Warning Track: The Callahan Family, Book One Read online

  All because I had more natural talent than their son. All because I couldn’t help but loving the game of baseball and working hard at it.

  This happened four times during my youth, with the last being when I was fifteen. From then until the age of eighteen, when I aged out and got drafted into the minors, I bounced around from foster home to foster home. Most of the ones I was in were decent; meaning that even if the “parents” didn’t care about more than collecting a government check, they at least didn’t beat us and still put food on the table. That’s the bar to meet to be a good foster home in this country.

  It’s why I’ve dedicated so much of my time, my salary, to improving things for kids in the system. Kids like me, once upon a time.

  But back before all of it, there was Bryant. He was the only one there for me in a time where, not only did I have no one else, but I had no idea what I was doing. I was an eighteen-year-old kid who had just been handed more money than I’d ever seen in my life, was traveling the country, and could have gotten myself into real trouble if someone hadn’t been there to check on me.

  I come out of the cage and go around to him. We go in for a bear hug at the same time, and he smells of his usual cigar and mint gum scent.

  “Good to see you, kid. It’s been too long.” His grizzly voice invades my eardrum.

  “It’s only been a few weeks, and you didn’t tell me you were coming out to cover this game.” He’s a big softie.

  “The paper only dispatched me last night. Want me to get a narrative piece on the feel at Pistons park now that Jimmy is behind bars.” He raises an eyebrow, and I know he’s looking for a scoop.

  I plop to the ground, needing a stretch, and he follows. “You know everything with me is off the record. Don’t tell me you’ve completely lost your marbles in old age?”

  Bryant slowly sinks down too, sitting cross-legged as I reach for my left toes in a straddle. “I’m just playing, kid. I have to write my piece, but I came for you. You know that.”

  We met during one of my high school games when I was a sophomore, when Bryant had just so happened to be in the area and wanted to scout out a local talent who was being talked about. That local talent was me. He struck up a conversation after the game, and we kept in touch for a bit. Our relationship grew stronger over a mutual love for the game of baseball, and when I aged out of the system, he’d been the first person I called.

  I went to stay with him and his wife, Ronnie, in their condo while I started playing in the minor leagues, until I could safely commit to having my own apartment after being shuttled around foster homes for most of my life. The two of them taught me how to be an adult, how to care for myself in a world that would definitely take advantage of me if it could. Ronnie helped me open up my first bank account and went to pick out the bedding for my first apartment.

  Bryant taught me other things, like when to say no in contract negotiations and how to keep my mouth shut around reporters blood thirsty for some gossip. He was the only father figure I’d ever known, and I was thankful to have him in my life.

  “Your game looks tired, Hayes.” He eyes me, those brown eyes wise with age.

  “Well, shit, don’t be so forward.” I snort self-deprecatingly.

  “I’ve never known you to phone it in, even in the worst of seasons. It’s disappointing.”

  Hearing him say that, that he’s disappointed in me, is worse than a knife to the gut. I never want him to feel anything less than proud of me, and I’ve worked hard to make him feel that.

  I shrug. “I can’t wrap my mind around this shit. I shouldn’t even be here.” I switch to stretching my right leg.

  Bryant lets his head tip back, so that he’s concentrating on the clouds. “That might be so, but what did I tell you a long time ago? Things happen for a reason. There is always a meaning about why life jerks you one way or the other, and you have to lean into that. You got swept up in something evil, but it doesn’t mean you have to turn with that tide. Be a good teammate, a good leader. Play the game you love. You know more than anyone that life isn’t fair, that it’s short, and you only have so many games left. Play the hell out of them.”

  His words sink into my brain as I bring my legs together and grab my toes, stretching my back and hamstrings at the same time. The grass beneath my legs is familiar, I became one with the ball field long ago.

  “Why’d you have to come here and go all philosopher on me?” I half-joke.

  “Because I’m an old man who knows better than you.” He nods matter-of-factly.

  “Glad you’re here, though. I hope you’re sticking around for dinner after.”

  “Of course I am, you’re buying.” Bryant pats me on the shoulder as he rises. “Have a good game, kid.”

  He walks off, pulling his signature black leather notebook from his back pocket, and begins jotting some notes. I have no doubt his piece will be spectacular, that it will convey the exact essence of what it’s like to watch a game in Pistons’ stadium today.

  But his words echo in my ears, far after I exit for the locker room and to dress in my game day uniform. My fairy godfather has a point, and I think I have to abandon some of my pigheaded nature and follow his advice.

  9

  Colleen

  A couple of the concessions workers I know wave as I pass their stands, the smell of roasted peanuts and sizzling hot dogs invading my nose.

  Fans mill about the in the concourse, drinking beers or taking a breather from the sun shining down on their seats. There is still a coolness in the air; the season hasn’t quite turned from spring to summer in Pennsylvania yet, and my favorite months of baseball are still to come. Summer nights under those large, bright lights, day games in the heat when you almost want to pass out, but then your favorite player makes a hell of a play.

