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Chapter 1
The Ultimatum
Damien
I didn’t anticipate spending my first day back in Nashville from spring training getting a lecture from my agent, Tyler, at Strings. I’d much rather be at my new home on one hundred acres of solitude outside the city.
Admittedly, things in Florida got a bit wild, but not enough to justify my high school buddy and agent’s face turning purple.
“Can you at least pretend this is a serious issue?” he mutters angrily from across the table.
There aren’t many times, like this one, when I question whether hiring him as my agent was a mistake. It’s tempting to take him outside and give him a piece of my mind for the way he’s talking to me, but I suppose it’s a bit childish for a pro baseball player to beat up his agent. That’s the sort of drama that quickly spreads all over social media. Still, I’d love to go back to freshman year, spring semester at Dusty Hollow High when this overconfident guy strolled into gym class thinking he could replace me just because he was six foot tall and weighed one hundred seventy-five pounds while I was still five-foot-ten and one hundred fifty pounds. He didn’t realize back then that I wasn’t just any ball player—I was the ball player.
I recall the day following tryouts when Coach Thomas posted the team roster outside his office and Tyler was listed as the first baseman.
When Tyler realized he wasn’t taking my place, he shot me the most smug expression I’d ever encountered. However, that expression vanished when the varsity roster was posted next to the JV one and my name was on it. I might have congratulated him in the most insincere way possible.
It was definitely a jerk move, but it felt like a natural response to his nonsense. It annoyed him enough that he went after my girlfriend, Sally Sampson.
Sally was the sweetest and prettiest girl at Dusty Hollow, but she wasn’t baseball. I never gave her, or any girl, the impression that they’d be more important to me than baseball. In fact, even now, I make it clear that I’m married. My spouse? Baseball.
Tyler was the first guy I ever fought. I was upset that Sally chose him instead of me, but the fight was mostly because I didn’t want to seem weak to the rest of my team. She made the right decision; Ty gave her what I couldn’t—time and attention.
When Ty transferred to varsity the following year, we became friends. I like to joke that it was because of baseball, but that’s not true—he’s genuinely a great guy and soon became my best friend.
Damn , I think, rubbing my hand across my face and over my stubble. I hadn’t expected to be here, getting lectured by Tyler or strolling down memory lane.
“Are you even paying attention?” he asks, snapping me back to the present. “Fyre Glove, one point eight million a year; Thirst Rift, one point two; Bolt and Ember, two point seven; and Slagger, one point three?—”
“Skip and Jim are threatening to drop me?” I chuckle, thinking this must be a joke. “I was wearing their baseball bat print boxers when things went south at the afterparty. They?—”
“Your dick also made an appearance,” he reminds me in that tone our old principal used when we had let chickens loose in the halls for our senior prank.
I run my hand through my hair, a physical cue to remind myself to think before I speak. I want to say I deserve a bonus because my dick is flawless—I’ve heard it more times than I can count. Some have even called it pretty. But I decide not to mention that since he’s clearly already irritated.
“So, it’s my fault their ‘ol manhole cover couldn’t hold up?—”
“Not everything revolves around your dick or your ego, Donovan.”
“That’s nonsense. We both know the real reason they sold out of the?—”
“They pay you one point three million annually,” he interrupts.
“That print sold out. It’s still on backorder over a month later,” I point out.
“Ah, damn,” he mutters, leaning forward and rubbing his face. “Why can’t you be like my other clients and focus on the sport instead of the business side?—”
“My name and brand are my business.”
“Sure, but they’re threatening?—”
“They can shove it?—”
“They’re not just threatening your contract.” He leans in and whispers, “I’m negotiating for Dawson, too.”
“Dawson’s just starting out with the Jags.” I shake my head. “He needs to earn those kinds of deals.”
He raises an eyebrow. “D, he’s your brother; he doesn’t have to wait. Your actions impact him.”
“Don’t bring my brother into this.”
“I’m not bluffing; it’s reality. Three major brands wanted you both for a commercial. One has already pulled back the offer.”
“Dammit,” I mumble.
Sensing my thoughts and knowing it’ll bother me for a long time, he adds, “Dawson didn’t even know it was a possibility.”
I nod as he sips his coffee then places the cup down.
