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“Surprisingly no,” I told her as I started to unpack my gear. I hesitated telling her anything more after remembering Monica’s warning. No one was allowed to know, not even Olivia. But could I keep a secret like this from her?
“Just a slap on the wrist,” I added after a moment.
“Good.” Olivia stood up from her seat and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “Because I couldn’t stand coming to work and not having you here.”
“You couldn’t get rid of me even if you tried.” I snaked an arm around her waist and started to steer her back out toward the tunnel.
The closer we got, the more I could feel the energy bouncing off my chest from the stadium. It was still a little over an hour before the start of the game, but it was already almost a full house. Music was blasting through the speakers, and the opposing team was taking practice swings on the field. It was like Christmas morning, but better. Everything felt right in the world again. It was almost enough to make me forget about the last twenty-four hours.
Olivia and I worked together to snap the photos that the social media team always requested and the photos that the league would also use for their publicity releases. I passed fans who looked like they had been coming to games for decades, fans that looked like it was their very first game, fans that were on their first date, and diehard fans with their entire bodies painted in the team’s colors. I made sure to take a few pictures; May would love them for the social media pages.
An announcer’s voice came over the speakers to get the crowd riled up as the Cougars ran onto the field for warmups . Olivia and I edged closer to the dugout to grab some shots. The outfielders ran past us first, and Jamil flashed a goofy smile. Then the infielders were next. Tommy was the very last one out of the dugout, and his eyes immediately found my camera as he exited. I wasn’t even making direct eye contact with him as I watched him through my viewfinder, but I still felt like his eyes had seen right to the very depths of me. The heat rushing to my cheeks had me wondering if I honestly could fool everyone into believing that I was dating him. Or maybe the better question was if I could remember that I was supposed to be faking it.
“Maggie!” May was hurrying down the stairs of the stadium toward the two of us. “You’re stationed in the dugout today. Olivia, you’re over on the visitors’ side.”
I narrowed my eyes at May.
Every game one of us would be stationed in the home dugout and the other would be stationed outside the visitors’ dugout. Surely it was a coincidence that I was placed in the home dugout tonight after just signing a contract with the club’s biggest player to save his image and his career. The moment that May looked at me, I knew that my thoughts weren’t far from the truth. The powers that be were pulling the strings to help further the narrative that I just agreed to. Olivia hurried off to her side of the field for the night, throwing me unknowingly to the wolves. Or, in particular, to one wolf.
“Don’t tell me we’ll get you the first game of the season, Canon!” Jamil exclaimed from the dugout. The guys had shuffled back in, getting ready for the announcement of lineups and the national anthem. I ducked under his attempt for a hug and turned around to snap a picture of him.
“Unfortunately, yes, you do.”
“I don’t think there’s anything unfortunate about having you around.” Adam smiled at me as he leaned against the fence. I could always count on Adam to say something sweet. He was the dad of the group, after all.
Jamil sidled up next to me with a mischievous smile on his face that was my second least-favorite look, right next to the smile Olivia got whenever she developed a plan that would surely go terribly.
“Can I help you?” I asked him, already dreading what would come out of his mouth next.
“You have fun after the club?” Jamil’s eyebrows danced up and down. I froze the second I realized what he was insinuating. My mouth started trying to form words to explain to him what he saw, but then I remembered the ink that had barely dried on a contract up in the C-suite.
I hoped that the blush spreading across my cheeks made me look like a girl who had been caught red-handed in a new relationship and not a girl who was completely mortified to be in this situation.
“I guess.” I shrugged with the hope that I looked nonchalant and not like I had a nervous twitch.
Jamil’s smile widened as he watched me for a beat. He reached out to squeeze my arm before he turned to head back into the dugout. I pushed a long breath out between my lips and started to bring my camera up to my face when I noticed Adam watching me with interest. He gave me a soft smile before he turned his attention back to the field.
I tried my best to blend into the background. Most of the coaches tolerated the media presence, but they only put up with it as long as it wasn’t a distraction. Soon, the announcer came over the loudspeakers to give the starting lineups. I took my place outside the stairs on the field so I could get a shot of each player as he emerged onto the field after his name was called. Each player came out one at a time, completely locked in for the first game of the season. The sound of my shutter going off was lost to the cheers of the crowd. It had grown to a loud roar.
Then Tommy’s name was announced. The crowd went wild for him. At least his reputation didn’t hurt his fanfare. He bounded up the stairs, the gold chain he wore while playing bouncing off his chest. He stopped at the top of the stairs to give a wave to the crowd before he turned back toward his awaiting teammates.
Goddammit. Why does he have to look so attractive in his uniform?
I was beginning to worry that I was going to have to remind myself this relationship was fake. Because if Tommy ever caught me staring at him the way I was in that moment, he’d probably think I thought otherwise.
Maggie
The first time I ever picked up a camera, I was twelve. My mother had given it to me as a birthday present. She was the first person to notice my eye for photography. I had this obsession with postcards and the way they captured a place perfectly, making it look almost like a fantasy. I pinned them all over my room, but instead of talking about going to the places in those postcards, I would tell everyone about how I would have taken the picture differently.
I still had that camera. It was an old Polaroid that broke when I turned twenty, and it now sat proudly on one of the bookshelves in my apartment. That camera stood as a reminder to me of my dream, which was to show the beauty of the world to others, even in the places where people didn’t think there was any. The world was full of it, if you knew how to look for it.
And right then, I was looking at the beauty that was Tommy Mikals through my camera lens. It was the bottom of the ninth, we were down by one run, and we had a runner on second. All Tommy needed to do was punch something through the infield so our runner could score.
My camera followed the pitcher’s windup and the pitch, and then I watched through it as Tommy squared the ball up with his bat and sent it deep into center field. I pulled my eyes from my viewfinder as I watched the ball go deeper and deeper before the crowd went wild as it landed on the other side of the fence. A roar erupted around the field and every part of me wanted to join in as one of the fans, but I pulled my camera back up to watch Tommy take his home run trot.
As he rounded second base, I watched through my camera lens as he pulled the gold chain around his neck up to his lips before pointing both of his pointer fingers up to the sky, his eyes looking up toward the clouds. I knew the moment I captured the shot, it would be the image of the night. The new trade resulted in an Opening Day win. A sportswriter couldn’t have written it any better.
The guys doused him with a Gatorade bath as he crossed home plate, celebrating their first win of the season. The stadium was electric with fans going wild: popcorn being thrown in the air, beer cans flying, and people bouncing into each other’s arms. It was the perfect start to a season. The team jumped up and down, celebrating their comeback win with Tommy at the center, the biggest smile on his face.
