“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she answers.
That’s it. That’s the greeting. Two words standing in for everything we can’t say.
“How was the drive?” she asks.
I say something about speed limits and hotels, maybe. I’m too busy staring at her mouth to pay attention to what comes out of mine. We walk slowly, close but not touching, and then she starts laying out our schedule like it’s small talk, not something for me to memorize.
“Breakfast is at seven,” she says, code forsee you there.
“Okay. And the shuttle takes us to the stadium at eight?”
“Players, yes. Ops is meeting at Doug’s house tomorrow morning, but I’ll be at the stadium for lunch.”
“You’ll be eating with us?”
“Yep. After you finish morning workouts. After lunch, you and I will meet for fifteen minutes at the stadium to go over tomorrow’s media schedule and make sure nothing going live paints you as cocky.”
“Come now. I’m only cocky in private. But we’ll probably need twenty, just in case.”
“Fifteen minutes,” she repeats.
Every word is doing double duty, helping us map each other’s schedules like they’re emergency escape routes.
She's running the map, like always. And I'm following it, like always. Because if she's drawing the lines, I don't have to decide where they go.
I’m being considerate. Respectful, I tell myself.
I'm not entirely sure that's all it is.
We turn down one long hallway and then another, the carpet swallowing the sound of our steps. People move around us—comparing lanyards, rolling their suitcases, having too-loud conversations in too-public places—until we find a pocket of quiet in a small hallway just beyond the conference room.
Scottie slows. I slow with her.
For half a second, there’s no one close enough to see us.
“How are you?” I say, my hands itching to grab hers as I look down at her big blue eyes.
“Nervous,” she says. “This job feels too big for me.” She taps her fingers on the back of her phone case. “How do you handle so much pressure every game? You make it look easy.”
I step closer without meaning to, close enough to see the faint freckle near her left temple. Close enough that if I exhale, I’ll feel it bounce back.
If anyone turned the corner right now, there’d be no pretending this is professional …
I lean back for her sake, letting my thoughts drift as I try to put into words what happens to me on the mound.
“Maybe this sounds dumb, but itiseasy. It’s baseball—not life or death. No one dies if I throw a bad pitch. The stakes just aren’t that high.” I look back down at her with a lump in my throat I can’t swallow.
“That’s a nice way of looking at it,” she says. Her eyebrows are tugging together, and I get the sense she wants to reach out to me.
Only in my dreams.
“It’s not universal, though,” she says. “Because for some people, baseballislife. Losing a game could mean losing the only thing that matters to them.”
“Then they need to step back. Maybe even get professional help. It’s great to care about doing your best at your job, but it’s still a job. Nothing without a heartbeat should matter more than someone who does.”
Scottie drops her head, clearly thinking about Jake and his career. How has this guy pulled her into this shared delusion that she’s responsible for his happiness?
