Read Back in the Game: A Stardust, Texas Novel for Free Online

you.” Rowdy yawned and scratched his chest.
    “Heath Rankin called again,” Warwick said.
    He groaned.
    Last season, Rowdy had walked out of the Dallas Gunslingers locker room over unfair treatment of his good friend, and teammate, Price Richards. After badly mishandling the career of one of the best second basemen in the league, the Gunslingers general manager and all-around douchebag, Dugan Potts, had released Price. To add insult to injury, not only had Potts not even tried to make a trade for Price, he badmouthed him all over the league so no other team would touch him.
    Cutting his buddy unfairly was the final straw, just one more stunt in a long list of chickenshit maneuvers Potts had pulled.
    And Rowdy had had enough.
    Even so, his sense of fair play clashed with his loyalty to his friend, and he’d intended his brief absence from the team as nothing more than a token protest, a four-hour mini-strike to prove a point and grab media attention to showcase Potts’s major douchedom.
    Rowdy had returned to the clubhouse in plenty of time for the game, even though he hadn’t been slated to pitch that night. But Potts intercepted him before he got down to the bullpen, and suspended him indefinitely for insubordination.
    In retrospect, maybe he shouldn’t have called Potts a hamster during his TV interview with Babe Laufenberg, because c’mon, there was no point insulting defenseless animals.
    When Rowdy had been hospitalized after his attack, hopped up on morphine, Heath Rankin, the publisher of Jackdaw Press, fellow Texan, and former minor league baseball pitcher, approached him about writing his autobiography. He and Heath had briefly played on the same team before Rowdy’s career took the express train to the majors, and Heath dropped out of baseball in favor of publishing.
    Assuming it would give him an easy out, Rowdy confessed to Heath that he was dyslexic. Unfazed, Heath assured him that it was a rare ball player who wrote his own autobiography. Jackdaw would hire a ghostwriter.
    Um, yeah, because that was so much more pleasant.
    The last thing he wanted was to spend half a year of his life regurgitating stories of his glory days to some nerdy writer. But he’d been floating hazily on those happy drugs, and he’d agreed to think about it. Heath had been pestering him ever since.
    “Get up. I’ll meet you in the gym. You have five minutes.” Warwick turned for the house, whistling to Nolan Ryan.
    The bloodhound moseyed after Warwick.
    “Traitor,” Rowdy called, but swung his legs over the side of the lounger and stood up.
    He made his way to the custom gym, a separate building outside the house, situated on the opposite side of the pool, and he plunked down on the weight bench. The big-screen TV mounted on the wall was tuned, as it almost always was, to ESPN.
    Warwick came through the door, a glass of water in one hand and a mug of steaming coffee in the other, Nolan Ryan heeling beside him.
    Rowdy chugged the water. Sipped the coffee.
    “You sleep too much,” Warwick said. “Are you depressed?”
    Rowdy looked up at him. “My arm is busted, my career shot. What do you think?”
    “I’ve never known you to be a quitter.”
    “Yeah, well, you try losing your career—” He bit off the words as it dawned on him who he was talking to. Warwick had missed his shot in MLB because of Rowdy. “Hey man, I didn’t mean it like that.”
    “I know what you meant.” Warwick’s face was unreadable.
    Rowdy strapped on black workout gloves, and lay down on his back on the weight bench. “Let’s hit it. Add ten extra pounds to each side.”
    “Nope.” Warwick loomed over him. “We’re staying within the guidelines of your physical therapy regimen.”
    “I won’t get better if I don’t push.”
    “Push too hard, too soon, and you’ll make things worse, not better.”
    Warwick had hit the nail on the head when he said Rowdy was only paying lip service to getting back in the game. He’d been