Warning Track (Callahan Family #1) - Carrie Aarons Page 0,32

everyone all of a sudden pointing out how much my sex life needs to improve?

15

Colleen

It’s unusual for me to sit down in the lower levels, even at a Pistons’ home game.

But tonight is a special ceremony for one of our retiring coaches, a pitching coach named Stan who has contributed his life to the sport of baseball, and I felt it necessary to honor him by sitting right by the away dugout at our game tonight.

We’re in Houston, playing a divisional three-game series, and the crowd is jovial. It’s a scorching Saturday afternoon, and Hayes is standing a little bit aways near second base.

He’s protected his position all afternoon, making play after play and saving the pitcher some major embarrassment. The guy on the mound was someone Grude had called up from the minors, and his rookie jitters are clearly visible.

But Hayes, who despite his refusal to be a leader on this team is one by default anyway, has backed him up and essentially is carrying the team on his back today.

Watching Hayes play baseball is like watching a virtuoso pianist. Where the musician’s fingers fly over the keys, his brain seeming to work faster than his body can make sound come out of the instrument, so does Hayes mesmerize when he’s out on that field. You can tell that this man was made to play this sport. Everything he does is so fluid, from the way his eyes track to the ball, to his seamless throwing motion, to the way he can calculate the exact timing of pitches soaring toward his bat when he’s up at home plate.

I find myself getting lost in those muscular thighs bending to field a grounder, in the way his jersey clings to his biceps as sweat trickles down the ropey muscles of his neck. I’m parched, and I keep fanning my face. Even Uncle Daniel, who is sitting beside me in one of the few times I’ve ever seen him this close to the field, keeps asking me if I’m okay.

Call it heatstroke, because if I can’t, I’ll have to admit what it really is.

I’m severely attracted to one of my players, one who’s made it known he doesn’t particularly care for me in the politest of terms.

It’s two months into the season, and though there is still weekly news about my father, his crimes, or the Pistons’ organization, I feel like we’ve done a lot to bring the reputation of the club up a few points. There have been fewer boos at our home games, fewer reporter questions about our ethics as a team, and less animosity in the polls we’ve been conducting with our in-house PR staff.

Though, this week, I had to make a difficult decision. One of the players my father traded away was owed money against our cap, and we just couldn’t make it happen. I had paid out as much as I could, but with the way our budget was in flux from all the underhanded wheeling and dealing Dad had done, I just couldn’t scrape together enough.

Publicly, I made the apology to the player and his family. I called him personally, expressing my deepest regret and promising to try to right this by the end of the season. I was told, in no uncertain terms, to go to hell. Ever since, the player has been speaking out about me in the media, personally attacking me, and trashing both the club and the Callahan family.

It’s been difficult to stay quiet and try to keep calm. I know that’s what’s needed of me in my job, to be a clear and level-headed scapegoat when it requires it, but our former player is going low. Making comments about me working my way to the top on my back, or with a silver spoon in my mouth. Even today, I’ve been booed or insults have been thrown at me since I decided to sit down here among the fans.

But it’s important to show a united front, to hold my head high. I didn’t do anything wrong, and can only be the punching bag absorbing blows from my father’s victims. I understand their anger, and it’s the only way I’m able to harness my upset at the ugliness they’re pinning to me.

The rest of the game moves relatively smoothly, and the Pistons’ win with a three-run lead.

Uncle Daniel has already made it clear that I’ll be participating in the post-game interviews. Not only to celebrate Stan and remember him with a few