“Listen, being one of baseball’s most infamous figures off the field isn’t going to go over well in today’s culture.”
“Fine.” I sigh in defeat. “So, what—you want me to write apology letters and send them in case of?—”
“No, it’s more serious than that. You need to make a major change.”
I know him too well to miss the look in his eyes—he’s already got a plan, and that amused glint sends a chill up my spine because I know it’s not one I’m going to like.
“Ten million a year in sponsorships covers your private physical therapist, your masseuse, the taxes on that hundred-acre farm you just bought, and even the costs for the housekeeper, private chef, and land manager keeping it all running.”
“Only Eddie is fulltime and Tennessee has some of the lowest property taxes in?—”
“That private jet you’ve been dreaming of?” He taps the side of his head. “You’re my business, D, and I want to keep you on track to own that shit instead of renting it. Help me?—”
“Do not help-me-help-you me right now, Ty,” I cut him off.
“My helping you not only makes me money, it proves I’m not just riding on your coattails.”
I nod. “You’re doing a hell of a job, man.”
He checks his watch. “I’ll cut to the chase: I have a meeting in an hour across town with a rep from Kicks.”
“Shit, that’s a huge deal, man. Congrats.”
He gives me a steady look before saying, “I want to pitch you and Dawson, and I’ll nail it if I can deliver what I promised.”
I raise a few fingers. “Scout’s honor. I’m on my best behavior.”
“Your best behavior isn’t what I promised.”
I motion for him to continue.
“I told them you’ve met someone and that you’re in a serious rela?—”
“You what?” I snarl.
“Jesus, D, quiet down,” he says, glancing around to make sure we aren’t drawing attention.
“Ty, I’ll never be in a?—”
“I have something in the works,” he says in a lowered voice, leaning forward.
“I don’t care what you’ve got planned. I’m not?—”
“You’ll have someone to take to fundraisers and events, someone to?—”
“I don’t have the time to invest in?—”
“Your reputation is on the line and, as I told you, Dawson is?—”
“Don’t—”
“The woman I have in mind has a career just as busy as yours, and she’ll benefit from having her name associated with yours.”
My head is spinning as I just stare at him. “You’re talking like I’ve already agreed to this, like it’s a foregone conclusion.”
He groans while pulling his phone from his pocket. “Fuck. I have to get?—”
“Ty, you’ve got some explaining to do.”
“She became a sensation on TikTok and got signed by a lousy agent who moved her into a house with other talented singers. When he crossed a boundary and she spoke up, the rest of the house dismissed it as ‘old school’ behavior, warning her to overlook it or risk ruining their careers. I don’t know all the specifics, but she eventually was publicly shunned on social media and kicked out of the house. Now, she has a new label, producer, and agent who believes she just needs some buzz to become the next big star. She needs this opportunity, and so do you.”
Frustrated, I retort, “You’ve already played the brother card and now the damsel in distress card; anything else on my first day back, Ty?”
He grins as he stands up. “Nope, that’s all. I’ll come by later after securing the biggest payday of your careers—for you and Dawson—with the NDA for your approval.”
“Now you want my approval?” I say to his back as he walks away.
I sit for a few moments after Ty leaves, trying to process what just happened, feeling … numb.
“Can I get you anything else?” the waitress asks as she clears our empty plates.
I smile, which is my usual response, and shake my head. “Just the check, please.”
She pulls it from her apron and places it on the table. “Have a great day, Mr. Donovan.”
I take out a wad of bills from my pocket and slip a hundred into the black leather check holder.
“Let me get your change.”
I push back my chair and stand. “Keep it.”
As I exit the bathroom, I catch the sound of a girl playing an acoustic guitar, her voice carrying a soft, raspy melody.
“ It was four walls, a porch light glow,
A quiet kind of lonely, I let no one know.
A house with no echos, a road with no roam,
You came like the thunder, turned my heart from stone .”
Feeling a bit irritated by how the song has struck a chord in me, I slow down to drop some bills into the tip jar as I walk by, trying to tune out the music and instead focus on the soft conversation, the clinking of glasses, the scraping of forks. But as I open the door, I find myself drawn back to the lyrics. I don’t like music, much like I don’t play video games; both are distractions I could easily become obsessed with, and I can’t afford to lose myself in such diversions.
