Page 62 of The Fall Classic

“Yeah. But I’d rather keep talking to you.”

“You already know I’m rooting for you,” she says, pointing to the hat on her head, which looks way too good above all that warm golden hair. “Go get ’em, 49.”

“What number barista are you? You need a number.”

She wrinkles her nose, laughing. “Baristas don’t really have numbers.”

“All right, then a letter. You got this, G. This is our day.”

“Yeah it is. Sideways heart, 49.”

“Sideways ice cream cone, G.”

We both smile.

Then I press the button before she can, because I don’t want to watch her hang up on me.

I drop my head to the table and stay there for a moment. I’ve been in this hotel room all week. I go home tomorrow.

Not nearly soon enough.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Logan

Sunday’s game feels different from Tuesday’s.

Tuesday I was pitching toward something—away from the spiral toward Georgie.

Today, I feel like I’m pitching from the inside out.

Lucas always says to turn your brain off and just be the ball, and this is the first time in my life I’ve known what he was talking about. I’m not thinking about Georgie or my family or any therapeutic techniques. I’m simply feeling the laces under my fingertips, hefting the weight of the ball, and releasing from my fingertips as cleanly as I exhale.

It’s as calm as I’ve ever been on the mound.

When Fletch takes me out in the middle of the sixth, Rojas picks me up when I pass him, pounding my back and shouting, “My man!” He slaps my butt as we walk into the dugout together. “That was it,” Rojas says. “This is it!”

Two weeks ago, that thought would have had me spiraling.

Not anymore.

I nod and sit with him, reveling in the feeling of six innings, one run, and eleven strikeouts. I wasn’t counting, but Rojas was.

I wasn’t counting.

That’s new.

***

Doug finds me before I’ve finished changing.

Doug—the GM of the Firebirds—is here in the locker room. He was here at the game. He’s in his typical team-branded pullover and khakis, but the former player looks like he could suit up and show us all he’s still got it.

“Fischer,” he says.

“Which one?” I ask with a self-deprecating laugh.

“Your sister’s in Chicago with the staff, and your brother had better still be in Miami in the ice bath after that start. I need his arm steady in October.”