Fastball (10 page)

So you can control all the interviews and
make sure everybody stays totally in line with the appropriate
spin.
She swallowed what she really wanted to say, going for
humble. “I know that. And I know it was wrong to break the rules.
Frankly, I’ve been kicking myself ever since I did it. But it was a
one-time thing, Charley. I guarantee that. It won’t happen again, I
swear to God.”

“Yeah, well, you might think this is none of
my business, but I can tell you the team sure as hell thinks it’s
my business to keep tabs on what the reporters and the players are
doing,” he replied, sounding slightly mollified. “Management
doesn’t like surprises, and they’re going to be damn unhappy about
this whole thing. To say the least.”

“I know,” she said in a low voice. “I regret
my actions very much.”

Now there’s a lie for you.

“Okay, then, Maddie, but tell me whose idea
was it to do this secret meeting—yours or Jake’s?”

Truthfully, it would never have occurred to
her to make such a proposition to Jake. But she hadn’t said no, and
that made her equally guilty. She would not lay the blame on Jake
under any circumstances. “Oh hell, Charley, it was my idea, of
course. Are you happy now? I said it won’t happen again. Do you
want me to go to jail, or would community service be okay?” She
said it in a joking voice, even though her nerves jangled like wind
chimes. This was bad. Really bad.

Charley Cameron wouldn’t decide her ultimate
fate. That would be left to the general manager, Dave Dembinski.
She just hoped Charley would put the best possible spin on it when
he talked to Dembinski.

“Well, good for you for saying you’ll take
the blame,” Cameron said. “But, sorry, I find it hard to believe
that you instigated that little adventure. I haven’t known you all
that long, but I’ve always thought you could be trusted to respect
the rules and the standards. And I can’t see you wanting to flaunt
them, even for a juicier story about Miller.”

He was right of course. “Leave it alone,
Charley,” she said softly. “I respect you and the role you have to
play, but I’ve already apologized and said that kind of thing will
never happen again. Isn’t that good enough?”

She wasn’t going to grovel any more than
she’d already done. If she wasn’t so worried about possible team
sanctions, she’d have happily bit Cameron’s head off for grinding
away at her after she’d apologized so abjectly.

“You know everybody is going to believe
Miller wanted to get you away from the park for his own reasons,”
Cameron said in a voice that hinted of a sneer. “You can deny it
all you want, Maddie, but nothing else makes any sense to me. In
fact, it sounds a whole lot more like you guys were hooking up, not
just conducting an interview. So, don’t be surprised if people from
the team and other reporters start looking at you a little
funny—and at Miller, too. If this thing is what I think it is, it
could even wind up wrecking your career. So, a word of advice,
Maddie: you’ll stay away from Jake Miller from now on if you’re
smart.”

Fury burned in her chest, but she clamped her
mouth shut against the hot-tempered words threatening to escape.
Jake had been right about one thing—their personal lives were
nobody’s damn business.

“You’ll be hearing from Dave Dembinski on
this, Maddie. You know that, don’t you?”

Anger warred with trepidation at the implied
threat. “I’m not stupid, Charley. I get it.”

She slammed the phone back into its cradle,
then groaned and rested her throbbing head on her knees. A bad
start to the day, and she suspected it would only get worse.

* * *

Jake ignored the bedside phone for the first
several rings, but finally rolled over and picked it up. “Yeah?” he
said sharply. He was in no mood to be polite after less than six
hours sleep.

“Morning, Jake. It’s Charley Cameron. How are
you?”

Yawning, he rubbed his face. “Hell, I have no
idea. I’m not even awake yet. What’s going on?”

“Jake, I don’t suppose you know yet, but in
this morning’s
Post
there’s a long story about you, written
by Maddie Leclair.”

Jake could tell Charley was upset since the
edge in his voice came through the line loud and clear. He decided
to yank his chain a bit. “So, is it any good?” he asked in an
innocent voice.

“Oh, sure,” Cameron shot back sarcastically.
“It’s really well done. In fact, it’s so in-depth it sounds like
you two must have spent hours and hours together. And I’m wondering
why I didn’t know anything about it, especially since it’s my job
to arrange all player interviews. Not some, Jake.
All
.”

