Page 34 of For The Ring

I manage to inch past her and she lets the hotel room door shut behind me before wheeling around, hands on her hips, clearly even more pissed at my evasion.

“Save it.” She follows me deeper into the room, nearly bumping her chest against mine as she pushes up onto her toes to make sure she’s looking me dead in the eye as she says, “Ialready got a text from Dan Wilson. You negotiated a deal with Ethan Quicke and you didn’t think I needed to be there when you did?”

“Stew told me to help you. I’m helping. I got him at the number you wanted and no no-trade clause.”

“I didn’t want him.”

“What?”

“I. Didn’t. Want. Him. I wanted him tothinkwe wanted him. I wanted him to turn us down and then I wanted to leak to the press that he turned down a fantastic offer. It would send a sign to Nakamura that we have the money, we need to sign himandthat we’re committed to winning. Ethan Quicke is an asshole prima donna whose best years are behind him. We’d get one,maybetwo more good years out of him before that contract will be an absolute bust.”

“What? Then why the hell didn’t you tell me that?”

“Because it’s not your job. It’s mine. You were here to do one thing and one thing only: make everyone believe that we pushed as hard we could to get Quicke, but thathewas being unreasonable. Heisbeing unreasonable. Or at least he was. How did you get him to agree?”

“I gave him an extra year without the vesting option. LowerAAV.”

“You gave him an extra year. He’ll be nearlyfortyat the end of the contract. He doesn’t need a no-trade clause, because no one is going to want him. This is a nightmare. I’m in a nightmare.”

“If you had just told me what you were doing this wouldn’t be a problem. Jesus, why don’t you trust me?”

“Why the hell would I trust you? The only thing you’ve ever done is fight me. Every game analysis. Every scouting report. Every damn day back inLA, it’s all you ever did.”

“It’s because I respect you.”

That stops her.

“You fought with me because yourespectme?”

“I don’t know if you realize this, Sullivan, but despite fighting you every damn day, I pretty much followed your gameplans to the letter.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Unless game conditions changed, which even you have to admit happens once in a while. It’s why we play them and don’t just let the computer run simulations every day. I fought you because I needed to make sure the person giving us those plans, the person doing the analysis, really believed in them.”

“Are you saying you made me literally want to tear my hair out every day we worked together because of some sort of test?”

“No, yes . . . not, not a test. I’ve been in baseball long enough to have worked with enough guys who think they know their shit, but didn’t. The only thing I ever cared about was winning and I had to be sure that I was doing everything possible to make that happen. Lot of good it did me.”

Something flickers in her eyes, an understanding even if that fury is still there. It’s in the rapid rise and fall of her chest that isbarelybeing contained by that tank top and I lift my gaze up and away from it as quickly as I can, but probably too late for her not to have noticed.

“Listen, I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t respect you, but you gotta know that, if I didn’t respect you, I wouldn’t have talked to you at all. That’s why they hired you, you know, because the guy before you was actually a hack and I told them I wouldn’t work with him anymore.”

“Then they hired me.”

“They did.”

“And how much say did you have in that?”

“None. They told me that they were going to promote the best analyst they had in the minors and, if I had a problem with thatone . . . how did they put it,an aging catcher with a bad kneedoesn’t dictate how the organization runs.”

Most of her ire seems to slip away at that.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, but they were right, you know.”

“You played for five years after that and your last year was actually the best of them. You had another year or two left in you.”

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