Page 35

FRANCESCA

These kids are ready for the big leagues, that much is clear, and if the stats didn’t already show it, the way they play when we’re there to watch is just another sign.

The Desert Dogs are up seven nothing by the bottom of the third, making the game second fiddle to what’s going on in the stands and that’s Kai sitting between Charlie and Javy as they go pitch by pitch, talking through the game, his interpreter long forgotten and sitting on the end of the row, while Dan Wilson sits beside me mostly scrolling through his phone looking more than a little annoyed to be in the sweltering Arizona heat instead of in an air-conditioned hotel suite in Los Angeles.

At least it’s a dry heat, I think, as I flick my hair over my shoulder and grin out at the field.

Cole Davis is up to bat again and the first pitch he sees is launched more than four hundred feet to dead center field over the fence for a home run.

His second of the game. He’s incredible and he’s ours.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but I stand by what I told Charlie.

This out-of-the-box bullshit isn’t going to play once hard and fast numbers make Kai see the light,” Dan says, as the fans around us cheer while Cole rounds the bases.

Kai joins in with a massive grin on his face when Xander scores ahead of Cole and then points to him in the crowd.

“I don’t know, seems like it’s working pretty well to me.”

“Sounds like code for your offer won’t be the highest or you won’t be willing to come up over the highest?”

“It’s not code for anything other than I’m doing what I can to convince your client that money’s great, but the best experience he’ll have in the major leagues involves those three kids out there and the two guys up here.”

“And you,” he adds, with a knowing look.

I snort. He doesn’t know shit. Guys like Dan Wilson can’t imagine someone not being a raging ego maniac. It’s what makes them so easy to read.

“I’ll be sending over our next offer when you’re both safely back on the plane to LA and we’ll see where things shake out.”

“We will. I’m done. I’m going to find some air conditioning. Notify me when this stunt is over.”

“Our plane will be on the tarmac waiting for you.”

And with that he slides from his seat, his custom-tailored Italian suit clearly sticking to him as he disappears up the stairs and out of sight.

Kai’s phone buzzes in his hand and he glances down at it, his expression unchanging before he flips it face down on his thigh and refocuses on what Javy is saying to him about – if his hand shape is anything to go by – a grip for a knuckle changeup.

As subtly as I can, while I’m sure Kai is focused on Javy, I lean toward Charlie in the seat beside me, nearly resting my chin on his shoulder as I murmur, “How do you think we’re doing?”

“Having second thoughts?” he whispers back.

“Wilson’s not on board.”

“We knew he wouldn’t be.”

“True,” I agree, but I can hear the doubt in my own voice. He must hear it too.

“Hey,” he says, his hand finding my hands, clenched tightly in my lap over my crossed legs. He loosens their grip easily enough and then squeezes one warmly. “We got this.”

I squeeze back. “Yeah, we do.”

“What do you think, Charlie?” Javy says, from around Nakamura, and draws him back into their conversation, his hand sliding from mine quickly, but not fast enough for Javy not to see. I try to avoid his wide eyes, but it’s too late and he shoots me a wink before refocusing.

Damn it, he caught me.

I turn my attention to the game and do my best to stay focused there for the remainder of it while keeping one ear on the conversation beside me.

Nakamura is a baseball junkie, that much is clear, as obsessive and exacting as Charlie and, as every innings passes, they get deeper into the weeds about the development of higher spin rates to make sure the pitches he throws move as much as possible before they get to the batter and in-game biometrics analysis that can tell a manager when a pitcher is fatiguing before it becomes apparent through a bad result on the field.

“Is that something you use?” Nakamura asks, and I’m happy to chime in when Javy and Charlie look to me.

“All the teams are using it, but I’ve incorporated that into my predictive algorithm. Plus it’s been updated to take that data into account, to help prevent injuries, especially the ones associated with overuse.”

He nods thoughtfully. It makes sense he’d be concerned about it. One of the major issues Japanese players sometimes have when they come over the States is getting used to a five-man rotation instead of six, plus an extra eighteen games in the regular season.

By the final out, I’m more sure than ever that this risk was absolutely the right call.

We wait for most of the crowd to empty out and our boys jog over to the stands, at which point Nakamura is allowed onto the field by security to chat with them.

