The Hot Streak Read online

  Out on the mound, Tyler was just starting his warm-up pitches and she watched him while talking. “Are you going to go on the trip to Philadelphia in like two weeks?”

  “Why, you want to go? Can you get the time off from work?”

  “I have to take some time off because if I don’t use up some of my vacation days, I’m going to lose them,” Casey said. “But anyway, my folks are in the Philly area.”

  “Ahhh,” Missy said, comprehending. “So are you going to introduce him to the family?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  “Well, he won’t, you know, chew on the leg of the table or embarrass you like that… ”

  “Yeah, I know. But if he turns out to be a summer fling? Or wants to be? My mother won’t hesitate to come in with the marriage-and-kids questions if she’s in the mood.” Tyler stepped off the mound as Mad Dog threw the ball to second base. Casey paused while Missy shouted at her husband, then picked up again when Missy looked back at her. “We’ve only known each other for a month. I don’t want my parents thinking I’m, like, a groupie or something.”

  Missy looked thoughtful. “Well, the mom interview might be tamped down somewhat by the fact that if you introduce them at the field, there won’t be much chance to corner him alone. Hmm, except it’s not that easy to get field passes at other stadiums. Although knowing Tyler, he probably could swing it. He knows everybody everywhere, it seems. But if you break up in a couple of months, will your parents think any differently about that than these guys you told me about who never last more than three dates?”

  Casey slumped miserably in her chair. “I don’t ever bother to tell her about them. Except after the fact, maybe.”

  “Well, does it feel like your thing with Tyler is near the end?”

  “No! Oh no, not at all. Feels like we’re still just getting started.” Out on the field, the first batter took up his position, while Tyler pushed his hat down low over his eyes and glared at him. “It just feels so wide open, you know? Which is exciting, that I don’t know where it’s going. But it just complicates the issue of what to tell my family.”

  Missy touched her arm lightly. “You know, if it all goes wrong and you break up later, I don’t think you have to tell your mom anything more than that you fell head over heels in love and then he broke your heart. She’ll be on your side.”

  “I… but… ” Casey watched as the batter went back to the dugout, having struck out on three pitches. “But I don’t know if that’s true.”

  “You mean, the head-over-heels part?”

  “Yeah.”

  Missy looked at her. “Okay,” she said slowly. “The point is, though, it’ll be believable to your mom. Whether you actually fell for him or not, that’s your business and she doesn’t need to get into that.”

  “Huh. I never thought of it that way.”

  “What, telling your parents what they want to hear? Or what they expect to, anyway?”

  “Yeah. I’ve always been more of the just don’t tell them anything at all type. But that’s getting tiresome, I guess.” Casey fell silent, though, thinking about the head-over-heels comment.

  As the Robins were leaving the field, she watched Tyler jog to the dugout. He looked up and waved in her general direction. She wasn’t sure he could actually pick her out of the crowd this many rows back, but just the thought that he’d looked at her, for her, sent a jolt through her heart. “So,” she said to Missy, once he’d disappeared under the roof of the dugout, “it really looks like I’m head over heels for him?”

  “That’s what it looks like,” Missy said in a neutral voice. Then she saw her husband come out on deck. “Come on, Madison! Get a hit!”

  They watched the game for a while, Missy explaining little points from time to time, but they didn’t discuss Tyler again until the fourth inning.

  “How’s this for a plan?” Missy said, checking the calendar on her fancy cell phone. “You invite your parents to join us for dinner on Saturday after the game. It’s a one o’clock game, so it’ll all be over with and the boys will be cleaned up and back at the hotel by five, five thirty. Tell them Tyler and Mad Dog are taking us out somewhere fancy— pick the best restaurant in the city— and invite them to come along. John and I will help keep Tyler in line and having more of us there, you’re probably not going to get the super private questions like you would if he went to eat at your folks’ house, right? How’s that sound?”