Jake knew Charley’s tirade was all about the
anal team rules regarding the media. But frankly, he didn’t give
much of a damn. He was thirty-one years old, for God’s sake, not
some green rookie. And he’d been a star player. So, he wasn’t about
to take any crap from Cameron or anybody else on the team for
making his own decisions about how he would do an interview. “Give
it a rest, Charley,” he said firmly. “I just woke up, I’m still
groggy, and I really don’t need to listen to a tantrum from you. Go
away now, please.” He started to hang up, but the next words he
heard made his hand freeze.

“Wait a minute, Jake. Just tell me whose idea
it was to have your little secret meeting. Then I’ll let you
go.”

Jake grimaced and brought the phone back up
to his ear. Cameron had probably called Maddie first and harassed
her with the same questions, since he would see her as an easier
target. He wasn’t about to fall into any trap, or contradict
something she might have said. “None of your damn business.
Goodbye, Charley.”

“Jake, hear me out, please. It’s fine for you
to be cavalier about this little stunt. You don’t seem to worry
about how it might affect you, or the team, and thank God she wrote
a good story. But even if that doesn’t bother you, you damn well
should be concerned about what this could do to Maddie Leclair’s
career. No team likes to have reporters flaunting their rules. This
kind of thing could hammer her professionally.” He gave a little
snort. “Besides, it sure doesn’t pass my sniff test. I was a
reporter for a long time before I got into this job. You two
decided to go around the rules and spend a lot of time together,
and it’s making me wonder why. So, it’s going to make other people
wonder why, too. There’ll be buzz, and that’ll be bad for both of
you. Especially for her.”

Jake stared up at the ceiling, a knot forming
in his stomach. While he really couldn’t care less about what the
team or anybody else thought, he finally had to acknowledge he’d
been an idiot for discounting Maddie’s repeated warnings. No wonder
she’d been reluctant to do the interview away from the park. But he
honestly hadn’t thought it would be as big a deal as it was
apparently turning out to be. He sighed and sat up in bed, the
sheet pooling around his waist. It looked like he was going to have
to take Cameron more seriously.

“Okay, I hear you. You make some good
points.” Jake thought rapidly, figuring out the best way to deflect
blame from her. “I’ll apologize for breaking the rules. Don’t blame
Maddie, because it was my fault. One hundred percent mine.” He
paused for a moment. “So, listen, you think I should go apologize
to the GM?”

“An apology’s a start,” Cameron said
grudgingly. “And yeah, by all means talk to Dembinski and give him
your
mea culpa
. If I were you, I’d try to nip this in the
bud. And fast.” He hung up.

Jake swung his feet onto the floor, resting
his hands on his thighs as he mulled over the situation. He wasn’t
the type of player who disrespected team rules. He knew there were
regulations about how interviews were to be conducted, but he’d
never really taken them seriously. Probably because he avoided
interviews whenever possible, and generally didn’t give a shit
about the press. Clearly, though, he’d been a selfish jerk for
pestering Maddie to go AWOL with him, and now he’d have to make it
right.

Charley Cameron had no doubt talked to
Maddie, but Jake figured he should call her anyway and warn her,
just to make sure. He grabbed the phone and dialed the hotel
operator, who put him through right away.

Maddie answered after the first ring.
“Yes?”

Her voice sounded tired, like she’d been
awake for hours. “It’s Jake. Listen, did you get a call from
Charley Cameron this morning?”

Maddie inhaled sharply enough that Jake
caught it. “Jesus, did I ever,” she said. “He woke me up to give me
a nice, long lecture about interview rules. Pretty much at full
volume, I might add.”

Though he wasn’t surprised, Jake gave a
silent curse. “What exactly did he say?”

“What do you think? He said that I’m not
supposed to do any player interviews unless Media Affairs sets them
up, and that I should know better. I felt like telling him to do
something anatomically impossible, but he’s right. We both know
their rules are stupid, but it wasn’t like I wasn’t well aware of
them.”

Jake couldn’t miss the tiny waver in her
voice, and the knot in his stomach turned into a big lump of lead.
“You sound worried.”

