Chapter One: Reid
The text alert comes in the unsleeping hours before dawn, the plastic-on-plastic buzz of Reid’s phone against the milk crate he’s using for a nightstand. Good news for once: a trade. His agent sends a link to an article and a directive to get his ass on a plane. Reid doesn’t warrant his own headline, just a paragraph on a trade-rumor account listing minor-league transactions. Crowns Minor-League Reliever to Oakland for Prospects.Under that, a barrage of tweets he’s tagged in on the account he never uses, replies and replies to replies.
Interesting pickup for Oakland.
Seems like a reclamation project.
Heard there were some off-field concerns. Then more bluntly, You mean he partied his way out of the majors.
And of course, that video. Because there’s always that video.
He spends an hour stumbling in the half dark, worried he’s going to leave something crucial. Wondering why Oakland wants him of all people, especially for their big-league club. He double-checks that his keys are in his pocket, his bracelet tucked in the interior zip of his suitcase. He dilutes his nervousness with coffee he doses only with milk.
At least it’s a familiar process, the get-up-and-go of a sudden trade, though easier when it wasn’t just him. When Letitia, his ex, stayed behind to deal with all the logistical stuff. When he could proceed on with a suitcase and the hope that this team would be better than the last. He considers calling her, like she wouldn’t just tell him to fuck off. He could call his parents. If they were answering his calls.
So he calls his grandma. She picks up on the second ring, panic in her voice. “Michael”—because she’s the only person on Earth who still calls him that—“are you okay?”
Eight hours and two dehydrating flights later, lost in the maze of the Oakland clubhouse looking for a meeting he was supposed to be at twenty minutes ago, he’s not sure how to answer that.
Sweat sprouts on the back of his neck and at his upper lip, accompanied by a stuttering heartbeat, by the sinking realization that he’s about to walk into his first meeting as an Elephants pitcher flushed and out of breath. His eyes are red from flying, from glugging back a cup of coffee, from burning his vision on his phone screen trying to learn everything there is to know about his new team.
Voices come from behind the door. He presses an ear against the wood like a low-rent spy. Inside, their pitching staff is in the midst of a discussion. Someone—probably D’Spara, the team’s pitching coach, from his well-known bellow—gives a booming retort.
Reid raises his hand to knock but stills. Maybe it’s better not to show up than to be so obviously late. Maybe he should have stayed in the minors, playing for less than two grand a month, or gone back to his grandma’s apartment in New Jersey. He probably can’t hack it at the big-league level anymore; it’s foolish to even try. He could slink off down the hallway and claim he didn’t know he was supposed to be at the meeting. Lie, avoid. Old habits. Bad ones.
But he’s gotten this far. What’s a few steps farther? He assembles enough courage to open the door. Every eye in the room turns toward him. D’Spara’s prodigious mustache twitches its disapproval.
The room itself is small and cramped, a video monitor tacked to one wall. He’s spent years dreaming of the pristine newness of a major-league clubhouse. But everything in Oakland is a little ragged, including the banged-up table and mismatched chairs holding their catchers and starting rotation.
Everything diminished—except Charlie Braxton: Oakland’s ace pitcher, the subject of every praising headline. Who’s sitting there, iPad in hand, a vacant chair next to him. The only vacant chair in the room. Of course. Reid’s heart rate, already going hard, kicks up. A hum of excitement like a big-eyed fan meeting a heralded player. Except Reid is thirty-four, a baseball veteran—it still counts if he’s spent most of his career in the minors, he’s sure of it—and, oh yeah, late.
“Meeting started almost half an hour ago.” D’Spara’s voice conveys his frown, half-hidden below his mustache.
Excuses rise up. That Reid’s late because his flight was delayed. Because there was a line at the rental counter to pick up a truck. Late because traffic was bad, because traffic here is perpetually bad. There are always reasons, but never good ones. “Sorry.” It comes out louder than he intends, echoing in the confines of the windowless room.
He drops into the chair next to Braxton, inching over to avoid brushing against him. Even though Reid knows Braxton’s listed height, he’s larger than Reid expected. Big all over, like the terrain of an unexplored country: mountainous shoulders, a continent of a chest, hands that make the tablet he’s holding look like an oversized phone.
Braxton doesn’t introduce himself. Probably because everyone in baseball knows who he is. Maybe the rumors about him are true: that he’s kind of a quiet guy, though quiet for a pitcher means one step up from a block of wood, personality-wise.
