Always Right (14 page)

She needed to
feel
something instead. She turned on her heel.

“Where are you going?” Harvey asked, looking up in astonishment from the opinion he was still reading aloud.

“I have somewhere I’m supposed to be.”

“What are you talking about?
This
is where you’re supposed to be! Right here, with your partners.”

She shook her head. “Go ahead, Harvey. Share the good news. Call UPA and tell them.”

“But don’t you want to—”

She headed for the door. “No, I don’t. There’s only one thing I want to do.” She was in the elevator before Harvey picked his jaw up off the floor.

She shoved her hand in her pocket, relieved to find some crumpled bills left over from the lunch she’d bought in the little sandwich shop next to the building. She speed-walked down the block to the luxury hotel at the corner. She brushed past the doorman as she headed to the front of the cab line.

“To Rockets Field, please,” she said to the cab driver.

“Traffic’s a mess down there,” he said as he put his car in gear. “Worse than the rest of the Series, but that happens when things get down to the wire. Tonight they make it or break it.”

She made some sort of noise, letting him think she was listening. Really, all she was doing was trying to make the cab go faster. She wished she had superhero powers to clear the streets. She glanced at her watch. Batting practice would start in half an hour.

In the end, the cab couldn’t get within half a mile of the stadium. She paid off the guy, leaving him in the middle of a tirade about how the Rockets needed to be more aggressive on the base paths. She speed-walked to the stadium gates, ignoring the fact that the crowd around her was outfitted in red and blue, wearing the Rockets logo with pride while she slinked by in a charcoal grey pinstripe suit.

She didn’t have a ticket.

The crowd formed messy lines outside the stadium gates. Everyone knew the drill—open up bags for inspection, step up to the turnstile, present a ticket for admission, tumble into the park. As Amanda stared, she was buffeted from side to side, tossed forward and back by eager baseball fans.

On the plaza inside the gates, Rockets Fever crested. This was the night the team’s fate would be decided. This was the night they’d either win the World Series or go back into the pool for another year—more hoping, more working, more praying for success.

Amanda blinked against bright white lights. A camera team was roving through the crowd on the plaza, stopping individual fans, collecting “man on the street” interviews. Amanda could just make out the chestnut curls of Rory Michaels, the sideline reporter who had broadcast her face to the world back at the end of the regular season. Back when everything was right with Kyle.

“Rory!” Amanda wrapped her hands around the iron bars of the fence and screamed. Her voice wasn’t nearly loud enough to carry. But her cry attracted the interest of the crowd around her. Laughing fans turned to stare.

“Please,” she said. “I need to get Rory Michaels’ attention. Help me, please. On the count of three, let’s all call his name.”

They thought she was crazy. She could tell that—the way they looked at her suit, the way they stared at her face. But she counted to three before they could walk away, and she shouted with all her might, hoping, praying they’d join in.

And enough of them did that Rory looked over his shoulder. Of course he noticed her right away—she stood out like a mortician at a pep rally. Waving to his camera crew, Rory crossed the plaza. “Amanda,” he said, when he was close enough to be heard over the hubbub. “I haven’t seen you in weeks! What are you doing here?”

“I don’t have a ticket, and I need to get inside for batting practice.”

“Amanda, I—”

“Don’t fight me on this,” she snapped, like she was organizing troops to march into battle. “Get me through that gate and keep your cameras close, and you’ll have the best story of the series. Whether the Rockets win or lose, you’ll have the footage forever.”

Rory stared at her like she was speaking in tongues. But he was the best at his game. He crossed over to the woman who trailed him with her heavy video camera, muttering something in her ear. He reached out to clasp the woman’s hand in a hearty handshake, and Amanda only saw a plastic card slip between them because she was looking for it.

Rory came back to the fence, shaking his head like she’d just told him the saddest story he’d ever heard. “I’m sorry, Amanda. I wish I could help.”

But he reached out to shake her hand. And as her fingers closed over his, he passed her a piece of plastic.

She wasted no time shaking out the lanyard of the press pass. She pulled it over her head and pushed her way to the front of the line. “Press,” she said when the ticket taker threw up an annoyed hand. “I have to meet up with my broadcast team. Here’s my press pass.”

