Page 16

“It’s, in theory, how we pay for Nakamura . . .”

“How old are they?” he asks, taking another sip of his beer.

“Twenty-one.”

He nearly spits out the beer, coughing as he manages to wheeze, “What, all of them? Three rookies and Nakamura? It sounds like a mediocre eighties movie.”

She ignores my stray thought. “Like I said, it’s how we pay for Nakamura. They’ll all be making the minimum. It cuts more than fifty million off our books right away.”

“So you want to win a World Series starting two rookies every day at two of the premier positions on the field, one of which is going to have to learn an entirely new pitching staff and adjust to the major leagues. That pitching staff will have one rookie and one import from Japan who’ll also be making that adjustment five thousand miles away from home. ”

“Yes.”

“Fuck. I’m gonna need something stronger than beer.”

“Stew knows about it. He’s on board. Hell, half of it was his idea.”

“Which half?”

“The half that has you managing them and Javy coming on to work with Nakamura and Esposito.”

“No other major changes?”

“No, nothing major. So, what do you think?”

“I think it’s insane. What did your computer spit out?”

“The margins are . . . tight. I’ve run a ton of simulations and most of them are inconclusive, but the ceiling is high. More than a significant percentage have resulted in optimal outcomes.”

“In English?”

“Most of the time it thinks we win, a lot.”

“How much is most?”

“Forty-two percent

“Pretty sure forty-two isn’t most of anything.”

“It’s the plurality of the result . . . the largest percentage. Twenty-seven percent of the time it has us out of the postseason entirely. The rest of the time it has us doing well, but not ultimately coming out on top, but I’m skeptical of post-season predictive analytics.”

“You think your own computer is wrong?”

“I think, on the day to day, it’s more right than not, but once the season shortens to just winning the game in front of you and worrying about tomorrow, tomorrow, that’s when it gets fuzzier.”

“Stew didn’t mention any of this when he brought me in.”

“Stew doesn’t show his entire hand to anyone, let alone someone he isn’t sure is actually sticking around. And then, before he got the chance, he ended up in the CCU . Besides, none of this is your job – you’ve just decided to make it that way.”

“I guess I did.”

“Do you think you can bring Davis along?”

“This is the first I’m hearing about the kid. Do you have a scouting report?”

I tilt my head at him in mock offense and scoff. “Who exactly do you think you’re talking to?” I ask, and then lowering the pitch of my voice as much as I can in a terrible imitation of him, “Do I have a scouting report?”

Pulling it up on my phone, I show him a video our player development people pulled together, which Charlie watches carefully, brow furrowed thoughtfully as he zooms in and then slows the video down before starting it from the beginning again.

“How many strike outs did he have last season?”

“Thirty-three in over five hundred plate appearances, most of which were at the beginning of the season.”

“Shit,” he says, sitting back in his seat with a heavy breath. “That’s . . .”

“It’s some kind of ghost of Tony Gwynn stuff.”

“And his power numbers?”

“ OPS of 1.245.”

“You’re right. He’s ready. There’s some stuff we can work on with his pitch framing, but he’s ready. How does he handle a staff?”

“He can handle Esposito and, like I said, Esposito’s . . . quirky, to say the least. I think he’ll be okay, but you’ll be there to help him.”

“Yeah, yeah, I will. Kid’s young enough to be my kid. All of them are.”

“You would have been a very young dad to Nakamura.”

“We still haven’t signed him and, even if we do, you know what they’re going to say, right? Relying on four kids barely old enough to buy a beer.”

“I don’t care what they say.”

“What, really?”

“You think I managed to become one of the few female executives in this game by caring what unqualified men have to say about me?”

“Actually, I think that’s exactly how you did it. Baseball’s a game of perception, especially in the front office. You had to make them believe in you to get where you are.”

I just stare at him, more annoyed than I should be by how insightful that particular thought is.

“What? Nothing to say to that?”

“Sometimes I forget you’re not just a dumb jock with a pretty face.”

“You think I’m pretty?”

