“He has baseball purists fooled, that’s for sure.” He gives a wry chuckle. “Colt can say anything he wants, but because he uses a professional tone instead of having some enthusiasm for the sport, he gets a pass. Doesn’t matter that his team hates him.”
“His team doesn’t hate him.”
He shrugs. “Sure. Because you talk to the players.”
“Teams hateyou.”
“No, opposing fans hate me. Stuffy front office people hate me. People who haven’t played with me …”
“That’s a nearly comprehensive list of the human race.”
“I’mnotclubhouse poison.”
“And neither is he.”
“Only because he’s been playing under his rookie contract. I guarantee, the second he signs a major contract, he’ll be straight up toxic. Right now, he has to watch his mouth a little.”
“Unlike someone I know.”
“Ineverput down other players. If Colt had struck me out and pumped his fist, no one would have cared, because pitchers are allowed to be excited. Why? It’s one of the unwritten rules about baseball. And it’s those rules that make kids choose other sports.”
We’ve been playing catch this whole time, but I hold my hands out so he doesn’t throw the ball to me again. “You’ve talked about that in interviews. Baseball isfine.What is your obsession with kids choosing other sports?”
“Because baseball connects people to something bigger than themselves and their problems!” His face flushes, and his light brown eyes seem darker. “When I was a kid, I felt alone all the time. It wasn’t until my dad put me in baseball that things changed for me. I found a community of people whosawme—most of them, anyway—and it helped me find myself. Without baseball, I wouldn’t …” He trails off. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, standing up with his lips pressed into a thin smile but his eyes crinkled. “Baseball’s awesome. I’m gonna take a break.”
I watch him leave the dining room, and one thing is certain: Cooper Kellogg has a lot more layers than I realized.
And I’m more curious to unwrap those layers than I care to admit.
CHAPTER SIX
COOPER
Istep outside to the balcony and rest my arms on the railing. I have a perfect view of the well-lit golf course from up here, and if it weren’t so dark, I could see Pinnacle Peak in the distance.
It’s weird to be in a place I used to call home and yet to notfeelat home. My mom’s call doesn’t help.
I love my parents. They tried as hard as any two people could. My dad could have won every Father of the Year trophy since the day I was born. My mom did her very best, and I’d give her all the awards I could, too … if only she could show up to the ceremony.
My mom developed agoraphobia when I was in elementary school. At first, it manifested with her not wanting to be out in big places—malls and movie theaters. But slowly, her world got smaller and smaller. When her condition got to the point that she couldn’t leave the house, dad quit his job as a long haul trucker to take something close to home.
The first year of her being shut in was brutal. I felt rejected and hurt and totally alone, even though my dad was around more than ever. In my little kid brain, I couldn’t understand why I had to live my life on Mom’s terms for her to be involved. I didn’t understand why she only loved me at home but not enough to leave it. Such intense anxiety was completely foreign to me, but my sadness was obvious to my parents.
My dad and I would go on walks to the green space near our apartment complex and he’d let me talk. He tried to give me perspective about what my mom was going through, but I couldn’t connect with her.
Dad became everything to me that first year after Mom’s diagnosis. He signed me up for any sport I wanted and found ways to coach most of them. I was good at all of them the way naturally athletic kids are when they’re young. But it wasn’t until he put me in baseball that everything changed.
I hit a home run in my very first game. And I’m not talking about one of those home runs where a kid pops up and the other kids scramble and fall all over themselves trying to catch it. I hit it over the rec league’s fence.
Our team went wild, and the stadium erupted. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. It was the mostseenI’d ever felt. And when I got home that night, I was too excited to be hurt that my mom hadn’t come to the game. I told her every detail about my home run, including the two pitches before, the way the other team crowded the infield, all of it.
Mom laughed and cheered every second. “Tell me again!” she begged, so I did. And when she started crying the second time I told it, Ifelthow much she loved me. I’d always “known” she cared, but in the months leading up to her diagnosis and the months since, I’d felt overlooked and unimportant to her.
But here she was, crying because she was sohappy.She wasso happy!
After that, we recorded the games and watched them together when Dad and I got home. But the videos were never enough for her.
“I don’t want to just see it,” she’d say. “I want tofeelit! Tell me how it felt!”
