Chapter 6 #3
you intimidate Olson too. That’s why he can be such an asshole to you sometimes. Gabe Ruthless , amirite?”
There was too much alcohol in her system for Emmy to fully unpack what Pedro had said to her; she’d have to revisit it later,
but one part stuck out and pushed a niggling question to the front of her mind.
“Did he really get Mikey Walker fired?”
Pedro took a sobering breath. His voice came back serious. “Listen, I only know what I know, but back when it happened, they were branching off the R&A department to be its own thing. Walker and Olson had interned
together, and they were both up for a full-time role. And then one day, Olson had a meeting with Alice and the director, and
the next day, Walker was gone. For good.”
“Shit,” Emmy muttered, her fear of Gabe’s ruthlessness only amplified by all the drinks.
“Shit, indeed,” Pedro said. “I think under that Captain America exterior beats a cold heart. But I guess that’s kinda necessary
if you want to win all the time.”
Emmy glanced over the shoulder Pedro wasn’t dangling off and saw Gabe a few paces behind them tapping at his phone again. His phone’s light carved up his face into dramatic shadows that made him look even more menacing.
She turned back to face forward. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to put an end to that winning streak, won’t I?”
Pedro threw his head back and cackled a loud laugh. “That’s the spirit. Use that fire to take him down.”
Emmy smiled to herself and vowed she would.
When they eventually stopped walking, it was way past Emmy’s bedtime, and they were nowhere closer to her bed that she desperately
wanted to collapse into.
“Uh, why are we at the park?” Gabe asked exactly what she was thinking.
Silas lingered behind them with a female companion they’d somehow picked up over the course of the night. She had pink hair,
a dozen earrings, and combat boots and was, by all standards, smoking hot.
“Hello,” Emmy said to her with a friendly wave.
She silently waved back with a smile.
Pedro cleared his throat with a dramatic flourish and held out his arms. “We are here, dear friends and colleagues, because
I have a surprise for you.” He checked his smartwatch and then turned around to look at the set of handle-less doors behind
him that only opened from the inside. He’d led them to a maintenance entrance at the ballpark. The stadium lights were off,
the crowd had dissipated. They were basically in a creepy back alley that would have set Emmy’s nerves on edge if she wasn’t
with a group of people.
“What is it, postgame trash duty?” Gabe said with a chuckle.
Emmy could tell by the sway in his shoulders and the crooked grin on his lips he was drunk.
“No,” Pedro said sourly. “We are not picking up trash. Someone in Facilities Management owes me a favor, and I decided to
cash in on it.” Pedro shimmied his shoulders and gave them a wicked grin.
Emmy gasped at the same time Gabe chuckled a warm belly laugh.
“No way!” he said excitedly.
A similar excitement thrummed through Emmy. Facilities Management meant keys to the ballpark, and keys to the ballpark meant access to places they were supposed to have permission to go.
Like the field.
“Yes way,” Pedro said with a proud grin. Right then, the doors behind him opened a tentative crack. A head appeared from inside
and looked out at them. “Right on time,” Pedro said.
A tall man with dark eyes and hair whom Emmy might have recognized if not for all the booze gave them a nod and waved them
in. “We’ve got to do this quick if we’re going to do it,” he said.
“Oh, we are most certainly going to do it,” Pedro said, and stepped inside.
The rest of them followed into the dim hallway and closed the doors like a tomb sealing shut behind them.
“If you get in trouble for this, it wasn’t me who let you in,” the man who had in fact let them in said and then disappeared
into a shadowy doorway.
Emmy spent every day at the ballpark, but somehow being there after hours and in a restricted zone flipped the mundanity into
a daring thrill. She excitedly shoved her way forward and squeezed Pedro’s arm. “Can we go on the field?!”
He shot her a flat, sarcastic stare. “No, I broke us into the park to hang out in our office.”
Emmy squealed in delight. “This is the best surprise ever!”
They crept through the catacombs of the stadium like the cast of Scooby-Doo , peeking around corners and scurrying past cameras. Eventually, they made it onto the field. The sheer scale of it humbled
Emmy every time. On the rare occasions she got to put her feet on the grass, scuff the dirt, feel the energy of forty-five thousand fans in the seats, she fell in love with the sport all over again. It was no wonder little
kids dreamed of one day going pro.
She caught sight of Gabe jogging out to the mound.
They’d scooped up a few gloves, bat, and ball on their journey.
Gabe tossed the ball to Pedro as he backpedaled, and then caught it when he threw it back.
