The Gift of a Coach: A Novel of Baseball and Friendship

Chapter Seven: Turn It Upside Down

After a weekend filled with long conversations, deep thoughts, and a few nights of restless sleep, Jake was ready to get back to work on Monday morning. He walked through the doors of Brennan, his coffee mug in his hand and a smile on his face as he walked down the hall.

"Hey Coach Jake," Parker said as Jake passed him by while at his locker.

"Hey, 22! What's going on?" Jake had started calling Fox by his number and it was a little special gig for just the two of them. Ever since tryouts, Jake had felt attached to Parker more than any of the other kids. He didn't know why but Nick was always throwing the theory around that Jake saw himself in Parker- a young and fundamentally sound shortstop who could be going places.

"Not much. Got math this morning," Parker said as he groaned.

Jake laughed, "I hated it too but it'll help in the future"

Jake's phone rang just then and it was Nick.

And that worried Jake.

Ever since Jake knew Nick, he loved his sleep. Even in college when you mentioned the word sleep to somebody, they would cock their head at you, Nick still slept in or slept at all as much as he could. So for him to be calling at 7 in the morning was pretty unusual.

"Sorry, I've got to take this. Have a good day, 22. See you at practice later"

Parker gave him a smile and a wave as Jake opened the double doors and made his way down the hall, answering his phone.

"Hey"

"Hey," Nick said and Jake could tell instantly something was wrong.

"What's wrong?" Jake asked, trying to make Nick get to the point fast.

He heard Nick sigh on the other side of the phone and a few rustling papers. "So, I've just been going over our budget papers and there's something up. I can't tell what it is but the figures aren't calculating out"

Jake frowned when he heard that. Nick was the math whiz friend in the friendship and Jake was grateful for that. So, even when he asked if Nick had checked it twice, he already knew what the answer would be.

"Of course," Nick said.

"Alright. So what exactly isn't matching up? And hold on a sec, I'm transferring you to my office phone"

There was a soft hum in the air as the phone switched over. "Alright, go ahead"

"So, the numbers for fundraisers aren't matching at all. And I can't help but think Lane could have something to do with this. And that's not all, actually. We're like almost $500 short of the budget quota"

Jake almost spit out his coffee. $500??

"Why didn't you lead with that? How in the world did that happen?" he asked Nick, incredulously.

"I have no idea but what I do know is that Brennan baseball has to hold some fundraisers or else," Nick trailed off as Jake nodded.

"Or the best thing we ever knew is over as soon as it started," Jake said, grimly.

Jake shuffled through the papers one more time and rubbed his eyes. He had been looking at these sheets for almost three hours now and was getting nowhere, except maybe an Olympic award in coffee drinking. After he had hung up the phone with Nick, Jake had told him to get over to Brennan and let him see these papers.

It was even worse than Jake had anticipated.

The budget papers were a list of things that every club or organization, and that included sports, had to do to meet a group goal of almost $1,000 a year for the school.