I watch carefully, while Javy and Charlie chat beside me, as a soft flush appears in Kai’s cheeks when he types his number into Xander Greene’s phone, and the wide, silly grin on the centerfielder’s face as he does.

Well, if nothing else comes of this, they’re pretty adorable, and I’ll be able to say I was there the day they first met.

“Ms Sullivan,” Archie says, jogging over to us. “Do you think we could go grab some tacos again? Kai said he’d be down to come with.”

He reminds me of a little kid asking his mom if he can have a sleepover with his friends.

“You don’t have to get back to LA ?” Charlie asks him.

“My next meeting is not until tomorrow,” Kai says, with a shrug, like he’s wildly unconcerned about whatever is happening at that meeting.

And I’m feeling even better about my choices, grinning as I imagine Wilson cooling his heels back on the plane, waiting even longer for his client.

“Okay, let’s go get some tacos.”

It’s the same Mexican place as the last time we were here, a little hole in the wall buried in a bland strip mall not far from the ballpark, but the drinks are strong – I’m definitely only having one margarita – and the food is as good as I remember.

Kai Nakamura seems to agree as Xander hands him a bottle of Cholula to add to his carne asada tacos, and utters an uncontrolled groan after a bite that has Xander blushing again the way he did back at the field.

“Did I mention this was brilliant?” Javy says, wiping his face and settling back against the booth seat, across the table from me, while we watch the kids at the table next to us and Charlie is at the bar grabbing us more drinks.

“You didn’t.”

“You gave him a glimpse of what his life will be like, surrounded by these kids, feeling comfortable here before he even throws a pitch.”

“We’ll see if it matters more than the check the Dodgers or Yankees will write.”

“Can’t control that and we can’t worry about things we can’t control,” Javy warns. “You know that better than anyone. It’s what you used to tell me all the time whenever I whined about run support. I remember you saying, clear as day, I can’t control for every variable, Javy. Suck it up.”

I ignore his terrible impression of me. “You never whined about run support.”

“I was doing it in my head and you always knew. That data of yours, you always knew shit was going on, sometimes even before we did.”

I can’t help my grin at the compliment, whether he meant it as one or not. “The things we can’t control are the most frustrating, though.”

He nods and then clicks his tongue, leaning forward. “And speaking of frustrating, I gotta ask you a question.”

His eyes light up and I can already tell where this is going.

“You can ask,” I say, “doesn’t mean I won’t tell you to fuck off.”

He lets out a sound that’s half laugh, half snort. “When are you going to put my boy out of his misery?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do,” he says simply, “and you should be glad it’s me asking you and not my wife, because she wants to call dibs on designing your dress.”

I choke on a sip of my drink at that last part of his sentence. “My dress?”

“We talked about it before I left and we haven’t seen Charlie like this in a long time, not since . . .” He trails off, like he said too much.

“No since what?”

“You know he was married before, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. He hesitates and I let out a frustrated breath. “If you want to say something to me, Javy, just say it, otherwise, leave it alone.”

“Gemma . . . she fucked him up. They were together since high school and then she just reneged. Wanted a different kind of life.”

“Okay, so, what does that have to do with me?”

“I haven’t seen him this happy since, I don’t know, the early days, when we still had our careers ahead of us, when we thought we’d win over and over again and that it would never end, you know?”

“Yeah, I do,” I agree, remembering my freshman year at Cal.

“And then we didn’t and then Gemma left and things got rough there for a minute.

He got over it, moved on, but then the game, it started to catch up to us, me first and then him.

So to see him like this again, after all this time, and we haven’t even gotten on the field yet.

It means something. You mean something to him. ”

“He means something to me too,” I admit, watching him balancing our drinks – two beer bottles and my margarita that I insisted I wasn’t going to drink – as he heads back to the table.

“But I have a rule about office relationships and it’s served me well the last decade.

What would that make me if I broke it now? ”

“It would make you human,” Javy mutters, but that’s all he’s able to get out before Charlie arrives.

“Another round, on me,” Charlie says, about to slide into the space beside Javy, but his friend nudges him back, leaving the booth.

“Gotta hit the head and then call the wife,” Javy calls over his shoulder, leaving us very much alone, and I have a feeling he won’t be coming back any time soon.