7. Jake
SEVEN
JAKE
This goddamn sun is a branding iron on the back of my neck. Sweat is pouring from under my catcher’s mask, stinging my eyes as I crouch low behind the plate.
“Drop your hips, McKinney! Keep that frame inside the zone!”
The voice doesn’t come from our catching coach, Coach Davis.
It comes from the man standing a few feet behind the pitching machine, arms crossed over his chest, looking like he owns the damn field.
Roddy. It’s been two days since Campbell brought that influencer kid—or whatever the fuck he was—out to my mom’s property.
Two days since I had to spit out a bunch of manufactured fairytale garbage about father-son magic, and I’m still tasting the bile of my own swallowed rage.
Coach dials the machine in, and it throws a dirty slider from forty feet out. It bounces in the dirt and I lunge, blocking it with my chest protector, but my balance is off. The ball scoots a few feet away as I scramble to snag it.
“You’re lunging,” Roddy calls out.
No shit.
The two rookie catchers standing behind me, panting from their last turn at this drill, lean in closer for a crumb of advice from a three-time All-Star.
“If you keep your weight centered on your haunches, you don’t have to chase the ball. Let it come to you. You don’t win Gold Gloves by diving at shadows, Jake.”
Fucking Gold Gloves. Something inside my chest snaps. The heat, the exhaustion, the suffocating weight of my dad’s sudden, unearned mentorship—it all fucking collides in my throat.
I rip my mask off, the straps catching on my damp hair, and slam it into the dirt.
“I don’t give a shit how you won your Gold Gloves, Roddy!” I roar, stepping up as he rushes toward me until we’re chest-to-chest. “I’m the one taking the beatings back here. Keep your pointers to yourself.”
The entire diamond goes dead silent.
Coach Davis walks over from behind the machine and stops just short of us with his hands on his hips. He spits a cluster of sunflower seed shells onto the grass, then looks at me, then my dad, his expression unreadable.
“McKinney,” he says in a flat voice. “Take five. Go hit the dugout, hydrate, and get your damn emotions in order. We don’t do temper tantrums out here.”
I don’t look at my dad. I shove past him, grab my mask from the dirt, and trudge down the dugout steps.
The shade offers no relief. I yank off my shin guards, the hard, sturdy plastic clattering loudly against the concrete floor, and grab a paper cup from the water cooler.
I down the cool water and refill for a second dose.
I’m tossing the empty cup into the trash when a shadow falls over the dugout opening.
I turn just as Roddy steps inside, his cleats crunching on the gravel.
He looks older all of a sudden, the dirt and sweat etching the harsh lines on his face, the ones around his eyes deeper than they used to be.
Not that I have a lot of memories to go by.
I have pictures from social media stories over the years and from games I watched on TV.
“Get out,” I mutter, leaning against the bench, staring at my hands. My knuckles are bloody. How the hell can I be sweating this much and still have dry skin?
“No,” Roddy grumbles, leaning against the helmet rack. “We’re going to talk, Jake. Quietly. Before you blow a gasket and Davis benches you for the weekend.”
I huff out a cynical laugh.
“Oh no, you mean I won’t get to catch a dozen college-aged pitchers who will be cut before the season ends? Damn,” I spit out.
Our eyes meet, and his are hard as ever. I drop my gaze again.
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” I say.
“Well, I have something to say to you,” he counters, his voice rising just a fraction before he tames it.
“You think you have it all figured out, don’t you?
You think it’s as simple as me picking a damn bat and ball over you and your mother.
You don’t know the full story, son. If life were perfect, if the world worked the way we wanted it to, I would have found a way to split time between the game, the road, and being there for you. I wanted to be there.”
“But you weren’t,” I fire back, snapping my gaze to his. The anger is a living, breathing thing in my chest. “You chose the lights. You chose the fans. You chose the easy money. Fuck, I bet you chose the women, too?—”
“Enough!”
My mouth snaps shut. We both glance toward the field. Coach Davis is busy working on blocking drills with the two rookies, though I have a feeling he heard my father’s voice just now. I turn my attention back to find my dad staring at me with his head tilted slightly.
“There are things you don’t understand, Jake,” he says, his eyes flashing with a desperate, suppressed pain. “Things about back then. Choices that weren’t just about me.”
“I’m a grown man, Roddy,” I say, stepping closer, my voice a lethal whisper. I know he hates it when I use his name instead of calling him Dad. “So stop with the cryptic bullshit. Just tell me.”
Roddy looks at me for a long, silent beat. He opens his mouth, then closes it, shaking his head.
“It’s not a simple answer I can just give you, Son.”
I think he says son because he knows it hurts me. I refuse to flinch.
“It’s complicated,” he continues. “And it involves more than just my mistakes.”
He steps in, his hand hovering near my shoulder before he drops it, realizing I’d back away. Or worse.
“I need you to know something. I never once stopped loving you. Or your mother. The fact I’m here now, trying . . . it’s gotta count for something. Please.”
Before I can respond, the heavy tread of Coach’s turf shoes echoes on the dugout steps. He looks between the two of us.
“We all better now, boys?” Coach asks, his eyebrows raised. I definitely think he used the word boys on purpose.
I swallow the lump of acid in my throat, forcing my jaw to relax. I look at my dad, whose eyes are still pleading with me, then back to Coach.
“Yeah,” I say, grabbing my glove from the bench and my shin guards from the ground. “We’re good, Coach. Just needed some water.”
I stuff the frustration deep down into the dark, quiet corner of my belly where I keep all my worst thoughts, and head back out to finish workouts with the team.
