Double Play (13 page)

Cat had made her
rounds to each newsworthy player in the clubhouse, but had been so
taken aback by Damien’s cold shoulder that she had let the other
reporters do the talking and her recorder do the listening. She’d
attended the press conference with the manager, still solely as a
spectator, and was now on her way back up to her office to churn
out her reports. The hard work for the night was over. She’d spent
the downtime during the game preparing her story framework for
either a win or a loss, and now just had to plug in a few
quotes.

Perhaps there is
an advantage to being a social pariah after all.

Cat uploaded the
articles and sat back in her desk chair, the evening’s events
replaying in her head, just as Damien’s catch was surely doing
on
all the sports
channels. She picked up her phone and dialed the clubhouse
extension.

The attendant
answered with a merry hello.

“
Hey
Bill, this is Cat McDaniel. Is Damien Staats still down
there?”

“
Oh,
Dumpling, you just missed him by like a second. I can probably
still catch him if you want. I bet he hasn’t even made it down the
hallway yet.”

“
Uh,
no, that’s all right. Thanks, Bill.”

Cat slammed the
phone down and darted for the stairs. She kept one hand on the
railing and boogied down each step,
heedless of scuffing her precious Choos on the
concrete
.
After all, the
suede boots already had a ding on the heel—that's how she'd gotten
them half off at a fall sidewalk sale. Pushing
open the
ground floor door and
bolting
down the hallway
, she
nearly collided with Damien as she busted out
the door and into the parking lot. He jumped back
and scowled down his oversized nose at
her
.

“
Jesus, what’s your hurry?”

She was panting
and took only a second to catch her breath. “Damien, what the hell
was all of that back there in the clubhouse?”

“
Cat,
look, I don’t really want to deal with you.”

“
Well
that’s going to make our jobs hard, isn’t it?”

Damien didn’t
respond. Suddenly Cat could read his mind: it would make
her
job hard to do, but his would go on without her.

“
I
don’t get it, why are you mad at me?” She had finally caught her
breath. “You know better than anybody I didn’t have anything to do
with that night.”

“
I’m
not mad at you. I’ve just got things to do.”

“
It’s
not like you’re even feeling the effect of that night. You’re the
freaking hero of the game, while I’m trapped under an endless row
of collapsing dominoes.”

He started
walking toward the players’ reserved spots. “I gotta get out of
here.”

She followed
close on his heels and yanked at his sleeve. “That’s not good
enough for me. Ignoring me during the postgame is completely out of
line.” Her blood began to warm with each word. “You came to my
house, remember? I didn’t invite you, I didn’t even participate in
your little night of debauchery, yet I’m the one answering for all
of it. You brought all this down on me, and then you humiliate me
in front of my colleagues and jeopardize my job. How dare
you?”

He spun around
and jabbed a finger in her shoulder. “Look, I don’t owe you
anything. If I don’t want to answer your little questions, I don’t
have to.”

Cat reared back
and then changed her tack, taking a step forward to get in his
face. He was over six feet tall, but she was aided by her
four-inch heels
. “You’re
right, you don’t, but I don’t owe you anything
,
either. You might want to remember
that.”

His
brown
eyes narrowed. “What is that
supposed to mean?”

“
Well
if I can’t fill my reports with interviews from you, then I’ll have
to find something else to share with the fans. Like maybe how you
never participate in charity drives.”

Damien heaved a
sigh.

“
Or
they,” Cat persisted, “along with Roger Aiken, might be interested
in hearing about the homophobic rant I overheard a couple of weeks
ago when you were lifting weights and I accidentally left my
recorder on after an interview with your trainer.”

“
You
wouldn’t.”

Nothing would
give her more pleasure. She’d considered sharing it with Roger at
the time, but was afraid she already knew what his answer would be.
The general manager was a good guy, but when it came to his team,
he cared far more about image than ethics.

“
Better yet, I wonder how many people would want to know about
the baseball Annies that you didn’t shoo away on the last road
trip. I’ve got your wife’s email address …. Maybe I’ll just go
ahead and forward her my first draft.” She wagged a forefinger.
“Don’t mess with me.”

He smacked her
finger out of his face. “Don’t you dare threaten me.”

“
Threaten? I’m just telling you that while you bask in the role
of conquering hero, I refuse to play the fall guy, and if you don’t
show a little gratitude, I’m gonna look for a way to get the heat
off of me. You might want to remember that snagging a line drive
can’t erase everything.”

He took a step
forward, shoulder-checking her on his way. She stumbled back but
caught herself.

The car door
slammed behind him and his Mercedes CL600 peeled out of the parking
spot, the wide tires squealing against the pavement.

Cat waited until
he was out of sight before going back inside the stadium. She’d
definitely gotten his attention. Of course, she never would have
gone through with it. It wasn’t a moral thing. She did feel the
fans had a right to know that their beloved baseman felt that the
team charities catered to the lazy. She truly believed that Roger
should punish Damien for spreading hate in the clubhouse. She
wanted more than anything to tell Melissa Staats that her husband
treated road trips as all-you-can-cheat buffets. Instead, she had
to keep his dirty secrets and was expected to make excuses for his
absences at fundraisers, to praise him for being a role
model
,
and to smile
approvingly when his wife was on his arm. Not only would a breach
of clubhouse confidentiality get her canned, but she’d never work
in the industry again.

Cat closed the
door behind her and hung her purse on the coat hook. “I’m
home.”

“
Soldiers win!” Benji emerged from the living room, meeting her
in the hallway and giving her a kiss.

Cat savored the
moment. He had the most crystalline blue eyes
,
but still, these pillowy lips were his
best feature. She tore herself away from the kiss and grinned. “Did
you watch the whole game or just the highlights?”