“I think you know very well exactly what you look like,” I say, half wishing now I’d ordered something with alcohol in it to take the edge off. It’s hard to keep my focus when he’s looking at me like that, like he knows exactly where my mind really is.

“You grew up a Dodgers fan, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“And you’re what? Twenty-eight, twenty-nine?”

“Thirty-four.”

“Really? Huh, you look younger.”

“Where is this going, exactly?”

“Just trying to do some math. You’re five years younger than me.”

“Well done,” I quip, but he ignores me.

“Did you have a poster of me on your wall, Sullivan?”

Damn it.

“I did not have your poster on my wall,” I hedge, and distract myself by taking a long sip from my soda.

It was on the back of my door: Charlie standing tall in his Dodger uniform, hair tousled after throwing off his catcher’s mask to grab a foul ball, eye black streaked attractively across his cheekbones, a bit of stubble lining his jaw.

I can see it like it’s in front of me right now.

It stayed up for years, ever after I left for college.

My parents eventually converted my bedroom to a yoga studio and I’m not sure what became of the poster version of Charlie Avery, but he still lives in my mind clearly enough.

He hums in response, but his eyes are twinkling at me, like he sees right through my almost lie, but he must decide to let it go as his attention is drawn over my shoulder.

“Do you wanna dance?”

“What?”

He nods behind me and I turn in my seat to see a bunch of couples out on the dance floor at the back of the bar, a band nestled in the corner playing some country music that I wouldn’t be able to identify with a gun to my head.

“ You want to dance?” I ask, turning back to him, but he’s out of his booth, holding a hand out to me.

“It looks like fun.”

“I thought we were here to work.”

“We did work and neither one of us has anywhere else to be until tomorrow morning. Unless you want to take up Ethan Quicke’s offer of the suite.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then come on, dance with me.”

“Do you think it’s a good idea?”

“Are you worried you won’t be able to control yourself around me, Sullivan?”

“Do you really want to talk about who does and doesn’t have self-control?”

He clicks his tongue, acknowledging the hit, but he doesn’t retract his hand.

“I don’t bite,” he assures me.

“Don’t you?”

I distinctly remember the nip of his teeth against my bottom lip that night back in LA . And he must too, because even in the dim lighting of the bar, there’s an actual flush rising beneath the stubble on his cheeks.

“Which one of us can’t control themselves again?” he deflects.

Fuck it.

I slide out of the booth and head straight for the dance floor without looking back.

I don’t have to. I know he’s behind me. There are a few couples in well-worn cowboy boots doing some kind of two step that I wouldn’t be able to recreate even after a month of dance lessons, but when I turn, Charlie’s there and, with no hesitation, one hand finds my waist while the other takes my hand in his.

And I have no choice except to follow his steps that somehow match the beat of the twanging country song and which looks an awful lot like what the other dancers are doing.

“You can dance?” I marvel, looking up at him in surprise before panicking and refocusing on my feet.

“Do you think I would have asked you if I couldn’t? Don’t bother looking at your feet, Sullivan. I got you. Look at me.”

I look up into his eyes and try to keep my gaze there, but it’s hard to not look down, to not check to make sure I don’t step on his toes.

“I have to know,” I begin, trying to relax into the steps and let him lead, but I have no idea what I’m doing, “where did you learn this?”

“Iowa isn’t exactly a place that shuns country music.”

“That’s right. You’re a Midwest boy.”

“Way more time out of it than in now, but, yeah, it was home.”

“You never went back?”

A lot of guys make their off season home back wherever they’re from, finding comfort in the familiar.

“As soon as I got to LA , I never wanted to be anywhere else.”

“Until now?”

“It stopped feeling like home after . . .” he trails off. “I love that city, and it’ll always be special, but one season without going to the ballpark every day was plenty. Watching the game move on without me, it was . . .”

“Impossible,” I finish for him, because I know that feeling all too well. “Like you’ve lost a part of yourself and nothing will ever fill the hole it left behind.”

He misses a step and his foot catches mine as I trip into him. He catches me easily, hands steady at my hips, drawing me into him to keep me from crashing to the dance floor.

“How could you possibly know that?”