Page 7

FRANCESCA

Sleep helps.

I knew it would, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying.

For our players and the fans our season is over.

For me, it’s just getting started.

And sleeping in?

That’s a waste of time.

It’s been so long since I’ve woken up with the golden glow of dim afternoon autumn sunlight pouring through the sheer curtains. I clearly forgot to pull the thicker blackout drapes closed when I collapsed into my bed.

But it isn’t the sun that woke me up. It’s my phone, buzzing on the nightstand, and just before it vibrates off the edge, my hand shoots out to catch it.

“Hey B,” I mumble, as I accept the call, letting my eyes fall shut again as I hold the phone to one ear and burrow the other side of my face deeper into my pillow.

Bianca’s been my best friend since childhood and lives in LA with her husband, so her calls get answered, but she gets the version of me that’s still kind of asleep.

“I’m ignoring the fact that you flew right over me without stopping and staying with us for a day or two. Nothing is going on right now at work and you could definitely take a couple of days off, but I’m preemptively forgiving you because I just saw the alert on my phone.”

And just like that I’m fully awake, immediately rolling over and propping myself up against the headboard, putting Bianca on speaker and scrolling through my phone, trying to find it.

But I’ve been asleep too long. There are way too many texts and alerts.

“Which one?”

“The Eagles hired Charlie Avery?” Bianca isn’t a sports fan, at all, but she does keep her alerts set for my team, even back during my first job in baseball with the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, one of the Dodger’s minor league affiliates.

“Ugh, did that drop already? I was hoping we’d be able to keep it under wraps for at least another couple of days.”

“Nothing official. He’s been seen around Brooklyn and apparently there’s a team source too.”

That’ll be Gregory. Stew must have asked him to leak it to the press. They’ve probably already even hammered out the broader details of his contract. Stew works fast when he wants something and, only God knows why, but he wants Charlie Avery in the Eagles’ dugout.

“Yeah, there’ll be a press conference soon, I guess,” I say, finishing my thoughts aloud.

“You knew?” Bianca asks, and I can picture my friend, all the way on the other side of the country, her dark eyebrows lifting toward her wild riot of brown curls.

“Yeah, I knew. I—” I could talk about how I saw him, about how he was the exact same arrogant son of a bitch I worked with back in LA , but despite the sleep doing its job, I don’t quite have the energy. I just let the sentence trail off, but Bianca picks it up for me.

“I know you hated working with him when you were both here, and then there was . . .” she trails off.

“It was a kiss, B. It’s not a dirty word.”

“The kiss, then. Are you okay with it? Did you talk to Stew about it?”

“I absolutely did not tell Stew about that. Besides, he loves Charlie, managed him in the minors. It’s . . . it is what it is, and I have some time before I really need to work with him on the day to day, not until Spring Training, so a few months until I’m ready to strangle him.”

“Got you. Okay, changing the subject. How was Japan? How was . . . what’s his name?”

I always love when Bianca asks about baseball, because she has absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, but she’s my best friend, so she still asks.

“Kai Nakamura. Twenty-five, left-handed pitcher and he’s so good, B.

I’m going to lose my mind if we don’t get to sign him.

He can spot every pitch and I swear his curve ball just drops off the table.

He pitched a perfect game in game seven to win a championship.

I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life. ”

“I don’t really know what any of that means,” she admits, just like she always does, “but I’m glad he lived up to the hype.”

“Now I just need ownership to pony up the cash.”

“How much?”

“Probably in the three hundred million range, maybe more.”

“Just to throw a baseball?”

“To throw a baseball better than anyone else when your teams’ yearly revenue is nearly two hundred million dollars and signing a player from Japan of this stature means an estimated revenue increase upwards of thirty million dollars a year.”

A lot of people have issues with how much professional athletes get paid.

Bianca’s an academic librarian, so I’m sure she can imagine a million uses for that kind of money.

But I’ve always argued that the money being in the hands of the players instead of just sitting in the billionaire owners’ respective bank accounts is a net win.

“And Stew’s on board?”

“Yeah, I think so, but listen, I’ve gotta go. I need to head back into the office.”

