Grand Slam

Part 12

I felt a light shake so I woke up and looked up at Dansby. "What do you want?" I asked, a little sharper than I meant to. "We have to get up and go to that meeting," Dansby said, throwing the covers back and getting out of bed. "I'm going to let the dogs out to use the bathroom, but you better get up," he said, walking out of the room with two dogs on his heels. I got up and stretched before walking over to my closet and grabbing some leggings and a hoodie. I changed and was brushing my hair out when Dansby walked back into the room. He went in the bathroom to change while I put on some socks and a pair of crocs.

I was in the kitchen grabbing a granola bar and a Gatorade when my mom walked in. "What are you doing up so early?" She asked, turning on the coffee pot. "Snitker wanted us to be there at 8:30 for a meeting," I said as Dansby walked in. "Good morning Mrs. Greene," Dansby said, getting a bottle of water for the road. "Morning," Mom said shortly, turning to pour her coffee while Dansby and I shared a glance. "Well mama, we better get going if we don't want to be late," I said, starting to walk towards the door. "Okay. Shane and Sharon should be here around 2. Your dad and I have to go pick them up from the airport," "Okay mama, I'm not sure how long we'll have to be at the stadium but we might just see y'all there." "Okay," Mom said as we walked out the door and got into Dansby's truck. We pulled down the driveway and I put my head back against the headrest and shut my eyes. "Are you okay?" Dansby asked, glancing over as he turned on the road. "Yeah, just tired," I replied, looking over and reaching my hand over for his hand he wasn't steering with. We held hands in silence the rest of the way to the stadium.

We walked into the clubhouse and sat next to Freddie. "You weren't late today?" Freddie asked sarcastically. "Haha, you're a comedian," Dansby said just as sarcastically. Austin walked in and immediately said, "Dansby you weren't late," I started laughing as Dansby got up and pretended he was going to fight Austin. When they sat back down, I said, "I guess Ender is going to be late though," "Yeah, I guess," Dansby said, checking the time on his phone.

"Hey, what's today's date?" I asked. "Umm, it is July 29. Why?" Freddie said, looking over at me. "Just wondering," I said, but inside my heart sunk. Today would be 7 years since my grandpa died, holding my hand. The day before he passed, my mom had called Shane and me at baseball and said we needed to come home because pawpaw had a stroke and may not make it through. That was the first (and the last) time it had felt like Shane and I had really been like brother and sister. We all drove 6 hours to Georgia to see pawpaw in case it would be the last time. It was nighttime when we got there, and the hospital wouldn't let us in, so we had to wait all night for visiting hours. We finally got to go in, and I ran through the hospital right to his room.

"Hey sweetie," pawpaw said very slowly, looking up at me from his bed.

"Earth to Ashlyn," Dansby said, waving his hand in front of my face. "Huh?" I said, turning towards him. "Freddie wants you," he said pointing over a few chairs. "Sorry, what's up?" I asked, leaning back so I could see Freddie. "Chelsea said she wants to meet you after the game tonight, and she'll have Charlie with her so you can meet him too," "Okay, sounds good," I said leaning back up and checking my phone.

There was a notification on my phone saying that Ender had been released. I looked up and saw Snitker talking to the other coaches. "I'll be right back," I said getting up and walking over to the coaches. "Hey Snit, can I talk to you?" I asked when I got over to them. "Yeah what's up?" he said as we walked away from the other coaches. "What the hell is this?" I asked, showing him the notification. "I'd hoped none of y'all would've saw it till I could talk about it," he said, looking around the room. "Just go sit down, I'm about to tell everyone and explain." he said, walking up on the little platform in the room.

Dansby's POV

Ashlyn had seemed distant since Freddie had told her what day it is, so when she came back from talking to Snit, I asked if she was okay. "Yeah, I'm okay," she said, looking over at me and smiling. "Okay if you're sure," I said looking up at Snit because he started to talk.

"So y'all, I wanted to tell you about a player that we just released and the reason for his release. Ender Inciarte, number 11, has been released," my heart sunk. Ender was my best friend on the team, my roommate, and just like that he was gone. I didn't hear much of what Snit said after, and when I looked over at Ashlyn, there was a tear rolling down her cheek. She'd only known Ender a week, but this was hitting her just as hard.

After the meeting, we were walking back through the clubhouse trying to figure out what we were going to do since the meeting didn't take as long as we thought it would. "We really didn't have to be here at 8:30 for this," Ashlyn said as she yawned. "I know that was so stupid." I said, holding the door for Ashlyn and a couple of the guys. "Well what do you want to do? We can go back to your house," I suggested, as we got to the truck. "Hell no. My parents are still there and eventually Shane and Sharon will be. I'm not going back till I absolutely have to." Ashlyn said, looking over at me. "Well I mean we can go grab my stuff and Bentley since my house is good now. I want to see if Ender is there anyways." "Yeah that sounds good. I finally get to see y'all's bachelor pad," Ashlyn said laughing as I felt my face burn red.