“Knew that you wouldn’t have any Nighthawks stuff?” she asks. “You, the girl who hates baseball? Yeah, I wonder.”
“Okay, fine,” I pout, conceding her point. “I guess I’d better go put it on.”
By the time I come out of the bathroom, the game has started. Some people take seats right in front of the glass, but I hang back, picking at the hors d'oeuvres and sipping champagne. I realize there is quite possibly one inch of solid glass separating me from any potential fly balls, but it still makes me uneasy.
Lexi stands next to me, watching the game from the back of the suite. “Caden’s probably batting fifth,” she says. “You know, in case you were wondering.”
“Does that mean he will get to bat this time, before his team is in the field?”
“Hopefully, unless the guys before him all strike out.”
I nod. “He’s trying to teach me about baseball,” I tell her.
“I know. He told me. I think he’s quite enamored with you, Murphy.”
“Enamored?” I shoot her my crazy eyes. “No. I’m just his charity case, Lexi. That’s all.”
She smiles, shaking her head as if she has some kind of private joke.
“What?” I ask.
“Caden hasn’t told you how I met my husband, has he?”
“Your husband, the doctor?”
“That’s right.”
I shake my head. “No, he hasn’t.”
“I was once a charity case, too, you know. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, Murphy. Plus, my brother feels genuinely guilty for putting you in the hospital. And let’s be honest, it’s not like he can’t afford whatever he’s done for you.”
“I don’t care how much money he has,” I tell her. “I don’t want to be beholden to anyone.”
“Beholden?” She turns to face me, head on, ignoring the game. Then she laughs once again. “Murphy, you and I are more alike than you know. I think we’re going to be great friends.”
There is cheering from the crowd as one of the players runs around to second base.
Lexi pulls on my elbow, dragging me to the front by the window. “Come on, Caden is up.”
I find myself getting nervous when we reach the front of the suite. Strangely enough though, I’m not nervous about getting hit, I’m nervous about Caden being up at bat. I look down at the tens of thousands of fans in the stadium and I wonder how anyone could stand up at the plate and hit a ball with all those people screaming and cheering.
He whacks the ball and I find myself yelling and clapping. Then I realize I’m the only one in the suite doing it. I turn to Lexi, embarrassed. “He hit the ball, didn’t he?”
“It was a foul ball,” she says, pointing over to left field. “That counts as a strike.”
I shrug. “Sorry,” I say to the people sitting next to me. They chuckle as if they know it’s my first time watching a game.
Caden swings and misses, giving him a second strike. Then he swings and hits the ball again. Before I embarrass myself by cheering a second time, I look around. Again, nobody is cheering. “Another foul? Does that mean he’s out? Third strike?”
She shakes her head. “Nope. You can’t get out on a foul ball. You can hit them all day long and not get out. Well, unless somebody on the other team catches one of them.”
He fouls off another and I find myself tensing up as I watch the guy in left field dash over to try and catch it. Caden does it again, hitting the ball straight up in the air, and I grab Lexi’s arm waiting to see if the catcher will get a hold of it.
Lexi laughs. “Pretty intense, huh?”
Then he swings and misses and gets called out. “Oh, no,” I say, feeling bad about his strike out.
“It’s okay,” Lexi says. “They get out more than they get a hit.”
“They do?”
“Yup. If they only get a hit a third of the time, they are doing well.”
“I have a lot to learn,” I say.
Someone taps my shoulder. I turn around to see Melanie. She hands me another box. “Mr. Kessler has invited you and Mrs. Stone to wait for him outside the clubhouse after the game.”
“Oh, okay, thank you.” I turn to Lexi. “That’s the locker room,” I say, proudly. “Bet you didn’t think I knew that.”
She laughs and points to the box. “What’s in this one?”
I open it and pull out a giant foam finger with the Nighthawks logo and a large #8. I put the box aside and roll my eyes. “A little over the top, isn’t he?”
“I think he just wants everyone to love baseball as much as he does,” Lexi says.
I can’t help myself as I watch intensely every time Caden is behind the plate as catcher. I worry he will get hit with the ball and get hurt like I did. I know he wears that pad thing and a face mask, but I heard some guys in the suite discussing how the pitcher throws close to one hundred miles per hour. That is crazy. I wonder if Caden has ever gotten hurt. He seems to expertly know where the pitcher will throw the ball.
