Page 80 of The Trouble with Players

“Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes moving between me in the passenger seat and the road.

“No.”

“You’ve got this,” she assured me.

“Right.”

“You’ll watch the game, and when it’s over, you’ll get answers.”

“I don’t know how I’m gonna be able to sit through the whole game knowing he doesn’t want to see me,” I admitted.

“You’ll do it because you know when it’s over, this whole thing will make sense.”

“And what if it doesn’t?” I asked.

“Then, we figure it out together,” she said as she pulled into the parking lot.

My heartbeat began to wallop in my chest as Gina parked her car and we got out.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Nope.”

We took our usual spot amongst the host families. Many of the Sharks were out on the field stretching or playing catch, but I couldn’t see Crew. I didn’t want it to look like I was searching for him, so I sat in my chair and pretended to look at my phone while I kept the field in my peripheral vision.

“Can you see him?” I asked Gina.

“No,” she said, blatantly staring out at the field.

“Don’t be so obvious,” I urged.

“Well, if I can’t see him, that means he can’t see me.”

“Maybe he’s not here,” I said, glancing up at the field.

She was right. He wasn’t out there with the rest of the team.

After the national anthem, the Sharks ran out to their positions. My heartbeat tripped over itself when Crew ran out to short stop. His ball cap was pulled down low like it usually was, and if he was looking at the fans, no one would’ve been able to tell.

While the pitcher threw warmup pitches, the Sharks first baseman warmed up the infielders. When he threw a grounder to Crew, Crew threw it back to him and then dragged his cleats back and forth over the dirt beneath him, something I’d never seen him do before.

The Whalers’ first batter stepped into the batter’s box. But my eyes were on Crew. He looked fine. He didn’t look like someone who needed to miss one of the most important games of his life. The Sharks pitcher wound up and threw his first pitch. The Whalers’ batter swung and hit a line drive to short. Crew stuck out his glove to catch it, but it hit off the palm of his glove and bounced into centerfield. The centerfielder picked it up and tossed it in to second.

Crew punched his fist into his glove.

“Shake it off, Burke,” a coach called from the dugout.

Crew didn’t look up at him.

The next batter hit a home run over the fence. The fans around me groaned.

Crew dropped to his haunches as the batters made their way around the bases. Instead of one run scoring, two scored because of his error.

The Sharks escaped the inning only giving up those two runs. When they ran off the field toward the dugout, I kept my eyes on Crew. He never lifted his eyes.

Cody led off in the bottom of the first inning with a double. DePetrillo followed him, hitting a single to right field, moving Cody over. Crew was announced next. A lump crept up the back of my throat and lodged itself there as he stepped up to the plate. The crowd grew quiet as the Whalers’ pitcher wound up and delivered a nasty slider. Crew swung and missed.

“What’s up with him tonight?” a guy seated somewhere behind me asked.

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