Page 86 of Off the Trail

His eyes grow wide, and then he brings the back of my hand to his mouth and kisses it like I’m something precious. “I’m so glad,” he says. “I love you, too.”

The words fill me with a kind of lightness I wasn’t expecting. I feel so much for him—lust, admiration, pride, the occasional burst of exasperation. But I wasn’t expecting being in love to feel this…freeing. I always felt the burden of love before, the weight of responsibility, the weight of expectation. But loving Shawn isn’t work. It’s not a performance. It’s not something I put on. It’s a state of being—it’s just being me, with a person to back me up and catch me and lay beside me and ground me with the weight of his care and devotion. It’s life. It’s what our life is going to be. And it feels wonderful.

We gaze at each other with sappy smiles, until Shawn throws his head back and laughs toward the stars we still can’t see.

“What?” I ask him when he hoots into the sky. We’re attracting attention from people scattered around the fire, but I don’t care.

“I just—I literally have never felt this way before. I guess I thought I never would.” He smiles at me, his face shining with love, and I fall for him all over again. “But to bring it back to baseball…I was wondering if you’d want to catch a game with me sometime?”

“What—next season? Sure.” It would be fun to watch a baseball game with Shawn. I remember the one game I went to with my dad when I turned ten. We drove down to Hartford, spent the night. I remember peanut shells and sticky soft serve, the roar of the crowd and the excitement when the home team pulled ahead and kept their lead.

“Actually, I thought we could go this season. Game three of the series is Tuesday night. If you could get away from work for a couple of days…I already asked Luis for the time off. We could fly, or drive, if that’s better for you.”

“Fly?” I squeak. “Game three?” My brain is short-circuiting.

“Well, yeah. I can get tickets,” he says casually. “And I could introduce you to some of the team. Jett really wants to meet you.”

“Jett Montevideo wants to meet me?” I’m squeaking again, but I can’t help it.

“If you want to go, we can make a date of it,” he says, as if I might not want to go to a World Series game of my favorite team on a date with one of the former players of said team who I happen to be in love with.

“Yeah, I fucking want to go,” I say. “But I’m not sure about the flying thing. I’ve never flown before.” I’m not afraid of flying, exactly, but it hasn’t been high on my bucket list.

It also occurs to me, maybe later than it should have, that my boyfriend is kind of…rich? I mean, I knew it on some level. But he’s wealthy enough to fly us to Hartford for a World Series game at the last minute without blinking an eye. I sway on my feet.

“Let’s drive, then. It’ll take a little longer, but we can bring more of my things back up with us, so maybe that makes more sense, anyway.”

“I’m—I’m⁠—”

“You look a little pale. Let’s get you some coffee or something to warm you up.”

“Hot chocolate?” I’m not cold, but I need something to hold on to.

Shawn leaves and comes back a minute later with a steaming mug of hot chocolate. I smell it, then take a fortifying sip. It goes down creamy and sweet. “Ahh.”

“Good?” Shawn asks.

“Better. Things just got real for a second.”

Shawn wraps an arm around my waist, tilts his head to mine. “This is real,” he whispers.

Together, we look over the lake. The moon’s dropped in the sky. We can see the stars again. “Yeah. It’s pretty real.”

And we’re really lucky.

Epilogue

Shawn

It’s more emotional than I thought it would be to walk into the Laurels stadium with Blaze. He’d told me on the drive down about coming here with his dad as a kid. I’m gutted I’m never going to get to meet his parents, and I told him so. We called my mom and dad on the drive, to say hi and to formally invite them up to Maine for the holidays. I already made sure Marika would have room for them at the retreat. There’s no space for them with us at Blaze’s. Or I guess it’s our place now, since I’ve all but moved in, even though Brooke’s not quite officially moved out. It’s a lot of musical chairs, but we’ll figure it out.

The stadium is filling steadily as we find our seats in the luxury box. I called in a favor, and we’re sitting with some of the WAGs—wives and girlfriends—of the players, along with parents and other family members. It’s great to see them again, and I proudly introduce Blaze to everyone as my boyfriend while he grins like he’s at Disney World on his birthday.

I decided to stay out of the team’s way until after the game. They lost game two, so they’re battling to come out ahead in this matchup. Whichever way it goes, it’s gratifying to be here without the burden of having to perform.

Right after the national anthem, a new face joins the crowd in the box. “Callie!” I wrap my former agent and current friend in a giant hug. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.” I called her a few days ago to catch her up on the latest and tell her my temporary banishment to Maine was becoming a permanent way of life. She’d been thrilled to hear the news.

“Stop crushing me!” she says, laughing. “And I do have some skin in this game.”