Pinch Hitter (Brooklyn Bats #2)

Chapter 1

ONE

LEE

“This is hopeless,” Adrian, my distressed patient and starting pitcher for tomorrow, said while groaning into the face pillow on my chiropractic table.

“Everything seems fine,” I said, feeling around his spine. “Sit up.” I gave a little nudge as he rolled onto his side to sit up.

We both turned to a tiny gasp at the side of my table.

“I think Daddy cracked all your bones,” Bennie, my seven-year-old daughter, said in a loud whisper as her hand flew to her mouth.

“I didn’t crack them. I just made sure they were all in the right place,” I told her, her eyes still wide while they roamed over Adrian’s body. “I promise, Adrian is fine. You trust Daddy, right?”

She nodded, her eyes narrowed as if she weren’t totally sure.

I was the team chiropractor for the Brooklyn Bats, the new—or newest, now that the franchise had just turned four—Major League Baseball team in New York. Bennie usually stayed with my sister and brother-in-law while I was at work, but she loved to come to practice with me when she could.

Being close to home was a big reason I’d transferred to the Bats from my old team in Washington state.

We had enough home games for me to see my daughter a few times a month during the season since my family lived in Brooklyn, but the nice arrangement we’d had was about to end, even if I couldn’t cross the bridge from denial to full-on panic over it.

“Does it hurt?” Bennie asked Adrian, resting her tiny hand on his massive pitching arm.

“No, Bennie,” he said, managing a tight smile for her. “It’s all in my neck.”

I had him lean forward and extended his neck with a slow, gentle push, trying to uncoil the knot of muscles under my fingertips. I studied the agony in his profile and the way he white-knuckled the table, the paper crinkling under him even as I held him in place.

“Do I need to get the scraper?” I joked after he let out another low groan, either from frustration or pain. “Is this an injury you haven’t told Coach about? If you don’t think you can pitch tomorrow, tell us now.”

“No,” he grumbled. “I don’t have an injury. I’m just…” He trailed off as he turned his head toward me, kneading the back of his neck as a deep crease dented his forehead.

“What’s this? I didn’t know my girl was here.”

Bennie gasped again, this time with delight when she scampered toward the door and into Nate Becker’s open arms.

Nate was our shortstop and had been the star player for the Bats since their inception and the main spotlight until they’d hired a famous new manager.

He’d been full of arrogant swagger until tearing his rotator cuff.

We’d worked with him over the past year until he’d been cleared to come back this season.

He’d had a good start and had acquired a little bit of humility during recovery, but he was still mostly the same smug pain in the ass now that he’d returned.

And my daughter was completely in love with him.

Adrian’s popping bones and sore neck were long forgotten now that she’d heard Nate’s voice.

“Adrian has a neck hurt, and Daddy has to scrape him,” Bennie told Nate, looping her arm around his neck after he scooped her off the floor. My daughter seemed even tinier in Nate’s arms, her feet dangling only at his hips.

“Nate, could you take Bennie into the hallway for a minute while I work on Adrian?” I asked, nodding outside. Whatever was wrong with Adrian wasn’t physical from what I could tell, but I wouldn’t be able to find out what it was until we were alone.

“I sure can. How about we go into the dugout and wait until they’re done? I have a surprise for Bennie anyway.”

Before I could ask him what it was, my daughter’s squeal barreled down the hallway. Whatever he had for her, I hoped it would distract her until I could get to the bottom of why our star pitcher was tied up in knots.

“Are you worried about the game tomorrow?”

“Yes. No. I mean…I don’t know.”

“The Bay City Blazers are good, but I think we can still—”

“It’s not them. Or not that. Not really.”

“Okay, so I’m out of guesses. What’s got you so knotted up for tomorrow? Do you have a girl coming to see you or something?” I joked, stepping back from the table.

Adrian’s face twisted into a grimace when he turned, lifting a shoulder.

“Really?” I asked him, crossing my arms over my chest while he gave me a slow nod.

“Well, sort of. This is so fucking stupid. I should be able to pitch no matter who is watching me. I play in New York, for fuck’s sake.”

“I get it,” I said, reaching out to slap his arm, trying not to chuckle at his tortured wince. “A girl who is as important as I’m guessing this one is can mess with you more than fans or press. Even New York fans and press.”

“Yeah,” he breathed out, rubbing the back of his neck. “But I’m fine, Lee. I wanted to try to loosen up a little, but I’m not hurt or anything. Just, like I said, stupid,” he said, hopping off the table with an audible sigh.

“You’re not stupid, and you can always come to see me for any reason. My job is to make you guys feel better, right?”

He shrugged and dropped his gaze back to the floor. His shoulders seemed looser, but he hadn’t lost the deep dent between his brows.

“Can I give you a piece of advice?”

“Sure,” he said, lifting a shoulder.

“I’m not going to ask who she is because it’s none of my business, but if she’s here tomorrow, it’s because she wants to see you, not check out how you pitch.

