Chapter 9 Kendra
NINE
kendra
What the fuck.
I woke up with my head banging, and a bucket on the floor next to my bed. Thankfully, it was empty.
I blinked and found a glass of water, two ibuprofen, and a note on the bedside stand.
Hawk. Fuck. I got wasted in front of my boss. Or was he a friend? Shit. Who asks their boss to be their wingman? I was sure that HR would have an issue with that, though there was nothing against sleeping with your co-workers, so maybe that gig would be fine.
I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and almost fucking died.
Lucifer lay in the middle of the bed. If he brought me the bucket, he saw my sex toy.
I picked up the note and read it.
Kendra,
Hopefully, these will help with your headache. I know you’re technically on Christmas break, but we’ve got some loose ends to tie up after the Winter Meetings, and I wanted to get your opinion.
Can you meet at my office around 10:00?
Hawk
Okay. So, he left a note about business, so I must not have said anything embarrassing.
Eyeing Lucifer, doubt crept in again. But there was no way I was going to use the vibrator in front of him, and he managed to let that pass so maybe he had no interest in me outside of work.
Why did I get a pinch of pain when I thought Hawk wasn’t interested in me? Had I not gone on my date with Connor last night with at least some hope that it would be a relationship?
Agh—no. I met Connor, with the hopes that I could take him home for the night. Maybe two nights. I only wanted sex. But once the man started talking about nightly blowjobs, I got that familiar ick, one that had prevented me from enjoying anything more than a session with Lucifer.
Up until last night, when I saw Hawk’s reaction, I had thought that feeling had been all me. That I was broken. But maybe I was more normal than I thought—maybe it was the men who sucked?
Mentally, I thanked Hawk for the meds and swallowed them along with half the glass of water.
Me: It looks like I have you to thank for a lot of things this morning. Headache prevention is the biggest issue right now.
Hawk: How are you feeling?
How is that his first question? He hasn’t berated me for drinking too much or pointed out stupid shit I said. It was in these moments that I realized just how fucked up my entire relationship with Tucker had been. Not just how it ended, but how it existed.
Me: I’ve been better. But I probably deserve to feel a lot worse. 10:00 am?
Hawk: Yes. There was some movement after the Winter Meetings, and I wanted your thoughts.
Our GM had been able to add to our roster and fill some major holes in the team’s talent at the beginning of the month.
But there were still some noticeable holes in the infield.
And by holes, there was no shortstop, and the second baseman had the most errors in the American League two years in a row.
Hawk trusted me to go through the data with him.
Had I earned his trust? Why was I always worried about this? Fuck imposter syndrome. Men never worried about why they were invited into the room where decisions were made. They jumped at the opportunity.
I put Lucifer back into my nightstand and hauled my ass out of bed and into the shower. I couldn’t wait to dive into the scouting reports and stats. God, I loved being part of building this team.
I checked my phone before I walked to the office.
Kelsey: Just checking to make sure you received all of your ticket information.
Kelsey had become convinced that something would go wrong or that someone would miss the flight to the island. With the holidays, rebooking would be a challenge if anyone missed their flight, but she had one of the best personal assistants in the business. Monica could figure out any problem.
Me: Yes! All good. And my dress fits perfectly.
Kelsey: Did I show you Crew’s suit?
She had shown me Crew’s suit. At least a thousand times, but I recognized anxiety when I saw it. Kelsey had suffered silently with anxiety for years, but now we all knew how to recognize it and how to let it play out. If it helped her, I would answer the same questions a thousand times.
Me: So cute. I can’t wait to see him in it. What else do you need to do before we leave? Do you need any help?
Kelsey: Nothing. Monica took care of everything. It’s strange to have nothing to do.
Last spring, when Kelsey was still adjusting to being a mother, she worked two jobs and struggled to pay her bills. When Sam entered the picture, I had worried that she would be chewed up and spit out. I didn’t completely trust players, but Sam wasn’t the typical cocky ballplayer.