“Of course I’m worried,” she said. “I put up
a good front with Cameron, and I’m not going to let myself get
pushed around. But yes, I’m really worried now that the team might
not let this go. And I need their cooperation to do my job, Jake. I
can’t function if I have to fight with Charley Cameron and the
front office. The paper would have to reassign me if I couldn’t be
effective anymore.”

His heart sank. This was his fault, and it
was up to him to make things right. “Maddie, I can’t tell you how
sorry I am. I really didn’t think this was going to be such a big
deal, but if Charley’s reaction is any indication, it looks like
the head honchos might be jerks about it. Me, they’ll just slap on
the wrist. Maybe give me a fine. But you’re right about how hard
they could make it for you.”

He waited through the fraught silence,
wishing he knew what she was thinking. Not only about the situation
but about him—did she hate him for all the trouble he’d caused her?
“I’m figuring that the best thing now,” he continued, “is for me to
find Dembinski and apologize to him in person. I’ll tell him the
truth—that I pressured you to do the interview that way.”

“I appreciate that,” Maddie finally said.
“But please don’t tell him you pressured me. I’m a professional,
and I don’t give in to pressure unless I want to. I’ve decided I’m
going to apologize, too, and I’m going to do it in writing. I broke
the rules, and I knew it. I have no excuses, and I’m just going to
say so and hope they’ll overlook it as an isolated mistake, one
that will never be repeated.”

Maddie was both smart and principled, and
Jake admired the hell out of her. “Apologizing never hurts,” he
said, “even when you’re not at fault.”

He paused, knowing what he was about to say
was crazy. But he had to give it a shot. He wanted her too much to
let her go without a fight. “Maddie, now is obviously not a great
time to have this conversation, but…” He struggled to find the
words. “I might as well just say it. I really want to see you
again. I know that probably sounds bat-shit crazy, but what can I
say? I really like you and I want to see more of you.”

Another fraught silence. He rushed in before
she could respond. “I know I was moving too fast in La Jolla, but I
haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since you got into
that cab. We would have to be careful, for sure, and think hard
about everything we’d be doing. But we can’t just pretend nothing
happened between us, Maddie. Something did, and I’m pretty sure we
both know it.”

He gripped the phone, praying she wouldn’t
flat out deny him. Anything but a straight
no
he could work
with.

She sighed, obviously unhappy. “I didn’t deny
that I felt something then, and I won’t deny it now. But doesn’t
this morning’s mess make it obvious that we
can’t
see each
other again like that? I told you our meeting in secret like that
was dangerous, and I was right. Now I’ve got Charley Cameron
telling me I should stay
completely
away from you if I’m
smart. He didn’t exactly leave room for debate.”

Jake leapt to his feet, practically tripping
over the tangled sheets and duvet. “That’s crap. He has no right to
talk to you like that. You’re not his servant, for Christ’s sake.
I’ll go over there and kick his fucking ass from home plate to the
centerfield bleachers.”

He couldn’t believe Cameron’s arrogance. No
way would he let that media hack get away with trying to intimidate
Maddie.

“Hold on a minute,” Maddie shot back, her
voice rising. “Forget Charley Cameron. Sure, he can be a jerk, but
this time he’s just doing his job. And the problem is that he’s
right. If we keep seeing each other outside the boundaries the
team’s set, I can kiss this assignment goodbye. And I can’t do
that, Jake. I can’t take the risk. I’ve worked too hard to get
where I am to throw it all away. No matter what the
temptation.”

A pleading note entered her voice, and that
made him feel like a total jerk.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I really am.
But we can’t be seen together again except when it’s strictly
business.”

Jake sat down on the bed, deflated and
exhausted. What she said didn’t surprise him, although he’d been
hoping for a different answer. He’d convinced himself that when the
furor over the interview business died down, she’d agree to see him
again, even if it had to be kept secret. But he’d already learned
enough about Maddie Leclair to know she meant what she said. Yeah,
the rules that kept them apart were ridiculous, but she obviously
wasn’t going to risk her career to see him. He understood that and
it made perfect sense, especially since they barely knew each
other. But the rejection still stung.