She’s not a scout or a reporter who’s going to critique your every throw.

I get wanting to show her the best of you, but maybe she’s here to see you because you already did. Think of it that way.”

“Ha,” he said, his brow crinkling while he leaned against the doorjamb. “That actually does help a little. You’re a wise old man,” Adrian said and lifted his head, a smirk tipping up the side of his mouth. “As always.”

I breathed out a chuckle and nodded when he turned to leave, his neck straighter as he made his way out.

Thirty-five had been old to me when I’d been in my twenties too, and the players seemed younger every season.

I’d played baseball in high school and college on a partial scholarship but had never wanted to go pro.

I’d enjoyed it, but a career in sports medicine had always been my goal.

I wanted to be part of a team, but in a different way.

My job was to help players prevent and overcome injury, and if I became their pseudo-therapist along the way, I didn’t mind.

I was here to keep them healthy on and off the field, whatever that might entail.

Leaving a team that had become family would be awful, but seeing that I didn’t have any other options, it seemed more and more like the only choice.

“Everything good?” Silas, my longtime friend and the Bats’ manager, poked his head in. “Bennie told me you cracked all of Adrian’s bones because he has a neck hurt.”

“He’s fine.” I chuckled. “Worked up over a girl. It happens to all of us.”

What seemed like a million years ago, I’d had a girl in the stands too. She’d been at every game, every graduation, every milestone, big or small, because she’d loved me.

Until she wasn’t.

“I see.” He leaned against the wall. “Yes, it happens to all of us.”

Silas had spent most of his playing days in Washington, and when a bad knee injury had cut his career short, the Brooklyn Bats had made him a quick offer to be their new manager.

He was a legend and, I was sure, a Hall of Fame contender, but it had been his heartthrob status that had made him such a hot commodity.

We all loved teasing the shit out of him over the Instagram reels that would pop up with montages of his ass in baseball pants.

But I guessed those reels had gotten me here too. Silas had brought me on with him when he’d accepted the offer. It had been a perfect arrangement that, in a few weeks, would become impossible.

“Any luck?” Silas asked.

“Debbie is offering to stay back for a few weeks, but I can’t let her do that. I’ll come up with a solution.”

That solution would mean I had to quit, but I couldn’t admit that yet.

“Rachel and Taylor can help too when school lets out. It’s an option. I don’t know where Bennie would sleep, but they’d figure something out.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, even though it would never work. Rachel, his wife, worked from home, but she also had a teenage sister with a full sports schedule. Even if I could take them up on their offer, I still had to sort out the next few months until summer.

We strode down the hall toward the dugout, but I didn’t see Nate or Bennie. I was about to jog over, when the shrill sound of what sounded like a broken whistle pierced the air.

My daughter strode across the field, a baseball jersey dwarfing her tiny frame, the sleeves reaching past her hands as she rolled them up to adjust the Bats cap on her head. I had to laugh when she stalked over to a cluster of players warming up along the first base line.

I didn’t know where she’d found the whistle, but I read Becker and the number 2 on the back of the jersey draped over my daughter—a jersey I hoped he realized he was never getting back.

They all stopped and swiveled around when Bennie raised her arms up and down, mimicking a jumping jack.

Sure enough, they all started jumping along with her at the next blow of her whistle.

“Look at them go,” Silas said, barking out a laugh.

“We should probably stop this,” I told him, still cracking up at my daughter stumbling over the hem of the jersey while she tried to jump with them.

“Nah, let them get loose.”

“Okay,” Bennie called out, blowing the whistle. “Nate, you’re all done,” she said, padding across the grass to Nate and pointing to the other side of the field.

“Why is he done?” Chris, our catcher, asked Bennie, peering down at her with his muscular arms crossed.

“Because he has a shoulder hurt,” she said with a huff of exasperation far too advanced for a seven-year-old. “He needs to stretch with Daddy.”

“Thank you,” Nate said, crouching down in front of Bennie and poking his stubbled cheek.

She gave him a quick kiss, giggling with the cutest blush coloring her cheeks.

If this was her at seven, I had no idea how to handle her with boys ten years from now.

“And thank you for looking out for me,” he said, giving her the smile he usually reserved for beautiful women eating out of the palm of his hand. “You heard the lady. Hands up, guys.”

“My teenage sister-in-law still moons over him too,” Silas said with a groan. “I get to deal with him all day and go home to the poster Taylor has on her wall.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of Silas Jones posters plastered in bedrooms all across the city, big guy,” I said, slapping him on the back. “No need to be jealous.”

“No jealousy here. He can have them all.” Silas wiggled his left ring finger, the silver band catching the sun. “I’m very spoken for.”

An intrusive memory poked at my brain from a time when I used to be spoken for too. And I still was. The bossy little lady on the field owned me, heart and soul. While I loved being part of the team, I was her father before anything else.

After letting other people raise my kid and manage my life, it was finally time to step up.