Chapter 12
Music City Troubadours’ rookie arrested in downtown Nashville.
The clicker scrolls across the bottom of the screen with a picture of Chase’s mugshot popping up beside the announcer’s head.
“What the fuck?!” I jump up from my relaxed position on the hotel sofa at the same time as my phone rings on the coffee table. My assistant’s name flashes on the screen.
“What?” Ivory and Taylor run into the room from the kitchen of our hotel suite in Atlanta. The boys went to do press while we hung back at the hotel until the Home Run Derby later today.
I point to the screen as I answer my phone. Taylor curses under her breath and grabs her phone as well. In this crisis, I’ll take as much help as she’s willing to offer.
“Yes, I just saw it on ESPN. How did I not know about this before the news broke, Beth?” I listen to the rundown of what happened from my assistant. “Put me through to the comms team.”
“They’re all in a meeting right now, Gabby. It’s crisis control mode so they’ve created a war room in the conference room down the hall,” Beth responds, hesitant to connect the call.
“I don’t care. There are numerous people on that team who should’ve called me and told me about this. Not you. Now put me through.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she says. While I’m waiting for the call to connect to the communications team, my phone beeps with an incoming call.
“Fuck,” I say to myself seeing it’s my boss on the other line. “Mark, hi, I just heard the news.”
"This is a goddamn disaster. Arrested?! His mug shot is everywhere. And to top it all off, I had to hear about it from my contact at the paper. Why didn’t you call me.
I shouldn’t hear about these things from people outside of the organization before I hear about them from YOU.
This is YOUR job, Gabrielle, in case you forgot.
And where are you? Why aren’t you in the conference room with everyone else?
” The irony isn’t lost on me that he’s the one who’s never in the office and the one time I leave, I’m the problem.
“I’m in Atlanta, sir. The All Star Game,” I remind him, rolling my eyes since he can’t see me through the phone.
“Right, off gallivanting and playing plus one with your little friends and boyfriend.”
“To answer your other question, I had no idea this happened. No one called me until just now. I was waiting on the line to connect to comms when you called.”
“They wouldn’t have had to call if you were here doing your job. Get your ass back to Nashville and handle it.” The line goes dead at his parting jab.
As soon as I hang up, a video of Chase starts playing on the TV. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” I watch in disbelief as he mounts a goddamn police horse and take off down Broadway, laughing while he does it.
“It’s everywhere,” Taylor says, not looking up from her phone.
When Chase goes flying off the horse and hits the pavement, I gasp. Both relieved he is okay and annoyed that he pulled such an immature prank. This is not the man I thought I knew. The man I had a heartfelt conversation with on Friday morning. This man is a child.
“I cannot believe this,” Ivory chimes in.
The shock on her face almost makes me laugh.
“Dad says he is one of the most dedicated on the team. That he showed out in the minors, but really pulled his act together this year and was determined to toe the line now that he’s with the Troubadours.
He hasn’t gotten in trouble since they called him up in last month. ”
“Well, when the cat’s away…” Taylor trails off.
“I’ve got to get back,” I pinch the bridge of my nose, a headache forming after Mark’s tirade. “They’ve called an emergency meeting to go over the charges and how to do damage control.”
“Want me to come with you?” Taylor offers, still texting on her phone.
“I hate to have you miss the rest of the celebrations,” I hedge, knowing that we could use Taylor’s expertise.
“But I could help,” Taylor fills in the blanks. All I do is nod. “I’ll have my assistant coordinate the flight. You go pack. Ives, can you call the guys?”
“Yep, they’ve probably just heard the news too.”
Sure enough, the door opens and Miller and Preston file into the room.
“Can you believe this guy?” Preston crosses the room and pulls Ivory into a hug.
“He stole a horse,” Miller laughs. “The police horse!” I pick up a couch pillow and whack Miller with it. “What? You have to admit it’s kinda funny.”
“It’s not funny,” Preston attempts to keep his composure, but I can see his lips twitch.
“If it were anyone else other than our rookie, you’d think it was. Come on, man, who steals a cop horse?” Miller retorts.
