Big Leagues (38 page)

“I can too have
just friends
.” Cat shot
a grin at Benji. “Besides Grams, why would he buy the cow when he
can grab a carton of milk on any street corner?”

“I thought you said prostitution wasn’t
legal!”

“It isn’t. Those were your words, not mine. I
was only teasing you.”

“I don’t like that. Now this boy, is it
serious?”

“Maybe.”

“There. Was that so hard? We’ll talk about him
when you come to visit.”

“Okay, I’ll see you in a couple of
weeks.”

“Love you, honey.”

“Love you, too.” She hit the end button and
smiled at Benji.

He frowned and wagged his finger at her. “It’s
not Vegasian.”

“Vegan?”

He shook his head.

“Vegasite?”

“Nope.”

“Tell me!”

He put his palms up helplessly. “Sorry but I
can’t. You’ve got to be here for at least three months before you
learn the code.”

“Can you at least tell me the secret
handshake?”

“Are you kidding? I didn’t even find that out
until my sixteenth birthday.”

“No fair.”

“I got your newspaper.”

“You know I get all my news online.” A
mischievous smile snuck across her lips. “Well … E!
Online.”

He held up several newspapers with various
headlines and read them aloud. “ ‘Sins in Sin City.’ ‘König Out of
Luck.’ ‘Deceiving Las Vegas.’ I thought you might want a copy of
these. Looks like the Cat’s out of the bag.”

She gave him a mock-stern look and scanned each
headline as he set the newspapers on the coffee table. Reaching
into his back pocket, he added, “I also brought your mail, which
was in my box. Any chance our next endeavor can be taking down the
postal service?”

She accepted the mail and carried a pastry box
over to the sofa. “Donut?”

His eyes lit up. “Yes, please! I guess this is
probably the closest I’m getting to a real date right
now.”

“Is it my fault our game was canceled due to
the team being disbanded, at least temporarily?”

He bit into the Berliner and answered her with
a mouth full of jelly. “Actually, yes.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and received a
playful grin in return. As she pulled a postcard from the stack of
mail, a photo of a pristine beach labeled
Store Bay
caught
her eye. The back of the card read:

Ms. McDaniel, thank you. You’ve brought both
me and Jamal more peace than you’ll ever know. Jason.

She showed the postcard to Benji, whose clear
eyes glistened in wonder. “You’re like Lois Lane.”

Cat threw back her head and laughed.

He tapped the postcard in her hands. “You gotta
admit, this kinda makes the whole hero gig worth it,
huh?”

“Oh yeah. I’m a real hero. Let’s see. I just
crushed the dreams of twenty-five ballplayers, destroyed the
careers of an entire organization and, oh yeah, lost my job, too.
Lois Lane was gainfully employed, remember?” She smiled wryly and
reached over him for a bear claw.

“So most of the guys will go back to the
minors.” Benji shrugged. “They still play baseball for a living.
They’re not dead. I think that’s a deal most people would take. As
for a job, well, there are still lots of baseball teams out
there—ones that aren’t owned by soulless fiends.” A moment passed
before he added a teasing, “Maybe.”

She shook her head. “Nah, I don’t know. I think
I might be done for awhile.”

“Done with sports writing?”

“No. Just done with baseball. Maybe I’ll try my
hand at covering mini golf. Or dodgeball. Perhaps the fast-paced
world of professional thumb wrestling is my true
calling.”

Benji handed her the second letter off the
coffee table. “I guess I’ll get this one out of your way
then.”

She recognized the emblem on the return address
label and stammered, “N-New York … the commissioner’s office?”
Throwing her donut aside, she tore open the envelope. The edges of
her mouth curved as she scanned the page.

Benji placed his hand on her knee and gave her
leg a shake. “Well, is it a job offer?”

Cat tossed the letter on the end table and
retrieved her discarded pastry. “It’s a job
fair
offer.”

“That’s still good, right?”

“I’m probably just on a mailing list. They send
these to every schmuck with a journalism degree.” She bit into the
bear claw.

“So are you gonna go?”

“Maybe.”

He reached for the letter. “I’m seeing a lot of
Chicagos, New Yorks and Californias …” He scooted closer to her.
“No Nevada.”

Cat didn’t reply. Her mind was busy with
thoughts of an apartment on Lake Shore Drive, people-watching in
Union Square, or morning jogs along the Pacific.

“Any chance you can commute from Las
Vegas?”

Cat blinked her daydreams away and focused on
the letter he held in his hands. “There’s not even an opening
anywhere until next spring. A couple of teams are hiring in the
media department.” She pointed to the second paragraph. “Ooh, and
Chicago is looking for a junior reporter. That would be amazing.”
She frowned. “Junior’s kind of a step down from the lead,
though.”

“So you’d have to work your way up in the Windy
City. On the plus side, you wouldn’t have to worry about an
overabundance of suspicious championships there, huh?”

She poked him in the ribs. “I thought you
didn’t know anything about baseball.”

“Maybe I’ve been doing my homework.”

“Have you now? Well, wherever I go, I can
promise you there will be eighty-one home games, so I’ll be putting
you to the test.”

Benji dropped the letter on the coffee table
and grabbed her hands. She stared into his blue eyes and wondered
if she would ever tire of that activity.

“So … next spring. Does that mean I have you
until then?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Define
have
.”

“Well, this time next year you’re probably
going to be living large in New York or Chicago, running from the
backfield to the infield.”

“You know those are from two different sports,
don’t you?”

“By then, your short stay in Vegas will be a
distant memory.”

“I doubt that very much.”

“So I was thinking, why don’t I play hooky
today?” He brought her hand up to his mouth and gave it a gentle
kiss. “We can head up to Mount Charleston for the weekend and lay
out a couple of sleeping bags under the stars.”

“A couple?”

“Okay, just one.”

“Camping?” She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t
camp.”

“And I don’t follow baseball. Yet, I can tell
you the Chips were twenty games above five hundred only four days
ago.”

“There are snakes.”

“True. However, the breed that’s poisonous to
ballplayers and sportswriters isn’t indigenous to this area.” His
eyes twinkled.

She grinned. “On second thought, it might be
nice to get away.”

Benji fairly bounded from the couch. “Let me
give my TA a call.” As he bustled out the door, he pointed and
said, “Stay right there.”

She giggled and uncrossed her legs. As he went
to make the phone call, she picked up the letter from the coffee
table and reread its offer.

Job fair.

She wiped her clammy hands on the tattered
upholstery.

Another interview.

She chugged the rest of her orange juice and
set the glass back on the table with a bang.

Make that interviews.

She hopped off the couch and searched her
bookcase for Tamela’s interview guidebooks.
Iss-Yous!
fell
to the floor as she pulled the first one from the shelf. She picked
up the paperback and dusted off the cover.

Time for a whole new ballgame.

Born and raised in Illinois,
Jen Estes
started her writing career as a baseball blogger in 2007 and
expanded to freelance sports writing in 2009. She is an active
member of the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR),
Springfield Poets & Writers and the National Writers Union
(NWU). Big Leagues is Jen’s debut novel and the first in a
three-book series featuring sassy sports writer Cat McDaniel. When
she isn’t writing, Jen enjoys running, yoga, traveling and watching
baseball with her husband and cat. You can find Jen on the net at
www.jenestes.com and on Twitter @jenestesdotcom.