Hot Ticket (3 page)

“An understanding?” she asked, and slid her hands in between her knees, leaning forward, piercing him with her green eyes, and filling his nostrils with a very arousing scent. “What sort of understanding?”

“Well . . .” He cleared his throat and glanced at Frank. “The thing is, Kelly, I think that maybe . . . I don’t know, but maybe . . . ah . . .”

Frank nudged him with his shoe. Parker rubbed his chin a moment. He never thought he’d be whining to a woman about his superstitions, but here he went. He looked up and smiled a little sheepishly. “I suspect that your show may be having an effect on my playing.”

“Oh
no
,” she said, frowning with concern. “
My
show? What do you mean?”

“Most people don’t understand. It’s hard to explain, but ballplayers are notoriously superstitious, and I confess, I’m one of them,” he said, raising his hand with a lopsided smile.

“Ooh,” Kelly said.

“And it seems that some of the things said on your show—and I’m not saying
you,
you know. You’re
great
—” he quickly clarified—“but some of your callers, the negative things they say stick in my head, and then I go to the game, and I’ve got that negative noise going around in my head,” he said, fluttering his fingers at his head. “You know, like people saying I suck, and I’m the worst ballplayer they’ve ever seen, that sort of thing—and then I can’t seem to play. It’s a psychological thing.”

“Oh!”
She blinked wide green eyes at him. “A
psychological
thing. I’m really sorry to hear that, Parker. I had no idea you were having psychological problems.”

“No, no,” he said with a laugh just as Frank blustered a hearty,
“No, no!”

“Not
psychological
problems,” Parker corrected her gently as he put a hand out to stop Frank from talking. “I just mean that negative feedback affects my head in the game. Do you see what I am saying?”

“Yes,” she said, and leaned over, put a slender hand on his shoulder, and smiled so warmly he felt a little warm himself. “I understand. And I’m really sorry you are struggling.”

“Thanks. Of course, there was no way you could have known. It’s just a baseball player’s thing. We’re a pretty superstitious lot.”

“Ah,” she said, removed her hand, and stuffed it back between her knees.

“So I was thinking maybe we could talk about some of the great games the Mets have played this year,” he suggested. “We made some great plays against the Philadelphia Phillies. And we smoked the Florida Marlins early in the season.”

“Right, and the Atlanta Braves,” she said, nodding.

Well, no,
not
the Atlanta Braves. That was the series that had started his slump. “Yeah, well . . . I was thinking of some of our better series.”

“Right,” she said. “I understand. You would rather I focus on the positive.”

But there was something in the glimmer of her eyes that gave Parker pause. “If you don’t mind,” he said, feeling suddenly less confident.

“May I ask a few questions?” she asked, and picked up a pad of paper and pencil from the desk and made a note. “Is there anything about you personally our listeners would find interesting?”

“Ah . . . I don’t know of anything.”

“He’s an avid fisherman,” Frank interjected, which was a huge lie.

“No, I’m—”

“And he does a lot of charity work with underprivileged kids.”

That much was true, but he hated that Frank made it sound like a gimmick. Not that Kelly O’Shay seemed to notice. She was jotting down something. “Anything else?”

“He loves to read,” Frank blathered. “What’s the last book you read, Park?”

Kelly glanced up to hear his answer.

“Jesus, Frank, I am not a big reader. I read the
History of Sports in America
, and that took me a year,” he said with a laugh.

Kelly laughed, too, a melodious, sweet laugh. She glanced at the clock above their heads and said, “Oh no, look at the time. I’m on the air in ten.” She flashed another winsome smile. “Come on, I’ll show you where you can wait for your segment and hear the show. Rick, my producer, will come and get you when it’s time.” She popped up off the desk. “You can bring your drinks,” she said and walked out of the room.

They quickly picked up their drinks and followed her.

The first hour of
Sports Day with Kelly O’Shay,
which Parker listened to in a room nearby, had lots of sound effects and raucous laughter from Guido. Kelly covered tennis (the latest female teen phenom had been seen in England making out with her high-dollar trainer), women’s soccer (amazing what flashing a sports bra could do for a women’s sport), and bowling. No kidding.
Bowling
. Accompanied, of course, by the sound of pins falling.