“
Both,
actually. I think I even saw your elbow in the corner of the screen
when they showed the locker room celebrations.” He held up her
elbow to the light and pretended to scrutinize it. “Yup, this is
the one. I remember that freckle.”

She giggled and
squirmed out of his grasp, walking into the living room. Quinn sat
on the couch, his blank stare fixed on the television
screen.

“
Hey
Quinn.”

He grunted, rose
to his feet, shuffled into the kitchen and came back out holding
another beer.

Cat turned to
Benji with a frown. He shrugged. “He’s been like this since the
game.”

Quinn dragged
himself back to the couch and Cat joined him, plopping down and
slapping his long leg.

“
What’s wrong with you?” She smiled at Benji and added with a
tinge of hope to her voice, “Homesick?”

Quinn rolled his
eyes. “Very nice. Just for that, I’m staying an extra month.” He
took a swig of his beer. “I might have to anyway, now that I’m
broke.”

“
Broke? Didn’t you just take Adam Alvarez for an inning of
work?”

That wasn’t true,
actually. She’d crunched the numbers and at nine million a year,
the closer made fifty-five thousand dollars a game. She wasn’t even
sure if the
four
thousand Quinn had swindled would cover one of Adam’s
pitches.

“
I
reinvested it.” He took another gulp from the bottle. “It
backfired. Your game tonight cost me everything but my
Harley.”

“
You
bet on the game?”

“
Uh-oh,” Benji said. Proving he wasn’t just a set of pretty
eyes and delicious lips, he took a step back.

“
Why
do you sound so shocked and disappointed?” Quinn asked. “You know I
gamble. Hell, you’ve put scratchers in my birthday
card.”

“
You
bet
against
my team,” Cat said. “How can you do that? That’s
like betting against me.”

He scoffed. “Get
over it. It’s not like you’re a player.”

“
No,
but if the team succeeds, it helps my career. More exposure, more
readers, not to mention a heavy weight lifted off my shoulders in
your little poker blame game.”

“
I’m
not a Buffalo fan. There was a time you would’ve chastised me for
betting against Chicago.”

“
Well,
Chicago didn’t respond to my résumé. A steady paycheck can reroute
your loyalty fairly quickly. Anyway, you shouldn’t bet against me.
And you definitely shouldn’t bet against any team that has Damien
Staats.”

“
Tell
me about it. His fast glove cost me five thousand
bucks.”

“
Five
thousand bucks? Quinn, that’s a lot of money.” She raised an
eyebrow at Benji. “Enough for, say … a hotel room for a
month.”

“
Oh,
is it a lot of money? I didn’t realize that, Cat. Thank you for
your brilliant accounting.” He downed the rest of his beer and
slammed the bottle on the coffee table. “I’ll get it
back.”

Cat picked up his
bottle and pointedly placed it on a coaster a few inches away. “You
might want to check the lines before you place your bet. I’d bet on
the Soldiers tomorrow.”

“
Psh.
Betting on the underdog is how you make the real change.” He stood
up. “I’m going out. Don’t wait up.” He ruffled her hair before
exiting the living room. A few seconds later the front door slammed
shut.

Cat turned to
Benji. “Some big brothers teach their sisters how to ride a bike or
handle an unruly date. Quinn gives tips on pool hustling and
sportslines.
"

It was almost
noon by the time Cat finally came out of her cubicle. She’d
purposely come in early but once again was forced out of hiding by
the fact that her ten by ten cave didn’t come with a
bathroom.

Every cubicle was
eerily empty. She cast about her to see if anyone was in the office
and spotted her coworkers huddled in a clique toward the front of
the room. The interns by the watercooler shushed their whispers
when she walked past, only to pick up where they’d left off a few
steps later.

Cat approached
the open desk near the entrance, where the department assistant was
reading a magazine. “Hi, Anne Marie.”

“
Good
morning.” The older woman rose from her chair. “Would you excuse
me?” She walked away before Cat could reply and made her way over
to another murmuring circle.

Cat’s shoulders
fell. She hadn’t made many friends in her own office, even before
the poker game heard ’round the world, but Anne Marie was her
assistant—twenty-five percent, anyway, because she shared the
efficient receptionist with three other members of the media team.
Now she couldn’t even get her paid assistant to look her in the
eye.

Cat contemplated
the gossiping group. Discretion told her to keep quiet
,
but as the anger began to boil
inside her, she put discretion on the back burner.

She clapped her
hands to summon their attention. “You guys wanna talk, okay. Let’s
get it all out in the open.”

The employees
stopped whispering and looked up at her in shock.

“
You
heard me. You want to play this game, then at least have the guts
to step up to the plate.” Her voice had started out shaky but she
was beginning to find her confidence through this therapeutic
broadcast. It was a relief to no longer be shunned, even if the
alternative was forcing people to listen to her. “Yes, there was a
poker game at my apartment. No, I wasn’t playing, nor did I even
know it was occurring. I’ve explained my situation, I’ve even taken
my lumps for it and you’re all still freezing me out.” Feeling her
hackles rise, she took another step toward the group. “Sandy, no
one said boo about it when you got a DUI last month. Gina, don’t
get me started on the rumors about you and not one, but
two
players last season. You’ve all had your fair share of scandal so
quit avoiding my eyes and whispering about me behind my back. You
got something to say then please, just have the balls to say it to
my face.” Cat took a deep breath. It felt pretty good to get that
off her chest. She took satisfaction in their silent
gapes.

Anne Marie looked
around at her embarrassed colleagues and took a step forward. “Cat
… didn’t you hear?”