“I’m so proud of Landon!”
“I’m proud of you, too, Ty!” my wife said. “I bet you’re going to be on the Coyotes next year.”
“Yeah, that would be awesome. They are out of the Wild Card race now. No playoff hopes for them this year.”
“Maybe next year, when you play for them, they will go all the way!”
“I love your confidence in me,” I said with a laugh. God, I loved this woman. “The Storm is half a game out right now, so every game this last week is important. Coach is very stressed out!”
“Oh! Meadow is calling me. I’m gonna call you back, ok?”
“I see how I rate. Your best friend calls, and you just hang up on me.”
“You know I’ll call you back. You know you’re my number one!”
“Oh! I can’t wait to tell Meadow, Penelope, Dominic, and Hunter. But you know who is going to be crushed the most? Cooper!”
Molly laughed. “You’re ridiculous! I’ll talk to you later!”
I decided to go on a run by myself because I knew how long Meadow and Molly could talk on the phone. I hadn’t really connected with any of the Storm players enough to call one up to run with. Probably because I would either move up or down sooner than later. I wouldn’t stay here for very long. It really made me miss Hunter and the guys on the Raptors.
After running eight miles, I jumped in the shower. The guy I was rooming with, right fielder Evan Harris, was in our common room playing MLB Strikeout when I came back out in a fresh pair of joggers and a Raptors t-shirt. I had to hide my smile when I saw that my brother was up to bat in the video game.
“Are you a Jaguars fan?” I asked. I didn’t know much about him other than he was our utility player and could play any position when asked.
“Hell, yeah, I am,” he said with a grin at me. “I’m from Orlando, so that’s my home team. Are you a Jags fan?”
“Well, you know Landon Stone that you have up to bat there?” I said and nodded towards the TV. “He’s…”
“Holy shit! I can’t believe I didn’t see it before,” Evan said, looking at me and then back at Landon’s digital player and back at me. “Tyler Stone. Landon Stone. And you guys look alike. He’s your brother, isn’t he?”
I nodded and had to laugh. I love when people connected it. “We’re actually identical triplets.”
“That's fucking awesome! Does your other brother play ball, too?”
“Nope. He did when we were younger, but he never loved it like Landon and I did. He’s actually going to open his own tattoo studio soon.”
“Now that’s badass. Where at? I love getting inked.”
“We grew up about 45 minutes away from Nashville in Heartwood, a very small town. That’s where he still is.”
“Shit, that’s far. And the team there is Double-A, right? So we don’t have any chance of playing near there.”
“Yep. I grew up watching the Hornets.”
I heard my cell phone going off to Molly’s ringtone. I went into my room to grab it. “Hey, babe. Finally off the phone with Meadow after a few hours?”
“Hey, Ty. It’s Dominic.”
“Dom? Why are you calling me from Molly’s phone?” I asked as I sat down on my bed.
“Hey, man. I guess while Molly was on the phone with Meadow, she began having some stomach pain. Meadow texted Pen, but she was an hour away running errands. Pen called me, and I came right over. We’re on the way to the hospital now. She says she would have called you right away, but Meadow wouldn’t let her off the phone.”
“Tyler! It hurts!” I heard Molly’s voice.
“Can you put me on speaker?” I asked.
“You’re on speaker now, man,” Dominic said. “Her doctor told me to take her to Springville to make sure everything was okay.”