She repeated those two lines until the guy waved at the turnstile. By then, Rory Michaels was close on her heels. She glanced at the scoreboard clock, and she set out for the right field seats at a dead run.

~~~

Kyle stood in the dugout, listening the chatter of the guys behind him. Each player handled tension his own way. Some got quiet, like they were marching to their death. Others told jokes, the raunchier the better. A few drummed on the railing, waiting for the nod from Skip, eager to take the field and hit a few balls before the real game began. Kyle ran his fingers through his short hair, scratched absent-mindedly at his bare chin.

He could feel the energy in the stands. This was it. This was the night the Rockets either brought one home for Mr. Benson or let the dream die forever. Kyle took a deep breath, and he started the long trot to right field.

The stadium held almost forty thousand people, and nearly every seat was filled, even though first pitch wouldn’t be for an hour and a half. The crowd blurred into a mass of red, a living, breathing bank of bodies. It was incredible to feel that level of support from fans, amazing to see them dressed out, waving caps in support, cheering their team to hoped-for victory.

Out of habit, Kyle started to look toward Amanda’s seat when he got to his spot. That was stupid, though. She wasn’t there. She hadn’t been there since he’d called her a whore, since he’d broken the only good thing he’d ever built in his life.

Dammit, he
should
look at her seat. He should remind himself of everything he’d ruined. He should make sure he remembered what the season had cost him, why he had to win tonight if he wanted even a prayer of making the game the least bit worthwhile.

Not everyone in the crowd wore red. One person wore black, sober as a judge.

Kyle blinked and looked again. No, that wasn’t a judge. It was a lawyer. And the fabric wasn’t black. It was charcoal grey, with cream-colored pinstripes.

His fingers tensed, remembering what it had felt like to run his hands down those pinstripes. His belly swooped as the entire world shifted off its axis. Amanda was here. Amanda was waiting for him.

He stopped at the bottom of the fence, raising one hand to shield his eyes from the bright white lights of TV cameras. What the hell were they filming up there? And more to the point,
why
were they filming it?

But that was a stupid question. They were filming Amanda. They were filming Amanda and him.

What the fuck was he supposed to say? How could he apologize to her here, in front of all of Raleigh? Hell, this was the seventh game of the World Series; the feed would go out nationally. They’d said too many things to each other, cut each other too deep.

So he said the only thing he could, under the circumstances. “Hey, sweetheart,” he called.

He watched her step up to the railing. This wasn’t the Amanda he’d met during that afternoon game months before. This wasn’t the woman he’d taken to dinner, the woman he’d taken to bed. This wasn’t the Amanda he’d fallen in love with.

Because this Amanda looked frightened. Terrified. She looked like she didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to answer him. So he smiled and recited his next line. “If you really want to thank me, let me wear your glasses!”

She shook her head, the same way she had that first day. She curved her hand in to point at her chest. He couldn’t think about her chest. He couldn’t think about the way she’d arched against him, the way she’d trusted him with her body when she wasn’t willing to trust anyone, anywhere else in the world. He couldn’t think about the way he loved her—loved her for coming to his condo, loved her for telling him the truth, loved her for coming here, to Rockets Field, tonight.

As he watched, she took off her black-rimmed glasses. She stared at them like she’d never seen them before, like she couldn’t imagine why she was holding them.

Wearing the glasses, she rocked the whole sexy librarian thing. Without them, without the lie, she was gorgeous.

“Go ahead,” he shouted, slipping off his glove. “I’ll catch them.”

“Sure,” she called, and he heard the laughter in her voice. He heard the memory of her sarcasm, the joke at his expense.

“It’s my job!” he called, completing the record, filling in all the words from the past, all the words they needed here in the present.

She held out her hand. He cupped his into a V. She held the glasses by their eyepiece, dangling them like she was making a decision. And then she dropped them.

He caught them cleanly, holding them at the same level as his heart. He stared up at her, wanting to tell her he’d been an ass. He wanted to apologize, to beg her to forgive him. He wanted to tell her she’d been right all along. He hadn’t needed his superstitions; he’d just needed to get his head in the right place, to play the game the way it needed to be played.

But there wasn’t time for words. Not with the cameras rolling. Not with the crowds surging closer to the railing, chanting his name, clapping in rhythm.

“Go,” she mouthed, and he could make out the word perfectly. “Win. I’ll be here.”

