Page 112 of Playboy Pitcher

Closing my eyes, I puff out my cheeks and exhale a shaky breath. “Just rip off the Band-Aid,” I whisper. Opening them, I push the metal bar and step into the training room.

“Hey, lady boss!” Dropping his weight bar, Kyle grins and walks toward me.

“Hey, Kyle.” I smile weakly. “Looking good.”

His grin widens. “Have to keep the guns in shape for the regular season,” he says, and my heart sinks a little as he flexes his biceps. “My new boss is a ballbuster.”

“Yeah, about that…” I grip the back of my neck. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Yo, fucknuts!” he yells, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Fall in! Lady boss has news.”

Shit.A town hall meeting isn’t exactly what I had in mind.

As the players gather in a semicircle around Kyle, a sharp pang of déjà vu hits me. Nearly four weeks ago, they all stood like this waiting for another announcement from me. I wish I wasn’t here to hand them just another recycled version.

“What’s up, boss?” Tuck says, running a hand through his long surfer hair.

Rip off the Band-Aid. It’s less painful in the end.

“Guys, you’re going to have one hell of a season.” I grit my teeth as they erupt in loud cheers. “And I’ll be there in the stands to watch you kick ass at Yankee Stadium.”

I’m not surprised that it’s Cruz who pushes off the wall where he’s been watching everything unfold. “You’re moving back to New York.”

It’s not a question, but I nod anyway.

“What the fuck?” Kyle explodes. “Why?”

Tuck shakes his head. “Wait, I don’t get it. How can you run the Storm from New York?”

“She’s not.” My breath catches as the familiar deep voice squeezes my chest. The team turns around, separating down the middle as if laying a red carpet for their king. But instead of moving, Ben stays leaned against the back wall. “She sold us out. Just like she said she would.”

Tuck turns back around, that easy-going grin now pulled tight as a bowstring. “Is that true?”

I nod, but I might as well have lit a torch and tossed it right in front of them. First come the shouts, then the insults, then the fists hitting walls. Before I know it, there’s a finger in my face and a furious right fielder with arms the size of tree trunks looming over me.

“You lied! You know what’ll happen to us. Whoever buys will cherry pick who they want and replace the rest. Why do all this?” he roars, gesturing to the team. “Why build us up just to pull the rug out from underneath us?”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. They’re useless words, but they’re all I have to offer.

And not good enough.

“You’re sorry?” he yells, twisting around. “Ben, talk some sense into your wife!”

“I can’t,” Ben says with a stony stare. “I don’t have a wife. I never did.” Slamming his body into the metal bar across the back door, he walks out without another word.

One by one, the team I’ve grown to love, the men who have become a second family, turn their backs on me and follow him out, leaving me truly alone.

I feel the last shred of my control breaking, so I spin around and run out the same door I came in. I run until my lungs burn and my legs ache. I run until I have nowhere left to run.

Because I’ve run onto the baseball field.

Sinking to my knees, I cover my face. Only I’m all out of tears, so I do the only thing I can do. I scream.

“A little dramatic, don’t you think?”

Dropping my palms to the grass, I look up to find Drake standing over me. “Why the hell are you still here?”

“Actually, I should be asking you that question,” he says, kicking at a divot in the grass. “As of tomorrow, I own this motherfucker.”