Chapter 5
FIVE
COLBY
A good scream in the confines of one’s car can do wonders for the soul. Ten minutes of screaming, however, hasn’t done shit to curb the vice grip cinching around my chest, thanks to thirty minutes with Jayden Vargas.
This isn’t going to work. I don’t know why I thought it would be okay.
I knew he was here when I took the job, but I had to take it.
It’s my dream job. I’m living this for my dad as much as I am for myself.
It’s what we always talked about when I was a kid and he coached me.
The hours in the garage, hitting balls into the net.
I was never going to make it to “the majors.” There isn’t really such a thing for women.
Yeah, pro-softball is a fledgling industry, and a few of my former teammates have gotten regular roster spots on teams in the Midwest. But their payday barely covers the summer season rent. And they all work second jobs.
Meanwhile, my life got comfortable the moment I signed my contract with the Texas farm system. A hundred grand with the potential of climbing the coaching ranks and breaking barrier after barrier was too tempting to let a little old flame drama squeeze me out.
Fuck if that old flame isn’t a damn forest fire, though.
I’ve been sitting behind the wheel of my hatchback for thirty minutes, staring at the stadium in front of me and the Welcome to Sweetwater sign in the distance in my rearview mirror.
The sun is about to kiss the horizon, and the sky is slowly morphing from a dusty blue to the most brilliant orange.
It’s stunning; so beautiful I could cry.
And the sight of it makes me feel so goddamn alone.
I take a gamble that my father’s practice is done for the day, and press his contact information as I sink into the driver’s seat and wait for Mother Nature’s show. My dad answers on the third ring.
“Hey, how was your day, Coach?”
He’s been saying things like that ever since I took the job. It would have been easy for him to be jealous, and I’m sure part of him is, just not in a cruel or spiteful way. He’s genuinely happy I got this opportunity. I like that he gets to live it vicariously.
“Why do all ballplayers have their heads up their asses?”
He’s uttered these same words dozens of times, and he chuckles hearing the phrase come out of my mouth.
“You ever find that out, promise you’ll tell me?”
“Pfft.”
He chuckles.
“You do a good impression of me,” he says.
I sling a wrist over the steering wheel and shift my attention to the passenger-side window.
A few of the players I worked with today are just now leaving the ballpark.
Last I checked, Jayden was still in the clubhouse.
After I left him, he hit for a solid hour to work his own way through the simulation rounds.
I went back in and read the reports after lunch.
He did all right. A solid two-ninety average off a guy I know is going to throw a full bag of tricks at him.
If he hits like that off the real guy this Friday, he should do just fine.
“I worked with Jayden today.”
I know my father’s been dying to ask about him. I wasn’t lying earlier when I told Jayden he was my father’s favorite. He always was. Things may have gotten complicated for all of us, but my father’s faith in Jayden never once wavered.
“And?”
I let out a soft chuckle.
“You were right. He doesn’t like to hear when he’s wrong.”
My father’s laugh buries mine. He so enjoys being told he’s right. I keep my mouth shut on the subject, but the truth is, my father and Jayden are a lot alike—they both don’t take well to being corrected.
Their ideas. Coaching philosophies. Swings. Mental approaches. They are both dug so deep that outsiders must resort to tricks to break them out of their habits. I’ve learned how to work them both over the years. As much as they don’t like gentle correcting, they do love a good ego stroke.
“He did say the minor league facilities are shit compared to your old place.” I’m working on my father’s ego now. He had a decent training set-up for young ballplayers, but at its core, it was still a warehouse. And it was hot as fuck in the summer.
“Ah, yeah. He loved that place. Sometimes, I miss it.” My father has slowed down his extracurriculars. He used to coach several youth teams along with the high schoolers, but when Mom died, he let a lot of that go. I think he only kept the facility open so Jayden had a place to go.
“You hear about Adriel?” The disappointment in my father’s tone is what I was bracing myself for. I’ve never been close to Jayden’s older brother, but everything he does trickles down to Jayden, so I dread the lecture my father will want me to pass along.
“He’s never been good at focus,” I say.
Adriel’s wild ways started in elementary school. He was always ditching school to do dumb shit with his friends, like swim in the canal channels, or, when he got older, swipe forties from the convenience store and drink them in the dry riverbed.
“Yeah. Don’t I know it,” my father grumbles.
Adriel is the biggest star my father ever coached.
He also gave my dad an ulcer from the constant stress he put him through.
It’s a miracle he wasn’t kicked out of school for half the shit he pulled—fighting, smoking weed on campus, more fighting.
My father went to bat for him every time, even after getting burned over and over again.
“You tell Jay to walk his own path,” my father barks. This is the lecture I was waiting for.
“You should tell him yourself,” I say with a sigh, knowing my father won’t make the call.
“Eh, he’s an adult,” he mutters. I figured he’d back off when I pushed the duties back on him.
My father hasn’t talked to Jayden since he was drafted.
The two of them were once so close. Jayden thought of my father as his own.
My father was around and sober, so it’s not like he had a lot of competition for the role from Jayden’s real dad.
Even when all of our lives were upended, Jayden and my father’s special connection remained.
They needed each other in a way nobody else could fill. I guess they simply no longer do.
“So, Mother’s Day . . .” Might as well get to the reason I called.
“Are you sure the team is all right with you heading back on a later flight?”
“I’m sure,” I reply. When I got the Mavericks’ schedule, the first thing I checked was how away trips lined up with Mother’s Day weekend. I lucked out for my first year—the team is in Sugar Land. It’s not a far drive to head home for a visit, especially one as important as this.
“They won’t miss me; I promise. Besides, I’ll be back for the Monday meetings, and that’s what really matters.”
My dad knows I need to battle to make my voice heard, even in the rooms I’ve been invited into.
I’m determined for my work with the Mavericks to be more than a publicity stunt, not that I believe it is in any way.
But the perception is easy to fall into.
And the way the PR team has been bragging about my hire in the media certainly hasn’t normalized my working here.
“All right, as long as you promise. I’ll drive you back to the house after your game, then I can take you to the airport in the evening, save you a rental car. I was planning on coming to the Sunday game regardless. You know, to see my baby girl do her thing.” His raspy laugh echoes with pride.
“I hate to disappoint you, but you’ll barely see my face. I’m behind the iPad most of the time, charting,” I say with a chuckle.
“Best damn charter that ever was,” he says.
I laugh. “All right. Whatever, Coach.” I’ve called him that more than I’ve ever called him Dad. It’s our thing, and Mom loved it.
“I love you, Dad,” I say, not quite ready to hang up.
I can hear his truck motor idling in the background.
He’s probably been hanging out in the parking lot by the baseball field since I called.
He’s in charge of locking up the gates, and I feel better when he gets home before dark.
As it is, he and I are going to have to negotiate him driving me to the airport on Sunday night.
“I love you, too, baby girl. Now, go on. Get home safe, you hear?”
“You, too, Dad. You, too.”
It takes my dad a few extra seconds to break first and end our call. And I spend a good minute and a half sitting in the parking lot as I watch him trek home through the wonders of cellphone tracking technology.