He could, couldn’t he?
Yeah right. About as easily as I could start pitching with my left hand.
Emmy got to the park hours ahead of everyone with the ready excuse of needing to complete the previous night’s paperwork. The truth was she could have easily finished the paperwork in a half hour before the players started coming in for their warm-ups, but she wanted to get out of the hotel.
She’d managed to escape Tucker’s room without being seen, and he’d been good to his word, making love to her so slow, sweet and easy she didn’t scream once, but came harder than she’d ever thought possible. It had all gone as planned, but she still felt scandalous.
And guilty.
She didn’t think she could face Tucker in the dining room with everyone looking on and keep her cool. There had to be a big red S on her chest, but she didn’t know if it stood for sex or slut.
Getting to the guest clubhouse, she started up the coffee machine and plugged her iPod into the stereo system. Later the boys would be blaring some hard-rock hair metal or whatever get-pumped song was favored for the day, but for now she had the place to herself, and that meant the music was her choice.
Which meant eighties pop. Lots of it and as loud as possible.
Tucker had her down pat. The first thing she went to was Hall and Oates greatest hits, starting with “Private Eyes” and going on shuffle from there. Once she’d cycled through Daryl and John’s oeuvre, she moved on to Prince’s Purple Rain and then a playlist of one-hit wonders.
There was something about listening to Tiffany sing “I Think We’re Alone Now” that helped clear all worries from her head and reduced things to a simpler level.
She turned the volume up on the receiver and hummed along to the opening bars of “You Make My Dreams” before dance-walking into the visitors training office. Her laptop was still there from the night before, waiting for her to enter the details of the previous game.
Tapping her toe against the edge of the desk, she opened up the laptop and perused her emails in more detail than she’d been able to on her phone. She’d already alerted the most important people to Tucker’s condition, but the press would start calling her any minute for a statement on his bill of health. Emmy sent a quick email to the head of the public relations department for the team, giving a brief rundown of what had happened to Tucker and confirming he was cleared to play his next start but she’d be keeping a close eye on his condition.
Like clockwork, her phone buzzed at eight, and a familiar number popped up. Simon.
At first she was afraid to answer, like he might be calling to bust her for having sex with Tucker. Or to undo their breakup so she’d somehow be guilty of something new. When the phone rang for the third time, she knew she’d either have to pick up or let it go to voicemail, and the idea of a message from Simon haunting her phone all morning had no appeal.
“Hello?”
“Hey, pretty girl. How you doing this morning?” He sounded far, far too cheerful. It relaxed her, because it meant he wanted something. Or at the very least it meant she wasn’t in trouble. Simon wasn’t good at being passive aggressive.
Really, he wasn’t good at being any kind of aggressive.
She’d once thought his calm exterior had been among his most appealing features, and it said a lot that she liked him because of how nonconfrontational he was.
“Hey, Simon. You’re up early.”
“Well, you know. The press never sleeps.”
“Last I checked you had a rigorous in-bed-by-midnight policy. Lest your eyes look puffy.”
He chuckled, but it didn’t escape her notice it was his forced, professional laugh, and not a genuine response. She didn’t know how to deal with him as a reporter rather than her boyfriend the reporter. She had more experience with reporters than with boyfriends, but it was still hard to shuffle Simon from one column to the other so easily after four years.
“You know me well, Em.”
“What can I do for you?” If this was going to be a professional relationship, she had to keep things on that level. No nicknames allowed.
“I’m calling about Tucker.”
She remained quiet, still not entirely sure if he was asking with ulterior motives. “What do you want to know?”
“The usual. What’s his status? What happened?”
“Didn’t you see the eight million replays on ESPN and SportsCenter?”
“I saw it on YouTube. There’s also an animated GIF going around with the title ‘Duck, Tuck’.”
“Cute.” She half-listened to him as she Googled the file, pulling it up on a baseball blog. The clip was on a three-second loop, and she watched over and over as Tucker got hit. It never got easier to see.