Page 95 of The Shake Off

As I handed it back, she reached into her cleavage, retrieved a folded piece of paper and put it in my open palm before I could stop her.

“Um, thanks.”

I didn’t get the opportunity to move onto the next ball/t-shirt/poster to sign because Max Flay, the Lions coordinator who was more foghorn than human, decided to make his presence known.

“E’rybody on the bus. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s goooo!”

“Jeez, Max.”

I pressed down on my ear in an attempt to stop the ringing, and turned back to the line of Lions fans waiting outside the Cardinals Stadium. The excitement and screaming kicked up as they all desperately tried to get the signatures from the players they wanted before we all disappeared. Everyone’s names were being shouted all at the same time and it was hard to decipher who was saying what, though I could definitely hear mine cutting through.

Ace! Ace! Ace!

We’d just finished a three-game series; lost the first, but won the second and third, so we were leaving on a high, and the fans were feeling it too. Therefore, we’d been taking our time to meet everyone who’d traveled to watch us; Boomer Jones was still signing merch, Stone Fields was taking selfies with a couple of kids, but looking around, I couldn’t see any of my boys.

“What’re you doing?”

I turned as a heavy arm fell over my shoulder, to find Tanner grinning at me. “Looking for you. Where are the others?”

“Coming. Parker had to run back to the locker room.”

“Why?”

“Dunno,” he shrugged, which I should have expected. Tanner wasn’t big on detail.

“Move your asses!” came Max’s voice again, and another surge of fans pressed into the barriers separating us from them.

“We’re moving, calm down,” Tanner grumbled as we joined the line of our teammates making our way to one of the Lions’ buses heading for the airport.

I chuckled. “Dude, don’t let Max hear you telling him to calm down.”

“Wearemoving. I’m going as fast as I can,” Tanner replied. “See? We’re here now.”

I stepped up into the bus, hiding my grin from both him and Max, as Max checked us off on the iPad, and I followed Tanner along the aisle to the first available seats. This wasn’t like being on the school bus where the back row was exclusively for the cool kids; on the Lions’ bus, you took the first seat you saw behind the coaches and rested. Therefore, first on the bus, first to sit down.

The same rules applied for the plane. Once we were past the executive seats where Penn Shepherd, any board members and exec team stopped, and past the coach’s seats and the PT beds, it was a free-for-all. Except on the plane, the boys and I had taken to sitting further down the end where it was quieter and more private, which meant we could discuss our reading materials without the worry of being overheard.

Lux had hooked up with a girl last night and made a very spectacular catch off a ball which should have resulted in a hit, but somehow, he’d chased it down and managed to snatch it up. It wasn’t the first time this series either. He’d spent so much time scaling the walls to snag a flying ball he could probably take on El Capitan without training.

“Tan!” I called him to a spare set of seats he’d walked straight past, which he clearly hadn’t seen as his focus was on his phone screen. “Sit here.”

I shook off my backpack and scooted over to the window seat, my head falling back against the rest. I should be tired tonight, we were heading off to Toronto for our final away series of this stretch, and Ishouldbe closing my eyes, but instead I was buzzing. This series had gotten better and better.

I’d made all my starts since we’d left New York a week ago, and gone deep into the game. I’d had a bunch of 1-2-3 innings, caught four balls straight off the bat, and we’d moved up the standings. This morning as I was walking out of the hotel, I’d spotted the Wall Street Journal sports pages on one of the end tables in the lobby and swiped it.

‘The Miraculous Comeback of Ace Watson’the headline had read.

I knew the journalist.

Two months ago, he’d called me‘an overpaid pretty boy, only capable of throwing a tantrum’and suggested I get some of those blow-up training things that kids use down the side of bowling lanes to help my aim.

I’d been about to punch the wall, but Parker had pulled me back telling me I’d only prove him right. That afternoon was the day Payton had come to the Lions parking lot.

This article, though, had been different. A full-page write-up starting with an admission of being too quick with his initial judgement, and went on to cover every pitch I’d made since Opening Day up to yesterday’s game. But what had really caught my eye was the final sentence.

‘Ace Watson appears to be unstoppable. If he continues at the rate he’s been pitching, we will see a perfect game this season from the youngest player to have ever pitched one in the major leagues, and I want it to happen.’

I’d ripped out that final sentence, and put it in my pocket.

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