3. Urban
CHAPTER 3
URBAN
I ’d been able to avoid my father for three days.
Three. Glorious. Days.
As expected, my brothers came to my apartment the night I’d arrived in Kalamazoo. Mom had come over the next morning on her way to the office, which meant she’d been alone. But fuck if Dad didn’t walk into the clubhouse when I was getting dressed for batting practice.
So far, everyone had been very welcoming. The team had acted happy that I was there and since I’d gotten two hits in both of the games I’d played, my slump was over. Or so I hoped.
“Urban.” Dad greeted me as if I hadn’t seen him standing there. There was no denying that he was my father. Though all of us boys had gotten taller than him, even if only by an inch or two, he had the same dark hair and eyes that we had.
For a lot of the guys, Dad was still a big deal. As a baseball player, he was a legend. Unfortunately for my siblings and me, we knew just how much of an asshole he could be. Well, everyone probably knew that, given his cockiness when he played. Professional athletes were the best in the world at what they did, which meant we’d earned a bit of an ego.
The problem was that Dad had never learned to control his.
“Conrad.” I greeted him back, knowing that one of his kids calling him by his first name irritated him. It always had.
“Your mother’s happy to have you back home.”
I snorted. “I’m sure she is. I’m sure you are.”
He sighed. “Let’s go out into the hall."
Fine by me. The last thing I wanted was for an argument to break out in front of my new teammates. Not exactly the impression that I wanted to make.
Dad left the clubhouse first with me following behind. It wasn’t until we were several feet from the door that we stopped and he turned to me.
“I am happy to have you back in town. Not sure why you would think I wouldn’t be.” He folded his arms over his chest the way he did when he was trying to intimidate another player. But he forgot that he didn’t intimidate any of us anymore and hadn’t since we were little kids. “I just wanted to touch base because I’m sure your ass is gonna be on fire trying to get out of here as soon as your contract expires. I think I have some ideas that might help keep you here once the season ends.”
“The fuck you do. There’s nothing that’s going to keep me here at the end of this season.”
“You’re sure of that?"
“Yeah, because the last thing I’m going to do is let you have any say in my career. You might have put us all through an assembly line to get us to where we are, but these are our lives now. We’re grown men. You get no say.” I took a step closer to him just to show that he wasn’t intimidating me, if that was his intent. “You might’ve gotten me here, but that’s where this ends.”
“You being here was your mother’s decision. She runs this team and doesn’t clear her choices with me. You know your grandpa and mom have wanted you all on the Knights since they knew we had boys.”
That much was true, but everything I said still stood. Dad was desperate to show us all that he could manage our careers better than we could because he’d been through it. It would’ve been nice if we’d had the guiding hand that should’ve come with our dad being a professional baseball player, but we didn’t get that. We got the heavy-handed, my way is the only way bullshit.
No. I wasn’t doing that.
“We done?” I asked. He nodded, so I turned and went back into the clubhouse.
It was only a minute before we were all filing out for batting practice. Once we were out there, it was a lot of waiting around for our turns. We laughed and smack-talked whoever was at the plate while we did it.
That was until I had an older brother on each side of me. They’d done that shit all the time when we’d been kids. Box me in so I knew I had nowhere to go. It didn’t fucking work as adults but they still did it.
“Looks like you had an intense conversation with Dad,” Brooks said as he watched the batter take a swing. I didn’t bother looking over at my oldest brother. We’d grown up looking alike, Though brooks was slightly broader than the rest of us. That was what made him a good catcher.
“What else is new?” I asked.
“Can we give you some advice?” Silas asked, as if I had the option to say no . “Don’t let him bug you. It takes too much energy.” Silas and Brooks looked more like each other the way Cobb and I did. It was like Mom had two sets of twins though years apart. Genetics were weird.
“What?” I swung my head around to look at him. “What the fuck are you talking about? You both butt heads with that man.”
Silas nodded, but he wasn’t looking at me. “We do, but you’re agro about it. I thought you were going to fist-fight him in the hallway. Just learn to push back when you need to and figure out what you can let go.”
