Hitting the red button, I jog until the belt slows enough for me to hop off. “Thanks.”
Trevor wordlessly takes my place as I grab a towel and run it over my sweaty face. Before I can make it to the small office set aside for interviews, I run into our social media manager, Olivia.
“If you could be any kind of bird, what kind would you be?” she asks with her phone camera pointed toward my face.
Liv is always asking us bonkers questions, or offering us a selection of tiny plastic ducks to see which color we’d pick, or giving us friendship bracelets with our names on them. I wore my friendship bracelet until it broke while throwing to third, and my tiny pink duck still rattles around in the bottom of my duffel bag.
“A red-tailed hawk,” I answer without hesitation, giving her a huge smile.
“Thanks.” She lowers the phone to click a button before bringing it back up. “I’ve got one more. What’s a superstition youdefinitelybelieve in?”
I feel a pinch between my shoulder blades but don’t let my smile waver. Most baseball players are superstitious aboutsomething—be it, tapping the plate with your bat before hitting, carrying a lucky coin, or touching a necklace before stepping on the field.
My superstitions have gotten a little out of hand over the last few years. I have to eat a red and green Sour Patch Kid smushed together before I get into uniform. Then I have tolace my spikes while humming “Born to Run.” Once in the dugout, I need to down a cup of water from the cooler before doing anything else. Walking up to bat, I need to readjust my batting gloves—right then left. Ialwayshave to wear my alternating aquamarine-and-sapphire tennis necklace, though the other ones don’t matter as much. And I can only eat sunflower seeds—dill pickle flavor—from the bottom of the bag.
If I miss any of these, I’m doomed to have a terrible game. And with the Waves clinching a World Series title for the first time in over two decades last season, there’s no way I’m changing anything now. Everyone in the franchise—from our team owner down to the clubhouse attendants—wants a repeat season. The pressure already feels like an oppressive hand on the back of my neck.
“I’ll tell you one superstition Idon’tbelieve in.” I lean in while lifting my eyebrows. “Refusing to change your socks on a hitting streak. That’s just gross.”
Liv laughs as she lowers the phone. “Thanks, Tenny.”
“Anytime,” I say, genuinely meaning it.
I know some players begrudgingly put up with the social media part of team marketing, but Liv is just doing her job. There’s no reason to give her a hard time about it. To me, working with Liv is just the same as the interview I’m about to have.
When I enter the small office, a camerawoman in her late forties gives me a nod. I don’t remember her name, though I’m prettysure it starts with a D.
“Alex will be back in a sec. Would you mind standing over there so I can check the framing?” She glances into the viewfinder as I position myself in front of an MLB-logoed wall. “You’re a lot taller than Trevor.”
I chuckle, half-wishing my teammate was here to hear her offhanded comment so I could rib him about it. Though, him being one of the shorter team members at six-foot isn’t a big deal when he spends most of the game crouching. My height, my left-handedness, and my ability to nearly slide into the splits if the play calls for it are an advantage at first base.
“So, how do we feel about this new reporter?” I ask, making friendly conversation. “Is Alex nice to work with, or am I going to have to keep my guard up?”
“Alex is great,” she says, distracted.
“Great as in great at squeezing team secrets out of me?” I chuckle.
“Can you lean forward just a touch?” she asks while adjusting something on her camera. “Perfect. Stay right there.”
Shut up and let the woman do her job.
The voice in my head sounds eerily like my father’s. When my shoulders reflexively tense, I close my eyes and draw in a slow, controlled breath.
Like all Waves players, I’ve been through extensive media training. Earlier in my career, speaking without thinking got me in trouble a couple of times. But now I know how to navigate loaded questions, avoid giving opponents extra motivation, staysteady after a bad game, and more importantly, keep extraneous details to myself.
Just look at how I didn’t bombard Liv with facts about red-tailed hawks. I could have told her about how they build massive stick nests, can see their prey from over one hundred feet, and how they mate for life—which is better than most humans.
“Sorry I’m late.”
My eyes pop open to see the back of a woman as she shuts the office door. I’d expected a man, but Alex must be short for Alexandra or Alexis.
“No problem.”
She’s wearing a professional sleeveless dress, her polished blonde hair artfully cascading down her back, but it’s her black bedazzled sneakers that make the side of my mouth quirk.
I like a bit of sparkle myself.
“Nice sho—”
