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He nodded. “Anything.”
“Why’d you sign the contract in the first place?”
“My plan was to walk away the second they offered it, but then I looked over at you and that just wasn’t an option anymore. Because if I walked away, I would miss the opportunity to get to know you, and part of me knew that day in the conference room that you were worth getting to know.” He took another step closer to me, and I could practically feel our breaths mingling in the air between us.
“I gave all the money from the contract back.” Confusion flashed across Tommy’s face. “I couldn’t stand to even look at it. It felt dirty. I didn’t want to be someone who took advantage of you. You’ve already had so much of that in your life.”
“Maggie, you could never do that. But I appreciate the gesture, even though you definitely didn’t have to do that. I feel like you’ve gone through so much this season so far that’s completely unfair.” The guilt that Tommy felt over our predicament was all over his face.
“I wanted to do it,” I told him. “For you.”
Tommy sucked in a breath at my confession.
“I’m scared,” I breathed, tears filling my eyes.
“I am too,” he whispered back. Then his hands reached down to take mine in his. “Maggie Redford, I am madly, deeply in love with you. You’ve been in my head from the moment that stupid baseball almost took you out at practice. If you give me the chance of dating me for real this time, I promise I will spend the rest of my life honoring the woman that you are and being the man that you deserve.”
As I stared at the man before me, I realized that this was part of the growing I had told Luke about. If I opened my heart up fully to Tommy, I wasn’t disrespecting Luke. I was honoring him. Because he would want me to continue to be happy and to live. I wasn’t living sitting on my couch watching other people get their happy endings, especially when my own happy ending could be standing right in front of me.
Love is scary. It’s scary to trust your heart in someone else’s hands. I had mine ripped from me four years ago. But love wasn’t just trusting that someone else wouldn’t break your heart. It was trusting someone would keep it safe when you did go through the worst times in your life, and they’d celebrate with you through the best. And as the man I knew I was head over heels for stood in front of me, trusting me with his own heart, I realized there were different kinds of love. Luke was the first love. It was new and exciting, like I was seeing the world for the first time. Tommy was the comfort of my favorite blanket or, in his words, like coming home.
“I love you.” Tommy’s eyes widened as the words came out of my mouth. Honestly, part of me was surprised too.
In an instant, I was wrapped in a pair of strong arms. My body relaxed as it moved around him. “I promise you I will try my best every day,” Tommy told me as he held me against his chest.
“I know you will,” I told him.
Tommy tipped his chin down, and I rose up on my toes, the two of us meeting in the middle. As soon as our lips met, it felt like the last chain snapped off me, leaving me feeling brand new.
“And the crowd goes wild . . .” Tommy and I glanced up to see Jamil, Adam, and Olivia in the press box. Jamil’s cheeky grin was wide enough we could see it on the field. He and Adam were fist-bumping and Olivia was snapping pictures with her camera. A laugh bubbled out of my chest as I watched our friends celebrate us as if they’d just won the World Series.
“Are you happy?” I asked Tommy. He looked back down at me with a grin that I was sure I would never grow tired of seeing.
“I’m the happiest man in the entire world.” He leaned back down for another kiss as the sound of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” echoed around the park.
Three Years Later
The stadium was full of baseball lovers ready for their favorite time of year to begin with the sound of the umpire yelling, “Play ball.” They had all come to see a show, a game they had grown up playing, but on the big stage. Not a single one of them noticed a short, curly-haired woman weaving effortlessly through the crowd, a camera in her hands.
To any fan, she probably looked like one of the team photographers, which may have been true at one point. She was, in fact, sporting a Cougars jersey with the name Mikals on the back, snapping pictures of various fans as she passed. What a fan wouldn’t have known was that she wasn’t hustling for the perfect shot anymore. She’d already achieved that.
Or maybe they’d think she was some player’s girlfriend, enjoying Opening Day. Which may have been true, but it still didn’t encompass the whole truth. She was clearly important to the club because her name was called out over the speakers, asking her to come down onto the field. The woman hustled through the first archway she could find that led down to the field, taking the steps two at a time. One of the ticket checkers waved at her, telling her congratulations on her new position as she ran by. She had recently been given the job of running the entire media department of the Cougars, overseeing not only their major league team, but all of the minor league teams as well.
Fans watched her run down onto the field and wondered who exactly she was. Some recognized her from the gossip magazines that were plastered everywhere three years ago. It became obvious what was happening the moment that her feet hit the dirt of the field and she was greeted by the Cougars’ star player, Tommy Mikals. He took her hand in his and said some words that no one but the two of them could hear. But everyone knew what was happening the second Tommy’s knee hit the ground and the girl started nodding her head yes.
The crowd erupted in cheers as they watched Tommy become engaged to the woman of his dreams on the Jumbotron. The picture that would be on the front page of the paper the next day would be taken by Olivia Thompson and would be the first picture of the couple in the news in the past three years. They had remained private after every aspect of their relationship had been out there for everyone to see. It was like all of a sudden they were the world’s favorite couple to read about, and then poof they were gone. But after they disappeared from the public eye, Tommy Mikals stepped into a new role as the team’s captain and MVP, leading the league in multiple categories. It was like his career had exploded, and many had speculated it was due to a certain curly-haired woman.
The cameraman zoomed in on the couple as Tommy swung the woman around in circles, a look of pure joy on his face. To the average person, their love looked like a storybook romance. The girl met the guy. The guy swept her off her feet. But for the few people in the stadium that knew the truth, their tale was more than a storybook romance. It was the story of two perfectly imperfect people loving each other despite it all.