  I walk through the stadium, my second home. Actually, it’s probably my first. I only venture back to my ranch house to sleep these days, and since I have a shower in my office, sometimes I’m not even doing that in my humble abode.

  General managers of a team typically control player contracts, plan and maintain budgets for the team, arrange travel plans, address both public and internal complaints, hires and fires coaching staff, and smooths out the kinks between the front office and the on-the-field-employees.

  Suffice it to say, I’m pretty darn busy.

  This week alone, I’ve had two meetings with the coaching staff on how player operations have been going, spent time with the field manager, or head coach, talking about our game strategy for the next few weeks, and am taking a deep dive into the contracts my father negotiated. The paperwork around them, the shady inner-workings, the money … it’s a goddamn circus. I’ll be working overtime on those for months, and will probably have them straightened out in our budgets and on our books come the end of the season, right in time for those players to leave.

  It all got to be too much, so I decided to watch tonight’s game from the family room.

  Sometimes I like to watch from in there. Two years ago, I worked a rotation in the charity and events department of the Pistons organization, which worked closely with the players’ families to help involve them on both of those initiatives. In that time, I’d developed some close relationships with some of the wives and parents, and this room held a lot more joy during games than the owner’s box.

  As I walk into the huge three-room suite, the screech of children makes me smile. It had been my idea to put the small toy corner in here, and clearly it was paying off. Two of the little boys are racing Hot Wheels cars around people’s feet, and three of our closing pitcher’s daughters are playing with dolls on the floor. A baby who is just starting to crawl has a light-up toy in his mouth, and there are a boy and a girl pretending to water fake flowers with a plastic gardening set.

  On the other wall, some of the wives chat with each other as they snack from the buffet, there are players’ parents milling about getting to know one and other, and the whole space just feels so much
more alive than the tenseness of the executive box I came from.

  I greet a few of them, stopping to chat with a trio of wives who have been with the club for a while, and they ask me about attending one of their soup kitchen nights at a shelter the town over. Of course, I agree, I like to volunteer on whatever charity event they’re putting together.

  Shane Giraldi’s wife, Hannah, stands by a table full of meats, cheeses, and crackers, bounces her toddler on her hip. She looks thinner than the last time I saw her, and there are visible bags under her eyes, even from where I stand.

  I make my way over there, hoping she’ll let me take her younger daughter so she can have a break.

  “Hannah, how are you?” I smile kindly.

  Her eyes flit to the field, as if she’s anxious she’ll miss something. “Oh, Colleen, I’m good. Thanks.”

  She doesn’t ask how I am, but that’s okay. She seems to be lost in her own thoughts, and I coo at the little girl she’s rocking. With big blue eyes and dark black hair, she’s the spitting image of her mother. Somewhere in this room is the Giraldi’s other daughter, who I think must be about five now.

  “Can I take her for a minute? She’s just so cute, and I need my baby fix once in a while.” Make it about me so she doesn’t feel like this is a helping hand.

  Reluctantly, she hands the toddler over. “Thanks, she’s getting so heavy.”

  I tickle under the girl’s chin, and she giggles into the crook of my neck. “We don’t mind, do we?”

  As Hannah is pulling her arm back, her jean jacket rides up, and I see an ugly bruise on her wrist. It’s aging, that yellow and green kind, and about the size of a silver dollar. Her eyes latch onto it, and she sees me see it. My breath catches in my throat, because she snatches the material of her jacket down too quickly. It’s too hasty not to be suspect, and seeing a bruise that size on a woman … it means something.

  “Hannah, are you okay?” I try to stress the worry in my voice without actually asking the real question.

  I have no kind of training for this, other than trying to be a compassionate person for someone who is clearly going to spook easily. And here, I have her toddler on my hip, while I look at her mother’s skin turning purple as she hides it under her clothes.

  “I’m fine.” She shrugs nervously, smiling, but the expression is off, slanting too much to look genuine.

  Shane is a grade A asshole, everyone in the organization knows that. But he’s a hell of a third baseman and he works hard, so we all put up with his showboat attitude and sometimes questionable off the field antics. This, though … this is extremely serious.

  I remember when I was interning here my junior year of college, there was a video that came out of a player smacking his girlfriend around outside a night club. She ended up with a broken jaw, and the Pistons suspended him immediately. The case never went to trial, because she refused to press charges, but the league stepped in and did what it could. They suspended him for the rest of the season, and we dropped him. Ate his contract in our budget, and he’s never played professional baseball again.

  “If there is something going on—”

  Before I can even get the words out, Hannah’s eyes go angry, and she shuts me down with her expression alone. She snatches the little girl out of my arms.

  “Everything is fine, just some sleepless nights with this one. Now, I need to go watch Shane play.”

  And she walks off, avoiding me entirely. Now that I think about it, this is a drastic change from the Hannah I dealt with a couple of years ago. Some would even say we’d formed a loose friendship back then. She would show up to all the charity events, help immensely, and put in overtime to make all the new wives feel welcome. Hannah was a pillar of our Pistons community.

