Warning Track (Callahan Family #1) - Carrie Aarons Page 0,2

second. I’ve walked its corridors, hid in all its crevices, watched its games deep into a cold autumn night. I’ve listened to players and coaches and management talk when they thought I was too little or too female to understand.

Home plate is the place I came and sat on the night of my college graduation, the whole place swathed in darkness, the open air swirling around my cap and gown.

Others might not see it yet, they may not believe it in the least, but I am going to restore this baseball franchise to its former glory.

And in the process, I’ll bring honor back to the Callahan name.

2

Hayes

This is not my team.

That’s the thought that keeps ramming into my brain like a freight train, each time I pump this barbell up and away from my chest. It’s the idea that fuels the fury raging through my veins during each workout, or frankly, anytime I step into this facility. My muscles burn against the acidic pain, and I heave out a breath, pushing through the frustration as my arms shake at the top of the rep.

In my ears, a Metallica song beats hard and heavy, distracting from at least a minuscule portion of the piss and vinegar I feel at all times now. The first game of my eleventh season as a professional baseball player is just three days away, and even if I fucking hate my current setting, it doesn’t mean I’m not going to kick some ass on that field.

But how I wished I was in Los Angeles right now.

Here I was instead, in the dim, cold spring of Pennsylvania. This time last year, I’d been sitting on the private beachfront balcony of my Malibu residence, gearing up for opening day in Los Angeles. Jimmy Callahan had not only illegally facilitated my trade, but he’d brought me to a town that I fucking loathed because of it.

Packton, Pennsylvania was nothing like the vibrant, sunny city I’d lived in for the past ten years. This place was essentially a small town with a major league baseball stadium smack in the middle of it. There were a few other national businesses here, financial firms, and one decently recognizable home construction company had its headquarters here, but other than the two or three measly high-rises Packton boasted, this was as small a town as I’d ever lived in.

The high school had a homecoming parade, complete with floats down Central Street before their first October football game. I know, because I got stuck behind the traffic of it one night trying to get home after a late practice. Each and every person who worked in a storefront on the main drag tried to learn your name from the first time you entered their business. I couldn’t get a damn coffee without Joe, the owner of Buzz Coffee & Tea, asking me how my day was going. For someone who craved anonymity, it was my worst nightmare.

The weight rack slams as I drop the bar back down onto it, sitting up as my head spins. I was down there for too long, with too much weight compressing me. I should lay off, considering it’s a game week and rough training sessions are frowned upon, but I need to work this anger out.

Sweat rolls off me as I stand, going to the counter in the weight room to retrieve my gallon jug of Gatorade. As I chug, I feel that my black tank and gym shorts are almost soaked through. How the hell long have I been in here?

A glance at the clock tells me that it’s been almost two hours, and it’s no wonder that I’m dizzy. I need to get some food, get some rest, and try to put my mind at ease. As it is, I’ll be tense as fuck when I step out onto the field on opening day. There will no doubt be fans protesting, and those sports nuts who hate the Pistons’ organization on principal now. They showed up at spring training to harass the team daily. We even need to have extra security details follow us around after one of the players was splashed with some kind of vinegar cocktail at a press junket.

Clicking my music off and throwing my stuff into my gym bag, I decide to call it a day. No one came in to train today, I’m pretty sure most of my teammates are afraid to come into the stadium facilities to practice. It means passing