My stomach sinks. Information I get like this tends to blindside me in a bad way.
“Nope.” I set my beer down and draw a line down the frosted side with the tip of my finger.
“What was it that they called her onSportsCenter?” she hollers down the bar to Brooks, who is sitting with Jayden and a few of the other guys.
“Bat whisperer!” Brooks raises his mug to me, so I return the favor as my brow pulls in and my gaze shifts to Daisy.
“What the fuck is that?” I laugh out, taking a drink and pulling out my phone.
“I guess that one’s brother was doing one of those in-game interview things and said something about you unlocking his swing when he was down here for a stint. And the reporter guy said you sounded like abat whisperer.Hon, wear that with pride. There are a lot worse things to be called.”
She’s right. And I guess Coach Bastion has called me some of them. Maybe even under his breath and to my face.
I sift through a few posts on my phone until I find the clip of Adriel with the in-game guys last night, and I turn the volume up and press my phone to my ear.
“You’ve been seeing the ball a lot better since your brief stint down in Triple-A. Tell us, did getting suspended scare you into shape or was it something in the farm system that worked you back into shape? You weren’t there very long, so I have to think fear more than anything.” The guy speaking chuckles, amused at himself.
“Ha ha, yeah, you might be onto something with fear. But no, no . . . nothing like that,” Adriel says.
I’m about to abandon the clip, figuring my mention is so minor it didn’t even make the edit, when Adriel keeps going.
“Actually, there’s this coach down in Sweetwater, Coach Kessler,” he says.
My arms cover in goose bumps, and my heart is racing. I’m nervous about what he’s going to utter next.
“Right, there’s been some news about that, hasn’t there? Her dad was your high school coach or something like that?” The guy is being nice, not delving into the exaggerated rumors and less positive side of those stories.
“Yes, the other Coach Kessler,” Adriel says through a laugh.
I catch myself smiling, and hold my fingertips to my lips. There’s a hint of younger Adriel in his voice, the big brother I wanted him to be. He has no idea, but I spent an entire summer trying to swing like him when I was in junior high. Turns out baseball swings and softball swings have some small but very key differences.
“Well, the Sweetwater Kessler got a lot of her dad’s brutal honesty, and she told me some sh—” The guys laugh as Adriel catches himself.
“Sorry . . .stuffthat I really needed to hear about my mental game. You know, Colby Kessler had quite the college career. This league might be sleeping on a gem down there, because she fixed more about my approach at the plate in an afternoon than some of these guys did in a season.”
My mouth hangs open. I can’t believe the words that left Adriel’s mouth. No ego. I am blindsided. Shocked.
“She sounds like a bat whisperer,” the commentator says.
They all chuckle.
“Yeah, I guess in a way she is.” Adriel’s stint on-air ends with that.
I lower my phone and scroll through the hundreds of comments. There are the usual assholes noting me being a woman, and him just trying to impress me, though they say it in a far crasser way. But for the most part, the feedback is positive.I even spot one of my former Ole Miss teammates commenting about how I was an exceptional leader my senior year.
“Was I right?” Daisy quirks a brow as I push my phone back in my pocket.
I shrug and take a sip from my beer. But my smirk lingers, and she nods and raps her knuckles on the bar top.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she says.
A few of the guys walk by and call mebat whispereras they leave. For some of them, it’s funny. But a few of them genuinely believe my new endorsement.
Tired of sitting alone at the bar with only Daisy keeping me company, I decide to take the rest of my beer to the other end, taking a seat next to Brooks. I glance over my shoulder as I sit, partly to see if Coach Bastion is watching me the way he seems to always be. His gaze is waiting for me, so I raise my beer to him, and then, because I’m feeling a little bold, flip him off and take a drink.
“Whoa, what’s gotten into you?” Jayden chuckles as I spin around to face the bar and the giant television mounted up high.
“Haven’t you heard? I’m the bat whisperer?” I wink at him, and his mouth pulls into a telling smirk.
