Chapter 1 #2
I’m mid-conversation with a few of the guys from my coaching staff. The meeting is over, so most everyone is simply catching up before calling it a day.
“Can I speak with you?” Reese continues.
I take a sharp inhale through my nose, gathering myself as I turn around to face her. “You’re the boss.”
“Surprised you remember that.” Her eyes trail to the group of my video coaches. “In my office, please.”
Reese shifts on her high heels, heading straight for the door, expecting me to follow.
Which I, of course, do.
Hands in my pockets, I trail her out of the film room down the hall and up two flights of stairs, headed for her office.
I keep my head down, partly to avoid watching the way her sinfully thick hips sway from side to side with each step she takes, but mostly because I feel like a kid in trouble, being called to the principal’s office, and not like a long-tenured field manager with a winning track record and a World Series ring.
My jaw is tense for the entire walk to her office, but my chewing gum acts as a good distraction to anyone who might be watching this interaction. My players and staff have always known me as easygoing and confident.
But when it comes to Reese, I feel the complete opposite.
Who knows what she’s going to throw at me on day one of this new season. All I know is that it’s starting. Her mission to prove to herself that she doesn’t need to renew my coaching contract next year starts today.
Once we reach the top floor, she turns the corner to her office and I follow, but stop short at the empty receptionist desk that lives just outside her door.
“Where’s Denise?” When Reese doesn’t answer, my eyes find hers. “You fired Denise? Are you serious?”
I get that the woman is wanting to make this place her own, but firing her grandfather’s receptionist that worked here as long as Arthur did? What the hell?
Reese narrows her eyes at me. “Of course I didn’t fire Denise. I’ve known her since I was born, but she wanted to retire, regardless of how many times I begged her to stay. I just haven’t found her replacement yet. As much as you might not believe this, I’m not a monster, Emmett.”
Reese doesn’t give me a chance to respond, which is probably for the best, before she continues into her office and closes the door once I enter too.
The massive windows that look over the field are the first thing to draw my eye, the same way they have whenever I met with Arthur over the past seven years. The view from up here is probably one of the best in the city, and I can’t imagine a better spot to watch a baseball game from.
Well, other than my prime spot against the railing in the dugout.
Even though the view is the same and this office is technically the one that I’ve been in countless times, it looks unrecognizable from the one Arthur used to occupy.
Reese has updated her desk to one that’s sleek and modern, unlike the clunky one Arthur used to sit behind that was always covered in piles of papers and housed an outdated computer. Her chair is ivory and gold, unlike the cracked dark-brown leather one that used to reside there.
The piles of clutter that Arthur had accumulated over the past four decades are nowhere to be found, and Reese’s office is now bright and light and clean. Sleek, modern, and neutral.
Exactly how I’d describe her fashion sense if I ever let myself admit that I noticed.
“Take a seat,” she says, gesturing to one of the new chairs that sits opposite of hers.
For a split second, I let myself believe that maybe she’s calling for a truce between us. That she knows as well as I do that this year is going to be a nightmare if we can’t get along. But that idea is quickly dispelled when she says, “You need to fire one of the video coaches.”
“Excuse me?”
“You have three on staff, when we’ve only ever had two. We don’t have the salary space to pay three people.”
What the hell?
“Arthur gave me permission at the end of last season to add a third. I just hired someone. I can’t fire him.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
I look her dead in the eye. “Won’t.”
“He should have never allowed that. The budget is a mess because my grandfather stopped paying attention to it. We don’t have the funds to pay three people.”
“Then take it from my salary.”
Reese jolts back at my words, staying silent for a moment as she mulls over my quickly spoken statement. “No. It’s not only the salary. It’s the added expense of hotel rooms and food on the road. We don’t need a third.”
“Well, I’m not firing one of my guys. Two of them have been with me forever and the third I just upgraded from the triple-A team. His family just moved here, and his wife is expecting soon. He needs the salary raise.”
Reese shows absolutely no emotion, those dark blue eyes unflinching. “I’m only paying two, so it’s your choice who goes.”
So much for “I’m not a monster, Emmett.”
I can feel my grip tighten on the armrests of the chair, can feel my jaw tense so tightly I should probably be concerned for my teeth. “Not happening, Reese. Find money from somewhere else or take it from my salary. Your grandfather never would have asked me to fire someone who needed a job.”
Exasperated, she pulls her attention from me, refocusing instead on something on her computer. “You may have had my grandfather wrapped around your finger, but I’m not him. Things are going to be different this year, Emmett, so you should probably get used to that idea.”
Yeah, no shit things are going to be different.
And I hate that idea.
“Monty!” is the first thing I hear as I open the door to my daughter’s house. “You color with me?”
“Absolutely I will.” I lift my favorite three-year-old, slinging him on my hip and closing the front door behind me. “Missed you, Max.”
He melts into my shoulder, already in his pajamas for bed as I carry him to the kitchen to find his parents.
“Hi, Dad,” Miller says with a quick hug to my side.
I pop a kiss on the top of her head before she grabs the pasta dish she made for dinner and we slip into the dining room.
