“Stop it,” Alex grumbled.
“Stop being so goddamn tense, then.”
“He is a big baby, this one. Such sad faces, yet he can’t take his therapy like a man.” Ramon chuckled.
“What does that phrase even mean?” Emmy asked, prodding Ramon in the ribs. “Take it like a man?”
“It means, you know… It means…” He shrugged helplessly, as if to say, Don’t blame me, my English isn’t as good as yours. He had a habit of using the second language thing as a foil when his real problem was sticking his foot in his mouth.
“No, I don’t know what it means.” Her tone was firm, but she laughed lightly. The guys in the clubhouse were used to Emmy by now, so used to her in fact they sometimes forgot she was a woman. She didn’t tend to remind them, but occasionally she’d say something or do something and they’d be forced to remember she wasn’t just a friendly sister figure or sexless entity who tended to their wounds.
“I didn’t mean anything. It is only a saying, you know?”
“It’s a silly saying,” Emmy countered. “And if you don’t know what it means, you shouldn’t say it.”
“He doesn’t know what most things he says mean,” Alex offered. “It hasn’t stopped him yet.”
“I know exactly what I mean when I say your face looks like a donkey anus.”
“Which implies you know what a donkey anus looks like.”
“I do. I do know. It looks like your face.”
“Wow,” Emmy said, shoving Ramon down on the table. “I’m never sure if I’m an athletic trainer or a babysitter.”
“Both,” Alex answered.
“Please,” she replied. “If I were a babysitter, you guys would actually have to listen to me from time to time.”
“Or else you’d give us a spanking.” Ramon waggled his brows.
“That’s enough. Jasper, let’s trade.” She laughed and indicated to Ramon he should roll over.
“I don’t think that will stop him,” Jasper said.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Interleague play was a bit of an oddity for the team. Normally they only played other American League teams, except for a month in June when they faced the odd National League team. But since the Astros had moved leagues, interleague games had become more frequent out of a necessity to have even matchups.
Which was how the Felons came to be playing the New York Mets that night. The Yankees were their usual New York opponents, and it had been more than a year since the Felons had last played the Mets. Long enough each team had forgotten the quirks of the other players, or how to face off against certain pitchers. Certainly long enough for major roster changes and a shift in each team’s fortunes.
The Mets had long been a bit of a laughingstock in their division, whereas the Felons often rode in the first or second spot of their own. Now both teams were having a wonderful season, leading their divisions by a huge margin with all the sports blogs considering them sure things in the playoffs.
It was going to be a hell of a weekend series, with two giant teams battling it out in the national stage. The cap of the three-game showdown was an “ace off”—a battle of the teams’ two best pitchers—between Tucker and the Mets up-and-coming phenom Harry Mendoza. But that was two games away. Tonight, Miles would be up against one of their moderately skilled starting pitchers.
This would be the foreplay period for the teams. Feeling out each other’s skills and learning what they could ahead of the bigger, more heavily touted match on Saturday.
But it didn’t matter what the media had to say about the match because Alex could only think of one thing when he stared at the lineup card for the night’s match.
M. Hernandez.
Matt. Liv’s father and Alice’s ex. The very reason he’d had so much trouble overcoming her apprehensions about baseball players. The man she’d admitted was the cause of most of her misgivings about men in general.
He was batting third.
Alex crouched behind the plate like a coiled spring set to shoot up at any moment. At the pitcher’s mound, Miles looked good, the nerves and wiry energy of the previous season having faded away, leaving the kid as calm and ready as a pro.
The lead-off batter fanned—striking out swinging on his first up. The second batter hit a single, just inside the foul line behind first base. Then came Matt Hernandez. From Alex’s vantage he appeared much the same as most players—thick thighs, dusty shoes and a black shin guard over his gray pants. But something about his presence on the plate rankled Alex in a way no other player had.