Silas and his pink-haired companion wandered into the outfield to lie in the grass and stare up at the sky.
Emmy wondered if they’d had more than just drinks.
“Let’s see what you’ve got, Gabe Ruthless,” Pedro cheered as he jogged to home plate, punching his mitt.
“First off, Babe Ruth was left-handed,” Gabe said from the mound, in reference to his nickname’s origin.
“Always a buzzkill with the facts, Olson,” Pedro said. “Come on, let’s see it.” He squatted behind home plate as Gabe warmed
up his shoulder.
Emmy looked on from the third base line, leaning on their filched bat like a cane.
Gabe stretched out his arm a little more and then went into a windup. The ball flew from his hand with surprising precision
given everyone’s state and landed with a sharp smack squarely in Pedro’s glove.
“Woo! Okay, okay !” Pedro sang and stood to throw it back. “The Bambino’s still got some heat.”
Gabe caught it with a smile and kicked at the dirt. He shook out his arm, ready to go again. The second pitch flew by even
harder.
“ Owww! ” Pedro howled with a laugh when he caught it. “You were all-state in college, right?”
“Yeah,” Gabe said with another shake of his shoulders. He was warmed up now.
Emmy snorted without even meaning to. “Of course you were,” she muttered.
“What’s that?” Gabe asked.
She kicked the bat so it swung up onto her shoulder and cocked a hip. “I said of course you were all-state in college. I bet your alma mater has a shrine dedicated to you.”
Gabe scowled at her as Pedro hollered again.
“Uh-oh! We’ve got a heckler!”
Emmy used the bat to point at Gabe. “Did you put that on your résumé? College baseball legend turned stats nerd? It’ll take more than history with the sport to get this promotion.”
Gabe shook his head. “You talk a big game, Jameson.”
“Oh yeah? I also swing a big game, Olson.” She twirled the bat around like a baton and gave him a cocky grin.
“Is that a challenge?” he said with an arched brow she could see even from the sidelines.
“Maybe it is.”
Gabe puffed out his chest and threw the ball into his own glove with a close-range snap. “All right, how about this: You get
a hit off me, and I’ll step aside for the promotion.”
Emmy gaped at him, unable to stop her mouth from falling off its hinges.
Pedro cackled from home plate.
Based on the grin stretching Gabe’s lips, he was serious.
“You are that confident that you’d risk your job?” Emmy said, still blinking in shock.
“Yep,” he said, and pointed at the plate. “Go on then. One at bat to see who gets it.”
A laugh escaped Emmy’s mouth. “I don’t know whether to be offended by your lack of faith in me or thankful for your arrogance
for giving me this opportunity to so handily destroy you—with an audience.” She walked to home plate with the bat in her hand,
ready to show him.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Gabe said. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Jameson.”
Behind the plate, Pedro was grinning like a fool. “This keeps getting better and better.”
Emmy squared up in the batter’s box and kicked at the dirt, more thankful than ever she’d worn sneakers and not heels.
“You always been a lefty?” Gabe said with a curious hitch to his voice. As if he was suddenly recalling only ever seeing her
write with her right hand in the office.
She swung the bat a few times to warm up her arms and hips. “Only in the batter’s box. Stop stalling and let’s do this.” She’d played a few seasons of softball in school, but most of her experience came from days in the backyard as a kid. Her ambidexterity was directly inherited from her dad.
“Okay, you asked for it,” Gabe said in a taunt.
“Just throw it,” she called back. She squared herself and took a deep breath, trying to remember the last time she’d even
swung a bat.
With the stadium lights off, all they had to work with was the surrounding buildings glowing down on them. A marine layer
had mottled the sky in a patchwork of gray. Even so, she narrowed her eyes on the ball in his hand. He turned it inside his
glove, lining the seams up with his fingers to make it spin a certain way.
Good thing she knew how to read a fastball.
He went into his windup, and Emmy fought to focus through the long lines of his powerful body bending and angling for leverage.
She would never admit it—especially to her colleagues—but one of the perks of working in men’s sports was getting to watch
men do sports. The precision bodies cut like diamonds from all the training. The explosive yet graceful movements. The sheer
power of it all. She kept such thoughts locked up with other unprofessional ones—like how good Gabe Olson looked standing
on the pitcher’s mound right now. Even if he wasn’t in the game anymore, he still looked the part.
Gabe turned to face the third base line and then brought his left knee to his abdomen, spring-loading his limbs to explode
with motion. The giant step forward he took left his jeans tight on his thick thighs and his broad chest flexed through his