Donovan was sitting by himself in the umpire office, rocking slowly in his desk chair. When she walked into the room, he didn’t look up. Not a great way to start.
“Sit down.” He kicked out a wooden chair with his foot, not meeting her imploring gaze. If he wouldn’t glance at her, she was in serious trouble. Even an apologetic half-smile would have been a relief, but Donovan was more grim than she’d ever seen him.
Including the time she’d taken an elbow to the face earlier in the spring.
She plopped down in the chair, dropping the balled paper into the empty garbage can. She wasn’t exactly planning to keep it for her scrapbook.
The whole romance with Alex had been a mistake. She’d taken a risk, and now shit was hitting the fan in a serious way. She was angry, mostly at herself, but she was pissed at Alex by extension. He’d told her they could make things work, and like an idiot she’d believed him. She had thought she might be able to get everything she wanted, and now…? She sighed inwardly and set aside her anger for the time being.
“What’s up?” she asked, trying to sound innocent but knowing perfectly well there was no point.
“Don’t play dumb, kid. It’s not gonna fly today.”
“Okay.”
“Alice…” His voice was low and rough, like he was fighting against some unspoken emotion. “I thought you were smarter than this.”
“I’m not sure what to say.”
“You maybe think an apology is a good place?”
“Would it help?”
He huffed out a breath. “Goddamn you, girl. I wanted so badly for people to be wrong about you. Hire a girl and it’ll never work, she’ll just sleep with the players. That’s what they told me. But I thought to myself, no, Alice will be different. Alice takes this seriously. Alice is a fucking professional.”
“I am a professional,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Sleeping with a player? That’s your idea of professional?”
“This is ridiculous. It’s one blog.”
“No, this is serious. I’ve been fielding calls all morning. The league wants you out. They seem to think the best way to deal with this is to cut the infection out before it spreads.”
“So in this metaphor, I’m an infection?”
“Yeah, was I too subtle about that?”
Alice was quiet.
“You have to know this looks bad,” Donovan went on. “You’re not a stupid girl, so you have to know how it comes across.”
“I do.”
“What do you want me to do here, Alice?”
“Can the league prove wrongdoing on my part? I mean, they must want me gone because they think I gave Alex or the Lakeland team in general some sort of preferential treatment, right?”
“That’s the suspicion.”
“I’ve only called one Lakeland game since he came back, and I was at second. They lost that game, and I never once got to call any of his at-bat plays. Tell me how I’m supposed to have given him preferential treatment. You know me better than that. I take this job seriously.”
“You don’t take it seriously enough if you thought you could sleep with a player and the league would look the other way.”
“I wasn’t trying to be sneaky,” she lied.
“Sure you were. You knew it was wrong and you were hiding it. Otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here having this chat, now would we?”
Well, if he was going to be logical about it…
“No.”
“So you knew you were doing something wrong.”
“It’s not that simple, Donovan. He’s going back to San Francisco in a week. We wanted to—”
“I don’t need to know the details of your tryst. I didn’t call you in here for excuses.”
That sounded ominous.
“Why did you, then?”
“I told you what the league wants. It’s right there in the rule book, Alice. We have to be courteous, impartial and firm. We have to command respect. How can you be impartial if you’re sleeping with a player?”
“You’re firing me.”
“I don’t have any choice.”
“You do have a choice. Review the game records. Have the league review them. I didn’t do anything inappropriate during game play. I’ve only done my job and I’ve done it well.”
Donovan was impassive. “They’ve made their decision.”
“And did you fight them on it at all? Did you argue in my favor?”
His demeanor softened. “Of course I did. I don’t want to let you go. I don’t want any of this. But it’s impossible to argue against the evidence.”
“It’s a kiss.”