“I do that,” I told him, then I tried to find what he was looking at. “Today was special because he was coming to do exactly what I thought he was coming to do.”
“And what’s that?”
“Butt into my career. Look…” I turned back to him once I’d noticed that he was looking at Amity as she worked on a tablet on her lap. Amity wasn’t very tall, thin while still being curvy. She was sitting there in a dress of some kind with her feet propped on the back of a seat and an iPad on her lap. “I don’t want to be here. Neither of you want to be here. Yet here we fucking are.”
“Hey,” Brooks snapped. “That’s baseball. You could be here, you could play for Alaska. It’s how it works.”
“Alaska doesn’t even have a team.”
“Not the point,” he countered. “Just block out most of the shit he says. When he really oversteps, that’s when you go for the throat. Until then, you’re here. Mom’s glad you’re here. We’re glad you’re here, and the Knights are a really fucking good team.” He rested his hands on my shoulders. “And we just got better. Besides, I love it here.” Though that hadn’t always been the case. “There are some perks to being the GM’s kid. And I’d bet my right nut that wild horses couldn’t drag Silas away because this is where Amity is.”
“That’s true,” Silas offered. “I mean, I think she’d leave with me but… that’s not a guarantee and I wouldn’t want her to give up her job for me.”
He was right. I couldn’t let my relationship with my parents affect this. Baseball was my job and I loved it. So everything else would have to fall away.
“So.” I turned to Silas. “When do we get to hang out with Amity? I’d like to find out what the hell she’s thinking being with you.”
Brooks groaned. “Please don’t. He was a whiny little bitch when they weren’t together.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Silas countered, but then he turned to me. “Whenever you want. Nothing you’ll say will change anything.”
It was weird to think of Silas so committed to a woman. That was new and something he’d never done before. Amity was his best friend’s little sister. She’d been around us since we’d all been kids. Then Jayce had died and Silas had withdrawn because he’d blamed himself and thought Amity would hate him. It hadn’t been until this year that he’d finally forgiven himself and only once Amity had assured him it’d just been an accident.
Fuck. It’d been tough watching her mourn her brother and being confused because she’d also lost Silas and their other friend—as well as my new teammate—Jenner. Those two looked out for her, but at a distance after Jayce had died.
Since Amity was only a year younger than me, I’d seen it every day until I’d graduated .
“We’ll see about that,” I told him, but there wasn’t any intent behind it. I’d never do something I knew would tear one of my brothers up.
After batting practice, we were back in the clubhouse with about an hour and a half until game time. This was when we grabbed something to eat if we needed to, rested up, and got dressed for the game.
I was eating a protein bar and scrolling through my phone while the rest of the team had conversations. I had Brooks to my left and Silas next to him and then Jenner.
“Has Camden been blowing up your phone?” I asked anyone who wanted to listen, but mostly my brothers.
“No. What does she want?” Brooks drained half a bottle of water then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
“She’s all over me to volunteer at Grandpa’s camp for their baseball camp.”
Silas laughed loudly. “Of course she is. Watch it. She’s going to show up on your door step with a schedule and a plan. You won’t be able to say no .”
“Don’t say no ,” Brooks added. “It’s actually pretty fun and the kids get all starstruck. When you teach them something, that’s a memory they’re going to have forever.”
I furrowed my brows. “I’ll do it. This might be the only year I’m here to volunteer. She just hadn’t given me a chance to answer.” My phone vibrated again. “Fuck.”
Yup. It was my sister again.
I quickly tapped out fucking stop i’ll’ do it i was always going to do it.
She just responded with a thumbs-up emoji. What the fuck?
That night, after a long game that had gone extra innings, I was looking forward to going to bed. Before I had a chance, there was a knock on my door. I knew who it was going to be before I even opened it since there weren’t many people who knew that I lived here.
“Camden,” I said as I swung it open. She breezed in like this was her place, her brown hair was hanging loose over her shoulders. It wasn’t very long, she’d gotten it cut since the last time I’d seen her but it still fell past her shoulders.
