Fire Season (Unwritten Rules) Read online

  Also available from KD Casey and Carina Press

  Unwritten Rules

  Also available from KD Casey

  One True Outcome

  Dirty Slide

  Coming soon from KD Casey

  Diamond Ring

  Dirty Steal

  Fire Season is set in the same world as Unwritten Rules and takes place one season prior. Both books can be read as stand-alones.

  This is a story, in part, about a character who is in recovery from alcohol use disorder who remains sober throughout the book. The story also includes:

  major characters with anxiety;

  brief depictions of anxiety/panic attacks;

  references to drinking and drug use;

  brief references to past sexual assault; and

  themes of heteronormativity, references to/brief depictions of biphobia and homophobia, ableism, sexism, racism, classism, and antisemitism. These do not involve religiously based intolerance or use of slurs.

  Please see the endnotes for additional information about the depiction of Judaism and Jewish characters.

  Fire Season

  KD Casey

  For Laura, in this and every galaxy

  Contents

  Chapter One: Reid

  Chapter Two: Charlie

  Chapter Three: Charlie

  Chapter Four: Reid

  Chapter Five: Charlie

  Chapter Six: Reid

  Chapter Seven: Charlie

  Chapter Eight: Reid

  Chapter Nine: Reid

  Chapter Ten: Reid

  Chapter Eleven: Charlie

  Chapter Twelve: Reid

  Chapter Thirteen: Charlie

  Chapter Fourteen: Reid

  Chapter Fifteen: Charlie

  Chapter Sixteen: Charlie

  Chapter Seventeen: Reid

  Chapter Eighteen: Charlie

  Chapter Nineteen: Reid

  Chapter Twenty: Charlie

  Chapter Twenty-One: Reid

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Charlie

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Reid

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Charlie

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Reid

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Charlie

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Reid

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Charlie

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Reid

  Chapter Thirty: Reid

  Chapter Thirty-One: Charlie

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Reid

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Charlie

  Epilogue: Charlie

  Author Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Unwritten Rules by KD Casey

  Excerpt from One True Outcome by KD Casey

  Chapter One: Reid

  The text alert comes in the unsleeping hours before dawn, the plastic-on-plastic buzz of Reid’s phone against the milk crate he’s using for a nightstand. Good news for once: a trade. His agent sends a link to an article and a directive to get his ass on a plane. Reid doesn’t warrant his own headline, just a paragraph on a trade-rumor account listing minor-league transactions. Crowns Minor-League Reliever to Oakland for Prospects. Under that, a barrage of tweets he’s tagged in on the account he never uses, replies and replies to replies.

  Interesting pickup for Oakland.

  Seems like a reclamation project.

  Heard there were some off-field concerns. Then more bluntly, You mean he partied his way out of the majors.

  And of course, that video. Because there’s always that video.

  He spends an hour stumbling in the half dark, worried he’s going to leave something crucial. Wondering why Oakland wants him of all people, especially for their big-league club. He double-checks that his keys are in his pocket, his bracelet tucked in the interior zip of his suitcase. He dilutes his nervousness with coffee he doses only with milk.

  At least it’s a familiar process, the get-up-and-go of a sudden trade, though easier when it wasn’t just him. When Letitia, his ex, stayed behind to deal with all the logistical stuff. When he could proceed on with a suitcase and the hope that this team would be better than the last. He considers calling her, like she wouldn’t just tell him to fuck off. He could call his parents. If they were answering his calls.

  So he calls his grandma. She picks up on the second ring, panic in her voice. “Michael”—because she’s the only person on Earth who still calls him that—“are you okay?”

  Eight hours and two dehydrating flights later, lost in the maze of the Oakland clubhouse looking for a meeting he was supposed to be at twenty minutes ago, he’s not sure how to answer that.