Maybe Reid’s just below his notice. If he was the reigning winner of the Cy Young Award, he might treat fringe players with polite disinterest too. “Reid Giordano. No one ever recognizes relief pitchers when we’re not in uniform.” He extends a hand.
Braxton glances at it for a second like he’s unsure what to do. Then Braxton’s hand envelops his as he gives a perfunctory shake. He has pitcher hands, nails trimmed, palm lined in calluses. He doesn’t return the greeting but offers a half smile.
“I got traded from the Crowns double-A team this morning,” Reid continues. “I guess you all needed some help in the bullpen, even from me.” He laughs, words tripping out of his mouth before he can stop them. “Figured they were gonna send me to the minors. Not that I don’t love the possibility of sweating my balls off in Midland, Texas, in June. But it’s better here already.”
Braxton’s eyes go a little wide. Reid prepares himself to be ignored or to be given a cold shoulder that, on Braxton, would probably be closer to a tectonic shift.
Instead Braxton just says, “Oh.”
An actual response. Feeling gutsy, Reid tries for another. “Is it true I gotta sit on the foul grounds?” Because the Coliseum is notorious: For its plumbing problems, for its lack of bullpen. For showing its age. Reid sympathizes. Starters sit in the dugout; relief pitchers bake in folding chairs in a makeshift bullpen until someone yells their name to go pitch.
A nod. A quiet yeah. At least Braxton doesn’t look annoyed. Curious, maybe, or just unused to people audacious enough to speak to him.
Reid kind of can’t believe it either, even if his grandma likes to say he enters every situation with an open mouth. “Man, I thought I escaped playing in some busted-ass minor-league stadium. Now I don’t even get a real bullpen.”
Braxton glances around at the room, at the yellowing paint and the threadbare carpet. “Welcome to the Oakland Elephants.” He’s got the faint flavor of a drawl, each word carefully chosen.
“Oh, a whole sentence. Is that my one for the day?”
“Yeah.” Braxton’s tone is flat, but it’s a purposeful flatness. Possibly even a joke at his own expense.
Reid laughs, loud enough to draw looks from a few other guys. He helps himself to one of the tablets sitting in the center of the table, flicking through it. All the visuals—the heat maps and data displays—blur at the edges.
He needs to settle. To stop the excited beat of his heart from overtaking his common sense. He’s not supposed to get too high or too low. That’s probably better advice for someone who didn’t wake up in Nebraska and find themselves in the big leagues. He shakes his wrist, a habit he’s picked up from wearing his bracelet, its clinking glass beads meant to dissuade the evil eye. Of course, he slid that into the pocket of his carry-on since guys make him feel weird about it. So now he’s the weirdo shaking his bare wrist in front of Charlie Braxton. He resists the urge to bury his head in his hands.
A drink would soothe his jangling nerves. He wants one, diffusely, distantly, a background hum of want he ignores. But he can’t resist pressing his luck. “Man, I guess those rumors were true.”
“Rumors?” Braxton asks.
“That you got the best curveball in the whole damn league and nothing to say about it.”
A shrug from Braxton. “What’s there to say?”
“Or maybe they weren’t, because that’s two entire sentences.”
Braxton’s still holding his tablet—or more accurately shielding his tablet. He can’t entirely conceal what’s on-screen: an image of Reid with what looks like a scouting report.
“You checking up on me?” Reid expects a denial, a veteran-player blow-off. Instead Braxton’s face goes vaguely pink in the area between his out-of-control beard and his eyes. “You were.” Which comes out teasing. Whoops.
Braxton, for his part, goes even pinker. So not politely disinterested. Shy. And, worse, handsome. He surrenders the tablet, looking slightly guilty, leaving Reid to the black-and-white of how Oakland sees him.
Michael Reid Giordano.
Birthplace: New Jersey. Drafted in the 10th round. 6’2”—though that’s an exaggeration by an inch. A muscular lower half, trim waist, and excellent body control.
A damning set of sentences, especially sitting next to Charlie Goddamn Braxton, who everyone knows was drafted out of Stanford’s vaunted baseball program. Who has a curveball so good it makes grown men weep, most of them opposing batters. Who is probably his actual listed height and whose body seems too big to be contained by the paltry language of scouting reports.
The report details Reid’s journey through various bottom-scraping teams, neatly skipping over his missed season. There’s video, though thankfully not that video, the one that comes up first when you google his name. He still looks bad in this one: face scarlet from effort and sunburn and possibly—given when it’s from—a hangover.
