Baseball and Other Lessons (Devil's Ranch Book 2) (36 page)

Great game tonight.

He wouldn’t see it until much later, but she wanted to let him know she’d been listening and supported whatever decision he made, even if most of those decisions ended with her in Del Rio and him somewhere else.

#

Great game tonight.

Matt read Jenn’s text and smiled, barely resisting the urge to call her right then and there. He still needed to shower and get changed, then address the media.

Unfortunately, that meant it was probably at least another hour before he would be able to call her.

Matt: Thanks. I’ll call you when I’m done here. Might be late.

Jenn: That’s okay. Call when you can. Miss you.

Matt: Miss you, too.

He’d just put his phone up when Thomas Everett, the Twisters’ second baseman threw his helmet into the locker beside his, muttering to himself as he tore off his gloves and then cleats.

Matt looked around the locker room. Everyone else was ignoring Thomas’ little temper tantrum. He sighed and said, “Everyone has bad nights, Everett.”

The twenty-four year-old stopped in the middle of removing his socks and looked up at Matt. “Sure. But I’ve been having a bad night for the past three weeks. If this shit keeps up I won’t even be in the starting lineup in another week.”

Matt sat on the bench that ran in front of the lockers and casually untied his cleats. “Defensively you’re doing great. That catch you made tonight in the top of the seventh?” Matt shook his head. “That was amazing, man.”

“There’s a ‘but’ in there.”

Matt bit back a grin. “But offensively, when you get up to the plate, you’re thinking too hard and you’re pressing. We pitchers love guys like you——super talented guys who are in a funk. Y’all overthink, then you press and you start swinging too early or too late. You hack at everything, even garbage balls in the dirt. It makes for an easy out.”

Thomas slumped and dropped his socks to the floor. “I know, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“You never went through a hitting slump in college?”

Thomas was a Stanford graduate who’d been a first-round pick out of high school but had chosen to go to college instead of heading directly into the minor league system. As a senior two years ago he’d been chosen by the Wranglers in the third round and had quickly worked his way up through the minor league system until he was now just one step away from playing with the big boys.

Matt had a feeling the pressure of trying to make it up to the main ball club on the forty-man September roster, or at least get an invitation to spring training next year, had a lot to do with the kid’s current slump.

“I had one in college.” Thomas shook his head. “Of course, the guys all told me all I needed was a slump buster, so they went to some local bars trolling for a chick to bring back to me.”

Matt rolled his eyes at the long-standing idea that sleeping with a, ah, plus-size woman would magically cure all hitting woes. “So what happened?”

“I’d decided to stay in—I had mid-terms coming up and had an academic scholarship to uphold—and around midnight I heard banging on my front door and drunken giggling. I opened the door and two of the guys pushed this chick into my room, slammed the door and ran off. She was actually kind of cute, but definitely more on the, shall we say voluptuous side, and obviously drunk off her ass. I asked her where her phone was and she couldn’t find it, then she ran back outside and started puking over the railing outside. Next thing I know she’s basically passed the fuck out on my doorstep, so I carried her back inside, put her on the couch, called my teammates and chewed their asses out. When I woke up the next morning she was gone.”

“I think that’s the most fucked up slump buster story I’ve ever heard.” And he’d heard some doozies.

“I know, right? Weirdly, though, our next game I hit two home runs and had five RBIs, so I guess it worked. Kind of.”

“I’m not finding a drunk woman and taking her back to your apartment.”

Thomas shook his head. “Thank God. That was embarrassing and awful, not to mention kind of demeaning towards her. But that still doesn’t tell me how to get out of this slump I’m in now.”

“So the theory is that a slump buster works because sex gets you to relax, right?”

“Right.”

“In your case, you didn’t get laid, but something made you stop thinking so much at the plate. The key is figuring out what that was and try to replicate it.”

Matt peeled his socks off while Thomas sat on the bench beside him, silent but at least calmer now. “Man, I have no freaking clue.”

Matt stood and clapped the second baseman on the shoulder. “Here’s the great thing—you don’t have to get it figured out today, or even tomorrow or the next day. Everyone in the Wranglers’ organization believes in you. All hitters—even the great ones—go through slumps. All it takes is one good at-bat to get you out of it.”

Matt grabbed his bag out of his locker and headed towards the exit, but was stopped by Thomas yelling at him, “You’re not as big of a jerk as I figured you would be.”

Matt smiled and shook his head. That seemed to be a common sentiment here lately.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Matt managed to get
three more starts in with the Twisters before the minor league season ended on September second. All had been good starts, with management finally letting him pitch a full game in his final start on Sunday. The final game of the Twisters’ season had been the next day, and the minor league club had unfortunately been one win shy of making it to the conference playoffs.

In the three weeks since he’d last seen Jenn they’d talked every single day, usually at night after a game or in the evenings once she’d gotten home from school if he’d had a day game. His brother had also gotten his head out of his ass, groveled appropriately to Jo and they’d gotten engaged just last weekend.

He’d made sure to send an anonymous bouquet to Jo’s school, just to make Chase jealous and piss him off.

No, it wasn’t the most mature thing, but it had been pretty funny to hear Chase rant about some anonymous douche who’d sent his fiancée flowers until Matt had finally come clean and told him the anonymous sender had been him. Chase hadn’t been as amused as Matt had been, but Jenn and Jo had gotten a good laugh out of it at least.

Today, though, Matt found himself in the dugout in Oakland, the smell of sewage combined with sweaty men pungent in his nostrils. God, he hated Oakland’s stadium. It was notorious for having sewage backups during heavy rain events, and unfortunately there had been some flooding just two days prior. While the sewage backup had at least been taken care of, the scent still lingered in the air.