“I mean, why are they down there anyway,” Ivory chimes in.
“Exactly! That horse was probably thrilled at the getaway. Did you see how happy it looked?” Miller motions to the screen as if the video is still playing. It’s not, but it’s burned into my mind.
“This is going to be really bad for the team,” Taylor adds. “But you have to admit it is fucking hilarious.”
My friends continue to debate the hilarity and merits of stealing a horse while my mind runs rampant with the work that will need to be done to take care of this situation, too lost in my thoughts to contribute to the conversation around me.
I leave the room to start packing while making a mental to-do list.
Get back to Nashville as soon as possible.
Call Chase’s lawyer and find out what we’re looking at here.
Call Coach Crenshaw and the GM to get their temperature on the situation. Coach is here, but I don’t have time to track him down before I leave, and he can’t go anywhere as the coach for the National League in tomorrow night’s game.
Call PR to draft a statement on our rookie finding himself in trouble while the team is on break.
Call the district attorney and see if there’s something we can work out since it’s a nonviolent offense.
What is the charge for stealing a police horse? I google quickly.
A felony.
Christ, what the hell was he thinking?
I’m not one to believe that people shouldn’t be punished for their crimes; however, this offense specifically is on the lower end of the spectrum for criminal activity. Taylor comes into the room when I’m throwing the last of my belongings into the suitcase.
“Your brain is working a mile a minute. I can see it.”
“Do you think there’s a way to spin this?” I don’t stop to look at her, running to the bathroom to make sure I didn’t leave anything behind.
“I mean, it’s not good because of his reputation in the minors, but the offense is nonviolent and more funny than harmful. At least in my opinion,” she says, taking the words right out of my head.
“I didn’t even think about the prior news.
” Inwardly I cringe. I had forgotten about The Chaser’s reputation before I met him.
He wasn’t even The Chaser in my mind. There was a part of me that still thought of him as Matt, the man I met on vacation and spent one orgasmic blissful night with.
The other part knew Chase as the flirtatious and cocky rookie making a splash in the big leagues with his talent and playing style.
Neither of those matched with the man people described as a womanizer, chronic partier, and troublemaker.
“I just don’t get it. He’s been on his best behavior and a model athlete since he got to Nashville. What happened?” I voice my thoughts to my best friend.
“He’s young,” she shrugs like that’s answer enough.
When I scowl at her, she continues, taking a seat on the edge of my bed.
“Who knows, Gabby? He got called up in June, so that’s what, like a month ago?
He doesn’t really have any friends here.
It was off to the races to prove his worth to the team.
Now that it’s All-Star Break and the responsibilities aren’t as high, he was probably just blowing off steam and things spiraled from there. ”
“I hope you’re right.” Could this be my fault because I told him to forget the notion of us being together? Did I drive him to go out and then he got in trouble? No, he may be younger than me, but he’s a grown ass man. I’m not responsible for his poor decision making.
“I seriously doubt he went out last night and said to himself, ‘I’m going to steal a horse from the police and get arrested so the team can punish me.’”
“He better not be that stupid.” I groan. “Who steals a horse right from under the police?” I laugh.
“Right, ballsy. You have to have serious BDE for that. Tell me—” She bats her eyelashes, leaning into my personal space. “—does he have the big dick to back it up in his pants, counselor?” My face turns beet red at the reminder she knows we’ve slept together. I palm her face and push it away.
Grabbing my suitcase off the bed, I walk to the door, but turn at the last second and say, “Yes he does.” Does he ever. I don’t need the reminder of how big his dick is or how well he knows how to use it when I need to be focused on damage control and getting us out of this mess.
Taylor cackles behind me and follows me out into the main area of the suite.
“What’s so funny?” Miller questions.
“Nothing,” I say quickly. The last thing I need is him getting started.
“BDE,” Taylor says, clearly unconcerned with keeping this under wraps.
“BDE?” Preston asks.
“Big Dick Energy, babe,” Ivory pats his chest.
“Who’s big dick?” Preston and Miller ask in unison.
“No one’s!” I shout.
