The security guard, Pablo, considered us for a moment, then answered in a deep baritone. “Sure thing. Let me check with Mike, and we’ll get something figured out; maybe have some barricades moved back.”
“Thanks, man, we appreciate it.” I bobbed my head, trying to look as genial as possible.
“No problem. Good luck today fellas; should be an easy win.”
“Yeah,” I replied as we walked away. “Thanks, man.”
“God, I fucking hate it when people say shit like that. Like they actually know what it’s like to stand up at the plate and hit a ball traveling toward you at a hundred miles an hour,” Stone griped, his ever present cheery façade dropping.
A talented left fielder, we’d played against each other ever since he’d moved up from the minors seven years ago. He’d started at The Red Sox and then moved to The Astros before coming here. This was the first time we’d played together. Aside from seeing him at the usual sports award ceremonies and around the circuit, we hadn’t spent much time together, but he always garnered massive respect from everyone in the leagues due to his affable, happy-go-lucky demeanor while smashing out a home run, like he was swatting a fly.
I’d always had massive respect for him as a player, especially as the press loved him – unlike me.
“Yeah, I know.” I nodded in agreement. “You okay though?”
He took a large gulp of the water he was carrying, and dragged the back of his hand over his mouth. “Yeah, I’m good. Just had an argument with Carrie this morning is all.”
“Is Carrie your girlfriend?”
“Yeah, but not sure for how much longer,” he sighed, “Man, relationships are hard.”
Finally, a conversation about relationships I could contribute to. Because up until I moved to New York, I had categorically stayed as far away from them as I possibly could.
I had no interest in them.
All I wanted to do was play ball how I wanted, and anyone who got in the way of that could fuck right off.
Only one woman would ever change my mind, and it was the one who currently wanted nothing to do with me.
But… I couldn’t deny that after last week, something was officially going on between us, even if it lived solely in the slap she’d delivered, and it meant I actually did know that relationships were hard.
“Tell me about it.”
“You got a girl?” He stopped, his face filled with questions, like this was news he should have known.
“Working on it. But she doesn’t want to know right now.”
Stone’s head fell back with a loud guffaw, and from the way he was looking at me I think he expected me to continue, but that was all I had. I also didn’t want to divulge anything about Marnie until I had an actual plan. I’d seen plenty of players make moves on club staff and have it blow up in their faces. Granted this wasn’t the same type of situation, but I still wasn’t going to talk.
“That’s all I got, sorry.”
“Well, if you need help, you come to me,” he thumbed his chest.
“You just said you were about to break up with your girl,” I scoffed, pushing open the swing doors that led down to the training facility.
I’d played against The Lions plenty in my career, but never thought much of the stadium. Coming from The Dodgers’, italways seemed a bit run down. All that changed, however, when Penn Shepherd took over. Even I didn’t know how he’d managed to make it all happen in the five short months between seasons, but he’d transformed this place into a palace.
For starters, we had two locker rooms – one purely for game day, the one we began and finished each game in, then a second for every day. An everyday locker room – or Locker Room One, as it was known. That was where we were headed now.
The game day one was sleek, but Locker Room One was incredible; like a five-star hotel. Given we spent the majority of our time at the club when we weren’t traveling, the boss made sure we had every comfort imaginable; and a locker room staff ready to serve us however we needed.
Locker Room, however, was slightly redundant, and a little misleading. It was more like a locker suite, spread across five thousand square feet. The entrance hallway we were walking down was lined with fridges, all filled with any approved drink we could want, plus shelves of snacks if we were ever hungry, which was all the time for some of the boys, including my current locker room pal.
Big screen televisions, huge couches for any downtime we were allowed, plus Xbox and PlayStation was neatly tucked away in one corner of the space, along with board games, playing cards, a fully stacked poker table, and bocce ball. On the other side of the playroom was a quiet space, with little bunkbeds if we had time for a nap.
And I hadn’t yet asked, but I swear it had its own smell; calming like massage oil, but not the stinging, painful massage kind. More like the kind you got on vacation.
It was clever, too. We were a brand-new team, coming together almost like an expansion, and this place was designed for us to socialize, get to know each other on a personal level, become buddies.