I knock fists with Kai and Isaiah when I find them at the table, setting Max on his feet. He pulls at my hand to take the chair where his coloring book and crayons are set up, climbing into my lap and picking a color for me, silently asking me to help him fill in the outlined image.
“Sorry, that was the new athletic trainer I hired.” Kennedy hangs up her phone before taking the last empty seat next to her husband.
“Her flight was canceled so she won’t be here until tomorrow.
” She sighs, looking at the food on the table.
“Thanks for making us dinner. We still haven’t unpacked enough to find our dishes. ”
Max looks up from my lap. “Ken,” he says, smiling up at his aunt.
“Hi, Bug.”
Kai makes a plate of pasta and salad for his fiancée. “We’ll come over tomorrow and get it finished.”
“I can make it mandatory,” I cut in. “Tell the team they need to get over to your place and help the new team doctor.”
“Or they could just come help their teammate because they love me,” Isaiah adds.
“Kennedy is in charge of their medical treatment,” Kai reminds him. “I think they’re going to be a bit more inclined to kiss her ass rather than yours.”
“Monty. More.” Max nudges my tattooed hand, the one with the crayon that’s not working fast enough for him.
I quickly fill one of the outlined trees on the page. “House is good?” I ask Kennedy and Isaiah.
“It’s perfect.” She smiles.
Isaiah looks to his older brother and a content understanding passes between them. “I’m glad we’re living closer.”
Miller passes the breadbasket across the table, her eyes latched on me for too long as she does.
“Yes?” I ask suspiciously.
“Nothing.”
“Since when do you have a filter, Miller? Spit it out.”
“I just think it’s nice that Kennedy and Isaiah are moving out of the downtown area and bought a house down the road from us.”
“It is nice,” I agree. “For them.”
She focuses on the plate in front of her. “Nice enough that maybe you’d want to do the same.”
I bark a laugh. “Nice try. I’m perfectly happy in my apartment in the city that’s walking distance to work. I practically live at the field during the season anyway.”
“I’m just saying, Dad, your whole family is out in the suburbs now.”
“And I’m glad you four are all happily paired-off suburban couples.”
“You could be happily paired off too, you know.”
The disbelieving laughter keeps coming. My daughter has never been one to shy away from exactly what’s on her mind. “Geez, Millie.”
Kai shakes his head. “Let the man eat his dinner in peace.”
“Oh, no, no, no.” She holds a finger up. “You don’t get to play Switzerland right now. You agreed with me when we talked about this last night.”
I raise a brow. “You two talked about me last night? Nothing more exciting going on in your lives?”
“We just want you to be happy, Dad.”
“And what makes you believe that I’m not happy? I’ve got my dream job and my daughter finally lives nearby. What more could I want?”
“A lady friend,” Isaiah cuts in, talking over a full mouth.
“A lady friend?” Kennedy asks, unimpressed by her husband’s choice of words.
“Yeah. A lady friend. A girlfriend. A wifey.” He winks at her. “Or just a fuck buddy.”
I palm both of Max’s ears to cover them.
“Gross.” Miller grimaces.
“Oh, come on, Miller. Look at the man. You think your dad looks like that and doesn’t have fuck buddies? Please.”
“Rhodes.” I shake my head at him. “Shut up.”
He smiles to himself before taking another forkful of pasta. “Sure thing, Coach.”
“I’m happy, and I’m too busy to worry about anything other than work and you four.” I uncover Max’s ears. “Five,” I correct.
“Just saying,” Miller mutters under her breath. “Maybe it’s your turn.”
Until Miller met Kai, she had never mentioned the idea of me dating before, but now she won’t let it go. Like she’s so happy, she wants the same for me.
And I get it, I do, but I’ve already had my turn.
Sure, it’s been twenty years since I was with Miller’s mom, and I only had her for a year before we lost her, but I’ve experienced it.
And then I was suddenly a twenty-five-year-old dad to a kindergartener who just lost her mom and wasn’t biologically mine, and I was too busy to worry about anything else.
Now, I’m in my mid-forties and focused on my career. Happily, if I do say so myself, and too busy living at the field to meet someone.
With the stretched silence, Miller lets it go. “How was the meeting?” she asks us instead.
“Good,” Kai exhales. “It sounds like there’s going to be quite a few changes this year, but Reese was well-spoken. She’s smart.”
“Dad, it went okay?” Miller’s tone is full of apprehensiveness.
“It was fine.”
I don’t mention the little conversation Reese had at me—yes, at and definitely not with—in her office afterward to inform me she was cutting a video coach position.
I couldn’t tell you if that’s a good business move or not, and I don’t necessarily care.
All I know is the salary she wants me to cut belongs to a soon-to-be father who needs it.
A smile blooms on Kennedy’s mouth. “It was really amazing to listen to Reese’s vision for the team. I’m excited she’s taking over as owner.”
And even when the conversation shifts to subjects outside of work, the only thought that goes through my mind for the rest of dinner is . . . that makes one of us.