Moonshot (17 page)

“Really?” The skepticism was high, and Chase had to laugh. “The Yankees are treating you well?”

“I think they’re still warming up to me, but the home runs are helping.”

“How many COC lectures you gotten?”

Code-of-Conduct
. The Yankees were big on everything, especially image. No facial hair, other than mustaches. No fighting. No drunk-in-public behavior. Nothing that would flutter the perfect hair of Maxine Grenada, the PR tycoon who kept the Yankee’s reputation squeaky clean. Chase winced. “A few.”

The man lowered his voice. “I really want you to think about stopping any powder. Every stupid thing you’ve done—”

“Already ahead of you,” Chase interrupted, opening the sliding glass door of his hotel room and stepping onto the balcony.

“Meaning what?”

“I’ve stopped. I could piss in a cup right now and be good to go.”

“Keep that up through the season, and you’ll make me a happy man.”

“I’m done with that shit. Permanently. Like you said, it gets me into trouble.”

The man was silent for a long, suspicious minute. “What about girls?”

“I’m dating someone.” The thought of her made him, for the hundredth time that day, smile. “Exclusively. So stop worrying. I’m behaving, I’m happy, I’m playing like God.”

“Who’s the girl?” His agent wasn’t happy yet, four years with Chase turning the man into the worst kind of cynic: a suspicious one.

“You don’t know her.”

“I need details. She a stripper or a saint? Where’d you meet her? No offense, Chase, but you’re batting zero when it comes to picking the right women.”

“She’s a bat girl for the team. She’s eighteen,” he added quickly.

“What are the Yanks doing with an eighteen-year-old bat girl? That’s asking for trouble.” The man’s voice was quicker, wheezing through the phone line.

“She’s been with the team a long time, since she was a kid.”

“Jesus Christ.” The man caught on, a heartbeat of pause before he continued, “You’re talking about the closer’s kid. Frank Fucking Rollins’s daughter? Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“She’s an adult,” he defended, his hands tightening against the balcony railing. “She’s five years younger than me. This isn’t—”

“Rollins makes
one
call to anyone, and you are
fucked
. The Yankees will drop you before the ink dries on the statutory rape press release. You’ll be done with MLB—shipped to Canada or Japan to play. And I don’t care if she’s eighteen. They’ll accuse you of cumming in her teenage panties. You think they’re not gonna care—screw that. They’re going to throw a fucking
party
over this story. You think Nancy Grace is gonna let this slide? She hasn’t had a Caylee Anthony or a Natalee Holloway in
years
. She’s gonna ride your ass right to a ratings high, and convince every person in America, and in the Yankee organization, that you’re a pedophile.” The man took a deep, shuddering breath. “You think I’m
happy
you’re exclusive with this girl? Do me a favor and find another girl. Hell, I got a stable of them on call. Just tell me hair color and measurements and I’ll send ten of them over.”

“You can’t replace her, Floyd. Ty, she—”

“Stop talking right now.
Don’t
be exclusive with this chick, in fact, don’t even go
near
her. I’m tempted to call up Thomas Grant right now and tell him to yank her from traveling with you guys.”

“Listen to me very carefully.” Chase turned from the view and stepped inside, closing the sliding glass door and speaking clearly in the silence of his room. “You can try to paint this however you want—the press can paint this however they want—but there is nothing wrong with our relationship. It’s the purest thing in my life. She is saving me. And I don’t expect you, in the twisted world you live in, to understand that. But you know this industry and that’s the only reason I’m still on the phone with you right now. I need this to work. I need her in my life. And I need you to tell me how to make that work.”

There was nothing between them on the line for almost a minute.

Then, with a heavy exhale, Floyd started to speak. And, for the first time in his career with him, Chase actually listened.

52

Toronto

At night at Woodbine, the horses ran. Million dollar muscles bunched underneath slick coats, spotlights illuminating colorful silks, wide eyes and the spray of dirt kicked up by hooves. We made it to the last race of the night, having to wait until after ten to leave, my father’s bedtime now a nightly waiting ritual. A car took us to the VIP entrance, hidden from press and onlookers, but there was no need. In Canada, Chase Stern’s face didn’t carry the same weight, his low-pulled baseball cap the only disguise needed. We sat at the rail, my arm looped through Chase’s, and bent over the program, my fingers rolling down the list of horses.
Kirby’s Moonshot
. The name stood out, as if in bold, and I tapped it excitedly, turning to Chase. He smiled when he saw the name.

“You think he’s the one?”

“Definitely.”

