not for the faint of heart. You have to be tough. Tough enough to tell it like it is and not care if people like you.”
Brayden nodded.
“You’re not getting it. These guys are your friends. Most of them will listen to you out of respect, but some of them will have a hard time seeing you as an authority figure. If you want to do this, you should switch teams. Try to get on at a college level first. Let the guys you played with move on and then come back.”
“I couldn’t leave Tilly,” he said before he thought about his response.
Andres tipped his head. “Now I thought you two weren’t a thing anymore.”
Brayden grunted. “Word gets around.”
“We’re like a giant dysfunctional family.”
