Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Foster
Wentzel ushers us into the press room, and I step up on the platform and head to the far end of the table. Decker follows, which I’d normally be pissed about, but I’d rather have him next to me than Hayes at the moment.
Once we’re all seated, Hayes takes charge as usual, pointing at one of the reporters.
“Foster, today didn’t feel like a normal loss.”
“Is there a question there?” I ask the reporter, and Decker hits his thigh against mine.
“Is something going on in the clubhouse?” the reporter asks and sits.
I lean forward on the table, hands linked. “Nothing happening in the clubhouse. I didn’t execute. Fell behind in the count, missed spots. Those mistakes led to hits and a run. Sometimes two.”
“Next.” Hayes points at another reporter.
“Hayes, do you feel like the team’s connecting right now?”
“Me?” He laughs. I hope to be him one day—not taking each and every loss so personally.
“Yeah, I think we are.” He glances down the line of us and back at the reporter.
“It’s not just one pitch. It’s the stack of stuff that’s been building.
Breakdowns, loss of communication. We’re connected.
We’re just not always communicating like it. ”
Another reporter stands, and I blow out a breath, wanting this to be the fuck over. “Foster, there were cameras on the dugout all night. You looked… angry from the start. Not locked in.”
“I am angry. We were losing and ultimately lost. If that reads as ‘something going on,’ something’s going on. We’re not winning the games we should be winning.”
“But don’t confuse emotion with fracture. We all care, and sometimes that noise is loud,” Decker says.
“We’re not broken. We’re frustrated,” Hayes adds. “Next.”
“Hayes, you went to the mound in the ninth, and it looked like an argument. Foster didn’t even look at you when you walked away. You two are usually in sync.”
Hayes straightens to answer without a glance to me, but I quickly interject. “I’ll take this one. Hayes is doing his job. He’s trying to slow the moment down. I’m trying to speed it up. That’s the push-pull between a catcher and a closer. I’m sure it looked bad—”
“But we’re best friends. And we’ve worked together a long time. He’s the one out there doing most of the work. We have each other’s backs.”
Fucking hell, Carlisle. Don’t say that shit right now.
The same reporter stands, and I wish he’d leave well enough alone. “Are you two okay?”
Hayes laughs. “Well, he’d rather chew glass than admit he needs a breather.”
The room laughs, and it breaks the tension, but I shake my head.
Hayes points at another reporter, who says, “This is for Foster. At the end of the game, you pushed Drew Triggs against the dugout wall. Was it just teammates messing around, or was it serious?”
A camera clicks as my jaw tics.
I take a cleansing breath before I answer.
“What, no one wants to talk to Decker or Easton?” A few laughs trickle through the gaggle of reports, but I only buy myself a few seconds.
“Drew and I had words. I put my hands on him. That’s not okay.
Period. It doesn’t matter what was said, it doesn’t matter how heated it got—I was in the wrong. ”
Another reporter stands. “That’s a first. You admitting you were wrong. Did you apologize to Triggs too?”
Who is this fool? Drew’s dad?
I flash a smile that likely makes me look like an asshole. “Not yet. I thought he’d be in this room with me. But I guess I’m the lucky one.”
Easton tugs the mic in front of him. “We all have egos, and sometimes we cross lines. It goes both ways. And I can assure you if Foster felt the need to put Drew in his place, there was a reason for it.”
I stare down the line, and my shoulders lose the tension that’s been locked there all day. Shit, I’ve never had a player besides Hayes stick up for me. Easton nods at me.
“We’ll handle that ourselves.” Hayes points at a reporter who hasn’t asked a question yet. “Next.”
“When something like that happens, people wonder if the clubhouse has a leadership problem. Who’s leading this team right now? You, Hayes?”
“It has nothing to do with leadership. We’re a new team, and we have some rookies. We’re working out kinks. And as to who is the leader, our manager, Ripley, is our leader.”
Decker leans into the mic. “We’re all adults. We know when to be accountable. How about we focus on the game instead of searching for issues that don’t exist?”
A reporter stands without Hayes calling on them. “There have been reports about a competition and cliques within the team.”
“I assure you we’re not in high school.” Decker shakes his head.
“Every clubhouse has groups. Guys who are closer than others. But we’re a very close-knit group,” Hayes says.
I’m not sure I agree, at least in Drew’s case.
Another reporter stands and stares at me before voicing a question.
“I guess I’m the man of the hour, huh?” I do my best to keep the irritation out of my voice.
Another quiet laugh rings through the room.
“Foster, you’re known to be a high-intensity guy. Do you worry you’re the cancer on this team?”
My jaw clenches. “Well, thanks for going for the jugular there. Good thing I’m thick-skinned.”
“I assure you, he’s not,” Hayes interrupts.
“Definitely not,” Easton adds.
Decker says nothing because he probably believes I am the problem when Drew is the one who’s infecting this team.
I hold up my hand toward my teammates. They don’t need to fight my battles. “If my intensity becomes a problem, then it’s not intensity—it’s immaturity. I’m not interested in being that guy. Not here. Not anymore.”
“Last question,” Hayes says.
The same woman who called out Hayes last year about Leighton stands up at the back, and my stomach drops. Her gaze falls to me, then Hayes, and back to me. The cunning smile says she’s about to blow my secret wide open.
I rack my brain for what proof she might have. Who she could have heard it from. What picture got leaked. She always focuses more on players’ personal lives than the game.
“So, Hayes, you and Foster are best friends.”
Hayes looks down the line at me, nods, and flashes me an easy smile. “Yeah.”
Bile rises up my throat. He trusts me and has no idea that I’m about to ruin our friendship.
“So then you must be pretty excited—or are you not, and that’s why there was tension on the mound today?” She turns to me. “Is that why you seem so off, Foster? It’s gotta be stressful, especially for someone with your reputation.”
Hayes looks down the line at me again, frowning.
“Just spit out whatever bullshit you have,” Easton says.
“Fuck, Kodiak,” Decker mumbles.
“Hayes’s sister, the podcaster Callie Carlisle from If I’m Honest?”
My fists lock under the table. Callie’s about to be exposed, and it’s all my fault. I can take the heat, but she shouldn’t have to.
Hayes rocks his head back as though he understands what she’s getting at. “Oh, yeah, she had some landlord problems, so she’s staying with Foster temporarily. Someone catch a picture or something?”
“Temporarily?” The smile hasn’t left her fucking face.
Easton and Decker glance at me, and my teeth grind together. I have no choice but to wait for her to pull the pin on the grenade.
“Yeah.” Hayes looks so certain.
I wish I had some superhero power to freeze time for everyone but him and me. Anything to keep him from being blindsided in the middle of a press conference.
“Well that’s interesting, because a picture was taken of your sister and Foster at an OBGYN office yesterday. Isn’t she pregnant with your best friend’s baby?”
Wentzel steps forward. “And we’re done.”
Boom.