“Brother, dear. I’m so glad you decided to participate in camp this year.” She turned toward me and had a satisfied grin on her face as her hazel eyes danced with mischief. As if she’d ever really believed that I wouldn’t.
I might’ve been an asshole to our dad, but I would do anything for my siblings and them for me. “Did I have a choice?”
“No.” She chuckled as she pulled a folded-up piece of paper out of her purse. “This is the schedule. Baseball camp starts Monday and follows your schedule. Obviously, none of you can be there when you’re traveling and not all of you go every year.”
“How many from the team volunteer?” I took the schedule from her and unfolded it so I could see what it looked like. Not terrible. It was two hours two to three times a week for me.
“Ten. We don’t need more than that and we alternate days. So this week, you’ll be there Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I put you in the group with Brooks, Silas, and Jenner. The kids are going to love having the brothers there. But then next week, you’ll only be there Tuesday and Thursday. And it’s only a few weeks.”
“Sounds good.” I glanced up at her. “You know, you could’ve emailed this.”
She bit the corner of her cheek the way she did when she was trying not to smile. It was a complete failure. “I know I could’ve, but then I wouldn’t get to see my big brother.”
“You can come over anytime, Camden.” But I glanced at the clock. “Except right now.”
Her smile slowly slid from her face and she took a step toward me. “Is there a woman here?” she whispered.
I furrowed my brows. “No. I was going to bed.”
“Alone?”
I pushed her hard enough to move her, but not hard enough to move her much. “Get the fuck out of here with that. No. We have a day game tomorrow. Sunday, remember? And I want to go see Grandpa before.”
“I’ll meet you there,” she volunteered. “He’ll be happy to hear about camp, too.”
I shook my head. “You don’t have to meet me.”
Her face scrunched up, like she’d just smelled something awful. “I need to see Grandpa, anyway.”
“Fine. I’ll be there at eight. I have to get to the field early to talk to Madden. Didn’t have time to do it today.”
“Talk to Madden?” she asked. “Are you two friends?”
“Fuck no.”
“Then what? ”
“I saw him at the store yesterday talking to this woman. She looked uncomfortable, so I made sure she got to the register while I distracted him.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. It gave me a weird vibe.”
“Yeah, that guy gives me a weird vibe too.”
Rage pulsed through my blood. “Did he do something to you? Try to do something with you?”
She winced and waved her hands in the air as if she was trying to land a plane. “God no, Cujo. Jesus Christ. You look like you’re about to kill someone. It’s just a general gut feeling and I always trust my gut.”
“Well, he better fucking not. Or any of the other guys on the team.”
She snorted. “You know I’m vehemently against dating any baseball players, right? Probably any professional athletes of any kind.”
“Yeah, well that shit changes, but for you, it shouldn’t.”
Camden wrapped her arms around my waist, so I put my own arms around her shoulders in a big hug, holding her rightly.
“It’s not going to change,” she mumbled against my chest. “Promise.”
At least with that, I could sleep tonight.
In the morning, she was waiting outside of Grandpa’s assisted living facility with a coffee in each hand. When I approached, she held one out to me before I even had to ask.
“Thanks,” I told her before heading in.
Grandpa’s place looked like a high-dollar country club—it should’ve. It cost enough. We got to his room and knocked. Normally, I’d have been worried he was asleep, but Mom told me he got up at five every morning. It was like he couldn’t let go of his old schedule after he’d retired.
“There you are,” he answered, as if we were late or something. I hadn’t even told him we’d been coming. He moved slowly away from the door so that we could enter his room, which was set up like a large studio apartment.
Granpa didn’t act any different than he had my entire childhood. He was just a lot slower at the things he did. He couldn’t live alone anymore and I saw the oxygen machine over in the corner. He didn’t need it all the time but the bad lungs he’d dealt with since he was a kid gave him trouble sometimes. More recently than they had before.
“Did you know we were coming?” I asked.
“Your mother told me on our call last night.” That was right. Mom called him every night and every morning. “What brings you by? ”
Grandpa had brown hair when he was younger but now it was all silver. His face wrinkled with time but he still had a kind, gentle smile. He also wasn’t very tall to begin with and it was like time had put him on the high heat setting of the dryer. He had to have lost a few inches. Once I hit a growth spirt, I felt like a giant next to him.