  Casey thought it over. “It could work. My folks are foodies, so a fancy place works. I wonder if my brother is anywhere around? He used to be into baseball when he was a kid.”

  Missy laughed. “All American boys are into baseball at some point in their lives. But it won’t matter. It’s Tyler. He’s going to be the star, the center of attention, no matter where he goes. Even if they’ve never heard of him, he’ll dazzle.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look at him out there, Case.” Missy waved to the figure on the field, who at that moment was wandering around on the grass behind the mound, looking like he was talking to the baseball in his hand. “There’s forty thousand people here, and a million watching on TV, and four umpires, and eight guys on his team, and a batter standing there waiting for him. Absolutely everyone is looking at him, and waiting for him, and he loves it.”

  Tyler picked up the rosin bag and threw it down in a white puff of dust, walked up the back side of the mound and back down, glared at the runner on first base, then waved for Madison to come out for a mound conference.

  “The thing is, the pitcher holds the ball. Nothing happens until he throws it. He has everyone captivated by his every move, whether he scratches his ass or what.” Missy chuckled. “Tyler loves that part about being a pitcher. He has no qualms at all about delaying the game, even when a million people are hanging on every thing he does.”

  In the end, he handed the ball to Madison, who gave it back to the umpire, who threw it out of play and tossed Tyler a new one. “What was that all about?” Casey asked.

  “Who the hell knows?” Missy texted a note to someone on her phone. “There, I just left a message for John. He probably doesn’t know either, though.”

  As it turned out, after the game, Tyler told the media that the balls tonight were “seditious,” and were trying to leave the park. He didn’t want them doing it via the home run, so he had some of them removed from play. Casey got a text from Missy that simply read: Did I mention Tyler’s a nutball? But he’s yr nutball. Love ya.

  When she got home after a late dinner with Tyler at the bar in the Ritz, she sent an e-mail to her mother asking if they’d be in town because she might be coming down. She didn’t say why.

  The next day at work was so crazy she didn’t have a chance to check her personal e-mail until after her boss had left. Her mom had written back to say yes, and also threw in the tidbit that Nick would be home by then for the summer. Great. Next, to check with Tyler about Missy’s plan, then set it in motion.

  She saw Tyler again on the weekend, and it didn’t seem like the sex or ardor was going to cool off any time soon. He pitched the next day and won again, and since it was a weekend day game, they went out afterward and had sex again, then Casey slept late on Sunday at his place even though he had to get up to go to the ballpark.

  The sculpture had been delivered, and she sat sipping a cup of coffee and wearing his bathrobe, looking at it. It still evoked the crescent moon to her, a sliver of something that suggested a larger whole.

  Her phone beeped to tell her she had a text message and she went and dug it out of her purse. Missy again: Shuttle flight’s booked for Friday night. Want airport limo to get you from your office, or will you take the subway? Traffic is a bitch then.

  Meanwhile, her next date with Tyler was set for Wednesday night. “I’ve got an idea,” he had said over the phone when they’d discussed it.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m pitching Thursday, getaway day.”

 
“What?”

  “That’s what we call it when we have a day game instead of a night game so that the team can then travel on the same day. Getaway day. Anyway, Thursday’s game is at one, so I’ll have to get up early, but then so will you, it being a school night and all.”

  Casey laughed. Tyler always called it a “school night” when she had to work the next day. “Yeah, that’s true.”

  “But you know, it’s so hard to wait until the weekend all the time, especially with road trips, so… I was thinking it might be good for us to get together Wednesday night, early-ish, since we’ll both be on an early schedule.”

  “What’s your idea of early-ish?”

  “Well, technically I can’t leave the ballpark until like ten or so, but I can be home by ten thirty if I push it.” His voice slowed down. “And I was think-ing… ”

  Casey felt a little thrill go through her. When Tyler was “think-ing” usually meant something pleasurable was in store. “Yeah?”

