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“Not for a ballplayer’s career.”
“No, I suppose that’s true.”
“Tucker will be fine for his start in New York. I’ll monitor him personally. He will be better than fine.”
“Well, that’s all I needed to hear.”
“Good.” She turned and left the room before he had a chance to say anything that might make her lose her cool.
Tucker had been right. The GM had it in for him, and she had to do everything she could to ensure his performance was above par for the rest of the season.
She wasn’t sure what she could do, but she wouldn’t sit idly by while someone waited for Tucker to trip. Not if she could somehow keep him standing.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It didn’t matter how often Tucker visited New York City, he always found something to be impressed by. He lived in a big city and was well versed in how to function around a lot of people and all the traffic, but New York was different from San Francisco in so many ways. The people were more hurried and brusque. The buildings felt more cramped and taller somehow.
All the same, he liked visiting, even if he couldn’t live there personally. He liked the food and the grit of the streets. He liked wandering the sidewalks at night and seeing how differently things worked on the East Coast.
He’d travelled extensively in his life, a pleasant perk to being wealthy, but sometimes he didn’t have to leave the country to find a unique culture. San Fran and New York were on opposite sides of the country, and they were as different as two major cities could be.
He liked that.
But he didn’t like playing the Yankees.
No official rivalry existed between the Yankees and the Felons, but all the same he felt like there was bad blood there. That kind of hostility was something the Yankees brought out in other teams. The blue blood ran deep in New York, and Yankees fans were the most hotheaded group of fans in America.
At old Yankee Stadium he remembered stories about fans hurling batteries at opposing teams. He’d never experienced it himself, but it made him wary. They certainly booed more than any other single group of sports fans he’d ever faced.
He was pretty sure Spike Lee had once personally called him Fucker Lloyd for striking out Jeter.
Since they weren’t in the same division it was a little less hostile than it might have been otherwise. But the Yankees were on top in the Eastern division—as they usually were—and the Felons were leading the Western division, so it seemed likely they’d be facing each other in the playoffs.
With that on the horizon, the previous night’s game had played out like it was war. The fans screamed and cursed, the players stared each other down like enemies rather than challengers, and it had gone for eleven innings before the Felons finally won.
Their first win was going to make it all the more difficult for Tucker that evening. The Yankees would be looking for weakness, and since he’d been injured recently they’d be expecting him to falter.
There was so much on the line, and it wasn’t even a playoff game. The Felons had a five-game lead in the west, and unless they went on a losing tear for the remainder of the season, they were assured a place in the playoffs.
Yet he couldn’t help but think this was his last shot to prove he belonged with the team. If they won tonight, and if he could go the whole nine innings without showing any weakness, then perhaps he would be able to stay.
Tucker wasn’t sure what it would take to make an impression on the GM and the higher ups. A good performance was one thing, but he wondered sometimes if the men with the power would know a good performance if it bit them on the ass.
Emmy had told him about her meeting with the GM and his accusation she was lying to keep him in the game. After that kind of show, Tucker wasn’t sure if he even wanted to stay with the club anymore. If they wanted him gone so badly they would suggest he was willing to lie about a potentially fatal brain injury, maybe he’d be better off on a different team.
But he had to remind himself the team was more than the owners and the upper management. The real team was Alex and Ramon, Chet and Miles. It was the guys he spent eight or nine months a year with. It was the fans who made those terrible Tucker pun signs and wore jerseys with his name and number on them.
That’s why he played for the Felons. GMs came and went. Tucker had outlasted four of them in his career. He’d been with the team longer than the current field manager and most of the coaching staff.
If Tucker could outlast one doubtful GM and avoid any further injuries, then maybe, maybe he’d be able to play out the remainder of his contract in the place he thought of as home.
He’d planned on walking from the hotel to the ballpark, but considering how the previous night’s game had played out, he didn’t want to run the risk of meeting up with any bitter Yankees fans who might recognize him.
And since they’d moved the park to the Bronx it was a much longer walk.
He stood in front of the hotel waiting for a town car when Emmy came down the steps and stepped to the curb, raising her arm to hail a cab. She was so focused on her mission she completely failed to notice he was standing ten feet away from her.
Since they’d avoided being busted in his room their first night together in Cleveland, they’d continued the nightly tradition of hotel room hook-ups throughout the road trip, swapping whose suite they would meet in to avoid too obvious a routine.
