Pitch Perfect: Boys of Summer, Book 1 (8 page)

He’d ignore Dave a little longer.

His sister had emailed new pictures of his niece and nephew. Cameron was only eight months old, but Lucy already had him decked out in full Felons gear. Poppy was wearing last season’s shirt, and it was too small, showing off her round toddler belly. The three-year-old proudly held her little brother up for the camera, beaming her perfect child’s grin.

Tucker smiled and wrote back a short thanks to Lucy, passing on kisses to the kids.

With no emails left to distract him and only a lonely hotel room at his disposal, Tucker had two options. He could read the sports blogs, or he could jerk off.

Either way he was screwing himself.

He opened a new tab in his browser window and pulled up the
San Francisco Chronicle
’s online sports page. As the local team, the Felons came up as the first article. Tucker read through the summary of their first three game series—sloppy fielding, cold bats—until he found the first mention of pitching.

They started out discussing the winning game from the previous night, and he gave the reporter props for applauding a solid effort from Max Dawson, a newly acquired left-hander the Felons got from Seattle. He’d struck out eleven batters, and Tucker was thrilled to have him in the rotation.

Then the blog arrived at him.

Tucker Lloyd, the former Felons ace, may be past his prime. In a season meant to send the Felons to a long-awaited World Series bid, one has to wonder if Lloyd still belongs in the starting rotation. With up-and-comer Miles Cartwright showing real promise in the bullpen, and a lineup of strong young players like Dawson and Chalmers, is there room for a knuckleball-throwing older player like Lloyd? Or it is time for the Felons to call it a loss and look at shuffling this once-great player into a support role?

Tucker’s fingers itched as he fought the urge to reply to the posting with a scathing
fuck you
in the comments. No good came of responding to the press, but it was hard to ignore some hack who had never played the game suggesting he was done. What was worse, it mirrored what Tucker himself had been worrying about for months.

One punishment wasn’t enough, so Tucker did the unthinkable for anyone with even moderate fame. He Googled himself.

The top trending link was a blog post from the
Chicago Sun-Times
sports section, and the byline said it had been written by none other than Simon Howell.

For a moment Tucker stared at the blue link, wondering if he ought to click, or if it was smarter for him to leave things be. His elbow throbbed, a constant reminder of what was keeping him from being as good as he once was.

It also served as a reminder of his
date
with Emmy that afternoon. Emmy, who was apparently seeing this Simon guy. Tucker didn’t know what she saw in him. Sure, he looked like a blond Clark Kent—press credentials and all—but was that what women were into? Handsome, funny, intelligent guys whose careers were certain?

Tucker snorted.

His fingers acted free from common sense, and he opened the link, skimming the page quickly to check for phrases like
has-been
,
failure
or
old
. Not seeing any of the tried-and-true print beat-downs, Tucker decided to brave the article.

What do you get when you take a formerly glorious pitcher and pull him out of his game for a full year? You get the age-old tale of Tommy John and the surgery that bears his name. Tommy might have never made it to the Hall of Fame, but many who’ve had the same surgery have gone on to greatness.

On Tuesday night the fans of the San Francisco Felons came together to see if one of their greats might wear his former crown. Tucker Lloyd, a seasoned vet of the Felons roster, returned for his first starting game since the 2011 season. There was much speculation over his recovery and whether or not he’d be able to reach his previous levels.

Lloyd fared well in his five innings, but did not display anything new to kindle hopes of fresh fire within the aging pitcher’s arm. Still favoring a slow knuckleball over his once-famous 100-mph fastballs and impossible-to-hit sliders, Lloyd appeared afraid of his own success.

Tucker stopped reading.

Simon’s prose was fine—above standard for most sports writers, in fact—and Tucker couldn’t fault him for the content of the article either. They’d only spoken briefly after the game, and he could see some of his own quotes lower in the post, but he didn’t have any desire to continue reading. He was too stuck on the last line he read.

Lloyd appeared afraid of his own success.

Every fiber in Tucker’s being wanted to deny the accusation, but the longer he considered it, the more he became aware of the truth in Simon’s words.

He was holding back, but why?

Was it that he was afraid of failure? Or was Simon right?

Maybe failure wasn’t what scared Tucker. Maybe he was really afraid of success. If you failed you had nowhere to go but up. But if you were doing well, the only thing left to do was fall.

Chapter Eleven

There were definite perks to having been an assistant A.T. with another major league team before coming on board with the Felons. For one thing, Emmy was already familiar with the layout of away-team clubhouses after her years with the Sox.

But more importantly, she knew where they stashed the good coffee.

In Kansas City there was a small storage closet between the two clubhouses with no lock on the door, where someone thought they were being stealthy and hiding the good dark roast, opting to leave crappy generic beans in the visiting clubhouse.

Her former boss in Chicago had figured it out long before she started working there, and it was the first thing he showed her on a cold spring morning in Missouri.

Emmy perched on the counter in the training room, waiting for the small three-cup brewer to turn her stolen beans into the brown gold that was coffee. Jasper was the only other member of her team to have arrived early, and he was milling around the training room, grumbling about the quality of their equipment.

“People think low-budget teams suffer because they can’t afford the big-name players,” he lamented, “but the real tragedy is the crap they use to keep the players going.”

Emmy smiled at him then returned to her task as a coffee sentinel. “It’s only three days.”

“
Here.
Then we go to Detroit. God help me if I think about what to expect in Detroit.”

“Detroit has a
much
higher budget,” she reminded him.

