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In the dugout, Emmy was on her feet clapping while the boys on the bench high-fived those coming in off the field. Miles jostled her by the shoulders, and she grinned, slapping backs and sharing hugs with the guys as they joined her in the dugout.
Tucker was the last off the field, strolling slowly as the rest ran—an unwritten rule that the pitcher never ran off the field—and he met Alex at the steps. They both stopped, and Alex gave him a friendly pat on the butt.
“You did it.”
Tucker grinned. “You’re a son of a bitch for making me throw that pitch, you know?”
“Well, someone needs to keep you on your toes.”
Emmy smiled up at him from the dugout, and Tucker looked from her to Alex. “I don’t think you’re the only one who thinks that’s their job,” Tucker said.
The catcher laughed. “No, probably not.”
Emmy met them at the bottom of the steps. “Not too bad, Lloyd.”
“Thought I was okay?”
“You can do better.”
He gave her a long stare, still smiling. “I doubt it.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
There was a great baseball quote that said “every twenty-four hours the world turns over on someone who was sitting on top of it.” For Tucker it wasn’t even a full day. He sat in the clubhouse watching through the doorway as Emmy stretched out Chet, until the sudden appearance of Chuck interrupted his line of sight.
“Hey, Coach.”
“Lloyd.” The coach shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. There was nothing comforting about the gesture. “GM wants to see you upstairs when you’re cleaned up.”
Tucker’s stomach did the shortest free fall in history, dropping from throat to intestine in one second flat, leaving him with a dizzy, spinning, about-to-puke sensation. “He say why?”
Chuck shook his head. “Said, ‘Good game.’ Said, ‘Send up Lloyd.’”
The coach was a big talker.
The general manager of a team rarely interacted with the players at any time. It was often easier for them to maintain a professional distance from the men whose lives they bought and traded if they didn’t have to know them on a personal level. How could you tell a man you knew and liked that his whole life was suddenly being move across country on a whim? If the people you work with might someday become financial bargaining pieces, don’t become their friend. That was general manager logic.
So if Darren Meritt wanted to see him in person, he could only imagine one possible scenario, and it wasn’t a good one. He wasn’t getting a raise—that would be discussed through his agent. No, if the GM wanted to talk to him, the only logical reason was the worst case possible.
Trade.
His contract still had two and a half years remaining, so he knew it wasn’t the end of his career. But a trade was just as unfathomable. Tucker broke out in a cold sweat thinking about what it would mean for him to be moved somewhere else. He’d spent his entire major league career in San Francisco. No other city would feel like home. No other team would make sense to him.
The weight of that knowledge left him so dazed he accidentally washed his hair with a bar of soap.
When he arrived in the long white hall leading up to the GM’s office, Tucker realized he’d only put on one sock. He was a wreck. Any sweat he’d managed to rinse off in the shower had returned threefold, soaking the pits of his dress shirt. The air conditioning chilled the perspiration, causing a literal cold sweat.
The door of the suite swung open when Tucker knocked, giving him no extra time to wait in the hall for someone to answer. He waited anyway until Darren beckoned, “Come in, Mr. Lloyd.”
Mr. Lloyd was never a great name to hear. It came from bill collectors in his youth and lawyers i
n his progressive years. No one who meant positive things for Tucker ever called him Mr. Lloyd.
“Good evening, sir.”
Evening was a polite phrase for it. Since it was well past eleven, he was shocked the old man was still in the office. Waiting for him. It all added up to shitty, shitty news.
“Come in, son. Have a seat.”