  His voice was low. “Why don’t you head over to my place around ten, get in bed and wait for me?”

  She grinned. “Should I play with myself while I’m waiting for you? I could, you know, get myself nice and wet… ” She was blushing furiously but still managed to be bold enough to say it.

  He rewarded her with a groan. “Don’t talk like that. You’re making me hard.”

  “Your place Wednesday, then.”

  “Yessss.”

  So she was looking forward to this “early night,” and she was tickled by the thought of them getting up for work in the morning together, imagining them like some working couples who would kiss each other goodbye at the train station as they went their separate ways. She pictured Tyler in a three-piece suit with a briefcase packed with a baseball glove and balls in it.

  But around eight o’clock Wednesday night, she was still in the office when her cell phone rang. It was Missy’s caller ID, so she picked it up.

  “Case, I have bad news. Tyler’s on his way to the hospital for X-rays, maybe an MRI.”

  “What?” Casey shut her office door and cradled the phone to her ear. “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure. Apparently he slipped during team warm-ups tonight and pulled something or sprained something. John thinks maybe his ankle, I’m not sure. Anyway, the trainers have him and he told John to tell me to tell you he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to make it. In fact, if these things go the way they usually do, they won’t be done with him for a while. I think they’re only just now on the way to the hospital.”

  Casey sat down. “They really took him to the hospital?”

  “Yeah. I guess he didn’t think anything of it when he slipped, but it swelled up while he was sitting on the bench, and next thing you know, they’re whisking him away. John’s pissed. Tyler was probably horsing around while shagging flies or something, and here he had a five-game win streak going.”

  “Shagging what?”

  Missy laughed, in spite of the serious topic of conversation. “You’re right. Everything baseball players say sounds obscene. Shagging flies is what they call catching the fly balls in the outfield during batting practice. All the pitchers go out there and do it since they don’t do fielding drills. Anyway, he’s gone, and he urged John to tell me, so he sneaked up to his locker and called me, and now I’m calling you.”

  “Well, damn it,” Casey said, not sure how to feel about it. Sure, she was disappointed she wouldn’t get to see him tonight, but more than that, she was worried he might be seriously hurt. “Is it bad enough, you think, to call off the trip to Philly?”

  “Watch the news tonight before you go to bed, or check ESPN.com. I bet they’ll say.”

  Now it was Casey’s turn to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Missy asked.

  “Nothing. It’s just… how many people get to turn on the TV to find out how their boyfriend is doing?”

  “Tch. Yeah. I’ll talk to you later, hon. It’s noisy here.”

  Chapter Six

  Casey hung up and packed up her laptop. She’d only stayed late because she’d planned to go straight to Tyler’s without going home first. As it was now, she didn’t feel like going home. She came out of the building and turned toward the Common and the train station, but then kept walking. Why not? She had never bothered to get cable at her apartment and surely ESPN would be the thing to watch to find out what was going on. And there was one place she knew would have a TV tuned to the channel.

  She walked into the bar at the Ritz without seeing the maitre d’ who had been so friendly to Tyler, but Hojo was there, pouring drinks. She settled herself on a stool, not sure what to say, and watched the ESPN headline ticker go by while she waited for him to come take her order.

  As it turned out, she didn’t have to say anything. “What can I… oh, hi, it was Katie, right? You came in with Hammond.”

  “Casey, but yeah,” she said with a smile. “He got hurt, they said. Before the game. I wondered if there’s been anything on ESPN.”

  “No shit,” Hojo said, picking up the remote from by the cash register and bumping up the sound just a little on the screen showing Sportscenter. There were only five or six other people scattered throughout the lounge and he glanced at them guiltily, but none of them seemed to be noticing the change. The Robins game was on one of the other screens, but it was showing game action.

  “So I guess you’re still seeing him? Or are you here to, like, ambush him?” Hojo said as he poured her a club soda with a twist.

  “Still seeing him,” she said. “Why, have other women gone ballistic on him?”

