Page 46 of Crew
His brows shot up. “He wants you to be the skipper of the new expansion team?”
I nodded, still trying to process it. “Yeah.”
He stared at me, stunned. “Holy crap.”
“I know.”
The girls came back into the kitchen completely unaware their dad had just been offered a shot at running a major league team.
I looked back at Drew. “We need to talk.”
18
Chase
Gageand I sat together on our deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was our favorite way to relax after a long day at work or whatever else we had going on.
“Should I grill tomorrow night?” my husband asked, taking a long sip from his beer.
“You know the kids will be starving when they get here and will eat whatever you put in front of them.” I chuckled.
Our “kids” weren’t kids anymore. Tyler was married and lived in Boston with his husband, Hayden. Jase and Dylan were about to start their third year at UCLA, and Cammie was thinking about colleges and would be leaving us the following fall. But no matter how old they got, I assumed we’d always refer to them as the kids.
“True. It’s going to be nice having all of them home for a night. I can’t remember the last time that happened.”
Tyler and Hayden visited the West Coast occasionally due to their jobs atThe Hub,a media corporation Hayden’s family owned. Tyler worked in their entertainment department, while Hayden was a sportsphotographer who happened to be in town to cover the Padres and Red Sox series.
Since they were visiting, Jase and Dylan decided to drive down from LA. Even though it was summer, the two of them lived in an apartment near campus year-round.
“Ahh. Look at you being sentimental.” I nudged him with my knee.
He rolled his eyes. “Like you don’t miss the boys as much as I do.”
It was true. When I retired from baseball a decade ago, the thing I looked forward to the most was spending more time with Jase and Cammie. Not long after, I got together with Gage and we blended our families. Watching them grow into young adults had been the happiest time in my life, but it also passed in a blur.
“Yeah, yeah,” I teased, but my phone buzzing on the small table in front of us stopped me from saying anything else.
My agent’s name flashed on the screen. “This might be about my contract negotiation.”
I’d been working forPadres Liveas a sports analyst, and my contract was expiring at the end of the current season. I was hopeful they wanted to keep me on.
I swiped the screen to answer and put the phone to my ear. “Hey, Toby. How’s it going?”
“Pretty good, man. I’ve got some news for you.”
I leaned back in my seat. “Did the network send over an offer?”
“Actually, I just got off a call with Anthony Lanning, the GM for the Portland Seawolves,” he explained. “They’ve hired Aron Parker as their manager, and your name was mentioned when they began discussing who to hire as the bench coach.”
“Are you serious?” I sat up straighter. The MLB adding two new teams to the league had created a lot of buzz, and I’d been keeping up on the news, but hearing that my name had come up in discussions was surprising.
“Sure am.”
I let out a sharp breath. “Wow. I don’t even know what to say.”
“They’ll want to conduct an interview, but the front office assured me they want you on theirstaff.”
Besides coaching our sons’ travel ball team when they were younger, I didn’t have any experience with the job, but the possibility of working in the MLB again had crossed my mind over the years. I’d always assumed I would have to make the first move instead of a team reaching out to me if it was something I wanted to pursue. And to coach with a former teammate who I considered to be a close friend felt almost too good to be true.