“ You gave me more than I knew I could hold,
Not a ring or clouds lined in gold.
You gave me something I’d never known.
The whispers of your heart made it feel like home .”
My ability to zone out is what makes me one of the top players in the league. It messes with my plans for today when I think about wasting more time than I already have, especially with this fake girlfriend nonsense.
I had a plan to spend time at a house I bought less than a month ago before heading back to Oklahoma after the playoffs, staying there until spring training. With Dawson now in the majors, I’ve been encouraging Mom and Dad to attend his games. I wanted the whole off-season to hang out with them and train with Dawson.
We ran a winter baseball camp for the kids and practiced with our old team and coaches. We took a few trips, introduced Mom to glamping, and Dad to the joys of a yurt instead of the always-leaky tent from our childhood trips. We had a great time, made memories, and I don’t regret it. But today was supposed to be for getting familiar with my new home because, tomorrow, the grind resumes.
Get it together, Donovan , I tell myself as I press the unlock button on my key fob.
Mom would say, “There’s no point in wearing yourself out over something you can’t fix right now, son.”
Dad would add, “You’re worrying about rain that hasn’t even started yet.”
I glance up at the sky just as the sun slips behind ominous storm clouds.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter.
Climbing into my SUV, I find the latest Sports Now podcast to distract myself from everything else. Never mind all that , I think.
I start the engine and pull onto the road just as the rain begins to fall.
A mile down the road, Riggins, who used to be my favorite podcaster, is quickly moving to another list entirely: the shit list.
“All right, let’s discuss this rookie, Donovan. Not Damien, the other one—the kid from Jacksonville who somehow snagged a spot on the Jaguars’ roster.”
I can already predict where this is heading.
“Nepotism is alive and well in baseball, folks. Slap a last name like Donovan on a prospect, and suddenly, scouts forget how to read stats. Seriously?”
I grip the steering wheel so tightly I worry about damaging the leather.
“They’re calling him Little D , as if that’s endearing as if we haven’t seen how his older brother’s career is about to take a hit due to his behaviors. Do you think Little D earned that contract or is the league just fond of a redemption story?”
I angrily tap the screen to stop the episode.
Silence.
The rain is starting and the headlights barely cut through the fog that is just creeping in.
“Focus on that, Donovan.”
My heart is pounding so hard it feels like it’s in my mouth, and my jaw is clenched tight enough to shatter a tooth.
Dawson didn’t sign up for this mess. He spent most of his life trying to distance himself from our shared name. He worked twice as hard as I ever did to earn the recognition he rightly deserves. Yet, here we are, with some jerk in his mom’s basement, sitting behind a mic, tearing him down before the season’s even begun, before he’s had the chance to prove himself … once again.
Dammit, dammit, dammit!
I want to call Dawson to check on him, but I know he’s just settled into his new place, a townhouse right next to some of his teammates. He needs that time to bond with them.
My next thought is to reach out to Ty, to thank him for watching out for Dawson, but it’s too early for that—I should let him sweat it out a bit longer.
I could turn on the radio, but forget that …
I regret not pushing my manager and the Terrors’ owners to fight harder to bring him onto our team, instead of agreeing it was better for Dawson to carve his own path.
“Check these stats, you idiot,” I mutter.
The culture Ty spoke of sucks.
“Judged if you do, judged if you don’t.” And that one motherfucker isn’t even held accountable for the shovelful of shit he just heaped onto this craptastic day.
My mind goes to the girl—my soon-to-be fake girlfriend—who was canceled. “The hell kind of shit is canceled ? Something made-up by some keyboard warrior in his momma’s basement, that’s who,” I sneer.
“Fuck you, Riggins. I bet it was you, douchebag. You and every other guy who sits in his parents’ house with a Wi-Fi connection and a secondhand mic who thinks he’s an expert now. You’re sitting in your parents’ basement, surrounded by funko pops and a week’s worth of empty energy drink cans, talking shit like you’ve ever touched a field that wasn’t on a video game,” I huff. “Probably sending your momma a text, asking her to make you a grilled cheese sammich using emojis. I’d love to see you, Riggins, take a fastball … to the face. Or stand at the plate with the eighty thousand eyes on you, the season hanging on a swing of your bat. Let’s see if you still think I’m writing a narrative when your knees give out from the pressure of one BP round. I bet your cleats would have Velcro because you don’t even know how to lace your own fucking shoes. Never taped a broken finger and kept playing. Never stood in front of a locker, trying to explain the bad inning with a mic shoved in your face and the whole world ready to roast you in 4K. But sure, go ahead talk about nepotism like you didn’t fail Intro to Stats three times in college before flunking out.
