Home Run: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

card with his picture on it. And they especially cared about the hits. They loved you when you gave it to them, and they started to loathe you when you suddenly went dry. That was the reality of this world, this so-called dream he was living. Because at the end of the day, it wasn’t a dream or a fantasy—not for guys like Cory. It was a job. A job that came with stress and expectations and the spotlight.
    No, the dream came after the spotlight went away, when it was just him alone at the end of the day. Whether he was with the teammates or with a woman or by himself. That was when he could lose himself in his own fantasy. When he could buy into the hype and like that handsome mug smiling on his Facebook fan page.
    The first pitch from Weller was a ball. Cory backed up, then stood back in place, shaking his knee out and getting set. He didn’t scrunch down like some players when standing at the plate. Cory had gotten used to standing tall and just swinging when he was younger and didn’t have an option. Yet he had grown into the habit of a leg kick as the ball came.
    Hence the ninety-year-old knee.
    The second pitch was a fastball the idiot behind him called a strike. He turned around and looked at the umpire, shaking his head. “Seriously?”
    The least the guy could do was give in a little, considering the score and the little kiddies out there looking for some runs.
    Cory stepped away and glanced out to the field. On the JumboTron, he once again saw a flashing sign that said HOME RUN CHALLENGE—$10,000. They especially liked showing it when everybody’s hero stepped up to the plate.
    So far there had been absolutely no money raised for whatever kids’ charity it was going to.
    His first two hits were a pop out and a groundout. Not exactly crowd pleasers. Nothing would get the fans going more than a clean crack right over the grandstands.
    A couple more balls bored both the crowd and Cory. He positioned himself at the plate, the count three and one, feeling that buzz deep down inside of him.
    He was a kid again, standing in the dirt, facing someone he hated. All he could do—the only thing he could ever do—was hit the ball the right way. Bash it far out on their property to make the old man shut up and go away. Make his haughty little smile calm down. Make his mockery and belittlement dry up so he could go have a few more beers.
    Cory swung, every inch of him willing the ball to blast right through the nightmare playing in his head.
    The whack of the ball and the roar of the crowd made the monster and the farm disappear. The ball soared toward center field as Cory hauled his way toward first base. He’d know soon enough if it was a home run.
    He was waved toward second and he kept going, knowing the ball had hit the back fence.
    The crowd screamed, and the figures around him blurred as he kept running.
    I used to be a lot faster.
    But he ran steady and hard, taking second and then continuing to sprint onward.
    Then he saw the third-base coach telling him to stop.
    Yet all around him were cheers and wails and screams telling him to keep running, to score, to “Go, go, go!”
    Cory thought of the banners and the home-run challenge and the kids watching with their proud fathers, and he kept going, heading toward home plate.
    This wasn’t thinking anymore, just acting on pure adrenaline and the rush and the madness and the beating in his head. The defiant will that had always driven him, that had gotten him where he was.
    He neared the plate and began to slide and knew he had made it even before the umpire signaled safe and the crowd went crazy.
    Cory cursed in a triumphant, vicious manner. Then he laughed at the catcher, who’d taken the brunt of his slide, as he stood up and brushed himself off. He glanced out around the stadium and took it in. The sights and the sounds of over fifty thousand people cheering and high-fiving and finally being given something to see.
    A group of fans in the stands waved signs that