The iPad is muted. He double-checks before pressing the play button. And watches himself hurl absolute fire. His listed velocity approaches triple digits. The pitch goes where he wants it and when, the opposing batter swinging through it helplessly. An objectively pretty pitch. His gut sours.
And of course, Braxton is watching over his shoulder and pretending not to, the broad plains of his hands resting on the tabletop. Still, except for the small movement he’s making periodically, thumb swiping against the bare knuckle of his fourth finger.
Reid prepares himself for the kinds of questions he’ll probably get during his first go-round with Bay-area media: What he was doing rattling around the basement of the Crowns minor-league system. If he still has that fastball. Or if he’s the bust that Twitter, his agent, and possibly his grandma think he is.
Braxton nods in approval toward the tablet. “That’s a pretty good pitch.”
Reid can’t stop his grin. Because even if he’s bounced out of the majors, that’ll be a story. Did you know Charlie Braxton once said I was pretty good? “That’s three.”
“Three?”
“Sentences.”
Braxton flushes again. Which Reid shouldn’t be thinking about. Not in a room with the rest of their pitching staff, all of whom are actively discussing whatever it is they’re actually supposed to be doing.
D’Spara clears his throat like he’s asking Reid something for the second time. “I don’t know how things were done in...” D’Spara pauses, clearly trying to remember where Reid was before. “Wherever you last pitched. Here, on time is on time.”
“Understood,” Reid says, adding a belated, “sir.” He focuses on the tablet, face heating, not looking to see whatever’s playing on Braxton’s face: judgment or secondhand embarrassment or, worst of all, pity. “Won’t happen again.”
D’Spara grunts skeptically. Like he’s heard about Reid. He nods meaningfully to the iPad, an unspoken Quit screwing around and put in some work that Reid doesn’t need to hear to understand. He’s on borrowed time, late, unprepared, and, in D’Spara’s estimation, lazy. An off-field concern.
Reid hands the tablet back to Braxton just as he’s getting up to leave, meeting adjourned for everyone but Reid.
“See you around,” Braxton says.
“Yeah, see you.” And Reid hopes like hell that that’s the truth.
Charlie doesn’t pitch that night. As a starting pitcher on his off night, he’s in his rights to leave. But there isn’t much waiting for him at home either. His house has only blank staring walls, his bed empty of anything other than pillows.
The stadium is wrapped in a clear June evening, a fine night for baseball. When he first pitched in Oakland, Elephants Coliseum felt overwhelming, massive, fifty thousand seats staring down at him, all asking if he was as good as his draft number promised. Tonight the ballpark is filled to half capacity, fans dressed in Oakland green. Some lean over the seats into the infamously wide foul grounds, yelling at Oakland players to get to it already, like they’re not up by seven runs. Others beat drums, a familiar rumble, the steady heartbeat of a city that loves its baseball.
He’s stationed at his normal spot at the dugout railing. Next to him, Zach Glasser, one of their catchers, makes an occasional comment about the Pilots pitching staff. At his other side, John Gordon—who isn’t in the lineup since he’s veteran enough to get one night off out of every four—points to Seattle’s hitter. “Look at that swing. More holes than Swiss cheese.”
The same hitter who stood and watched Charlie’s curveball the night before, too intimidated to even whiff at it. Charlie doesn’t say anything in response, long enough that Gordon says, “You’re quiet today. I mean, even for you.”
Charlie rubs his thumb against his ring finger, the absence of his ring more pronounced with his hand resting on the railing. “Easy game. You know how it is.”
Gordon puts his own hand on the railing. His wedding ring gleams against his light brown skin. His shoulder occasionally brushes Charlie’s. Glasser, standing on Charlie’s other side, does the same, though his hands are mercifully free of any reminders about marriage.
It is an easy game, made easier because Charlie’s not playing in it. Hitters come to take their at bats, either getting on base or retiring to their dugout. Outfielders wave their fingers to remind themselves of how many outs there are in the inning. It’s calming, the way familiar things are.
The dugout clears at the inning break. Glasser peels off too. Then an announcement for a pitching change, the announcer calling for Giordano, exaggerating the last two syllables of his name.
Gordon nudges Charlie’s shoulder. “Heard you all were cutting up in the pitching meeting.”
It’s not surprising that Gordon heard about it, because he hears about everything. “We were just looking at scouting reports,” Charlie says.
“D’Spara doesn’t like him.”
“D’Spara doesn’t like anyone.”
“He likes you just fine.” Gordon nods to where Giordano has jogged out to the mound and is rosining his hands. “I did some checking up on him. Guy’s got some issues.”