  Sweat sprouts on the back of his neck and at his upper lip, accompanied by a stuttering heartbeat, by the sinking realization that he’s about to walk into his first meeting as an Elephants pitcher flushed and out of breath. His eyes are red from flying, from glugging back a cup of coffee, from burning his vision on his phone screen trying to learn everything there is to know about his new team.

  Voices come from behind the door. He presses an ear against the wood like a low-rent spy. Inside, their pitching staff is in the midst of a discussion. Someone—probably D’Spara, the team’s pitching coach, from his well-known bellow—gives a booming retort.

  Reid raises his hand to knock but stills. Maybe it’s better not to show up than to be so obviously late. Maybe he should have stayed in the minors, playing for less than two grand a month, or gone back to his grandma’s apartment in New Jersey. He probably can’t hack it at the big-league level anymore; it’s foolish to even try. He could slink off down the hallway and claim he didn’t know he was supposed to be at the meeting. Lie, avoid. Old habits. Bad ones.

  But he’s gotten this far. What’s a few steps farther? He assembles enough courage to open the door. Every eye in the room turns toward him. D’Spara’s prodigious mustache twitches its disapproval.

  The room itself is small and cramped, a video monitor tacked to one wall. He’s spent years dreaming of the pristine newness of a major-league clubhouse. But everything in Oakland is a little ragged, including the banged-up table and mismatched chairs holding their catchers and starting rotation.

  Everything diminished—except Charlie Braxton: Oakland’s ace pitcher, the subject of every praising headline. Who’s sitting there, iPad in hand, a vacant chair next to him. The only vacant chair in the room. Of course. Reid’s heart rate, already going hard, kicks up. A hum of excitement like a big-eyed fan meeting a heralded player. Except Reid is thirty-four, a baseball veteran—it still counts if he’s spent most of his career in the minors, he’s sure of it—and, oh yeah, late.

  “Meeting started almost half an hour ago.” D’Spara’s voice conveys his frown, half-hidden below his mustache.

  Excuses rise up. That Reid’s late because his flight was delayed. Because there was a line at the rental counter to pick up a truck. Late because traffic was bad, because traffic here is perpetually bad. There are always reasons, but never good ones. “Sorry.” It comes out louder than he intends, echoing in the confines of the windowless room.

  He drops into the chair next to Braxton, inching over to avoid brushing against him. Even though Reid knows Braxton’s listed height, he’s larger than Reid expected. Big all over, like the terrain of an unexplored country: mountainous shoulders, a continent of a chest, hands that make the tablet he’s holding look like an oversized phone.

  Braxton doesn’t introduce himself. Probably because everyone in baseball knows who he is. May
be the rumors about him are true: that he’s kind of a quiet guy, though quiet for a pitcher means one step up from a block of wood, personality-wise.

  Maybe Reid’s just below his notice. If he was the reigning winner of the Cy Young Award, he might treat fringe players with polite disinterest too. “Reid Giordano. No one ever recognizes relief pitchers when we’re not in uniform.” He extends a hand.

  Braxton glances at it for a second like he’s unsure what to do. Then Braxton’s hand envelops his as he gives a perfunctory shake. He has pitcher hands, nails trimmed, palm lined in calluses. He doesn’t return the greeting but offers a half smile.

  “I got traded from the Crowns double-A team this morning,” Reid continues. “I guess you all needed some help in the bullpen, even from me.” He laughs, words tripping out of his mouth before he can stop them. “Figured they were gonna send me to the minors. Not that I don’t love the possibility of sweating my balls off in Midland, Texas, in June. But it’s better here already.”

  Braxton’s eyes go a little wide. Reid prepares himself to be ignored or to be given a cold shoulder that, on Braxton, would probably be closer to a tectonic shift.

  Instead Braxton just says, “Oh.”

  An actual response. Feeling gutsy, Reid tries for another. “Is it true I gotta sit on the foul grounds?” Because the Coliseum is notorious: For its plumbing problems, for its lack of bullpen. For showing its age. Reid sympathizes. Starters sit in the dugout; relief pitchers bake in folding chairs in a makeshift bullpen until someone yells their name to go pitch.

