He waits a moment before he responds. “No, it’s not.”
But before I can ask anything else, he stalks out of the weight room.
“You blewin here like your ass was on fire,” the president of baseball operations, Winston Evans, states with a chuckle. “I take it there’s something on your mind?”
“I want to retire,” I blurt out.
“Okay,” he answers slowly. “I’ll admit, that’s not what I thought you’d say, but after yesterday’s meeting, I guess I should have expected it.”
“Wait, what? What meeting?” I ask.
“You didn’t talk to Layla, did you?”
I shake my head. “Extra innings yesterday, and then a weather delay. We got in well past midnight. I didn’t want to wake her — wait a minute. You know about Layla?”
He nods, smirking. “There were rumors, but we didn’t have confirmation until she called a meeting yesterday.”
“Layla called a meeting?” I ask incredulously.
“She felt it was best if she got ahead of things. Went to bat for you, Max. Talked about what an asset you are to the team, and the changes you’ve made this year to your game. She said she can find another job, but we can’t find another you.”
Wow. That was incredibly unexpected. “I — she — no. You can’t find anotherher. I’m old. I probably only have a year or two left anyway. Layla is amazing for this team. She’s improved everyone’s stats because of how she fuels us, and what she’s teaching us about food and energy. It’s not just a job to her. It’s a lifestyle. You’d be dumb to let her go.”
Winston raises his eyebrows. “I’d be dumb to let her go.”
“I mean, well,” I stammer, grabbing onto the back of the chair in Winston’s office that I’m standing behind. “If you have to choose, keep her. She’s so worth it.”
I hear someone clearing their throat from the doorway, and I turn to find Coach Dunn, the general manager, Mark Dempsey, and the Human Resources manager, Marcia Fritz.
“What if we didn’t have to lose either one of you?” Marcia asks, grinning widely.
“I don’t understand,” I state, confused. “Layla said she signed a contract with a no-fraternization clause in it. I’ll be honest, I didn’t look at it when I signed it. Shouldn’t come as a shock that she’d read it and probably memorized chunks of it. But she’s adamant that she’ll be fired if she gets involved with someone from the team. I’m not letting her break up with me, so let me retire. That solves the problem, right?”
Mark clears his throat again. “There are concerns about how long the two of you have been hiding a relationship, Max. And we have to think about how this impacts things moving forward. There will be, of course, a new contract that the two of you have to sign stating that in the case of a breakup, you promise you won’t let it affect your jobs.”
“We didn’t exactly hide anything. The romantic part of our relationship only recently began. I moved her in with me after her apartment was broken into, and I guess one thing led to another. Oh, and we accidentally slept together the night before Opening Day.”
Marcia gasps. “How does one accidentally sleep with someone else?”
Heat creeps up my neck. “I, uh, occasionally get on a dating appunder a pseudonym, and meet someone for a night when we’re on away trips. It turns out she did the same thing.”
“That didn’t come up in our chat with Layla yesterday,” Mark comments.
“Uh, that’s because she doesn’t know it was me yet,” I murmur, scratching my cheek through my beard. “I’ve been meaning to tell her. In fact, I’m meeting her right after this, so I can come clean. And to tell her I’ve retired so her job is safe,” I say hastily. My eyes dart between the four people watching me. Winston and Mark look amused, and Marcia is shaking her head in shock. Coach Dunn, however, looks a little pissed.
“I fucking knew there was something going on between the two of you when Morales showed up at her hotel room,” he states, his voice deep and booming through the room. “And you both lied to me.”
“We didn’t lie. Nothing was going on at that time.” I pause, a sheepish smile growing on my face as heat climbs up my neck. “It started the next night.”
Mark lets out a loud bark of laughter, and Coach’s lips twitch as he fights a smile. “So when you told me you ran into her the following morning, and she was suffering from a headache, you were just being a nice friend?”
I emphatically nod. “She’d had two run-ins with Morales. She was emotionally drained. I stayed with her for support, nothing else. She needed the sleep.”
“Let’s circle back to the issue at hand, please,” Marcia says. She drops a folder onto Winston’s desk, one I hadn’t noticed she was carrying. “We’re rewording the no-fraternization policy and adding a consensual relationship agreement. There will still be strict guidelines on fraternizing between a superior and subordinate, as well as a requirement for no unprofessional behavior, such as PDAs and excessive socialization. Because you and Layla are not in danger of violating the superior and subordinate rule, as long as you both sign the consensual relationship agreement, we have no problem with the two of you dating.”
Speechless, I stare at the four of them in complete shock. This is not how I thought this conversation would go. I figured they’d try to talk me out of retiring, claiming I was so much more important than Layla. I was ready to fight for her with a bunch of different arguments. How she has so many years ahead of her, and she can grow with the team. I know my game has improved greatly since I began following her meal plans, and now I understand how important it is to fuel my body the correct way. And how so many guys on the team have accepted her as one of their own. A sister of sorts. Bottom line is, I was ready to throw down the gauntlet to ensure Layla got to keep her job.
“Where do I sign?” I blurt out, making everyone laugh.