Jasper huffed and continued to sort through the gel ice packs, balms and bandages on the shelf as if he might throw a fit. “I’m going to see if they have any decent kind of tensor in storage,” he said with an overly dramatic sigh. “I can’t deal with Chet’s ankle using this crap.”

He stalked out into the hall, grumbling, and Emmy laughed to herself, hearing words like
barbaric
and
if this is what’s in Kansas, Dorothy was better off
. There was no sense in shouting after him that Kansas was one state over.

She poured a cup of coffee into a stained Royals mug, attempting to serve herself the drink and get the pot back in before too much spilled onto the brewer. The hotplate hissed, and she popped her thumb into her mouth after accidentally scalding it on the glass.

“Son of a bitch,” she cursed. Footsteps came into the room, and with her coffee still in hand, Emmy absently asked, “Jas, can you pass me one of the icepacks out of the cooler?”

Putting the pad of her thumb back between her teeth, she tongued the tender flesh until a cool sensation touched her arm. “Thanks.” She grabbed the cold ice pack and placed her burned thumb on it. “Did you—?”

Emmy’s question died in her throat when she came face to chest with Tucker. Her breath hitched as her gaze traveled up his toned chest—clad only in a white undershirt—and up to his ridiculously pretty eyes.

“I thought you were Jasper.”

“No. Tucker.”

“Well, I can see that now.” She was holding the ice pack against her chest, clutching it so hard the gel inside was straining against the plastic. In her other hand the coffee mug was steaming, and she couldn’t figure out if her flushed skin and shivers were from the two competing temperatures or from her proximity to Tucker.

“You hurt yourself,” he noted, taking her injured hand in his.

Emmy dropped the ice pack the second he touched her. “It’s nothing serious. I burned my finger on the coffeepot.” She pointed to the small brewer as if he might not believe her without evidence.

“You’re supposed to let it finish before you take your coffee,” he told her, taking the hot mug from her hand and putting it on the counter.

“I was impatient.”

Tucker lifted her hand to his face, and his lips puckered. He blew a cool stream of air on her thumb, his fingers deftly massaging her palm even though there was nothing wrong with it. Emmy’s vision went hazy as the sensation of his breath changed from cool at first to warm as it passed over her, making her shudder. She stepped closer without meaning to, her hips bumping against his thighs.

“My mother told me once, good things come to those who wait.” He stopped blowing and placed a gentle kiss on Emmy’s thumb before crouching to pick up the fallen ice pack.

“Good things come to those who wait?” Emmy repeated.

“So I’m told.” He clasped her hands between his, the cold of the ice pack sandwiched between her too-hot fingers. Emmy tilted her face upwards, wanting more than anything for him to move one step closer to her. Tucker patted her hands and smiled. “I’ve learned to be very,
very
patient.”

What the hell was he doing?

Some sort of wave of stupidity had overcome him when he was alone in the room with Emmy. He had wanted nothing more than to slip her thumb into his mouth and slide his tongue across the swirling pattern of her fingerprint.

Just thinking it made being close to her dangerous.

“Let’s…let’s have a look at your arm,” Emmy stammered.

Tucker loved the way her cheeks turned pink when she was flustered. The first time he recalled seeing it was the night outside her cottage in Lakeview. Right after they’d kissed, her cheeks had looked like they’d been lit from within. Now she had the same self-conscious glow about her, and it only made him want to kiss her again.

He hopped up on the nearest massage table, and Emmy lifted her almost forgotten coffee mug to her lips, hand trembling.

“Can I get some?” Tucker asked, intentionally twisting his words to see if he could make her blush more.

She choked into her coffee. “What?”

“Coffee. Can I get some coffee?” Killing her hadn’t been the desired effect, but it was nice to know she wasn’t immune to him.

Emmy wiped coffee from her mouth with the back of her sweatshirt sleeve and poured him a drink.

Tucker took the coffee out of Emmy’s hand and sipped. It was arguably the best coffee he’d ever had from the cruddy little pot in the Kansas City clubhouse, and he’d been to Kaufmann Stadium at least fifty times in his career.

Something must have shown in his face because Emmy suddenly looked worried instead of nervous. “Is it okay? I tend to make it a bit strong. Sorry.”

“No. This is amazing. Did you change that piece-of-shit machine?”

She smiled, and more of the uneasy tension melted off her. “No, I just have my secrets. Even at road ballparks.”

“Sneaky.” He took a bigger swallow of the beverage, enjoying the slightly bitter taste and the warmth as it fanned out through his chest. “You make a mean cup of coffee.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, considering you’ve lived in San Francisco for the last decade.”

“San Fran coffee is overrated.”

“You shut your mouth,” she said, punching him in his good shoulder. “Have you ever
had
coffee in your city?”

“You just think it’s amazing because you’re from Chicago.”

She made like she might hit him again. “I won’t have you badmouthing the Windy City, mister.”

“You do it all the time,” he protested.

“I’m allowed to. I’m from there.”

“And still have a boyfriend living there.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Tucker wanted to eat them back up. What an idiot thing to say. “I mean…that’s got to be tough, right?”

“It is.” Emmy’s former playfulness had deflated. She was now staring at the ice pack she’d reclaimed from the counter after giving him his coffee. “But players manage okay.”

“Players manage because their wives come out every other week. Or choose to move with them to the cities they play in. Are you and Whatshisface really going to be
okay
if you only get to see each other six times a year?”

“We’re adults.” She shrugged and threw the ice pack back on the counter. “We talked about it when I moved, and we both decided our careers were important to us. I had to move, and he had to stay.”

Her jaw tightened as she spoke, and it didn’t escape Tucker’s attention when she didn’t look directly at him. “Did you talk about breaking up?”

“No.”