  A nod. A quiet yeah. At least Braxton doesn’t look annoyed. Curious, maybe, or just unused to people audacious enough to speak to him.

  Reid kind of can’t believe it either, even if his grandma likes to say he enters every situation with an open mouth. “Man, I thought I escaped playing in some busted-ass minor-league stadium. Now I don’t even get a real bullpen.”

  Braxton glances around at the room, at the yellowing paint and the threadbare carpet. “Welcome to the Oakland Elephants.” He’s got the faint flavor of a drawl, each word carefully chosen.

  “Oh, a whole sentence. Is that my one for the day?”

  “Yeah.” Braxton’s tone is flat, but it’s a purposeful flatness. Possibly even a joke at his own expense.

  Reid laughs, loud enough to draw looks from a few other guys. He helps himself to one of the tablets sitting in the center of the table, flicking through it. All the visuals—the heat maps and data displays—blur at the edges.

  He needs to settle. To stop the excited beat of his heart from overtaking his common sense. He’s not supposed to get too high or too low. That’s probably better advice for someone who didn’t wake up in Nebraska and find themselves in the big leagues. He shakes his wrist, a habit he’s picked up from wearing his bracelet, its clinking glass beads meant to dissuade the evil eye. Of course, he slid that into the pocket of his carry-on since guys make him feel weird about it. So now he’s the weirdo shaking his bare wrist in front of Charlie Braxton. He resists the urge to bury his head in his hands.

  A drink would soothe his jangling nerves. He wants one, diffusely, distantly, a background hum of want he ignores. But he can’t resist pressing his luck. “Man, I guess those rumors were true.”

  “Rumors?” Braxton asks.

  “That you got the best curveball in the whole damn league and nothing to say about it.”

  A shrug from Braxton. “What’s there to say?”

  “Or maybe they weren’t, because that’s two entire sentences.”

  Braxton’s still holding his tablet—or more accurately shielding his tablet. He can’t entirely conceal what’s on-screen: an image of Reid with what looks like a scouting report.

  “You checking up on me?” Reid expects a denial, a veteran-player blow-off. Instead Braxton’s face goes vaguely pink in the area between his out-of-control beard and his eyes. “You were.” Which comes out teasing. Whoops.

  Braxton, for his part, goes even pinker. So not politely disinterested. Shy. And, worse, handsome. He surrenders the tablet, looking slightly guilty, leaving Reid to the black-and-white of how Oakland sees him.

  Michael Reid Giordano.

  Birthplace: New Jersey. Drafted in the 10th round. 6’2”—though that’s an exaggeration by an inch. A muscular lower half, trim waist, and excellent body control.

  A damning set of sentences, especially sitting next to Charlie Goddamn Braxton, who everyone knows was drafted out of Stanford’s vaunted baseball program. Who has a curveball so good it makes grown men weep, most of them opposing batters. Who is probably his actual listed height and whose body seems too big to be contained by the paltry language of scouting reports.

  The report details Reid’s journey through various bottom-scraping teams, neatly skipping over his missed season. There’s video, though thankfully not that video, the one that comes up first when you google his name. He still looks bad in this one: face scarlet from effort and sunburn and possibly—given when it’s from—a hangover.

  The iPad is muted. He double-checks before pressing the play button. And watches himself hurl absolute fire. His listed velocity approaches triple digits. The pitch goes where he wants it and when, the opposing batter swinging through it helplessly. An objectively pretty pitch. His gut sours.

  And of course, Braxton is watching over his shoulder and pretending not to, the broad plains of his hands resting on the tabletop. Still, except for the small movement he’s making periodically, thumb swiping against the bare knuckle of his fourth finger.