At the top of the second hour, Kelly announced she had a very special guest. As she said it, a small, young man opened the door of the room and beckoned Parker to follow him.

“Remember to show her what you’re working with,” Frank said with a wink. Parker rolled his eyes and walked out.

He stepped into the tiny studio booth. Kelly was standing behind a stool, her arms folded. Guido, her sidekick, was seated, lounging back in his chair, feet up, tossing a Nerf ball in the air over and over.

“I wouldn’t kid you, Guido,” Kelly said and winked at Parker as
he tried to fit headphones on his head. “This is the best guest we’ve ever had on this show.” She gestured for Parker to sit on a stool in front of a mike. “This one is going to blow everyone’s socks off.”

“So who is it?” Guido asked. “Shaquille O’Neal?”

Kelly snorted. “Not
that
good.”

“You’re killing me here!” Guido exclaimed. “Who is it?”

“I’ll tell you . . . right after these messages,” she said and punched a button and leaned back in her chair. “Parker, this is Guido D’Angelo.”

Parker nodded across the control panel.

“Man, you got some
cojones
,” Guido said with a grin as Kelly walked around the control panel to adjust his headphones, standing so close that her breasts were staring him in the eye.

“Oh now, Guido, don’t tease him,” she said, leaning back to look at him. “You don’t want to scare him out of here.”

Parker snorted. “He can’t scare me out of here.”

“Oh, that’s good. I thought maybe you were . . . you know . . . a little sensitive.”

Somewhere, deep down in the center of him, Commonsense Parker kicked Ego Parker and woke him up. Kelly smiled—she really did have a gorgeous smile—and Ego Parker squashed Commonsense Parker like a bug under his boot. “Nah,” he said, smiling back. “I’m not sensitive at all. It’s the nature of the game. I understand that.”

“Great!” Kelly said, her eyes glittering. “I’ll remind you of that later,” she added with a laugh.

“Okay, kids, back in five,” the producer said somewhere in radio space.

A moment later, Kelly said, “Welcome back to
Sports Day with Kelly O’Shay.
I’m Kelly, and this”—she waited for the foghorn sound—“is Guido D’Angelo. How you doing, Guido?”

“I couldn’t be better, Kelly. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and it’s a great day here at the studio,” Guido said and grinned wolfishly.

“Guido, I was telling you we had a very special guest this morning, and I am
very
pleased to introduce Parker Price of the New York Mets. Hello and welcome to our show, Parker!”

“Thanks, Kelly. It’s great to be here.”

“So, Parker, you have had an
amazing
career in baseball over the last several years. You played ball at the University of Texas, were named MVP two years in a row and then you went on to play for the Houston Astros as a short stop.”

“Yep. I played there for ten years.”

“Right. And you were named to the All Stars four years in a row—”

“Well,” he said with a chuckle, “it was actually five.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.
Five
.” She smiled at him. “Very impressive. And then last year, the New York Mets brought you to town for an unprecedented one hundred and ten million dollars.” She looked up. The glitter in her eyes was almost blinding. “Plus bonuses.”

“Right,” he said, feeling a little uncomfortable. He didn’t like to talk about what the Mets were paying him, yet he’d never met anyone in the sports business who could go a minute without mentioning it.

“The Mets were lucky to get you,” Kelly added.

“Thank you.”

“I saw you play during the Florida Marlin series early in the season, and dude, your bat was
hot.
So was your glove for that matter. Remember that great double play you made at the top of the sixth inning?”

Like he could forget it—even he’d been impressed. “Yeah, that was definitely a great play for us. I really enjoy playing for the Mets. They are a great ball club, and I’m lucky to be a part of it.”

“Yeah,” Kelly said.

Was that a bit of a tone he detected?

“I was reading the back page of the
Daily News
yesterday,” she said sweetly, pulling out a paper from beneath the table and
spreading it before her. “Essentially, the article says you’ve been having a
real
good time in New York.”

Damn. Frank had told him about the article, but he hadn’t read it. Something to do with his social life ruining him on the field. Shit. He
really
should have read that article.

