the storm shows up, I’ll see how it goes. You know me and my love of the press.”
“They used to call you One-Word-Answer Roy.”
“They ask a question, I give them an answer. They don’t like it, that’s their problem.”
“Right, but it was one of the things that fed in to your whole alter ego.”
“Alter ego? I wasn’t a superhero, Lane.”
“No, Roy, you weren’t. Hate to tell you but you were the bad guy.”
It wasn’t exactly news to Roy. He had always understood how he was perceived. He hadn’t done it on purpose. He hadn’t deliberately cultivated the image as the loner. The team villain. The guy who everyone wanted to hate but couldn’t because he was too damn talented.
His reputation developed because of his nature and how he was brought up in the game. Maybe there had been a time when he thought about changing people’s perception of him. Then he thought about taking time away from his regimented training schedule to do more interviews. Or spend more of his off time with his teammates. The extra effort it would take to show up at some swanky event just to get his face on camera.
The return on that effort hadn’t seemed worth it. Only the pitching mattered to him.
Roy started his career with two, and only two, objectives: a World Series victory and the Hall of Fame. The level of commitment it took to achieve those goals was something that probably only twenty of the three hundred plus pitchers in the major leagues understood. The commitment—the work—was all he was. All he knew. And he’d accomplished one of his objectives.
His objectives this time around were even simpler. He needed money. A mercenary reason that didn’t require him to be the best there was, because there was no way he could ever be better than his younger self. But he did have to be good enough.
Good enough. A heck of a lowly ambition for Roy Walker, but the best he could hope for.
“Maybe I’ll try to do things a little differently this time,” he said, thinking that his capitulation might gain him some goodwill with Lane.
“Don’t do it on my account.”
Or not.
“So you’re going to tell the press the whole story?” she asked.
He laughed then. “There’s no getting around what happened, Lane. I can’t shake it, or dodge it, or pretend it didn’t happen. So, I have to man up. I reached for something and missed and it cost me everything. All I can do is hope I have some gas left in the tank to give myself another shot.”
“People love a good comeback story,” Lane said. “And you’ll be one hell of a comeback to baseball.”
“Can I ask you something? Honestly.”
“Have I ever been dishonest with you?”
Roy thought about that but didn’t necessarily want to go to the past. The answer to that question wasn’t as black-and-white as she wanted it to be. Maybe she hadn’t been dishonest with him, but she’d damn sure lied to herself. It was the only reason her marriage to Danny lasted as long as it did.
“Do you really think I’m pathetic? A thirty-seven-year-old, has-been pitcher. Are they going to pity me?”
It felt like he was exposing himself. Like he’d ripped apart his T-shirt, shown her his bare chest and asked her if she wanted to take a stab at his heart. Except she was Lane Baker, and she used to be the princess of baseball. Before her breakup no one respected the game more, except maybe Roy, so he knew he could trust her to tell him the truth even if she did hate him.
Was he blowing up his reputation, his history in the game and everything he ever worked toward for a damn paycheck? Lane would understand, even through her anger, what it would do to him to shit on his own legacy.
She bit her lower lip. Five years ago that habit would have been enough to give him a hard-on and have him thinking about other places he wanted her lips.
But not now, in this moment. This was too real. Lane Baker had hated him for five years. Had walked away not just from her husband, but also from the game she loved because of what Roy had done to her. There was no reason to think she should give him anything other than a crushing, devastating blow.
He really hoped to hell she didn’t.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did. Yesterday. About you being pathetic. You were the last person I expected to see and I lashed out.”
“You were being honest,” he reminded her.
“I was angry. But I know what you’re asking and I think it depends,” she said. “Do you think you can do this? Do you really think you can throw again in The Show?”
Honesty. It’s what he promised. “I don’t know. Lanie—sorry, Lane. Help me.”
Her arms closed around her body more tightly. “I already agreed to do your physical therapy. That’s all I’m offering.”
“No,” he said, reaching for her upper arm, circling it with his left hand. It was strange to touch her again. Like suddenly she was even more tangible to him now than she had been standing in front of him with her arms crossed over her chest. “I need to find me again. Because right now I’m so lost I have no sense of what’s up or down. And as crazy as it seems, you were one of the people who knew me best back then.”
“You’re asking me? For that kind of help? You don’t think it was enough to ask for my skills, now you want more? That’s a lot of nerve, Roy.”
“I know it is. But I also know you were the most generous person around.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not that person anymore,” she said. “I don’t give anymore, because I don’t trust anymore. You did that to me. You and Danny.”
To be lumped in with Danny Worthless felt like someone had shoved a knife through Roy’s stomach and twisted it all around. But was she wrong? They had both betrayed her.
Roy dropped his hand and could feel that some heavy clouds had blocked out the sun. Cool air had rolled into the stadium and his arm felt all of it. Definitely the start of spring, where one minute it could be balmy and beautiful and the next minute a person could be shivering and cold.
His shoulder started to stiffen and he knew he needed to get to a hot shower fast if he was going keep it loose enough to take another session tomorrow.
“I gotta...” He pointed to his arm and Lane nodded, totally familiar with what was happening to his body in the cool air. That shared knowledge created a sense of intimacy between them. Just like it had back then when she used to work on him. There had been times when he believed she understood his body more than he did. It had always been an unsettling thought.
“Yeah. Right. Take your shower and then meet me in the therapy room. We’ll get to work.”
Therapy. That was more than he should have asked for. To ask for even more from her probably had been a dick move.
“Okay.”
