Page 96 of Houston, We Have a Problem
I clap a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for getting me here, Alan. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
He grunts, and his eyes find Darcy across the room, where she’s talking to Fujimura. “It’s because of her, isn’t it? She forced you into this.”
When I told Roundy that I would only talk to Tamlin Park, he immediately asked if she was blackmailing me. I didn’t tell him much, so I can see why he still thinks she’s the reason I finally made my decision. He’s not wrong.
“Yes and no,” I admit. “This choice is the one I need to make, for myself and for the team. But she helped me be at peace with it. She gave me a reason to look forward to the future.”
Darcy turns right then and meets my gaze, and her whole face lights up with a smile that I can’t help but match.
Roundy clears his throat. “Does that reason happen to live in St. Louis?”
There’s really no point in denying that one, even if I’m not positive what this future with Darcy is going to look like. It all depends on whether she gets that promotion, which depends on how this story plays out tonight. My retirement is a big deal, but anyone could tell my story. I’m curious to see how Darcy puts her own spin on it to prove that she’s the right person for the inspirational side of Enhance.
“Maybe,” I say.
Then Roundy surprises me. “I’m happy for you,” he says and then takes a seat, his phone in his hand.
Darcy appears just a moment later. “You ready?”
Probably not, but I nod anyway. Delaying this will only make me more nervous, and I want the country to know that I’m making the best decision for myself. That means I need to have confidence.
We get wired up with mics, and Darcy takes a second to test sound levels with the Enhance cameraman they flew in from St. Louis. Everyone takes their seats, and suddenly it’s time for me to admit that I’m broken and jobless.
Darcy reaches over and gives my hand a squeeze. “You’ve got this,” she says gently. “Just be yourself, and I’ll be right here the whole time.”
I know it’s stupid, but I still ask. “Promise?”
She grins, but then she turns to the camera and flips that switch that I’ve seen so many times. Suddenly she’s Tamlin Park, the most intimidating sports journalist I’ve ever spoken to. “Hello, and welcome to the Salverditos Stadium in Sun City, New Mexico. I’m Tamlin Park with Enhance Media, and I’m sitting here with Houston Briggs, top starting pitcher for the SunCity Red-tails. I’ve got some big news for the world of baseball, so you’re going to want to stick around. How are you feeling tonight, Houston?”
“Like I might puke,” I say without meaning to.
The guys in the audience chuckle, and Darcy gives me a smirk that weirdly settles my nerves a bit. A few weeks ago, that saucy smile would have sent me running. Now that I know her, and what motivates her, there’s nothing she could do that would scare me.
“Well,” she says, “that could make this interview interesting. That’s one way to go viral! How about we start with this last season? How do you feel about how the Red-tails played on their journey to the World Series?”
Darcy is seriously good at her job. We talk about the highs and lows of the season, revisiting some of my best moments as well as my worst, and she manages to praise most of the rest of the team in subtle ways as we talk, calling many out by name without taking the focus away from my own career.
Then she pulls up a video on a tablet, holding it up so both the camera and I can see what’s on it. “Let’s talk about this moment in your first game against the Angels last August.”
My heart skips a beat when she hits play. I know exactly which game this is, and while it wasn’t the first time I wondered if I might have an injury, it was the first time I thought I’d done some serious damage. It was near the end of the game, and I watch as I throw a pitch that flies off course.
The video pauses right before the camera cuts to the batter, and my pain is clear as day in my face. At the time, it felt like my arm tried to detach from the rest of me, and it was one of the few times I thought about letting a relief pitcher take over the rest of the game.
“What happened here?” Darcy asks gently.
My hand shifts to my shoulder, which aches from the memory of that pitch. “I tore my supraspinatus tendon,” I mutter.
The team breaks into a buzz of murmured conversations behind the cameras.
With a sympathetic grimace, Darcy hits play again, and the video goes through a quick montage of the rest of my pitches throughout that game. “You kept playing.”
“I couldn’t let my team down,” I say. But I’m also stubborn and stupid, two things I keep to myself.
“But the rest of the season?” Darcy frowns. “You played every inning of your games this year without fail, but with an injury like that, I can’t imagine your arm got much of a chance to heal.”
“No,” I admit, and I can’t decide if this makes me sound like a hero or an idiot. “Like I said, the guys were counting on me, and I’m not one to back down from a promise.”
“There have been rumors that you’ve been placed on temporary rest and haven’t been pitching during practices since the season ended,” Darcy says, and I know she’s gearing up for me to make my big announcement. “Do you think you’ll have enough recovery time to be ready for spring training?”