“Apparently, the city has a
lot
to offer you,” Kelly said with a bit of a smirk, and Guido laughed. “I mean, a ballplayer. The ladies love a ballplayer.”

He shrugged, smiled a little. “I haven’t read the article, but you can’t believe much of anything you read these days.”

“So you’re not involved with anyone?”

He blinked, trying to figure out her angle. Guido laughed. “He thinks you want to date him, Kelly.”

“I guess he would, since according to the
Daily News
, every single woman who can still draw breath wants to date him.”

“I, ah . . . that sort of rumor goes around all the time. In Houston, in New York—it doesn’t seem to matter. They always say the same thing.”

“Really? I thought maybe your nighttime habits are a contributing factor.”

“A contributing factor?”

“You know, to why your batting average has sunk from a high of .349 just two seasons ago to a low of .277 this year.”

Guido howled, punched a button, and the sound of a big sucking
whoosh
filled the booth.

“I don’t think my social life has anything to do with it,” Parker said evenly.

“Then to what would you attribute your slide? Because you were a much better batter in Houston than you are here.” And Kelly smiled a warm, sweet little smile.

Guido laughed.

Parker’s blood was beginning to boil. “That’s an interesting theory,” he said, forcing himself to sound as pleasant as possible. “But my trainer seems to think it’s more to do with the shoulder
injury I suffered when I caught the game-winning drive up the middle against the Phillies. I landed on the second base bag and tore my rotator cuff.”

“Right, I saw it,” she said, nodding eagerly. “But
before
that, you had eight errors coming into a midseason series, compared with a total of twelve errors across your entire last season with the Astros. And we haven’t even hit the All-Star Break yet. At this rate, you’ll hit a record of . . . what did we figure out, Guido?”

“Twenty-two errors,” Guido responded helpfully.

“I had twenty-four errors one season in Houston, and I was MVP. You can’t really compare the number of errors from year to year, because it depends on what team you are playing, who is pitching, what the conditions are, that sort of thing. And, you know, you have to factor in shoulder injuries that are slow to recover.”

“So, Parker, what do you like to do in your spare time?” she asked, all sweetness and light as she changed the subject.

“I have a charity for underprivileged kids,” he said, and gave some of the particulars about that, for which Guido actually sounded a standing O.

“Anything else?”

“I lay pretty low,” he said, not wanting to give her anything.

“Do you like to read?”

Okay, now she was
really
beginning to piss him off. His eyes narrowed. So did hers. “Yeah, I like to read. I just read the
History of Sports in America.
”

“Oh really? How long did that take you?”

Suddenly, in the hallway behind Kelly, which Parker could see because the wall was made of glass, Frank appeared and started making frantic slashing motions across his throat.

“I don’t know—I savored it.”

“Do you ever think about hitting a batting cage?” she asked, cheerfully changing the subject again.

“I practice batting thirty minutes every day.”

“Oh,
that
long, huh? And how long do you practice fielding?”

Parker didn’t answer.

“I’m only asking because a couple of your more spectacular errors were on your glove. That huge overthrow to first in the second game with the Phillies, then that line drive you just completely muffed in the series against the Angels that allowed two runs to score—”

“I remember,” he said, his jaw tight and his gaze narrowed on her smiling assassin face. “I’ve had a slump, there’s no doubt about it. I am working with the coaches and a trainer to get back to the shape I was in when I came to New York, and I have every confidence that I will. But a shoulder injury like I suffered can really take a toll. I haven’t been able to resume full upper body workouts since the Atlanta game.”

“Uh-huh. Well, let me ask another question, Parker.” She looked up from her notes, planted her arms on the table, and leaned toward him, her eyes narrowed into little slits of green. “Don’t you think that if a team pays a professional ballplayer—and not just any professional ballplayer, but an MVP and a multi-year All-Star short stop—oh, who are we kidding? Let’s just say we’re talking about
you
—if a team pays
you
one hundred and ten million dollars plus bonuses, don’t you think
you
ought to be accountable for your level of play?”

“Of course I do.” Behind Kelly’s head, Frank started jumping up and down—quite a feat, given the man’s girth—gesturing angrily for him to come out of the booth.