  Reid prepares himself for the kinds of questions he’ll probably get during his first go-round with Bay-area media: What he was doing rattling around the basement of the Crowns minor-league system. If he still has that fastball. Or if he’s the bust that Twitter, his agent, and possibly his grandma think he is.

  Braxton nods in approval toward the tablet. “That’s a pretty good pitch.”

  Reid can’t stop his grin. Because even if he’s bounced out of the majors, that’ll be a story. Did you know Charlie Braxton once said I was pretty good? “That’s three.”

  “Three?”

  “Sentences.”

  Braxton flushes again. Which Reid shouldn’t be thinking about. Not in a room with the rest of their pitching staff, all of whom are actively discussing whatever it is they’re actually supposed to be doing.

  D’Spara clears his throat like he’s asking Reid something for the second time. “I don’t know how things were done in...” D’Spara pauses, clearly trying to remember where Reid was before. “Wherever you last pitched. Here, on time is on time.”

  “Understood,” Reid says, adding a belated, “sir.” He focuses on the tablet, face heating, not looking to see whatever’s playing on Braxton’s face: judgment or secondhand embarrassment or, worst of all, pity. “Won’t happen again.”

  D’Spara grunts skeptically. Like he’s heard about Reid. He nods meaningfully to the iPad, an unspoken Quit screwing around and put in some work that Reid doesn’t need to hear to understand. He’s on borrowed time, late, unprepared, and, in D’Spara’s estimation, lazy. An off-field concern.

  Reid hands the tablet back to Braxton just as he’s getting up to leave, meeting adjourned for everyone but Reid.

  “See you around,” Braxton says.

  “Yeah, see you.” And Reid hopes like hell that that’s the truth.

  Chapter Two: Charlie

  Charlie doesn’t pitch that night. As a starting pitcher on his off night, he’s in his rights to leave. But there isn’t much waiting for him at home either. His house has only blank staring walls, his bed empty of anything other than pillows.

  The stadium is wrapped in a clear June evening, a fine night for baseball. When he first pitched in Oakland, Elephants Coliseum felt overwhelming, massive, fifty thousand seats staring down at him, all asking if he was as good as h
is draft number promised. Tonight the ballpark is filled to half capacity, fans dressed in Oakland green. Some lean over the seats into the infamously wide foul grounds, yelling at Oakland players to get to it already, like they’re not up by seven runs. Others beat drums, a familiar rumble, the steady heartbeat of a city that loves its baseball.

  He’s stationed at his normal spot at the dugout railing. Next to him, Zach Glasser, one of their catchers, makes an occasional comment about the Pilots pitching staff. At his other side, John Gordon—who isn’t in the lineup since he’s veteran enough to get one night off out of every four—points to Seattle’s hitter. “Look at that swing. More holes than Swiss cheese.”

  The same hitter who stood and watched Charlie’s curveball the night before, too intimidated to even whiff at it. Charlie doesn’t say anything in response, long enough that Gordon says, “You’re quiet today. I mean, even for you.”

  Charlie rubs his thumb against his ring finger, the absence of his ring more pronounced with his hand resting on the railing. “Easy game. You know how it is.”

  Gordon puts his own hand on the railing. His wedding ring gleams against his light brown skin. His shoulder occasionally brushes Charlie’s. Glasser, standing on Charlie’s other side, does the same, though his hands are mercifully free of any reminders about marriage.

  It is an easy game, made easier because Charlie’s not playing in it. Hitters come to take their at bats, either getting on base or retiring to their dugout. Outfielders wave their fingers to remind themselves of how many outs there are in the inning. It’s calming, the way familiar things are.

  The dugout clears at the inning break. Glasser peels off too. Then an announcement for a pitching change, the announcer calling for Giordano, exaggerating the last two syllables of his name.

  Gordon nudges Charlie’s shoulder. “Heard you all were cutting up in the pitching meeting.”

  It’s not surprising that Gordon heard about it, because he hears about everything. “We were just looking at scouting reports,” Charlie says.