Page 2

CHAPTER 2

LOGAN

END OF MARCH

Y eah, yeah. I get that winning the first game of the season feels nice, especially when it’s against the Denver Riders that Ben Williams left our team for. Revenge and all that. But this is just game one of the first series. There’s a whole season ahead of us and you’d think we just won the World Series with how everyone’s celebrating.

I rub my ear under the shower spray, but it doesn’t dull their hollering and laughing that the wall tiles amplify. Someone—I’m gonna take an educated guesstimate that it’s Lucky Rivera—grabs a bottle of shampoo and sprays it all around like it’s champagne, and soon the rest of the stooges are doing the same. If someone slips and ends their season early they’re gonna deserve it.

Perhaps I should be thankful that they’re saving me the effort of soaping myself. But I do turn around because I have no interest in eating shampoo.

“Did you see that?”

“That was amazing, bro!”

“We got this! We so got this!”

“Our battery’s sick. I bet Williams is eating his words.”

Williams’s words refers to a little interview he partook in yesterday. A SPORTY News reporter caught him after practice and asked what his feelings were about opening the season against the team that nurtured him as a star pitcher.

“I don’t feel very much, to be honest with you,” he said with that shit eating face I’ve never been able to stand. “I’m just glad to have left an organization where growth is impossible, and eager to show them just how much I have developed as a Rider.”

Puh-lease. Who does he think he is? Pedro Martinez?

Meanwhile the bunch of clowns I call my teammates are chanting Cade Starr’s name, and even I have to admit it’s funny. Starr was a decent relief pitcher last year—good, even—just not as remarkable as Williams. But dude has had stratospheric growth over Spring Training, and I don’t know if the guys are chanting his name because they recognize Starr as the example of the growth Williams claimed is impossible here, or simply because the cowboy pitched a perfect game tonight.

I wipe a smirk off my face and finish washing myself. Ever since Hope Garcia started working for the team, it became convention to at least put on our underwear by the lockers behind the shower stalls. Not that we really think anything would shock her at this point—especially not now that she’s publicly dating one of us—but it’s a respect thing.

Since I have perfected the art of do-not-screw-with-me though, the clowns allow me safe passage to the lockers. It’s a combination of the mean glare I was born with, plus the tattoos. The many tattoos.

After making quick work of toweling and putting on the first layers, I’m about to taste freedom from the noise when someone all but tackles me from the side.

“Look at you, all quiet in your little corner,” Rivera shouts in my ear, his arm hooking around my neck and forcing me to bend down.

Something like a growl comes out of me. “Take your butt away from me, Rivera, before I punch you wherever I can reach.”

The threat is credible enough that he steps away. I slice a glare at him, wishing I could wash the patches of me that were in contact with the little pest again.

He folds his arms, his face dripping with amusement and water. “I know you won’t want to talk about this, but I do want to acknowledge that I know you’re the one who’s raising that cub into a full blown tiger.” He jerks his head somewhere behind him, and I don’t have to ask who he’s referring to. We both know this is about Starr.

“Whatever,” I grunt as I towel my hair. “And if you’re going to make an allegory, at least make it with the proper mascot.”

“What are baby alligators even called?” He scratches his head through wet curls.

“Shoo.” I wave my hand, uninterested in the rest of this conversation.

With one last chuckle, the guy peels himself off the lockers and goes find someone else to bother.

If I was annoyed before he dropped by, I’m even more so after he leaves. I wasn’t expecting to hear that from the most happy go lucky—pun intended—guy on the team. His boundless energy, the pranks, the terrible jokes that range from Dad-level to racy, make it easy to forget that he does have a sharp brain in his skull socket. Rivera noticing that I’m the puppeteer behind Starr’s progress should make my chest swell, maybe even make me join in the revelry.

Not when I’m in conversations to get traded somewhere else.

I hang the towel around my neck to rummage through my backpack until I find my phone. The screen lights up with some texts from Pete Kaplan, my agent.

Kaplan

That was wild—ha!

I could see your price tag going up with every inning

That makes my eye twitch and I stuff the device back in the backpack before any of these hawks can read the texts. I haven’t given Beau or the rest of the staff a heads up about my plans because, well, there are no official plans yet. Kaplan and I are in the very early exploration phase of seeing which teams are looking for a catcher, and the fact that I won’t accept demotions will no doubt complicate the process.

For all intents and purposes, I’m committed to this team and that’s how it’s going to remain until the very last second.

I’m one of the first ones out of the facility. We play in our turf for this series and the next, which is why I’m interested in getting as much rest at home away from the stooges, as I possibly can. Fortunately I have a short drive ahead of me, which is great because I’m hungry.

