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It is special. But it’s also been an exhausting grind, and now I’m feeling that, as much as it is wrapped up in an unbelievable joy.
Even as I give more interviews and accept congratulations, I’m watching the team staff coming and going from the dugout. I know the routine from pennant wins, but this is still fucking surreal and overwhelming.
Even though I did all the work to visualize exactly what I managed to do, I never actually thought it would happen. I’d made my peace with the fact I was going to retire this fall.
I’ve felt an itch all season, like it’s time—time for what, I’m not sure. But time for a change, time for my body to rest. Time to start living for something other than baseball, because as long as I played, I couldn’t. That’s not how I’m built. Baseball is all consuming.
And it takes a lot for me to keep my head in the game.
I’m not a people person. I’m a growly, grunting bad interview, and for most of my career, I’ve been given a wide berth.
Not tonight.
So I do what I need to do, and keep myself in the moment of joy with my teammates.
When I’m finally herded down the steps and into the concrete tunnel that leads to the visitors’ clubhouse, the tightness in my chest eases. I love this part the most. The boisterous roughhousing, the shared experience—it’s different than strangers shoving cameras in my face. This is the good kind of chaos that has driven me for years.
And it’s the last time I’ll ever experience it like this.
At each bend in the tunnel, there’s an elderly security guard keeping careful watch—on us, or for us, I’m never sure.
It’s a decent walk to where visitors prep and dress for the game in this stadium, and tonight the tunnel and staircases are littered with accredited media and other people with access passes.
There’s a lot of high-fives and grinning faces, all a blur, until the final turn. There, tucked into a dark alcove where some equipment is piled, is a small woman wearing a pink baseball hat pulled low over her face, a matching tank top stretched tight over round, perfect breasts, and a short jean skirt that cups her hips and shows off far too fucking much of her legs before they disappear into familiar, scuffed-up cowboy boots I’d like to see kicked over my shoulders.
At first I think I’ve conjured her straight from my imagination.
The noise in the hallway fades into the distance as Sinclaire lifts her head, the brim of her hat revealing her face for a fleeting second. And it’s really her.
My perfect Sin.
She’s here.
Between us, the team starts to shove each other. Someone shouts something about champagne. I stop in my tracks, and her eyes go wide.
“Hey,” I say to nobody in particular, but also everyone. They’re going to surge into her if they aren’t careful. “Hey!”
I shove my way forward, getting to her just as a bottle of champagne sails through the air toward us.
I snap my hand up, catching it just a few inches above her head.
Everyone turns and looks at us. At me, I guess, since she’s slipped deeper into the shadows of the alcove behind me.
I plant one big hand on the cork and the other at the base of the bottle, and twist, releasing the pressure in the bottle with a nice pop. Then I raise the bottle in the air. “We fucking did it,” I growl, and the whole team roars.
That’s all I’ll say. It’s all they expect of me.
I tip some of the champagne into my mouth, then pass the bottle on.
The team surges ahead once again, spilling into the clubhouse, where they’ll shove champagne bottles into every pocket they have, armed for a free-for-all once Rosehill says a few congratulatory words.
Me, though… I turn around, putting my back to the clubhouse entrance and giving my full attention to the grown-up little girl retreating into the shadows.
My big body completely blocks where Sin is hiding in the dim recesses, and she gives me a little, nervous wave that undoes all of my horny fantasizing.
I’m a forty-two-year-old man whose career just ended.
I’m not the guy for her.