“Haven’t seen you since I’ve been back,” I told him, sitting across the table from him. Grandpa always preferred sitting with us at the table rather than the couch.
“Can I get either of you a drink?”
“We’re good,” Camden replied for the both of us.
“I’m so glad you’re back in Kalamazoo.” That had to be for me.
“He’s not happy to be here, though,” Camden offered up, so I scowled at her. The old man didn’t need to know that. Leave it to her to pull no punches.
“He will be,” Grandpa said with such confidence that I almost believed him. “We just have one more to get, and we’ll have the complete set.”
Camden chuckled at her brothers being called “the set.” Grandpa didn’t mean it this way, but it was like we weren’t all separate people sometimes .
“Good luck with that one, Grandpa. Cobb isn’t coming to Kalamazoo,” I assured him.
“Oh, your mother has tricks up her sleeve.”
I shook my head before he’d finished talking. “Cobb has a clause in his contract that he can refuse a team.” Smart fucker. I’d learned he’d had that added after I’d been traded here.
“It pays to be a baseball phenom, I guess.” Camden gave me a toothy grin. If we weren’t across from our grandpa, I would’ve given her a middle finger.
“All I’m saying,” I emphasized for her benefit, “is that if Cobb ends up here, it’ll be because he has no other choice.”
We only stayed twenty more minutes, but then I had to get to the park. There was one more conversation that I needed to have.
Seeing how much older and frailer Grandpa had gotten made me realize how long it’d been since I’d seen him. It was sad to watch the once lively man from when I was growing up move so slowly now.
Madden was already at his locker when I got into the clubhouse, and there were only three other people there, and they all looked busy with their own shit. So I was able to go to Madden, where we likely wouldn’t be overheard.
“What’s up?” he asked as he scrolled his phone.
“That woman you were talking to yesterday… it looked like you were bothering her.”
One corner of his mouth raised into a weird half-grin. “She wasn’t bothered. She’s just playing hard to get.”
I shook my head, already feeling the burn of anger boiling in my chest. That shit pissed me off. Because guys used that as an excuse, and fuck me if I’d stand by and watch it. If I didn’t want someone using it on Camden, then it wasn’t going to fly on any woman in front of me.
“That’s not how this works,” I told him. “I talked to her in the parking lot. She wants you to leave her alone.”
Now, he pushed to his feet and dropped his phone into his chair while puffing out his chest like he thought he was going to intimidate me. That wouldn’t be happening. Had he not seen my brothers? That was who I’d grown up with.
“What’d you mean, you talked to her in the parking lot? You trying to fuck her?”
My jaw tensed. The woman might’ve been the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen but was I trying to fuck her? I didn’t even know her name. Not to mention, I wasn’t about to create any attachments here when I was leaving at the end of the season.
Though now he’d put the idea in my head… no. That would make me as bad as him. If I wasn’t leaving though… I’d definitely want to spend time with her.
“No.” My tone was short and clipped. “But I don’t think she wants to be fucking you.”
“Yeah, well, too late for that.” His admission made me uneasy.
“Wait, wait, wait…” I waved my hand as I spoke. “So you already fucked her, and now she wants you to leave her alone.” I chuckled, but it wasn’t real. “That’s not too impressive.”
Madden’s hand closed and opened, like he was trying to decide if he was going to hit me. If he had any brains at all, he wouldn’t do it in the clubhouse. “Fuck off, Briggs. This is none of your business.”
“I’m not going to stand by and watch you make a woman uncomfortable.” And it had nothing to do with how fucking beautiful that woman was. “So, leave her alone, and we won’t have to talk again. ”
“I think I’ll have to ask her why she ran to you about this.”
“She didn’t,” I snapped. “So learn that no means no. Don’t bother her again.”
Then I walked away knowing that he wasn’t going to leave her alone and I wasn’t going to let her, or any woman, be harassed by my teammate.