Moonshot(9)

Dad would know something was wrong. My poker face was terrible. Once, when I was eleven, I cheated on a math test, a calculator stowed under my notebook. Dad had known something was up the minute I passed the Scantron over. But this wasn’t an elementary school test. This was a hundred times worse. I tried to think of something, a distraction for my father, a lie prepared in case he asked what was wrong.

I came up with nothing, God punishing me for my actions, my deceit given absolutely no backup. I pushed off the wall and took the final steps to the end of the hall, the sun shining brightly through the door’s windows, the world outside oblivious to my demise.

I pushed on the exit bar and stepped into the sunshine, chucking the apple in the trash. At the curb, Dad’s truck idled.

“Got it.” I held up the wallet and slid into the passenger seat, slamming the door shut and busying myself with the seat belt.

“Where was it?”

“The drawer.” I pulled up my foot, resting my tennis shoe on the seat and busied myself with the laces, tightening them and retying the knot.

“You okay?” He was staring at me; I could feel his eyes, the truck not put in gear, his head turned to me.

“Yeah. Just pissed that I didn’t check—” My sentence was cut off by the ring of his phone, coming loud through the speakers, and I let out a sigh of relief, followed by a moment of panic. Maybe it was the security office.

“Hello?”

The voice that responded was brash and feminine, and I relaxed against the seat, letting our housekeeper’s voice carry my father into distraction, my chance at getting caught dissipating with each of her raised vowels.

Chase Stern. Naked. Staring at me. The deep laugh in his voice when he’d asked if I’d liked what I’d seen.

I dropped my head against the seat, replaying the interaction. Our misunderstanding over Dad’s wallet. My sprint out the doors. I hadn’t even introduced myself. Though … what would I have done? Shook his hand? I couldn’t have, not with all his nakedness right there. No, it was probably for the best, me leaving when I did. Before someone else came in. Before he said something else. I groaned as quietly as I could and turned away, resting my forehead on the glass window.

Talk about ruining me for life.





19



Chase stood, for a long moment, his towel still in hand, and stared at the swinging door, almost expecting her to reappear. It’s my dad’s. He glanced back at the locker, ROLLINS printed on a brass nameplate across its top. Frank Rollins. A name that needed no introduction, the closer’s place in the Hall of Fame already guaranteed, his rookie card one that Chase had behind glass somewhere. He’d heard that Rollins had a daughter—the sort of lewd comments always tossed around a locker room. He hadn’t paid much attention. Now, he wished he’d listened harder, his mind blank on anything but her father’s accomplishments.

He gave her one last chance at a return, then wiped at his face and headed for the shower.

Jesus Christ. Talk about the last thing he needed.





20



Moonshot. They say the term comes from Wally Moon, a player from the fifties, who hit bombers that the local press dubbed ‘moonshots.’ Dad had taught me the term when I was twelve, and desperate to hit my first home run. An impossible feat for a scrawny blonde in a Major League stadium, but Dad hadn’t told me that. He’d just kept me swinging, his pitches easy, my breath huffing smoke in the cold night air, my hits short after short after short.

He stood behind me, his hands over mine, and we swung. A practice stroke, over and over, my sore muscles learning the motion. “Look to the moon when you swing,” he instructed. “That’s what you want. A ball that disappears into it. One that goes to the moon and past. A moonshot.”

“Sounds stupid,” I grumbled, my eyes on the dirt, my swing down.

“Everything’s stupid if you look at it a certain way. Some people think it’s stupid for a girl to be named Ty.”

I looked up with a smile. “That was stupid. Ty Cobb? You couldn’t have picked a Yankee?”

“Would Thurmon have been better? Or Red? Or Whitey? Yogi? Lou? Mickey?”

“Mickey isn’t bad. Or Babe.” I grinned at him, tapping the end of the bat against my cleats.

He scowled. “Let’s focus on the moon. I’ll worry about stripper nicknames later.”

A moonshot had been impossible for me. I woke up the next day with a task almost as improbable: avoid Chase at all costs. Eye contact would be dangerous, any conversation disastrous.





21



I knotted my hair into a low bun. Skipped makeup. Pulled on a baseball cap, low over my eyes. Wore jeans instead of shorts, and a long-sleeved T-shirt, the biggest one I owned.

I stared at myself in the full-length mirror and hoped that I looked different. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize me from the girl who had stood, limp-jawed, in the middle of the locker room.

“He’s my dad.”

God, why had I said that? Talk about sticking a giant kiddie nametag to my chest.

I heard the rattle of metal on metal, our garage door opening, and turned at the sound. Striding down the hall, I grabbed my bag off the hook and headed for the door.

Our night games had a schedule, like clockwork, and hadn’t changed in the last decade. Got to the park around two. The team ate together around five. Hit the field around six. National Anthem at seven. Showtime.