And Charlie’s spared having to reply who doesn’t when the Pilots best hitter strides into the batter’s box.
Being Seattle’s best hitter isn’t saying a whole lot. On the mound, Giordano agrees to the catcher’s sign, then delivers a fastball. A slow one, nothing like the ones he was throwing in that video. Still the umpire calls a strike.
Another fastball, another strike.
Then Giordano throws a curveball, or at least, an attempt at one. A flattened surrender of a pitch that’s met by an inevitable crack of a bat. The ball arcs up and out—a no-doubt home run. His face is hard to see under the awning of his hat, but his shoulders sag, the stadium empty enough that it’s audible when he curses into his glove.
Next to Charlie, Gordon doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to, radiating an I told you so that rankles Charlie’s nerves. But the next two Seattle hitters are disinterested in scoring, and they make for painless outs. Two down, and the outfielders all wave their fingers at each other in salute.
Another hitter comes to the box, this one with enough swagger that even Charlie leans back a little. Giordano squares his shoulders determinedly, then throws. His pitching motion really isn’t that remarkable. Except there’s something in the torsion of his back or the flex in his legs. Maybe Charlie’s just tired, or nervous. His mind sometimes gets stuck on things. A symptom of anxiety, according to their mental skills coach. Isn’t everything?
It takes less than a blink for the ball to leave Giordano’s hand and end up at home plate. Charlie’s fingers tense on the railing, knuckles pulling white. The Pilots hitter, for all his bravado, swings, an easy pop-up for Oakland’s catcher. The end of the inning. Charlie uncurls his hand.
Giordano walks off the mound, hopping over the chalked third-base line. He gets his slaps in the dugout. Charlie leans to tap him at his waist, fingers brushing the leather of his belt, before Giordano retreats into the clubhouse.
The game is winding down, and Charlie needs to go. He doesn’t particularly want to. Wants to stay and watch the rest of it and tune his brain only to game action and not think about finding Stephanie, their PR person. He inhales, counts down, exhales, then dislodges himself from his post by the railing.
“You done?” Gordon asks.
Charlie nods.
“Tell Christine hi for me.”
Charlie swallows around a lump in his throat. “I will.”
He goes into the clubhouse, expecting midgame silence, the wooden stalls lining the room unlikely to force him into conversation. Instead Giordano is there. He’s at the stall the team must have assigned him that morning, one of the ones next to Charlie’s they usually leave empty to give him space. They haven’t put up Giordano’s name placard yet. A single jersey hangs in his stall, game-used, sleeves decorated with smudges of dirt. And Giordano is standing there, whipping a pair of balled-up socks at the stall’s glossed wooden back. Thump, thump, pause. Thump, thump, pause.
He must hear Charlie approach, because he doesn’t throw again. “Hey, how about that home run? Think I could feel it in my jaw when he hit that thing.”
“It happens.”
“It happens to guys other than you, you mean,” Giordano counters. It’s not nasty the way he says it, though his mouth twists a little. “I wish I could get out of here.”
“Media’ll be in here in a minute.”
“Yeah.” Giordano exhales loudly. “I’m gonna go get a drink.” For a second Charlie wonders if he’s being invited to some crowded Oakland bar to forget this game until Giordano continues, “You want anything from the kitchen?”
Charlie gets a slight pang of disappointment. “Gatorade. One of the blue ones.”
Giordano returns a minute later with two bottles of Gatorade; he hands one to Charlie. “If they don’t keep me up here, it’s been a slice.” He holds out his bottle in a cheers, and Charlie taps his own against it. “Midland, man, I am not looking forward to going back to double-A. Sorry, you’re from Texas, right? I know you guys get touchy about that shit.”
“Other side of the state.” Because it’s a longer drive from Houston to Midland than it is from Oakland to LA. “My mom’s from Georgia.”
“So you’re not gonna kick my ass for talking smack on Texas?”
“Naw.” Charlie lets his accent thicken with the consonant-swallowing drawl he only gets around his family.
Giordano rewards him with a grin. “How come no one told me you were funny?” His face relaxes, the little lines they all get by their eyes from sun exposure not quite smoothing out. He has olive skin and dark hair. His eyes, rimmed by dark lashes, reflect the lights above them, distinctive enough that Charlie probably would remember if he saw him before.
Charlie’s stomach flips. Hunger, possibly, though he rode the bench all game. “That was some good pitching.”
Giordano’s smile droops a little. “Yeah, I’m sure the fan who caught that home-run ball agrees.”