  He shrugged and set the drink on a napkin in front of her. “Not really. You’re the first real person he’s dated since he’s been living here, though. And by real person I mean not a model or an actress or someone his agent fixed him up with for publicity purposes.”

  “How long has he been living here?”

  “About two years? Ever since joining the Robins.” He handed her the menu. “You hungry? Did they take him for X-rays or something?”

  “Yes and yes,” she said. “Give me some of those little dumpling things, and what’s the soup today?”

  “Low-carb dairy-free cauliflower bisque with lump crabmeat. No really, it tastes a lot better than it sounds.”

  “Sure, I’ll try it.” She handed the menu back and he keyed the order into the register. “Oh!” Tyler’s picture had appeared on the flat screen.

  But the announcer didn’t say anything they didn’t know. Pitching star Tyler Hammond taken for medical tests, blah blah blah. She sighed. The next story was about a guy who looked familiar, too. Oh, right, Campbell, the big hitter that Tyler had fought with in that first game she had seen. Some kind of trade rumor involving him. Then the announcer switched to talking about tennis and Casey lost interest.

  When Hojo brought her food, she asked, “So he really hasn’t dated much?”

  He shrugged. “Not that I’ve seen. Was that your first date that time he brought you here before?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was kind of nice he introduced you to us. I get the feeling we’re sort of his family during the season, you know?”

  And that made her think of another question. “Where does he live in the off season?”

  “Florida, I think. He left for Thanksgiving, visited his folks and such, then after Christmas went down to work with a personal trainer for about six weeks. Then in mid-February, spring training starts and it goes until games start in April, which is when he came back.” He checked the screen behind him, but the story was something about basketball. “What’s the matter?”

  She looked up from her soup. “Eh. Just thinking I really can’t just take six weeks off to go hang out in Florida. But, well, that’s months from now, so I shouldn’t stress over it yet.”

  “Good plan,” he said. “You sure you don’t want something stronger? Or shall we wait to see if they tell us what’s wrong with him?”

  “Yeah, le
t’s wait.” Casey finished eating her food, then checked the time. The game was in the ninth inning. She texted him a quick message saying she hoped he was okay, but didn’t tell him where she was. “You’d think he’d call.”

  “They don’t allow cell phones in the hospital,” Hojo said. “He’s probably having an MRI or something. I had one after my bike accident last summer and it was like something out of Star Trek.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it really looked like the set of a Star Trek episode, with this giant alien machine with a hole in the middle of it, which they then stick you into like you’re some kind of science experiment, and it makes all kinds of loud noises. It’s kind of scary for the first five minutes.”

  “What happens after the first five minutes?” Casey asked, confused.

  “Oh, same thing, but it starts to get boring. Thank God they were only doing my knee, so it was just my leg in there, but still. It took like forty-five minutes. I’m just glad it wasn’t my head in there.”

  They went on chatting that way for a while, Hojo describing the bike accident in grand detail. The game ended with a Robins win, Casey noticed.

  It was almost midnight when Tyler limped in. His face went through three different shocked expressions when he saw Casey sitting there, ending with a laugh and a hug. “You are a sight for sore eyes.”

  “Or sore ankles?” she said.

  “Oh God, I’m such a moron.” He shifted himself carefully onto the barstool next to her. His entire foot was in a kind of high-tech cast. “Hojo, you been taking care of her? The usual for me, please.”

  The bartender lifted up the soda gun, but added, “You sure you don’t want anything stronger?”

  “God, with the stuff they gave me, I think alcohol would kill me. My leg locked up so they shot me with some kind of muscle relaxant… I had to leave my car at the park and take a cab because I’m not fit to drive as it is.” He took the glass of soda water. “Anyway, the verdict is that hopefully it’s nothing serious. Mild sprain, I’ll probably be fine if they tape it up before my next start. But I won’t be pitching tomorrow.”