Page 18 of First Love, Second Draft

His phone rang with a FaceTime call, and Noah welcomed the distraction. He shoved his earbuds back in place and tapped the screen. Smiled. “Keeping my dog alive?”

His neighbor’s son returned his greeting with a gap-toothed grin. “I don’t know. What do you think?” Sammy climbed onto Cory’s lap, his dark fur blocking the screen. Cory groaned and laughed. “Dude, your dog needs to go on a diet.”

He certainly would after his time with Cory. Noah knew the old adage about a dog being man’s best friend, and he would have loved to have brought Sammy with him, but he didn’t have the heart to separate Sammy and Cory for too long. Cory’s military dad had recently died overseas, and Cory had formed a strong attachment to Sammy from all the times he’d dog sat while Noah was on the road. “You’re not feeding him too many snacks, are you?”

“Hey, Noah,” Cory’s mom popped her face down long enough to wave. “Don’t think I didn’t tell Cory to stop spoiling him with all those treats.”

“Don’t even, Mom. I caught you sharing your popcorn with him last night after you thought I went to bed.” Cory shoved Sam’s rear end out of his face and peered at the screen. “She did. I saw her. And two nights ago she picked him up a doggy cone from The Moo Shack.”

“Stop sharing my secrets,” his mom scolded, hitting her son with a dish towel.

Noah cracked his back side to side, smiling. “He’s never going to want to come back to me.” He noticed neither of them argued againstthat. Another FaceTime call flashed on Noah’s screen. “Uh-oh. My agent’s calling.”

“Yeah, wanted to tell you he came by our house yesterday looking for you,” Cory’s mom said, crouching down again. “He rang the buzzer so long, I thought Sammy was going to bark himself silly.”

Noah had been a little afraid of that. Scotty Jones might be great at his job, but sometimes he had a hard time accepting the wordno. Probably why he was so great at his job. “All right, give Sammy a pat for me. I’ll check in later. Thanks again.”

Noah switched over to his agent’s call.

“I think I’ve got the answer,” Scotty said without any greeting. “Now, you’re not going to like it. In fact, you’re going to hate it. You’re not going to even want to consider it.”

“Sounds promising.”

“Hey, where are you? Your neighbors said you left town.” Scotty leaned closer to the screen. Noah could see the windows of his office behind him, as well as every one of his nose hairs. “Is that a scarecrow? Like aWizard of Ozscarecrow?”

Noah twisted and held his phone up to give his agent a better view of the fall decor one of the neighbors a few miles down the road had propped up near the mailbox. “And those orange things are called pumpkins.”

“I love it. This is the kind of stuff we need.”

Noah turned the phone back to his face. “For what?”

“Your memoir. We’ve got to strike now while the iron is blazing.”

Noah rolled his eyes and started walking back toward Gracie’s house. “I already told you. I’m not doing—”

“No, no, no. Hear me out. Eventually you’re going to like this. A buddy of mine in the publishing industry says memoirs are flying off the shelves right now. Especially memoirs about unsung heroes. Everyday people.”

“So?”

“So?Your pitching career is over, right? Dead? Buried? Decomposing? Pushing up daisies?”

“Have we gotten to the part I’m supposed to like yet?”

“Don’t you hear what I’m saying?”

“Unfortunately, every word.”

“We need to get your memoir out there ASAP while you’re a nobody, so we can remind everybody that you’re a somebody. We need to remind them of that game.”

Noah scraped his knuckles over his beard. He didn’t need to ask which game his agent referred to. There was only one game when it came to Noah’s baseball career. “Why does it matter?”

“Why?Because people love somebodies. They love heroes. They love legends. And you know what they do with those somebodies, heroes, and legends they love? They hire them to manage baseball teams.”

“Sure. At the minor league level. You know how hard I worked to get out of the minors? No way I’m going back to that life. Forget it.”

“No, no, no. Think about it. You’ve had a long run as a pitcher, longer than most. Yeah, as a whole, your career wasn’t all that amazing. Most people won’t remember it at all.”

Noah grunted. “You ever moonlight as a motivational speaker? You’re really inspiring.”

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