The Ninth Inning (The Boys of Baseball #1) - J. Sterling Page 0,101

dad jumped up to answer it, and I watched as his face broke out into a wide grin.

He held the receiver out toward the living room. “Cole, it’s for you.”

I pushed to my feet and stepped away, reaching for the phone. “Hello?”

I listened as my agent informed me that I should be the next round pick for Houston. My mind wandered to the fact that they were currently under a lot of scrutiny for cheating. “The scandal doesn’t matter, Cole. This is your chance to get paid to play baseball,” my agent said through the phone, as if reading my mind.

“I’d be an idiot to say no, right?”

“Very much so. Gotta go,” he said before hanging up and leaving me with a mixed bag of emotions. I’ve wanted to play baseball my whole life, but I was pissed about what Houston had done to the game.

Before I got too deep in my feelings, I reminded myself that nothing was set in stone. Just because he said I’d be their next pick, that wasn’t a guarantee. This kind of thing happened more than anyone wanted to admit and it wasn’t something that we talked about often, but I’d been with guys whose advisors had told them they were going in the next round of the draft and then they called back and told them that it would be the next round after that. Sometimes, it went on that way all day long until the draft ended, and they still hadn’t been picked up. It was extremely frustrating and disappointing to be in that position, and I was terrified that it could happen to me. So, even though I wanted to be off-the-rails excited, I couldn’t let myself go there.

I sat back down on the couch next to Christina and refused to answer anyone’s questions about what was said on the phone regardless of how hard they harassed me.

Superstitious, remember?

Her parents and my dad were sitting at the kitchen table together like old friends, watching me and Christina instead of the TV. She reached for my hand, and I simultaneously held it and my breath as the next round of draft picks started to commence on live television.

I knew that the cameras were rolling, but I did my best to ignore them. They’d been recording on and off so often that it was easy to pretend they weren’t there by this point. The Major League Baseball Commissioner stepped back up to the podium, and even though my advisor had said the next name was going to be mine, I just never knew.

Fuck, I was nervous. I wanted to throw up.

“For their second round draft pick, the Houston Astros pick Cole Anders, a right-handed outfielder from Fullton State, California.”

Holy shit, he said my name.

The room exploded in cheers and screams and shouts.

My name.

“Cole!” Christina shouted before kissing my cheek, and I turned to face her, my eyes watering. I kissed her hard before letting her go. “Congratulations! I’m so proud of you!” she said as her own happy tears fell.

I blinked a few times, feeling totally awestruck as my phone started ringing and blinging out text message notifications like never before. If I thought that I would have a problem being drafted for Houston a few minutes ago, all that disappeared the second my dream became a reality.

“How do you feel, Cole?” Alpine shoved a microphone in my face, and I could barely see her through my tears, let alone speak.

“Grateful,” was the only word that came to mind, so it was all I said before looking for my dad. Wiping at my face, I tried to stop my emotions from spilling out all over the place, but it was too late. I was a damn blubbering mess, and I couldn’t stop.

“You did it,” he said with the biggest damn smile I’d ever seen on his face before. “You did it.” He grabbed me and pulled me tight.

I felt his body shaking, and I knew he was crying.

“Everyone’s going to think we’re a couple of pussies,” I said as I wiped at my face and sniffed.

“Fuck ’em,” he said, and I laughed before swallowing hard. “Think you’ll get buzzers in Single-A?” he asked and I started choking on my laughter.

“Buzzers are for big leaguers,” I said with a smile before getting emotional again. “Thank you, Dad.”

“For what?”

“For taking me to every practice and game since I was five years old.”

“Well it’s not like you could drive yourself,” he tried to lighten the mood,