  Around the time she got pregnant with her second, I noticed her absence. She’d miss games, wouldn’t show up to food drives she’d signed up for, and one year, Shane showed up to the Christmas party at Dad’s mansion without her.

  In all of my own duties and scandal, I guess I let her escape the window of my concern.

  Unless she says something to me, or it gets so bad that something is caught on video, there really isn’t any action I can take. Which is downright horrible. That bruise isn’t normal, and neither is her anxious energy or the way she couldn’t stop twitching. I have no idea the pain or torment she’s going through, and the thought eats at me.

  Making a mental note to keep an eye on the situation, I walk toward the windows that allow us to look down on the field. My focus is on the game for the next hour or two, and the whole room erupts when Hayes hits a massive two-run homer to right field that nearly goes over the back wall.

  In the background, a familiar voice catches my ear. Everyone else’s attention is still on the game, the ninth inning being the culminating point of any game. What happens in the next twenty minutes will determine how their loved ones will walk off the field, what kind of mood they’re in, what soreness they might be bringing home.

  But I turn to the huge flat screen on one of the walls, because the voice beckons me. And that’s when I see it: my father’s face. He’s smack dab in the center of the screen, his hair grayer than I’ve ever seen it, a bright orange prison jumpsuit settling on his now-thinner frame.

  And his mouth is moving. The noise in the room is too loud for me to hear what he’s saying, but I can read the script accompanying whatever preview this channel is playing.

  An exclusive interview with former Packton Pistons’ general manager, Jimmy Callahan. May thirtieth at eight p.m. EST.

  My heart drops to my feet, my hands start to shake.

  Dad is giving his first interview. He’s going to talk. And I’m suddenly petrified about what he’s going to say.

  10

  Hayes

  We’re a month into the season when I’m forced to attend my first Pistons gala/booster/schmooze with the donors and high-paying season ticket holders event.

  I’ve, of course, been dragged to these by all the other clubs I’ve played for, but I’m still just as surly attending them twelve years into my career as I was on day one of being drafted.

  These events are long, they’re boring, I can barely breathe with the required tuxedo dress-code choking me around the neck, and as a player, I’m expected to keep my head about me. Which means a two drink maximum, mandated by Grade himself.

  And tonight is the worst version of these events, because us single players have been convinced, or blackmailed basically, into offering ourselves up as dates on an auction block.

  I pass the sign at the entrance to the ballroom, with its swirly gold script, that reads Pistons’ Bachelor Auction, Bid on a night with one of our eligible players! My eyes nearly roll to the back of my head, and I’m absolutely dreading old women or horny bat bunnies holding up their paddles later, thinking they’re paying money to do a whole lot more than go out to dinner with me.

  I’ll be polite, pay for a meal, make small talk. I do my duty, and open my checkbook both willingly and ready to give at these events. I know it’s a necessary evil, that these people help the club run, that this is how the system of professional baseball works. But it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

  “Dude, they got you in a monkey suit? I was damn sure you’d blow this thing off.” Clark, one of the team’s relievers, chuckles as I approach the cocktail table he’s standing at.

  His brown hair is gelled back, he’s in a blue three-piece with small white pinstripes, and I’m pretty sure he’s sipping on a very expensive scotch. A waiter passes, and I request the same drink. I know our manager said two, but I’m here and grumpy, so I don’t exactly think I’m following the drinking rules tonight.

  “I come because it would be even worse if the press got a hold of the fact that I didn’t make an appearance,” I grunt out.

  “Those fuckers have really been on you, huh? You don’t owe this team anything, and yet they’re painting you out to be our captain or some shit.” Clark smirks. “Hell, ma
ybe there will be some fine-looking women here tonight, make it a little easier to bear. You think I’ll get bid on by a bat bunny?”

  The tone of his voice makes me believe that he’d love that. Clark is known as a playboy in the major league circles, it’s no secret that he messed around with a lot of the girls who trailed the team hoping for attention.

  “I’m thinking it’s a good shot.” My drink arrives and I take a hearty gulp.

  “You better not rake in higher bids than me.” He scowls good-naturedly.

  “Well, well, well, you don’t clean up so bad, Swindell.” Walker joins us at the table, and he’s ever the picture of the Callahan golden boy.

  The all-American genes, with his wavy brown hair and strong jaw, the impeccable tux, the dimple in his cheek. This guy is probably going to revel being up on that bachelor stage.

  “Still hasn’t cut his hair, though. For all the grief he claims I’ve given him, I haven’t pushed that one.”

  Colleen moves out from behind Walker, and I’m struck momentarily speechless. The woman attracts any man’s stare in a five-mile radius on a normal day, but tonight? Lord, I’m basically sporting a semi with just one look at her.

  Her bombshell body, which she usually hides under those professional suits, is showcased in a shimmery black dress that falls to sweep the floor. It catches the light with each slight move of her body and is made of sequins or silk or something my male brain doesn’t quite know about. The thin straps reach up to tie high at her neck, and I can tell for a fact that she’s not wearing a bra. Two pert nipples wink at me, and my mouth waters as I try my fucking hardest not to lock my gaze on them.