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“Sir, I don’t mean to seem impatient, but did you call me up here to discuss whether or not Emmy—Ms. Kasper—is doing her job better than she ought to?”
“No, this meeting isn’t about Ms. Kasper at all. It’s about the fact it took the intervention of an unproven athletic trainer to restore you to your previous skill level. There’s a bit of concern that this is something you should have been able to do yourself. There’s also concern you won’t be able to maintain the performance level you’re currently at.”
“I don’t think that’s a necessary concern,” Tucker said, his tone becoming cool and defensive.
Self-doubt was one thing, and it was perfectly normal. Having the upper management of the club you worked for doubting you openly? That was a tougher weight to bear.
“You’re saying we shouldn’t worry?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re reasonably sure you’ll be able to keep this up?”
Tucker wiped his damp palms on his jeans. “I’ve worked hard. It took time, but now I’m back, and I think there are people who would say I’m pitching better now than I was before the surgery.”
“I read the sports pages too, Mr. Lloyd.”
“Then you shouldn’t have any reason to doubt me.”
“My job is to doubt everything. It makes positive turns into pleasant surprises. Tucker, the reason I brought you in here isn’t to deliver any bad news.” He leaned back in his chair, leaving the pen sitting on the desk. “I know you must have thought the worst when I asked you to come up tonight.”
“Naturally.”
“But I don’t want you to think you’re living in the land of wine and roses either.” The GM wove his fingers together and propped his hands over his belly. “Every decision I make is a business decision, and the time has come for us to look at what’s next for you. After fourteen years, perhaps it may soon be time for…change.”
Ah, and there it was. The other shoe waiting to drop. Tucker didn’t reply, just let Darren finish his speech.
“We’re going to watch you for the remainder of the season. See how consistent you are, see what your wins look like. Put off making any decisions about your place in the club until the postseason. I don’t want you to think of this as an ultimatum. Think of it instead as an opportunity to prove to us you’re as good as you believe you are.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Well, if you don’t, perhaps you should start imagining a future somewhere else.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Never were truer words spoken than “breaking up is hard to do.”
Emmy had avoided Simon after the game, bypassing the areas most commonly populated by the press. She’d made sure all the boys were stretched out and cooled down before she made a break for it. Jasper had known something was up the entire time, nagging her with questions and following her around while she gathered her things. The man was too aware of her quirks. It made it impossible for her to hide anything from him.
So, instead, she hid.
Avoiding her work partner was a lot trickier than avoiding her boyfriend, but she managed to escape the park in one piece. It wasn’t that she was chickening out. Emmy had every intention of breaking up with Simon before the evening was over. But she wanted to avoid the awkwardness of doing it on her home soil. The stadium was where she spent her days and was more a home to her than her apartment would ever be. The last thing she wanted was the memory of her breakup to haunt the sacred walls of a ballpark.
You don’t do unhappy things within a stone’s throw of a ball diamond. It was an invitation for disaster.
She drove for over an hour, doing a full loop from downtown San Francisco to Oakland and back over the Golden Gate, her FasTrak toll pass beeping each time she went through an express check, reminding her that this avoidance was costing her. Time, in this case, literally was money.
The time window between evening and late night was an ideal moment for city driving. People weren’t out and about for dinner and movies anymore, and the game had long since ended, but the party crowd hadn’t yet gotten going. The streets were easy to navigate, and traffic was negligible. It meant the trip from Golden Gate Park to Simon’s downtown hotel took next to no time, and soon Emmy was confronted with the reality that she’d have to do what she’d promised herself she’d do.
For someone who was as self-motivated as Emmy, she was having a hell of a time pushing herself to Simon’s door.
When she got off the elevator on his floor, she paced in front of his door for a full minute, psyching herself up.
“Simon,” she said to herself. “We’ve been good together, but maybe it’s time we think about being good apart.” Grimacing at how pathetic it sounded even to her, she gritted her teeth and started again. “I think we’ve both known for a while now we can’t continue on with things the way they are.” She raised both brows and chewed on the inside of her cheek. Not bad.
Was there really any good way to do it? Probably not, but there had to be a slightly less crappy way than saying, Fuck it, I’m done. He hadn’t been bad to her. He wasn’t a bad boyfriend.
Emmy sighed. She was the bad guy here, and she knew it. Might as well show her true colors and get the deed over with.