“He’s a longshot,” he pointed out, running his hand over, past his name and to his stats. “Hasn’t won a race all season. 14-1 odds.”

“I like the longshots.” I beamed at him and something in his eyes changed, a look that I was starting to see more and more. Awe was too strong of a word but close. It was a look that made me feel a million feet tall. And it came at the most unremarkable times. Like this. He leaned over and kissed me, a soft press of lips that he followed with another, then another, our kisses turning to laughter as I almost fell sideways from his enthusiasm. “Stop,” I giggled, pushing him back. “Now focus. We only have a few minutes.”

“Moonshot,” he said, pushing to his feet. “I got it.” He held out his hand, and I surrendered my savings, forty-three dollars scrapped from my stipend fund. We had decided, on the drive over, that I would be the primary investor of this evening. He had wanted to cover it, but I had been greedy with the possibility of winning, wanting full ability to pick my own horse and then be obnoxious with all of my excess cash. “You want it all on him? Win-place-show?”

“Just win,” I said confidently. “He can do it.”

He raised his eyebrows skeptically, and I gestured at him to hurry. I watched him go, my eyes following until the last minute when he stepped through the doors. They returned to the page, my finger running over the horse’s name. Yes, he was a longshot. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t come out on top.

He didn’t come out on top. Kirby’s Moonshot struggled through the first corner, fighting for a third place position before hitting the first straightaway and getting left in the dust.
Literally
. I almost lost him a few times in the cloud of dirt created by the horses ahead of him. I was dismayed, Chase laughed, his mouth finding mine at every opportunity, my lost fortune blatantly unconsidered.

I insisted that we find the horse, to give him a consolatory pat, something for his harrowing journey. Chase remarked, with worrisome sincerity, that we might walk in on him being put down, the racer’s performance less than ideal. My steps quickened at that possibility, my breath held until the moment I rounded the corner and saw him being hosed down, his head hanging low, mouth munching contentedly on something. Surely they wouldn’t bother to wash a horse destined for death. And surely they didn’t do that anymore, the glue factory a mythical thing designed to torture the minds of small children trying to happily paste school projects.

I approached the horse and dug in my bag for the apple—one I had snagged from a welcome fruit tray in Dad’s room, the bright green skin catching the eye of a handler, who stopped me. “Can’t give him that, ma’am.”

Chase stepped in, and there was a moment of celebrity fandom, one where the man smiled brightly and hands were shaken and photos requested, and my fingers itched to sneak the fruit into the racehorse’s mouth. He flapped his lips at me, his big brown eyes watchful, and I inched closer.

There was a negotiation of sorts, tickets to tomorrow’s game mentioned, and then Chase waved me on, the apple allowed, and I stepped up to the horse, holding it flat in my palm, my fingers running along his face as he crunched into the apple, half of it gone, the other half quickly taken, my palm wet from his contact. I had a horse once. One winter. Boarded fifteen minutes away. I had memories of standing in our kitchen, in front of the blender, a concoction of apple cider, carrots, and oats in the blender. I poured it into a thermos, and Dad and I went to the barn on her ‘birthday,’ pouring the dubious mixture into a bucket, my excitement mounting as she ate it all. There were winter days where schoolbooks were pushed aside, and I climbed upon her back, riding her bareback through the ring. But then there was spring training, those months in Florida and far from her. And then there was the start of the season, and somewhere along the way she was sold, and I barely noticed, my world dominated by pinstripes, little time for anything else. Suddenly, with my hands capturing the racehorse’s muzzle in mine, his breath huffing against my palms, I missed her.

On the ride back to the hotel, I told Chase about her. Her name had been Rosie. She’d been an Arabian, fiery and ill-mannered. “Like you,” he said, and I made a face. He reached over and took my hand, pulling it to his mouth. “You are never allowed to pick winners again, Ty Rollins.”

“It wasn’t my best moment,” I conceded. “But in all fairness to Moonshot, I think he was robbed. There was clearly some unfair jostling at the start.”

He raised a brow at me. “I saw no jostling.”

I shrugged. “You’re old. Your eyes are getting weak.”

Then he laughed and leaned over the center console. “I’m falling in love with you,” he said softly.

I swallowed hard, my eyes lifting to his. They were steady on me, sure and unwavering, as if he spoke an absolute certainty. My smile began, a runaway train out of control, no force able to stop its spread. “Okay,” I whispered, unsure of how to respond.

“I just wanted you to know.”

“Okay,” I repeated. “That’s good to know.”

And it was. It was, actually, great to know. My smile grew, until the moment that he pulled me forward and kissed it away.

53