“I was just telling Gabby that the rookie must have some serious BDE to steal a horse downtown right in front of the police. Asked if she knew anything about that.”
Miller hides his laugh while Preston and Ivory look confused.
“Did you find a flight?” I ask Taylor, changing the subject in hopes to avoid an awkward explanation about how I could possibly know about Chase’s BDE.
“Grant is sending the team plane.” Grant Davenport is the principal owner of the Music City Troubadours and only moved to Nashville to take on a more active role in the organization last year. At Ivory and Preston’s wedding, Taylor did everything she could to avoid him and now, she’s texting him?
“What, are ya’ll friends now?”
“Something like that,” she deflects. “Plane should be there by the time we make it to the airstrip.” Having Grant and a plane on speed dial doesn’t add up, but we don’t have time to dive into what it means, so I let it drop for now.
“We should get going then. Sorry I’m going to miss your big game.” I wrap Miller in a hug. I was really looking forward to watching him catch in this All-Star Game.
“It’s okay.” Miller winks. “There will be more,” he assures me, even though we don’t know that.
We don’t talk about it, but both he and Preston are getting up there in playing age.
We aren’t sure when their last season will be.
Knowing this could possibly be his last All-Star appearance and I’m going to miss it makes me sad.
It also makes me mad at Chase for pulling this stunt and ruining this chance.
“There better be.” I squeeze him once more before moving to Preston.
“We’re fine, Gabs. Go be your badass lawyer self and deal with the troublemaker. Tell him he’ll be running laps and on clean-up duty for at least a month.”
“I’m sure we can come up with some creative ways to punish him if we can get the charges resolved.” I nod to them both and leave the hotel suite. My phone rings again as we exit the elevator in the lobby.
“Hi, Coach,” I answer the call with one hand, wrangling my bags with the other.
“Gabby, I’m sure you’re in the know. I just wanted to call about Bennett’s arrest.” I hear an echo and look up to see Coach pacing in the lobby. Walking over to him, I say, “I have.” When he sees me, he hangs up the phone.
“We’re headed back to Nashville now.”
“Let me walk you out,” he takes my bags.
“My assistant called right as the news broke. Mark called immediately after. You were my next call after Taylor got the plane sorted.” I’m already exhausted and we haven’t even left the hotel yet.
“When do you take off?” Coach asks as we approach the attendant at the waiting car.
“Grant is sending the plane. It should meet us at the airstrip.”
“How did you manage that?” His eyebrows hit his hairline.
“Taylor.” He eyes me skeptically, like he knows there’s more to the story than even I know. Interesting.
“What do you know?” I ask him as he hands my bags off to the valet to load them into the trunk.
“He was arrested overnight and booked into Metro. His lawyer was able to get him released, but charges are currently pending, and the league isn’t happy. Neither is Grant.”
“Mark wasn’t pleased either. I haven’t talked to PR yet but will on the way to the airport.”
“They didn’t call you?” he asks, surprised.
“No. Something I will be handling once I get to the office.”
“You do that. I don’t understand how Mark runs that office sometimes.
Let me know if I need to have a word with Grant.
You’re the best we have. They need to treat you like it.
” His affirmation that I’m good at my job means a lot.
I’ve been working nonstop for this team since they brought me on four years ago.
It’s hard to not get jaded when that hard work goes unnoticed.
I lean in to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Daddy Mike, but I’ve got this.”
“That you do,” he beams. “Now, see what you can do to keep my rookie out of jail. We need him this season if we’re going to make the Series. He’ll be punished, no doubt about that, but I can’t inflict my punishment with him in jail.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” I wink.
“Chase is a good kid. I’m choosing to believe this was a rogue night that ended with poor judgment.”
“I hope you’re right.” Deep down I know he is but the inklings of doubt niggles in the back of my mind. He was relentless when I met him in the bar. Reckless in the minors. Was this a one-off or is this truly who he is?
“Gab, we gotta go,” Taylor says from the backseat of the car. With a firm shake of Coach’s hand, I climb in the back with her. He closes the door behind me and we’re off to the airport.