“I meant the other ones.”
“You be sure to say that nice and loud when the reporters come in.” He gives a low conspiratorial whistle.
Charlie laughs slightly and nudges him with his shoulder.
“Watch where you’re aiming those things,” Giordano says with mock indignation.
And Charlie’s chest feels lighter than it has since he woke up, a burgeoning feeling that deflates when there’s a yell from somewhere in the clubhouse, the reminder to put on drawers if they’re walking around bare-assed before the postgame media scrum.
Giordano gestures like he’s keeping back a horde. “I can hold ’em off if you want to make your escape.”
“Thanks. They’re really not so bad.”
“Maybe not to you. But some of us have our transgressions to answer for.” Giordano’s lips, stained red from the Gatorade, twist with amusement.
“Giving up a homer isn’t that bad. Even to the Pilots.”
“You didn’t.”
“Well, you’re better at the whole—” Charlie makes a hand motion he hopes indicates talking.
“You calling me a chatterbox, Braxton?”
He punctuates it with a tap to Charlie’s arm, high on his biceps. Familiar, even for baseball, for guys who’ve known each other for less than twelve hours. Different from how most of the guys in the clubhouse treat him like there’s an invisible bubble around him.
“Media isn’t my favorite thing,” Charlie says. Which is a slight—extreme—understatement. “Some of us gotta do more with less.”
Giordano gives him a once-over, like he’s making a point about Charlie’s size. “Can’t imagine you doing anything with less.”
And Charlie doesn’t have the chance to respond when the press comes chattering in.
Giordano retreats to his stall to face the scrum, an array of microphones in his face. With them, the expected questions about how he felt giving up a home run.
“I did get three other outs,” he says. And the reporters have the sense enough to laugh.
Charlie stands a little way off, Stephanie next to him, though she’s dividing her attention between her phone and supervising Giordano’s interview, mouth pressed in a thin, assessing line. She doesn’t ask Charlie anything. Like why he’s standing there and not fleeing the way he normally does when there’s press around. He prepares a response anyway. That there’s traffic, though it’s the Bay Area, so there’s always traffic. That he needs to talk with her, which he does. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow would be better.
A reporter from the East Bay Tribune, who Gordon calls Elbow Patches for the jacket he always wears, calls out a question for Giordano. “What, if anything, have you done to retool since your last stint in the big leagues?”
“Mostly just learned to trust my fastball.” A nonanswer, clearly meant to curtail any follow-ups. It doesn’t work.
“Nothing else?” Elbow Patches asks. “I’m surprised to hear that given your history.”
Said with an implication that makes Giordano’s eyes harden.
Stephanie’s face goes from merely tense to what Charlie imagines an awakened bear looks like right before it attacks. Even the blue streaks in her hair look irritated. “All right, let’s let these guys clear out. Long night. See you all bright and early tomorrow.”
She does a little shooing motion with her hands when they don’t move. Most disperse, except for the Tribune guy, who stays, holding a narrow spiral notebook and asking her something.
Giordano slides out from his stall, past the gleaming black eyes of the cameras to where Charlie’s standing.
“They always like this?” Giordano says.
“Not, um, that I’ve noticed.”
“Probably asking the wrong guy.” Giordano lets out a long breath. “Man, it felt good to get those outs. Wish they could just let all that other stuff go.”
And Charlie could ask the natural question of What stuff? But he’s not looking forward to his own interrogation by Stephanie—and eventually the press—and doesn’t want to inflict that on anyone else.
Giordano takes his silence as a response. “You know, it’s a long story, not important.”
Reporters are still standing around, some very obvious in how much they’re not eavesdropping. Giordano tilts his head toward one. “They always listen in like that and pretend they’re not?”
“Sometimes they don’t pretend.”
“They must be trying for some dirt on you. I’m just not that interesting.” A claim at odds with the defiant tilt of his chin.
“Neither am I.”
Giordano huffs a laugh at that. “I don’t know, man. It’s the quiet ones. You guys have all the scandals.”
Which sends a hot wash down Charlie’s neck that some reporter really will overhear and start digging. The door calls to him, even if the only thing he has going on at home is a ten-hour wait. He calculates the route that will take him by the least number of people. “Um, have a good night.”
Giordano looks surprised, mouth parted. Charlie must really be anxious because he can’t seem to focus anywhere but the curve of his lower lip.
“You too,” Giordano says.
And Charlie leaves before he can do something foolish. Like tell anyone the whole story.
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