By the time I finish my routine, the clubhouse is nearly empty.
I purposely linger in the showers, letting the hot water beat against my aching right shoulder until the steam clears and the constant clang of slamming lockers fades away.
The last thing I want is to end up side by side with Roddy on my way out.
I wrap a towel around my waist and walk out to my locker. The silence of the room is heavy, broken only by the hum of the ice machine down the hall. I grab my phone off the top shelf, the screen lighting up with a notification.
Campbell: I shouldn’t be sharing this with you yet, but it’s the raw cut from Connor. I just wanted you to see how it turned out.
Beneath the message is a video link.
I sit down on the wooden bench, pulling a pair of wireless earbuds from my bag and popping them in. I tap the link.
The video opens with a sweep of my mom’s property—the timber barn bathed in the amber pre-dawn light, steam rising from the pastures in the distance.
Then it cuts to me. I watch myself hoisting the pitchfork, the muscles in my back tightening and shifting under the sweat.
It looks incredible. Not to toot my own horn, but damn!
I look legit. It’s exactly the kind of “grit” Campbell was pitching to me at Earl’s.
Then the interview starts. I watch myself lean on my elbows at my grandfather’s picnic table, delivering the scripted bullshit I rehearsed the night before about tradition and “special magic.” I look like a natural, at least. I’m about to scoff at the words I’m saying, then the camera angle shifts to a wide shot, capturing both Roddy and me.
My breath halts.
I’m delivering a speech about understanding why my dad was on the road, and my gaze is anywhere but on him. That was intentional. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sell the lie if I looked at him too many times. But Roddy? His eyes never left me. Not once.
The camera captures his face in high definition.
His eyes aren’t the pretend-sad I assumed they were, they’re swimming with a profound, undeniable pride.
He’s looking at me like I’m the greatest thing he’s ever seen, his jaw tight as he fights back what looks like tears.
He looks at me the way a father is supposed to look at his son.
A tiny, microscopic chip breaks away from the icy bitterness I’ve carried in my chest for years.
The video fades to black. I sit there in the clubhouse for a long moment, the earbuds cutting off the sound of anything other than the thump of my pulse. Finally, I open the text thread with Campbell.
Jake: Thanks.
A few seconds pass. The typing bubbles appear, then disappear, then pop up again.
Campbell: Just doing my job, McKinney.
I stare at her reply. I can picture her face—chin tucked, professional mask firmly locked in place. She’s trying to pretend she didn’t just do me a massive favor. She’s also holding back a bit of an “I told you so.”
I smirk to myself.
Jake: No, seriously. Thank you. For everything. I know I’m a pain in the ass, so I appreciate it.
I set the phone on my knee, watching. The bubbles appear almost instantly this time.
Campbell: Of course.
Campbell: And you are a pain in the ass. But you’re worth it.
My breath hitches slightly, a strange, light feeling blooming in my chest. You’re worth it.
I look back toward the empty hallway leading to the field, thinking about the look of pride on my dad’s face in that video, and then down at the text from the fancy girl who is currently occupying a whole lot of my thoughts.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, I stand up from the bench feeling happy.
Like maybe they both see something in me that I’ve been too stubborn to notice.
And if they see something . . . maybe the coaches will too. And then Texas.
I quickly throw on a clean pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, slinging my gear bag over my shoulder. As I’m walking out the clubhouse doors toward the parking lot, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out, expecting Campbell, but it’s my teammate, Jayden.
Jayden: Bro, you hear about Brooks? Someone left him with a baby. Well, it’s his baby. I mean WTF! Brooks is a dad.
My mouth forms a wide O as I walk to my truck.
Jake: Holy shit. For real? How’s he handling it?
Jayden: He’s terrified, man, but he’s already talking about setting up a nursery in his apartment. Says he’s hiring your high school coach’s daughter to nanny for him. Says he’s gonna make both work, no matter what. Fatherhood and ball.
I stare at the text as I start the engine of my truck. Gonna make both work.
Instead of turning toward my lonely, quiet apartment near the highway, I shift the truck into reverse and head the other direction. I need to be around family. I need to see my mom before she heads into Earl’s for the night shift.
Twenty minutes later, I pull into the familiar gravel driveway.
The sun is setting now. If she hasn’t shoved a quick frozen dinner in the microwave yet, maybe she’ll let me grill her some chicken.
I kill the engine, but I don’t get out right away.
I simply sit in the cab, staring at the front porch.
My mind runs in circles. I think about Brooks, a guy my age—younger even—stepping up and choosing to fight for both his kid and his dream.
I think about the look on Roddy’s face at the picnic table, the heavy, aching regret, and the love he claimed he never lost. Was it really that complicated back then?
Is it possible for a man to love his family and still get swallowed alive by the monster that is professional baseball?
I look down at my phone, Campbell’s last text still burning a hole in my screen.
She’s doing this on purpose. She’s sliding into my life, softening my edges, making me look at my father, making me feel things I’ve spent years numbing out.
Campbell Hines is hell-bent on breaking me, so I intend to break her first.
I smirk, my thumb flying across the keyboard.
Jake: I’m game for another interview. But it’s gonna cost you another spin on the dance floor first.
I hit send and lean my head back against the headrest, watching the golden light fade over my mom’s roof. A few seconds later, the phone buzzes.
Campbell: I’ll think about it.
A smug, slow grin spreads across my face. I slide the phone into my pocket, shove the truck door open, and step out into the cooler evening air. For the first time in a decade, I feel like I’ve actually got a shot at something—with the game, with my dad, and with the girl.