By the time Caden gets up to bat again, I’m really getting into the game. I don’t know if it’s Lexi and her encouragement, or the fans that surround me, but my heart pumps wildly when he steps up to the plate.
He swings twice and misses twice. I find myself getting bummed out. Then, on the third swing, I hear a crack and everyone in the stadium stands up and yells.
Lexi grabs me and hugs me in a tight embrace while jumping up and down. Everyone in the room is high-fiving everyone else. I’m caught up in the excitement as I cheer and even wave my foam finger around in the air. Then I walk up to the glass and watch Caden as he runs around third base. We’re pretty far away up here, but I think I can see a smile on his face. Then, right before he touches home plate, I could swear he glances up at the suite.
Lexi comes and stands next to me. When I look over at her, she’s studying me.
“What?” I ask.
She looks back down at the field where her brother is joining his team in the dugout. “Oh, nothing,” she says, a huge smile overtaking her face.
Chapter Fifteen
Caden
As usual, when we emerge from the clubhouse, there is a large crowd of friends, family and fans who have waited around to see the players. Security does their best to keep any overeager fans from getting to us, but it seems there are always one or two of them, mostly women, who end up breaking through the crowd to get to the target of their obsession.
I used to think it was funny and flattering. But I’ve since found out some of those women are downright scary. How could someone I don’t even know possibly think I’d just drop everything and go out with them? Sleep with them? Marry them? They can be delusional. So I’ve learned to be approachable without being too nice. Because too nice can get you into trouble. Too nice can be misconstrued by irrational fans.
Sawyer, Brady and I all walk out together. As we always do, we stop to sign autographs, pose for pictures, and shake hands.
“I love you, Caden!” a woman screams from behind the crowd.
I point in the direction the voice came from. “Back at ya!” I shout, making the ASL sign for ‘I love you’ with my right hand.
As more and more players come out of the clubhouse and leave, the crowd thins. I say goodbye to Sawyer and Brady knowing I’ll see them on the plane tomorrow when we head down south to Tampa.
Suddenly, I find myself being thrown back into the wall as a woman hurls herself at me. I have no choice but to catch her so she doesn’t hurt me, or herself.
“Sorry,” Drew says as he runs over and peels the fan off me. “I didn’t mean to let her get past, Mr. Kessler.”
“But he loves me!” the woman screams as Drew pulls her away. “You saw it. Everyone saw it. He said he loves me.”
Shit. Really?
I hang my head, realizing once again how literally these deranged fans take things. I intentionally never say ‘I love you’ back, because I refuse to minimize the meaning of those three words the way some fans do. I will only say those words to one person—if at all.
I scan the crowd until I find familiar faces. Safe faces. And I smile when I find them.
Lexi and Murphy are leaning up against the far wall, waiting patiently for me to finish up. I walk away from the crowd earlier than I usually do, still stunned by the overzealous fan. When I make my way to the girls, I feel my smile grow larger when I see Murphy wearing the shirt I had sent to her. Not only that, she’s still carrying the large foam finger.
I give my sister a kiss on the cheek and then I do the same to Murphy. Then I hear a few screams behind me, from women asking me to kiss them, too.
“Are you okay?” Murphy asks.
I look back to where Drew was dragging that woman away. “I’m fine.”
“She jumped on you, Caden,” she says, concern etched into her face.
Lexi laughs. “Good thing my little brother is a top-notch catcher.”
Murphy doesn’t find her joke funny. “Does that happen a lot?”
I shrug.
“Oh, my gosh, really? You should have a bodyguard or something.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
When I’m looking at Murphy, it dawns on me that she’s had her hairline stitches removed and that she looks great. But then I realize her cheeks are pink. Pink from the sun. I narrow my eyes at her. “Murph, you look sunburned. How in the hell did that happen? Weren’t you in the suite?”
“It’s a nice day,” she says. “Lexi and I walked here.”
I take the hat off my head and fit it onto hers. “You have to protect your face from the sun. It’ll help reduce the scarring.”
“Who’s the lucky girl?” someone behind me shouts.
“Are you his girlfriend?” shouts another.
“Caden, can I have a hat?” yet another asks.
Girls are freaking out over me giving Murphy my hat. What the hell is the big deal? It’s a hat, not an engagement ring.