What’s not great is that there are two people in the way between me and my Paningale V4 R. I’m about to side step them when I pay more attention.

What the hell are Ben Williams and our social media girl discussing about?

I don’t even know if discussing is the right word either. At first I think she’s got her arms folded in annoyance, but as I stare a second longer I realize that’s not the case. Her arms are wrapped around her torso like she’s protecting herself, and Williams is the one who is gesturing around. Angry.

I’m familiar with these body languages. Everyone in my family has adopted both roles a million times against each other.

Sighing, I look down at the helmet in my hands. A comfortable sofa and a nutritionally balanced meal await at home, and all the sounds I’ll listen there are me chewing if that’s what I want. Maybe I can listen to an audiobook. Relax. Disconnect from the world and from my own brain.

Nope. My feet make the call and take me directly to the melee.

Clearing my throat, I stop a few paces from them. It’s enough to get Williams’s attention.

It’s obvious how red his face is even under the streetlights. He’s breathing hard like he was running at full throttle, and not screaming at a woman.

Meanwhile, her eyebrows are drawn and she glares at the former starting pitcher of our team. A curl has escaped to fall over her face and she huffs hard enough to send it back. I was expecting a sign of fear on her expression but I don’t find it. Maybe I could’ve just kept going to my bike and peeled out of here.

But just to make sure, I ask, “What’s going on here?”

“Stay out of this, Kim,” Williams barks.

I click my tongue. We formed a battery for two years. He should know by now that the only one I obey is myself.

“Are you harassing our social media girl?” I ask, going for the nuclear option right away because I’m not one to waste time with pleasantries.

“No!”

“Yes.” I zero in on Rosalina Mena’s response. Slowly, she unfurls her arms from around herself and turns her big brown eyes to me. “You see, Ben and I dated in secret for like a year until I caught him cheating on me. I dumped his ass and moved on. He hasn’t, and apparently he thinks that it’s my fault he’s not getting any action again.” She slides a vicious glare at him.

“It is. I know you took pictures—my security camera caught them! Did you put them on the internet?” he hisses and takes one step closer. “Did you?—”

I don’t even know what in the actual hell I just heard. What I do know is that I’m not going to let this piece of shit get physical. The second he raises a pointy finger at her, I slide in between.

Williams freezes and gradually lifts his face to meet my eyes. It does help that I have tall genes. My father was basically a giant in his day in South Korea, and my mother is a whole runway model from Sweden. This is the one contribution I’ll thank them for.

“Whatever it is that you were going to do or say,” I mutter very low, hoping she doesn’t hear from behind me, “I advise you to shove it up your ass, and I also remind you that there are cameras here.”

“You damn?—”

“Nuh uh.” I shake an index. “Don’t say something I’ll be forced to make you regret. Turn around and go.”

He grits his teeth, which somehow intensifies the red in his face. “This is none of your damn business, Kim.”

“You’re right.” I take a step closer and lower my eyes to his. “But you’re going to make it my damn business if you keep bothering Mena. Go. Now .”

For a moment, Williams continues to breathe like a truck, his eyes blazing with all the hatred that was always living inside of him and he no longer has to hide.

Yeah, I know this guy hated my guts all two years we formed a battery—which I always found interesting when he was the one reaping the fame and the glory from my hard work—but I’m not the petty little shit that he is.

He tries to catch a glimpse of Mena behind me and I make a point of blocking his view, even though I don’t know if she’s still behind me or if she took the chance to high tail it out of here. But finally he gets the hint that nothing further is coming from this and he swivels on his heels.

Pretty rude of him to make his team bus wait for his tantrum, and I kindly hope they left his ass behind.

“Thank you, but I had it under control.”

I straighten. So she’s still here, huh?

Glancing over my shoulder reveals her annoyance. Like she genuinely thinks she didn’t need help.

I snort. “Sure, and your body language didn’t scream help .” At last, I put on my helmet and since no further comment comes, I hop on my bike and turn it on.

It’s only when the roar subsides to a resting state that I realize she’s talking. I turn back to her and she says, “Um, I didn’t really mean to spill all the beans like that—I was just so mad and uh…” I take one look at her wringing hands and the way she bites her lower lip, and it’s enough to deduce what she wants.

I flip my visor open. “Let’s put it this way,” I say in a flat tone of voice. “I already guessed some of this and never told a soul, why would I start now?”

Her pretty eyes widen to an impossible extent.

“You two weren’t as discreet as you maybe thought.” I check my watch. I’d have loved to be lounging at home a half hour ago. “Now, can I go?”

“Y—Yeah.”

She’s still rooted to the spot, so I have no choice but to walk the bike back out of the parking spot until I’m able to drive away. Her figure’s still in the same place when I check the rearview mirror.