Chapter 9
Beck asked them to meet him for breakfast instead of the facility.
The diner on the strip was half full at seven thirty on a Monday. Locals. Coffee. The morning news on a TV above the counter that nobody was watching. Beck was in a booth by the window with a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs he'd ordered and hadn't touched.
Luke slid in across from him. Brady took the seat next to Luke.
"Morning," Luke said.
"Morning."
Brady looked at Beck's plate. Then at Beck. He didn't say anything.
Luke ordered coffee. Brady ordered a Diet Mountain Dew, which earned a look from the waitress that Brady ignored because he'd been ignoring that look his entire adult life.
"So," Luke said. "How are you doing?"
"I'm good."
"You sure?"
"I'm good, Luke. Really."
He was. That was the strange part. The release had been four days ago.
The internet had done what the internet does.
SportsCenter crawl. MLB Network segment.
Twitter threads from baseball writers who'd watched him play and had opinions about the Braves' decision.
His phone had buzzed for two days straight.
Teammates, former coaches, guys from the minors he hadn't talked to in years.
Everyone said the same thing. Sorry, brother. You deserved better.
He'd stopped reading them Saturday night. He'd been on a deck on the other side of the island with Kirstin's head on his shoulder and the texts had felt like they belonged to a different person's phone.
"The shoulder's still improving," Brady said. "That hasn't changed. If you want to keep rehabbing, we keep rehabbing. Other teams will call. Trevor's already working it."
"I know he is."
"So what do you want to do?"
Beck picked up his fork. Put it down. Picked up his coffee instead.
"I don't know yet," he said. "Can I just not know for a minute?"
Luke looked at Brady. Brady looked at his Diet Mountain Dew. Something passed between them that Beck caught but couldn't read. The shorthand of two men who'd been running a facility together long enough to communicate in glances.
"Yeah," Luke said. "You can not know for a minute."
They ate. They talked about the facility, about the thirty prospects Jerry was sending this year, about the expansion they'd been discussing since the summer.
Beck listened. He asked questions. He engaged.
But the fire that Luke had seen in him during the first throwing session, the fire that had burned through every morning at the facility, the fire that made Brady nod and make a note. It was somewhere else.
Not gone. Somewhere else.
Brady saw it. Beck caught the look across the table. Something quiet and knowing, the expression of a man recognizing a thing he wasn't going to name. Brady picked up his Diet Mountain Dew and the look was gone.
He wasn't going to say a word about it.
"Luke," Brady said. "Can you get Tyler and Noah at the facility after school today?"
"Yeah, sure. Why?"
"Promised them I'd work with them on their swing this week." Brady took a drink of his Diet Mountain Dew. "Beck, you should come meet these two. Hilarious as hell, especially Tyler."
"Kids?"
"Eleven. Been coming to the facility since Luke started the Sharks three years ago. Tyler plays short, Noah plays second. They're starting to take the game serious."
"Brady's been working with them since the summer," Luke said. "They're good kids."
"They're better than good," Brady said. "Tyler's got hands. Noah's got instincts. They just need reps and somebody who can see what their swings are doing."
He said it flat. Direct. Like he was talking about the weather. Beck heard the words and didn't hear the invitation underneath them because the invitation wasn't supposed to be heard. Not yet.
"Sure," Beck said. "I'll come by."
Tyler arrived at three fifteen, dropped off by a minivan that barely stopped before the door opened and a kid hit the gravel running.
He was tall for eleven, lean, with a glove on the wrong hand and a bat bag over his shoulder that was almost as big as he was.
He sprinted to the cage and started pulling on a batting helmet before anyone told him to.
Noah arrived two minutes later. Quieter. Smaller. He walked from the car to the facility with the focused calm of a kid who took the game seriously enough to not run when he wanted to. His glove was on the right hand. His bat bag was organized.
"Tyler, slow down," Brady said.
"I've been waiting all day, Coach Brady."
"You can wait thirty more seconds. Come meet somebody."
Tyler stopped. Pulled the helmet off. Saw Beck. His eyes went wide.
"Oh my God," Tyler said. "You're Ethan Beck."
"Hey, man."
"You hit forty-three home runs in 2023."
"Forty-one."
"My dad said forty-three."
"Your dad's close."
Noah had walked up behind Tyler. He was looking at Beck with the quiet assessment of a kid who watched more baseball than he talked about.
"You robbed that home run against the Dodgers in the NLDS," Noah said. "Over the wall in left-center."
"I did."
"That's when you hurt your shoulder."
Beck glanced at Brady. Brady's face gave nothing.
"Different game," Beck said. "Same wall though."
Tyler was already pulling Beck toward the cage. "Are you going to watch us hit? Can you throw BP? Can you show me how you load? Coach Brady says my load is late but I don't think it's late, I think it's?—"
"Tyler," Brady said.
"What?"