They were a month away from the post-season and were up four games over Oakland and leading their division. He hadn’t been put back into the rotation yet, and when he’d tried to ask Toby about it earlier today he’d been brushed off.

He leaned against the railing of the dugout, the sound of his teammates’ chatter like a faint buzz in the background. Vaguely, he realized they were in the seventh inning when the PA announcer told everyone it was time to stretch, but his mind was elsewhere.

He missed Jenn. Even more, though, he missed the joy he used to feel every time he took the mound or, hell, every time he heard the Star Spangled Banner before every game. While his four minor league starts had been great on paper, the spark he used to feel hadn’t been there.

#

“So have you heard from Matt?” Jo asked Jenn over the phone a few days later.

Jenn lowered the volume on the TV broadcast of the Wranglers’ pre-game and sighed. “Yeah. We talk pretty much every day.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” She toyed with the hem of her shorts.

“Okay, what’s going on?”

Jenn shrugged, even though Jo couldn’t see the action. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. We talk constantly. He’ll send me random text messages and photos from wherever he is. He’s sent me flowers every week since he’s been gone. We have these really deep conversations sometimes about the future, about life in general, but I still don’t know exactly what’s happening with us.”

Jo chuckled. “It sounds like you have a boyfriend.”

“On paper, yes.”

“Jenn, Matt cares about you. I’m pretty sure he’s totally gone over you. Have you told him how you feel?”

She cringed. “Hell, no! For one, there’s still a tiny bit of fear there that he’ll break my heart again. For another, he’s got enough on his plate to worry about; he doesn’t need me freaking out and pressing him for a declaration he isn’t ready to give.”

“I really don’t think he’s going to break your heart again.”

“How do you know that, though? He didn’t even mean to the first time, but it still happened. And now? Jesus. If I took everything I felt ten years ago and multiplied it by a million that still wouldn’t fully encompass everything I feel now.”

“As someone who was recently there, don’t keep holding your feelings in. Tell him. My guess is he’s either scared to say the words first or he hasn’t quite labeled his feelings yet, even though they’re there. He’s a smart guy, but he’s still a dude. They need a little help sometimes.”

Jenn’s palms grew sweaty at the thought of opening up like that to him. “I don’t know if I can yet, Jo.”

“Well, what’s it going to take?”

She sighed. “I don’t know.”

#

“So do you plan on ever putting me back into the rotation?” Matt asked after finally managing to corner Toby three days later in his office.

The Wranglers manager looked up at Matt and then back to his computer screen. “As a matter of fact, yes. Dombrowski started feeling some shoulder tightness this morning during his bullpen session, so I’m starting you on Friday against the Astros. You okay with that?”

Relief washed through Matt. “I’m great with that. Thanks, Toby.”

“You’ve worked hard to get back here, Matt. You’ve earned it.”

Matt nodded and turned to leave. He was almost to the door when Toby said, “Oh, by the way, could you close the door real quick? I have something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

Matt closed the door, curiosity mingling with nerves. “What’s up?”

“I hear you were offered the opportunity to start coaching with the Twisters once you decide to retire.”

His laugh was more of a bark than an actual laugh. “I don’t know that you could say I was offered anything. Reed pretty much tried to threaten me—it was either give up playing and coach or trade me.”

Toby shrugged. “He was just testing you, trying to make sure you still had your head in the game after all the reports that had started coming out, and then that YouTube video. At any rate, all threats aside, what did you think about the offer?”

Matt shrugged then crossed his arms over his chest. “I think it could be a good one when I’m ready to retire, but I have some other things I need to consider, some people I need to talk to, before making any decisions. Why?”

“Just curious. Word is Thomas Everett hasn’t been able to stop talking about you, said you really helped him get his head on straight those last couple weeks of the season.”

“I just talked to the kid.”

“Matt, he’d had one hit in twenty-five at-bats prior to whatever you said to him. You did more than talk to him.”

“No, seriously. All I did was talk to him. I mean, I tried to help him get out of his head a little bit, but it’s not like I gave him technical pointers on hitting or anything. Besides, didn’t the kid graduate from Stanford with something like a 3.8 GPA? With brains like that, you’ll figure things out sooner or later.”

His manager smiled. “That’s the thing, though. You knew Everett was smart—you even knew he’d graduated from Stanford, which most guys in the majors could care less about when it comes to the guys down in the minors—and you apparently knew just what to say to him to help him step out of his own way. That’s the sign of a great coach——someone who knows how to motivate his players as individuals rather than using the same method for everyone.”

Matt ran a finger under his collar, uncomfortable with the praise. “That’s just common sense. We all respond differently to different methods of teaching.”

“Exactly. Anyway. I just wanted you to think about it, and to know that whatever you decide I’m behind you one hundred percent.”

“Thanks, skipper,” Matt said before turning, opening the door and walking out of Toby’s office.

Not quite ready to think about his conversation with Toby, he pulled out his phone and texted Jenn.

Matt: I’m starting Friday night. Home game versus the Astros. Let me fly you up here?

He re-pocketed his phone, not expecting a quick response since it was the middle of the school day for Jenn. His phone vibrated almost immediately, though.

Jenn: Sure. Need to get a substitute.

Matt: Can’t wait to see you. I’ll email you flight details.

#

Friday afternoon Jenn arrived in Dallas after her first ever flight on a private plane. A tall, elegantly dressed man with mocha skin and clear green eyes greeted her as she stepped onto the tarmac.