Page 2 of Off the Trail

“Why are you here? You should be in bed,” I say.

“I’ll sleep on the plane.” He smiles at me. “Glad to see you’re still in one piece.”

“How’s the car?” I ask, sparing a thought for my sleek silver Lamborghini.

“Hopefully totaled,” Callie puts in. She never liked that car. I think she once called it “conspicuous consumption on steroids.”

“Damn.” I chew on more ice chips, not sure what else to talk about now they can see I’m fine. What else is there to say?

Callie and Jett exchange a look, then Callie nods and Jett opens his mouth to speak. I feel like a little kid whose parents have been talking about him behind his back.

“So here’s the thing, brother,” Jett says. “You didn’t just lose control of the Lambo and bump into a telephone pole. You did it in front of a crowd gathered for some fall equinox festival. There’s video of it all over the internet. My cousin saw it and sent it to me asking if you were dead. Scared me to death. You nearly hit some pedestrians. There’s footage of them jumping out of the way. And if you’d been drinking, you’d probably face charges.”

My stomach turns at the idea of hurting someone, even unintentionally. My already dry mouth gets drier. Thank god it was only me who was injured. It could have been so much worse. “I wasn’t drinking.” That much I do know. I rarely drink more than a beer or two, and I didn’t have even that last night.

“Then how the hell did you lose control of your car?”

I close my eyes again. “I had a session with Dr. Russell.” My therapist—the one Callie made me start seeing after I got cut from the team. We met at his office, and afterward I should have gotten some dinner, but I wasn’t hungry. “Then I went for a drive.” I bombed around on some back roads, headed back to the city late.

“Maybe there was something in the street. Maybe I had to brake hard.” I vaguely remember turning onto Asylum Avenue, a few blocks from my apartment. I’d been thinking I should just turn around and drive until dawn because I had nothing to go back for. No job. No one to care if I even came back at all.

I swallow against the lump of self-pity in my throat.

“Yeah, maybe,” Jett says. “Anyway, brother, you’re not exactly in good shape publicity-wise at the moment.”

“What does that mean?”

“We think it would be a good idea for you to get out of town for a while,” Callie says.

“Get out of town?” She’s acting like I’m a criminal with the heat on my tail.

“There’s this place up in Maine. Josh Morse told me about it.”

“Josh?—oh right, the PR guy.” I remember him from the initial fallout over my being released from my contract. Good guy, for someone who works in public relations.

“His aunt owns a retreat there. As soon as the doc clears you, you’ll go stay for a while,” Callie says. “It’s nice. Out of the way, quiet, next to a lake. Just what you need.”

“Why does it sound like you’re sending me to my room without supper?” I can’t help the sarcasm.

“Because you’re acting like a kid. And I very much on purpose chose to remain childless, so I don’t like this any more than you do,” Callie snaps back.

“Look, bro,” Jett adds, arms crossed in a stance I know from five hundred ball games. “A change of scene will be good for you. Think about things. Think about the future.”

“Now that I’m unemployed?” The bitterness of my words coats my tongue.

The silence that follows is heavy. Until last night, I hadn’t entirely given up the idea that I could get back to pro ball, maybe not with the Laurels, but another team might take me. I’m only thirty-five. I have a lifetime .290 batting average. Maybe I’m not an all-star player, but I’m solid. Dependable.

Or at least I was, before I tore my UCL last spring. I had Tommy John surgery, but my throwing arm has never been the same. With some different guys in the head office this year, it was apparently a surprise to no one but me when I was released from my contract midseason.

It’s been a long, confusing couple of months since then. It took a while for what was happening to sink in. Every time my phone rang, I thought it was Callie calling to tell me they’d made a mistake, or another team wanted me.

Dr. Russell finally got me to admit the obvious in our session last night. I’m never playing baseball professionally again. I’m not wanted anywhere. Callie doesn’t even want me in the state.

She glances at Jett, then at the door. “Jett, you aren’t my client, but if you were, I’d tell you to go home and get some sleep.”

“Sure thing,” Jett says, before clapping me lightly on the shoulder. “Take care, brother. Don’t do anything stupid up there in the woods.”

Callie doesn’t say anything after he leaves, just looks at me until I bark out, “What?”