~~~

At least, Amanda planned on being there. Unfortunately, there was no place for her to stand. Her usual seat was occupied by an enthusiastic fan, and she couldn’t stay in the aisle, blocking the view. Her heart sank as she started the long climb up the steps to the concourse, realizing that she wouldn’t be able to watch this most important of Kyle’s games.

“Ms. Carter?” A uniformed usher waited for her at the top of the steps. The young man extended a note toward her.

Mystified, Amanda took the slip of paper. She unfolded it carefully and read: “Ms. Carter: My grandfather and I would be honored if you would join us in the owners’ suite to watch the game. Anna Benson.”

Of course she’d read about Anna Benson. The woman had been profiled in newspapers and magazines as one of Raleigh’s most successful young businesspeople. Everyone knew Anna was running the team under her elderly grandfather’s watchful eye. Everyone knew she wanted a championship more than anyone else in the Rockets family, except maybe the old man himself.

The usher still stood there. “Ms. Benson asked me to show you the way, if you’re interested.”

“Of course I’m interested!” Amanda said, and she fell into step beside the smiling stadium employee.

So. This is how the other half lives
.

Amanda had expected luxury chairs and top-rail liquor, with gourmet food and the largest television screen a fortune could buy. Instead, the owners’ suite looked like a cross between a college dorm room and a locker room. A long table ran along one wall. It was covered with papers, all the pages surrounding a beat-up laptop that was plugged into the wall. A rainbow of pens, pencils, and highlighters sprayed out of coffee cans that were scattered around the room.

Before Amanda could recover from her surprise, she found herself shaking Anna Benson’s hand, meeting the woman’s grandfather, introducing herself to the other team officials who crowded the box. Anna slipped an ice-cold Coca-Cola into Amanda’s hand, gesturing for her to pop the top just as the children’s Musicall choir began to sing
The Star-Spangled Banner
. Everyone in the box joined in.

And that was the last conscious noise Amanda made for three and a half hours.

The game was intense. DJ Thomas had a perfect game going into the seventh, matching the Los Angeles pitcher, out for out. The Rockets finally drew first blood with a towering home run Tyler Brock hit over the left field fence. LA answered with a hard-fought eighth inning, playing small ball, walking their lead-off hitter, bunting him over, scraping together four more hits to lead by a run.

Tension twisted through the owners’ suite in the bottom of the eighth. The Rockets struck out in rapid succession. The catcher launched a fly ball to right. Ryan Green sent a line drive straight to the second baseman. Drew Marshall grounded out to the shortstop.

The Rockets brought in their closer to pitch the ninth. It wasn’t a save situation, but this was the most crucial inning of the season, the make-it-or-break-it point after all the games they’d played. The veteran sat down all three batters he faced.

And that left the bottom of the ninth.

Adam Sartain dug in behind the plate. He took the first pitch, a strike down the middle of the plate. He didn’t move his bat for the two balls that followed. He fouled off half a dozen near misses, sending each one into the stands, raising whining cries of expectation from fans with each crack of his bat. Another ball, a curveball that missed. A fourth one, and the left fielder walked to first. The tying run was on base. The Rockets had a chance.

Josh Cantor was up next. The third baseman swung at the first pitch, sending the ball arcing to the deepest point in the park, toward the tables of the high-end restaurant that catered to the Rockets’ wealthiest fans. The Los Angeles fielder raced back to the wall. He crouched on the warning track, timing his jump. He extended his arm over his head. And he came down with the ball, robbing Cantor of a walk-off home run. Sartain tagged up, though, and dashed to second, getting into scoring position to tie the game.

That brought Nick Durban up to bat. He fouled off a few balls and ducked one wild pitch that almost hit his head. He swung hard at the next one, but it popped up, high enough to get lost in the glare of the stadium lights. LA’s first baseman made the easy catch. Two outs. One batter left to save the day for the Rockets.