"Breathe."
Tyler breathed. It lasted about two seconds.
They went to the cage. Brady set up behind the screen with a bucket. Luke leaned against the fence outside, arms crossed, watching. Beck stood behind Tyler, off to the side, just observing.
Tyler stepped in. Brady fed the first pitch. Tyler swung. Hard. Fast. The ball jumped off the bat and hit the back netting.
"See?" Tyler said. "My load's fine."
Beck watched. He didn't say anything. Brady threw another. Tyler swung again. Same result. Hard contact, the ball jumping.
Brady threw a third. Tyler swung and missed.
"That one was high," Tyler said.
"That one was a strike," Brady said.
Beck watched Tyler reset. The kid had hands. Brady was right about that. Quick, strong for eleven, the kind of bat speed you can't teach. But his front foot was opening early. Not much. Half an inch. Enough that when the pitch was elevated, his barrel dropped and he was under it.
Brady threw another. Tyler fouled it off.
"Can I say something?" Beck said.
Tyler turned around. Brady set a ball down in the bucket.
"Your hands are great," Beck said. "Your bat speed is real. But your front foot is opening up before your hands start. Watch."
He stepped into the box. No bat. Just his feet. He showed Tyler the load, the stride, the front foot landing closed.
"Feel the difference? Your foot lands here" — he pointed — "and your barrel stays through the zone. Your foot lands here" — he opened it half an inch — "and you're pulling off everything above the belt."
Tyler stared at Beck's feet. Then at his own. He stepped back in.
Brady threw one. Tyler kept his foot closed. The barrel stayed through the zone. The ball hit the back netting on a line, harder than anything he'd hit all afternoon.
Tyler turned around. His face was the face of a kid who'd just felt something click that he'd been reaching for without knowing what it was.
"Do that again," Beck said.
Tyler did it again. Same result. Then again. Then again.
Noah was next. Quieter in the box. More deliberate. His swing was compact and clean and he made contact on almost everything Brady threw. But he was guiding the ball. Steering it. Placing it instead of hitting it.
Beck watched five swings.
"Noah," he said. "You're smart."
"Thanks."
"Stop being smart."
Noah blinked.
"You're thinking about where the ball's going. Stop. Your hands know where it's going. Trust them. See the ball, let your hands go. Don't steer it."
"But what if?—"
"Don't steer it."
Brady threw one. Noah swung. The sound was different. Louder. Sharper. The ball hit the back netting with a crack that made Tyler yell from behind the cage.
"NOAH! DUDE!"
Noah stood in the box and stared at the bat in his hands like it had just told him a secret.
"Again," Beck said.
They worked for an hour. Beck moved between the two boys, adjusting, watching, saying less than Brady expected and more than Luke expected. He didn't coach like Luke, with warmth and energy and the joy of a man who loved teaching. He coached like he hit. Precise. Minimal.
Tyler responded to the challenge. Every correction was a dare and Tyler took every dare. Noah responded to the trust. Every time Beck said "your hands know," Noah's swing got looser and the contact got harder.
By four thirty, both boys were hitting balls off the back netting with a sound that hadn't been in the cage when they started.
Tyler pulled his helmet off. His hair was matted with sweat.
"Are you going to be here tomorrow?" he asked Beck.
"I don't know."
"You should be here tomorrow."
"Tyler—"
"You're really good at this."
Noah, quiet, from behind Tyler: "He's right. You are."
"I'll be here," Beck said.
Tyler fist-bumped Noah. Noah fist-bumped Tyler. They grabbed their bat bags and ran to the parking lot where two minivans were waiting.
Beck stood in the cage. The bucket was empty. The netting was still swaying from the last hit. He picked up a ball that had rolled to the edge of the turf and held it, turning it in his fingers.
Brady was at the entrance to the cage, clipboard under his arm.
"Good kids," Beck said.
"Great kids."
"Tyler's got a real swing."
"He does."
"Noah's going to be something."
"He already is."
Beck set the ball in the empty bucket. He walked out of the cage. Luke was waiting by the door, cap backward, arms crossed.
"What are you up to?" Luke said. Not to Beck. To Brady.
Beck stopped. He looked at Brady. Brady's face was the same face it always was. Steady. Level. Giving nothing.
"Jerry's sending thirty this year. We gotta expand," Brady said. "Besides, the kid's in love with Kirstin and she's in love with him. He isn't going anywhere. He's one of us."
"Damn, Brady." Luke shook his head. "You really make me look smart for hiring you."
Brady picked up the empty bucket and carried it to the storage room. Beck stood between Luke and the cage, holding a baseball he didn't remember picking up again, and something that had been sitting behind his ribs since Thursday afternoon shifted.
Not the grief. The grief was still there. But underneath it, for the first time since Trevor called, something else.
He looked at the cage. The netting was still.
He put the ball in his pocket and went to find his dog.