“Back in? Did you go there straight from the airport and then work all day yesterday?”

“Maybe.”

“Frankie!” she scolds. “What did we talk about?”

I scoff lightly. “I can do the work-life balance thing when I have a ring.”

“I assume you mean a World Series ring?”

“What other kind of ring could I mean? Wait, is Bianca ‘I waited literal years after I found the love of my life to get married because we had things we wanted to accomplish first’ Dimitriou asking about my love life?”

“I just worry about you. You were never like me. I was always happy being single before Xavier and I finally figured everything out, but there hasn’t really been anyone since Shane for you, right? Not anyone serious anyway.”

I ignore the question because she knows the answer. “B, I appreciate the concern, but I promise you, I’m fine. I’m more than fine, and I’ll be better than fine if I get ownership to sign off on a competitive offer for Nakamura.”

“Okay, but promise me you won’t go in for at least another couple of hours. Give your body time to adjust to the time change or you’re going to be a mess for the rest of the week, and I know you have a couple more work trips coming up soon. Promise me.”

“Fine, I promise. I’ll go for a run, clear my head a bit.”

“I guess it would be too much for me to ask you to rest a little more?”

“Definitely.”

“Okay, fine, have a good run.”

“Tell Xavier I said hi.”

“I will and, listen, if you need to talk about the Charlie Avery thing, you call me, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Love you, bye.”

“Love you, bye!”

Sliding out from under the covers, I press my feet into the carpet beneath my bed, the one that came with the place. Beige and nondescript, but plush enough to make fists in with my toes, grounding me after a long-ass few days.

The taupe nail polish I got at my last pedicure is looking pretty rough as I stretch my legs out and then rotate my ankles, both of them cracking in a satisfying way as I turn them one way and then the other.

Then, with a groan, as my spine echoes those cracks, I stand up, stretching my arms over my head.

And that’s it. I’m up and moving with purpose to the closet to find running tights and a long-sleeved t-shirt to wear for a quick mile around the park.

Running was always my least favorite part of being an athlete. It was something to be avoided at all costs, a punishment for lack of performance on the field, for messing around at practice or, occasionally, for being a little too mouthy with a coach.

Now, running is a sanctuary, physical activity to make the constant whirring of my brain quiet to a gentle hum and, with my apartment just off Prospect Park, I have a place to escape to that nearly silences the city that never sleeps.

I jog down the stairs and groan at the Open House sign in the main entry of the two-family brownstone that I own the top two floors of, making a mental note to barricade myself in my upstairs unit when I get back to avoid the influx of people desperate to move into this neighborhood.

They need to be willing to hear me pacing the floor of my apartment all hours of the day, though, because even when I’m home, I’m working.

The air is brisk when I make it outside and I switch my Apple Watch to a workout and choose a run.

After a quick tap, I set a brisk pace down the block before crossing over Ocean Avenue.

I head straight into the winding paths shaded by trees bedecked with orange, red and yellow leaves; their fallen brethren crunching steadily and satisfyingly beneath my feet.

And there it is, the silence I needed to focus my mind and keep it from spinning out of control.

Okay, so the plan for next week.

I wanted to pitch Stew my Nakamura strategy, but that got foiled by Charlie Avery’s audacity to make today the day he decided retirement wasn’t for him.

I’m still not sure what his deal is. He’s a multimillionaire and not an idiot, so he was probably smart with his money.

He definitely doesn’t need a job in the sense that most people, including me, need their jobs. So why is he doing this?

Everyone always thought he’d be a great manager after he retired. His people skills are generally good, our relationship notwithstanding, but getting back into the grind of a major league season is a lot for someone who did it for two decades and called it quits.

He’s old in baseball years, but young for, you know, life. Not even forty. He could have an entire existence doing something else, anything else, if he chose.

Then again, what’s better than a life in baseball?

I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do.

Maybe we have that in common?

Maybe it’s the only thing we have in common?

Except . . . that kiss.

I drove home that night my lips tingling. Well, every part of me tingling. No one had ever kissed me like that, not even my ex. Or, at least, I’d never felt a kiss that way, like he was trying to see into my soul. Desperation and passion and skill.