Chapter 52
Chapter Fifty-Two
Decker
Maybe the Colts have a good reason not to re-sign me.
We won our division but fell short in the league.
So, here we are in the press room, our last one for a while.
Hopefully not my last one ever. Regardless, I couldn’t be happier to have some dedicated time with Penelope and Hazel coming up.
Except it more than likely means we’re moving, if I get to continue playing ball.
It’ll be sad to say goodbye to the house. It’s where we fell in love.
We all enter the media room—Foster, Easton, Hayes, and me. Ripley stands off to the side, knowing he’s next and wanting to make sure we appear as a united front.
I try not to think about how it will be my last time standing on this podium with these three guys. Foster is my biological brother, but Easton and Hayes are my brothers too, and I hate that I won’t be with them next year.
I’m gonna have some major fucking FOMO.
The reporters settle, cameras up and notepads open.
Here we go.
The first few questions are standard. What happened in the final series. What does the team build look like going forward. What would you like to say to the fans. Hayes takes the majority of questions as our leader. Foster fields some about his pitching and whether the pitching was the problem.
No one can fault him for his sour attitude. Who wants to do a press conference after a loss? No one.
I answer what questions come my way. My numbers were good this season.
Better than good honestly—the second half of the year, I played the best baseball of my career, and I know it regardless of what anyone thinks, including Shane Whitaker.
Even though everyone in this room knows it, how well I played doesn’t change anything.
Whitaker made his decision back in June.
The questions rotate. Someone asks about Harkins, and Hayes cuts in and answers diplomatically before I have to. Good. I would not have been diplomatic in my response.
Then a reporter in the third row stands.
We’ve figured out that her name is Jordan Blake. She’s the one who’s been calling us out the last two seasons. She outed Hayes and Leighton’s relationship. And last year, she outed that Foster and Callie were expecting a baby. So I’m wise to have my guard up when she makes her presence known.
Penelope and I have kept our relationship private.
We’ve sacrificed a lot of time we’d like to be out in public with Hazel.
If we go somewhere, it’s usually the entire squad of us.
I’ve grown tired of the subterfuge, but we did it for Ripley.
We didn’t want him to be in a situation where everyone knew one of his players was dating his daughter.
But the season is over and Whitaker doesn’t want me, so I don’t give a shit anymore.
“Decker,” Jordan says.
“Here we go,” I mumble.
“There’s been a lot of speculation this season about your contract situation with the Colts. Do you think it’s a result of your rusty start this season?”
I lean toward the microphone, my body taut. “I can’t speculate what the front office thinks. Wish I could, maybe I would’ve tried to please them.”
A few chuckles ring out from some of the media, and Jordan sits. Thank God.
We field a few more questions about specific plays and whether they were the ones that lost the game for us. They call out Easton for an error in the fifth when he bobbled the ball.
“You have to be kidding me. That play should earn me a Gold Glove.” Easton shakes his head and settles back in his chair.
Another reporter stands. “Hayes, rumor is you’re up for the Gold Glove this year. It would be your first. How does it feel?”
Hayes leans in. “It would be great. I have an entire life outside of baseball that I cherish, but of course it’s nice to be recognized. Even this late in my career.”
Light laughter rings out in the room.
Jordan raises her hand again, and I groan when she says, “This one is for Decker.”
“I figured,” I answer.
Everyone laughs, knowing she always picks one of us to put in the hot seat.
“Do you think you’re not getting a contract renewal because you’re dating the manager’s daughter?” She stands there with a smug look, waiting for my response.
The room goes silent.
I glance at Ripley, but he has no expression on his face.
Here goes. If I admit to the relationship, I’m kissing my chance of playing in Chicago goodbye.
But if I deny it, it’s completely disregarding what Penelope and Hazel mean in my life.
I’d never sacrifice them for anything, including who I play for.
I’ll retire before my job affects them and their feeling of worth in my life.
I pull the microphone closer. “Well, you sure do your research.”
Hayes shifts beside me. Just slightly. Only someone who knows him would catch it.
“Since my contract situation has nothing to do with my performance this season—and I think anyone who watched me play knows that—that’s between me and the organization. I’ll leave it there.” I pause. “As for Penelope…”
I feel like every reporter straightens in their chairs, holding their microphones a little closer.
“Yeah, we’re together.”
Cameras start snapping immediately. I continue because why the hell not?
“I’m not going to get into when or how, because that’s our business.
What I will say—” I look directly at the reporter— “is that the suggestion that a relationship with the manager’s daughter is somehow responsible for a contract decision is the kind of question that assumes the worst about both of us.
Penelope Ripley is one of the most professional people I have ever worked alongside.
