Hard Pass by Sara Ney Page 0,54
fly ball over second base, watching it soar into the air.
Shit. It’s never a good thing when the team’s publicist, Phil Scilara, wants to have a meeting after practice. Usually it’s tactical, to strategize about a public fuck up someone on the team was involved in, and usually those have nothing to do with me. Wallace, yes. Espinoza, yes.
Me, no.
Besides, unless there’s a situation—drunken photos emerging, or misconduct all over the news, or a woman claiming paternity—Phil is rarely in his office.
“Do you know what he wants?” I toss the bat in my hand to a different assistant and wipe my forehead with the towel in my back pocket.
“No clue.” He shrugs. “Sorry man.”
“I know what it’s about.” Wallace—the sneaky fuck—is behind me, and I turn, batting gloves coming off one at a time, as I watch him walking toward me.
Why is he always around when there’s drama?
“Are you going to tell me?” I can’t stand when someone beats around the bush. If he knows why I’m being called into the principal’s office, I want him to spit it out.
“You’re all over the news.” He spits on the ground. “You and your friend.”
Friend? “You mean Miranda?”
“Yeah.” For once in his life, Buzz Wallace comes at me looking bashful instead of cocky. Hesitant instead of aggressive.
That…cannot be good.
“And?”
His feet shuffle in the red dirt, the toe of his cleats soiled. “Fuck, man. I don’t know what to tell you.”
What does that mean?
“Shit.” Wallace pauses, hands stuffed in the pockets of his team issued athletic pants, company logo of our sponsor emblazoned on the side. He takes them out and claps them, as if trying to psych himself up. “Okay, I’m just going to say it—like tearing off a Band-Aid.”
I wait for him to fill in the blanks.
“You’re in the news—you and Miranda. And the headlines are…” He dips his head, staring down at his shoes. “They’re embarrassing.”
“We were at dinner.” How could that be considered embarrassing?
Buzz begins a slow pace to home plate, to where the catcher usually squats, then back to me. His arms rise and his giant, sweaty palms clamp down on my shoulders, squeezing firmly. “Look dude, you’re my best friend…”
Oh shit.
“…but this is going to fuck you up.”
I scoff with a loud, “Pfft. We had dinner—nothing indecent happened. A few people took pictures, but that was it. We weren’t at a strip club, I didn’t get a lap dance, no one was drunk, we went to a nice place.”
Side by side, we begin our walk toward the dugout, and I can feel Wallace thinking beside me; he’s that deep in thought, brows furrowed into angry slashes.
“Hey pretty boy,” one of the guys says as we get closer.
“Shut your fucking mouth, Gomez,” Wallace snaps and it’s then that I take his words seriously.
“Wallace, what the fuck is going on?”
We don’t make it to the dugout before he takes my arm and pulls back, leading me toward the tunnel for the locker rooms. Stops, shifting me to face him. “Bro. You know I think you’re fucking awesome. You know how the paps can be dicks and reporters are fucking worse—”
I yank his hands off me, pissed. Frustrated. “Dude, spit it out!”
“Shit.” Is Wallace hanging his head? “There’s no easy way to tell you this. Promise you won’t get mad.”
Too late. “I’m already mad.”
He inhales a deep breath and lets it all go with a stream of words. “Your picture with Miranda is out there and the press is calling you both ugly … there I said it.”
Exhale.
He physically sags against the cement wall behind him, the dark hall leading to the offices and locker rooms hollow and cold.
Colder now that I’ve been dealt this blow, except I’m still not sure what it means.
“What picture?”
“The two of you eating.”
Fuck that fucking guy who took our goddamn picture.
“But it’s not the pictures, Baseman—it’s the headlines.”
I lean against the wall next to him, running a hand through my hair after removing my ball cap. My hair is sweaty and wet and I slick it back away from my eyes.
“What headlines?” What could they possibly say that has Buzz Wallace—the least sympathetic guy I’ve ever met—suddenly so goddamn sympathetic?
My buddy tips his neck back, gazing up toward the ceiling, squinting. “The ones that say, ‘He might be a brownbagger, but I’d fuck anyone with even half his net worth.’”
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
I can’t stop the obscenities from pouring out of my mouth. Can’t stop myself from kicking the ground beneath my feet, from