Pitch Perfect(12)

It would work out if it was meant to work out, she told herself.

When she spotted Tucker across the room, she gave a little sigh. You have a boyfriend, she reminded herself. And you can’t date a player on your own team.

There wasn’t actually anything in her contract against it, probably because her contract had been drafted for a male therapist and the idea of dating between players and trainers hadn’t ever come up before. She didn’t want to be the reason a new clause had to be added to future contracts.

“So, tell me everything. How was the big first day?” Alice found them two stools at the bar and ordered them each a Corona.

“Exhausting,” Emmy confessed. “But it’s nice to be back here. Really different to be in charge of everything, though. I keep getting asked questions, and my first response is Why aren’t you asking the head A.T. until I realize I am the head A.T.”

Alice chuckled. “You’re living the dream, Em. This is what you’ve been talking about for as long as I’ve known you. How excited is your dad?”

Ah, there it was. The question Emmy had been hoping to avoid. At least it was Alice asking and not one of the guys. She worried that by telling Tucker her favorite team was the Cubs she might have given herself away, but he hadn’t put two and two together yet.

Emmy sipped her beer thoughtfully, a rush of fresh lime filling her mouth. “He doesn’t understand why I left Chicago. I think he figured I’d pay my dues there forever and wait for Mitch to retire. But Mitch was set to keep that job for another decade. The Felons gig was way too good to pass up.”

“Of course it was. He’ll figure that out.”

It was hard to say what Vince Kasper would do now that Emmy had packed up and moved to San Francisco. He’d been proud of her accomplishments thus far in her life, bragging to his baseball buddies about his talented daughter while their sons peaked in college or went on to fade away in the minors.

Her dad was so legendary there was a bar in Chicago named after him. He’d been a Hall of Fame hitter and a great third baseman when he’d played. Now in his retirement years, he was the long-standing voice of the Cubs, calling games for radio broadcast, with another ex-player providing the cutesy color commentary. Vince and Angelo were as much a part of Cubs tradition now as Wrigley itself.

Thankfully no one—with the exception of her bosses—seemed to have made the connection yet. Kasper wasn’t as unique a name in baseball as say Mantle or DiMaggio. She was part of a proud baseball family, but she needed the men to respect her for her merits, not because her daddy was one of the modern greats.

And she wanted her father to be proud of her no matter where she worked. He had to understand not everyone could make their careers last in one city the way he had.

“Uh, hey.”

Emmy and Alice turned to the deep voice behind them. Alex Ross offered a sheepish grin and raised a mostly empty pint glass in their direction. “Hi, Emmy.”

He was being polite, but he wasn’t looking at her. His big brown eyes were focused right on Alice.

Emmy smiled to herself. “Alex, this is Alice. Alice, this is Alex. May you two never date, because that couple name would be hell to figure out.”

Alex grinned at Alice, and Emmy’s friend eyed him warily. “You’re Alex Ross?”

“I am.”

“You crowd the plate when you bat,” she replied, then sipped her beer. “And you get really pissy when home plate umpires make perfectly fair strike calls on you. You know it’s not a ball just because you’re too close to the plate. A strike is a strike.” Then she flashed a bright smile at him while he stared at her, his mouth slack.

“Who are you?”

“Alice Darling.”

Emmy leaned in close to Alex, bracing her hand on his shoulder. “She’s a Grapefruit League umpire. You’d have better luck hitting on Alex Rodriguez than you will with her.”

“You’re an umpire?” Alex asked, eyeballing the pint-sized blonde again.

Alice gave a You’re out arm gesture.

“Goddamn.” He finished his drink, then glanced between the women. “Look, your friend’s poor job choices aside, we’ve got some room at our table and the pitchers seem to refill themselves. Why don’t you join us?”

Emmy regarded the crowded table warily. “I don’t know, Alex.”

“You’re going to be spending the whole season icing these guys down in their underoos. Might as well get to know them now.”

There was a sort of perverted logic to that. She would be spending almost every single day with these guys, and she knew what a locker room was like. Once they got over the initial she’s a woman thing, they’d start up with the typical bawdy jokes and would walk around the locker room butt naked. She’d seen it happen with the Sox. On the regular forty-man roster, she had seen thirty-nine out of the forty Sox in all their masculine glory. She used the phrase loosely because a majority of ballplayers were not as in shape or sexy as fangirls would like to believe. And after only a few months with the team, all the guys started to feel more like brothers than potential hook-up material.