She has never once—not once—used her relationship with her father or her position with this organization for anything other than doing her job exceptionally well.
The idea that my contract situation is her fault is not only wrong, it’s insulting to her. ”
The reporter opens her mouth to form a rebuttal, but I’m not done.
“And for the record, if anyone in this organization made a decision about my contract based on who I’m in a relationship with rather than what I did on that field this year, that says a great deal more about them than it does about me or Penelope.”
Complete silence blankets the room.
Foster pats me on the back, and I look over to see a wide grin on his lips.
Then everyone is talking at once.
“Is it serious?” someone calls.
“Yes.” I don’t elaborate.
“Are you in contract discussions with other teams?”
“That’s a question for my agent.”
The questions shift. Someone asks Foster about the season. Someone asks Hayes about the defense going into next year. The media scrum moves on as it usually does.
When it wraps, I stand and shake the hands I’m supposed to shake and nod at the cameras I’m supposed to nod at, then Ripley’s hand finds my shoulder.
Not grabbing me. Not stopping me. Just his hand on my shoulder the way it’s been since I was a kid standing on the field, not knowing what to do with myself.
I turn.
“My office,” he says. “These guys can wait.”
“Yes, sir.”
I follow him to his office. When we get inside, he sits behind his desk, and I sit across from it the way I have a hundred times.
He looks at me.
I look at him.
I’m not even scared.
“How long?” He leans back in his chair.
“Since the VIP dinner.” I pause. “We’ve been working up to it longer than that.”
Something moves across his face. “I know.”
“I should have come to you first. Before the press conference. Before any of it. That was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
He leans back in his chair and blows out a breath. “You going to New York?” His mouth is a thin line.
“I don’t know yet.”
His nostrils flare. “I have ears, Decker.”
“I don’t know,” I say again. “I want to stay here. I want to figure out a way to stay. But if I go—” I stop. “Pen said they’d come with me.”
His eyebrows lift. Telling your boss that you’ve not only been dating his daughter behind his back, but now you’re taking her and his granddaughter thousands of miles away isn’t easy. And I might not have the guts if I didn’t have an inkling that it wasn’t only Hazel playing matchmaker this season.
“It’s her decision to make,” I say. “Not mine. I’m not asking her to upend anything. But she said it, and I’m telling you because you should know.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “She’s been through a lot. Things you don’t know about and things I can’t tell you. What I can tell you is that she hasn’t let anyone in for a long time and the last person she let in didn’t deserve her.”
“I know,” I say, assuming he’s talking about Hazel’s father.
“Do you?” He arches an eyebrow, leans in a bit.
“I know enough to know I’m not him. And I know enough to know that I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure she doesn’t regret this.
” I hold his gaze. “I should’ve said this to you a long time ago.
I’ve wanted to be with Pen since I was seventeen years old, but I was too scared of losing you as a mentor to say it.
But I love your daughter, which I understand is complicated, and I understand if you need time to—”
“Deck.”
I stop.
He leans forward on his desk. “I know you know.”
I stare at him, trying to appear shocked by what he’s going to tell me. I’d never tell him he wasn’t as smooth as he thought he was.
“The Dugout Social Club.” A smile forms on his lips.
“Penelope needed something to do with her time and her skills. That was true. But I also thought that if I put the two of you on the same task long enough, the rest would sort itself out.” He pauses.
“It took longer than I expected, to be honest. I hope Hazel doesn’t get her mother’s stubbornness. ”
“I assure you, she did.”
He groans and rubs his hand down his face. “I know.”
I look at him. The man who has been in my corner the better part of my life. Who came to every game of my career that he could and pushed me when I needed it and left me alone when I needed that too. The man who was more of a father to me than my own.
He set this up.
“Thank you for engineering this.”
Ripley shakes his head. “I only created an opportunity. What you did with it was up to you.”
I relax back into my chair.
“You’re the only person I would trust with both of them,” he says. “Don’t make me wrong about that… no matter where you end up.”
“No, sir. I won’t.”
He nods once.
“Now I have to go into that press conference.” He stands, and I do as well.
“I’m still rooting for Whitaker to change his mind.
I’m doing my best to keep you here, and not just because I don’t want to lose my daughter and granddaughter.
But whoever gets you is a lucky team, Deck.
” He holds out his hand, and I shake it.
“Thank you for everything, but most of all for trusting me with both of them.”
He smiles, and we release hands.
“Just don’t give me a reason to show up on your doorstep one day for anything other than a visit.”
“Never.” My phone rings in my pocket, and I pull it out. “It’s Pen.”
He pats me on the shoulder. “Good luck. She’s gonna give you hell.”
And he leaves the room as my thumb slides across the screen.