Yes, I understood the conflict there. My livelihood and the team’s success depended on ballplayers.
The organization made a staggering amount of money on the backs of these men, and while some of them had talent that surpassed what I had seen in decades, some were fucking assholes. I had wrongly assumed that of Sam.
Sam gave Kelsey the world because she was his world.
Add in the complications of the WAGs to the mix.
As management and corporate staff, I normally wouldn’t mix with the wives and girlfriends.
As Kelsey’s sister, I did. While some wives turned a blind eye to their husbands’ bad behavior, relying on team doctors and antibiotics to prevent STDs, some trusted their men, and that trust was unwarranted.
To be a fly on the wall when Sam talked to Kelsey about Elijah and Lindy.
Lindy and Kelsey had grown close over the past few months, and Elijah was a known womanizer.
Well-known to everyone but Lindy. I was sure that Sam had confided that to Kelsey.
But that was something she and I had agreed not to discuss.
Team politics, business decisions, and anything that would put either the team or the players at an unfair advantage.
My track record of keeping secrets didn’t help. I doubted that Kelsey would confide in me, anyway.
But that meant that we could talk about the things that mattered. My nephew, her happiness, and my happiness. Well, whenever there was something that added to my happiness.
My mind wandered to Hawk again as I walked towards the office. Yes, I enjoyed the walk to work most days. But there were times when the wind cut right through you. The fall had been mild, but in the last week, it had become wintry. There had been no snowfall yet, but it was cold enough.
I showed my badge and continued past security to the executive offices.
Hawk: Main conference room.
Great. I didn’t want to find myself alone with Hawk in his office so soon after last night.
He wasn’t alone. He sat at the boardroom table along with the President and CEO, Rick Coogan, Chief Baseball Officer Tanner Bloom, and General Manager Trace Cooper. How the fuck did I belong in this room?
The only notable person missing was AJ Jones, the Manager.
Hawk smiled when I arrived and passed out a packet to everyone. “Before we start, I should probably explain why AJ isn’t here. His contract has been terminated at his request. So that leaves us with another major hole to fill.”
Fuck. AJ was a fan favorite as a former player who was integral in one of the last Minutemen World Series wins. He was hot-headed and passionate, and had been kicked out of a few games for cause; his judgment on the field made him worth it.
“Is there a story there?” I asked.
“Of course there is. But it’s not one that HR is allowing us to share publicly, and we’ve got Public Relations crafting a statement that both AJ and the organization are good with releasing.”
I read through the packet, and it looked like the problem at second base had been solved. Negotiations with JP Anderson were nearing the finish line.
“No.”
I hadn’t realized I had said it out loud until all eyes in the room looked at me. Tucker Milligan—shortstop, top prospect, and the one person in this world whom I never wanted to see again.
Hawk’s eyes flew to mine, and he stared at me in surprise.
“No to what?”
“Not what, it’s who. Tucker Milligan is a powder keg waiting to blow. I went to Dartmouth with him.”
I read through his bio, finding that since we left school, he’d been playing AAA ball. His stats were outstanding, and I could see why he would be in the mix. But fuck. No.
“He’s squeaky clean. What happened at school?” Hawk asked.
Oh God, please no. And nothing official happened while we were in school.
But that was only because I never pressed charges.
The rape kit was stored at the Hanover Police Department, and it would be destroyed in the next two years if I didn’t move forward with charges.
Or if he committed another crime and his DNA was entered into the database.
So far, he had been clean. But I knew Tucker well enough to know he needed the power and loved hurting people.
“Nothing on his record.” My reluctant admission made it highly likely that the men in the room would be fine moving forward with a contract for him. Even I had to admit that his skills were what the team needed next season.
Ugh.
We ran through the rest of the prospects, and while the group unanimously disagreed with my assessment of Tucker, they accepted every other suggestion.
In most situations, I would take that as a win, but without me providing details I wasn’t prepared to share in a professional environment, I had nothing.