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I’d talk to Carter about his feelings later, in private, but I was pretty sure he’d tell me nothing Chad said mattered. “I’ll talk to him when he cools off. Remind him of the house rules he agreed to.”

After we ate, Brooke packed a lunch and left for the hospital for her night shift. Ethan cleaned up the kitchen, then went to Sarah’s to watch a movie, and Chad was clearly still pissed, because I’d heard his truck roar down the street before we were done eating.

I sat on the couch and found the Vancouver game, patting the seat cushion beside me. “We have the house to ourselves. No sitting on opposite sides of the room.”

Carter eased down beside me, wincing a little as he lifted his sock feet to rest them on the coffee table.

“What happened? Did you get injured today?” He’d seemed fine this morning before he left for the game, and I hadn’t been able to catch much of it.

Carter grimaced once more before reaching to draw me close. I let myself melt against him, his body radiating warmth that soothed my own sore muscles.

“I pulled my quad running for a ball hit off the wall. I saw Ari after the game for a bit, and I’ll get more treatment this week. It’s not too bad. Just a little stiff.”

I snuggled deeper into his hold, enjoying this cozy taste of domesticity as we watched the game.

Vancouver had been playing a little better lately, improving their record to sixteen and twenty-four. They were still bad, and at the bottom of their division, but at least they had improved their record to .400. If they kept that up, they’d finish the season with sixty-five wins. Not bad for an expansion team. Other teams had done worse.

I was half drifting, enjoying the way Carter was playing with my hair, when he shifted under me, sitting straight up.

“What the hell?”

On-screen, the broadcast was showing a replay of one of Vancouver’s pitchers throwing a ball that drilled the Seattle batter square on his upper back. That was only because the batter twisted fast enough to have the pitch bounce off his back rather than hitting him anywhere else. The batter was down in the dirt, surrounded by people: other players, the training staff, his manager. The four umpires were huddled together, talking. Meanwhile, the Vanquish pitcher, Jonathan Savage, nonchalantly paced the mound. Everything screamed that the hit had been intentional.

I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact it was intentional. Decades ago, a pitcher throwing at a batter on purpose wasn’t uncommon, but now it was unusual. Players got thrown out, sanctioned, even fined for that behaviour now. What was he thinking?

Long moments passed as the medical staff worked on Burton, the Seattle player, getting him strapped on a carry board and driving him off the field. I waited anxiously for some sign that he was going to be okay. Baseball was a noncontact sport. Players got banged up all the time, but rarely with life-changing injuries. The fact Burton was being driven off strapped to a backboard said this was far more serious than the usual hit-by-pitch.

After what felt like forever, Burton lifted a hand and waved before being driven off, which was good. Once he’d been removed, the home plate ump called over the two managers, and began gesturing at Savage. The broadcasters were speculating what was being said when the ump pointed at Savage, then threw his arm forward, pointing at the dugout: the universal symbol for ejecting a player. Good. Intentionally hitting a batter deserved an ejection at minimum. Depending what NABL decided, he might even get slapped with a well-deserved suspension.

Carter whistled quietly when Savage strolled from the mound to the dugout, chirping at the umpires and the Seattle players as he went. As he passed home plate, the Seattle hitter in the on-deck circle gave Savage a shove.

I held my breath, waiting for the dugouts to clear as players poured onto the field . . . but nothing happened. Not one Vancouver player made a move to defend Savage, and when they realized nothing was happening, the Seattle players returned to their dugout. The ump threw out the Seattle hitter who’d pushed Savage, but it was almost an afterthought.

In all the years I’d been part of baseball, ignoring when one of your players was pushed was unheard of. Even Chad had never pissed off his teammates that badly. “I’ve never seen that before. Players always defend their pitcher, but none of them came to Jonathan’s defence. What gives?”

“I have no idea. I’ve heard rumours that the Vancouver clubhouse is pretty toxic, but Savage threw at Burton on purpose. Tonight’s game has been tame. Savage was way out of line. Maybe not defending him is Vancouver’s way of telling Seattle they thought so too.” Carter was shaking his head. “This team is so broken. You can tell it’s just twenty-six guys who wear the same jersey. They haven’t bonded. Hell, I bet most of them don’t even like each other.”

I knew without asking that he still wanted to go play with them, no matter how bad they were. It was his best hope of achieving his dreams.

Chapter 24

Carter

Mid-June

I braced myself against the wall of the bus, stretching my legs over two seats trying to ignore my aching muscles. This had been a horrible trip, and it wasn’t scheduled to end for another six games. I’d strained my elbow throwing out a runner from center field in the second game, so I’d been stuck at DH since then. I hadn’t had a hit for over five games, a total of twenty-four plate appearances. I wasn’t even getting on base with walks. I was reaching for bad pitches, losing my feel for the zone.

It was a slippery slope I’d seen too many players go down. Making it worse was the fact I’d never struggled this much before the accident, not once. I wasn’t used to long-lasting slumps, so I didn’t have a history of adapting quickly to fix problems like this. If I didn’t figure out my hitting problem soon, I’d be cut. If I was cut from Triple-A ball, from the only team that was willing to hire me, no one else was likely to pick up my contract. I might be done playing ball forever.

I knew what would happen then. Evie had disappeared the second I lost my ability to play. If I wasn’t playing, I didn’t have much to offer someone. What would Jane say if I came back to Red Rock unemployed, with no prospects? I doubted she’d want me living in her house then. I had a potential sponsorship opportunity brewing, but that wasn’t enough to keep me challenged.

I opened my iPad and pulled up the video from the last game. I’d struck out three times and grounded into a double play that cost us the game. Something was wrong with my swing mechanics, or my timing. Maybe both. It was hard to know with all the injury recovery I was still dealing with. I shifted my legs to allow Raine to drop into the seat beside me.

“Still trying to figure out what’s wrong?” He took the iPad from me, then replayed the video I’d been studying. He tapped the screen and played another video, this one from the first weekend when everything had been clicking for me. He put both videos side by side, alternating between pause and play until he had the exact view he wanted. He handed me the screen. “What do you see?”

I went over both frames, comparing everything: my foot position, the tilt of my hips, the angle of the bat. The differences were minuscule. Maybe my right foot was an inch farther forward. Maybe my left hip was tipped a degree or two farther back. None of that should negatively impact my performance this much.

“Fuck, I don’t know. I don’t see anything.” I banged my head back against the seat. I struggled to mask my frustration, but my “leadership” role required it. I was already playing terrible. Mentoring some of the young guys was the only thing I could still do effectively.