“You, Riggins, tearing my brother apart while you sit on your forty-nine-dollar game chair and cut clips for TikTok just to make someone look like shit for some views? Easy to play expert from the safety of your mother’s figurative womb when the only bruises you’ve gotten are from stubbing your toe on your goddamn ring light!”
It’s in that moment I realize I am yelling at fucking no one … unmic’d, like a fucking clown.
“Maybe I’ll start a fucking podcast. Hell, the Kelce brothers did. Hell, Dawson and I’ll do it together. I’ll ride his coattails since he’s the only reason I even know who knows what a fucking ring light is. Not one thing is real anymore, anyway, except the family and baseball. Not even titties or even fucking eyebrows. No way of telling a woman’s real hair color with all that business going on with shaping and styling them, and not one even has a landing patch anymore, and I like a nicely trimmed bush!”
I nearly jump out of my skin and swerve the wheel, barely staying on the road, when I hear, “Sounds like you’re on board with the whole fake-dating plan.”
Fuuuuck …
“Yeah, man, I’m in.”
“Good,” Ty says. “I’m gonna need you to make me a promise.”
“What now?”
“Promise that you and Dawson will never start a podcast.”
“That was never going to happen.”
“Good. And one more thing.”
“You’re really pushing your luck.”
“Promise you won’t ever appear on one again either.”
Twenty minutes outside of Nashville, the Cypress Heights sign comes into view and the rain slows. Out here, no one cares about my stats. No one whispers about trade rumors or sponsorship losses, or whether my head was in the game. No one listens to Sports Now . Out here, I’m just a guy who bought a house on a piece of land to get away from the city, but stays close enough to dive back in and grind every day.
And right now, I’m a guy who can’t stop thinking about the singer in the restaurant, the one playing guitar in the corner like the world wasn’t even watching. Like her voice wasn’t quietly ripping the seams off every lie I’ve been telling myself. She sang something about transforming a house into a home.
“No, no, you don’t,” I chastise myself, ensuring I haven’t accidentally connected to Ty’s phone … again.
Ty, my best friend and agent, who has gotten me into a fucked-up headspace—I mean, a nightmare of a situation.
Okay, fine, I had a hand in it. Still, what the fuck?
Also, seriously, what the fuck? Ty mentioned this TikTok star as if I should know of her. Hell, I don’t even know my passwords for social media; the team’s social media experts manage all that.
I’m not a complete dick; I do feel sorry for the girl and would hire someone to assist her if she hasn’t gotten help already, because that’s the kind of nice guy I am. And, honestly, I’m not fond of dealing with emotions.
Two birds, one stone …
I roll to the stop before turning onto the main street, paved with smooth bricks that the locals proudly claim were laid by hand. You’d never guess you’re just twenty minutes away from downtown Nashville. In fact, glancing in the rearview mirror, I see the skyline has vanished, giving way to hills dotted with pastures and forests.
Main Street is only about five blocks long, but it packs enough charm to make those movies Mom loves … Hallmark. Jealous.
The Sycamore Mercantile stands on the corner like a relic from a bygone era, seemingly unchanged for nearly a century. It features whitewashed siding, copper accents, and a bell that jingles as you enter. Inside, you’ll find eight dollar jellies, jams, and hand-knit baby booties and blankets. The only coffee available is brewed from beans roasted by Everett, who refuses to use paper cups and encourages you to bring your own next time. I discovered this on a Sunday when I indulged in a cup and ended up spending twenty minutes listening to his reasoning.
Across the street, there are boutique shops, like The Honey Fig, offering artisan groceries; and Stitched it’s beyond an entire world that remains unseen by others, unless they’re invited.
As I drive up to my gate, my “ NO TRESPASSING ” sign is clearly visible. I can almost hear Mom’s voice. “God gave you two hands—one for work, one for prayer. Not for worry.”
This is the boundary where I let my troubles stop.