I released a breath and closed my eyes. “Yes. I’ll go with you,” I promised, doing my best to sound disappointed.
Her squeals of delight filled the air and I couldn’t shake the feeling of anticipation welling within me. I didn’t want to be excited to see Jack in his element…but I was. But I’d be damned if I was going to admit it.
THREE
Our apartment was only a few blocks from campus, so we walked everywhere we could. In the grand scheme of things, it was much easier than dealing with the parking situation. There were too many cars and never enough spaces. Not to mention the fact that the price of a semester parking pass cost more than my first camera. This is partly why my parents refused to let me bring my car to school. So I sit at school, car-less. And my car sits at home, driver-less.
The lights of the stadium caught my eye before anything else did. The tall fixtures beamed in every direction, giving the school the appearance that it was lit up from the inside out. I stopped quickly and dropped to my knees, unwinding the camera’s thick black strap from around my wrist. I removed the lens cap and tucked it into the back pocket of my jeans. Melissa, used to my photographing ways, had already noticed my absence and s
ilently waited for me.
I brought the viewfinder to my right eye and closed the left, as strands of my hair dangled in my line of vision. I let out an aggravated breath before gently placing my camera on the ground between my feet and twirling my long blonde mane into a knot at the back of my head. With my hair firmly out of my eyes, I angled the lens to show only the top of the baseball stadium, with the lights and the illuminated sky as the focal point. I manually adjusted the focus and the shutter speed before pressing the shutter release button and hearing the familiar click sound I’d grown to love. Satisfied with the preview on the screen, I stood up and walked over to Melissa.
“Good shot?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “We’ll see,” I said, reaching in my back pocket to fish out the lens cap.
I was still learning how to use my new digital camera. I’d saved for two full years to buy it, hoarding every bit of Christmas and birthday money from relatives and doing small photography jobs for local businesses and high school seniors. Oftentimes I thought the picture on the camera’s small preview screen looked gorgeous, only to find out it was blurry or nowhere near as pretty once it was full-sized on my computer monitor. But I was learning.
We walked side by side toward the stadium’s entrance. Melissa wasn’t joking when she said it was a spectacle. The line to get in exceeded the length of the field and spilled out into the parking lot. We took our place at the end and I removed my lens cap once again, mesmerized by the sea of orange and dark blue that engulfed us. Everyone was decked out in our school colors, some wearing mock baseball jerseys with players’ names on the back. I laughed to myself at the sheer number of “Carter, 23” shirts I saw and couldn’t resist photographing a few.
“Cassie, come on! You can do that once we sit!” Melissa urged, scanning the seat numbers on our tickets.
I followed obediently behind her. “Don’t most of the students sit in the bleachers?” I pointed toward left field.
“Depends on what you’re trying to see. ” Melissa batted her long black eyelashes.
“Oh no. What have you done?” My legs began to tremble as I watched Melissa lead me all the way down the stairs to the front row, closest to the field.
She turned around, grinning from ear to ear. “Here we are,” she announced before plopping down and looking left into the team’s dugout.
I turned my head as well and realized we were practically in the freaking dugout. I leaned toward Melissa, almost knocking some poor guy’s drink in his lap. “Sorry,” I said quickly before squatting next to her. “I am not sitting here!”
“Yes, you are. These are our seats and the game’s sold out. ” She smiled innocently and patted the empty seat next to her.
I scowled. “At least switch seats with me then. I don’t want to be the one closest to their dugout. ”
“Fine,” she said before hopping up and flipping her hair.
I begrudgingly sat and slinked down into my seat, trying to conceal myself behind Melissa’s tiny frame. “I didn’t want Jack to know I was here. Now there’s no way he won’t see me. ”
“This isn’t about you. You’re thinking too much. ” She sloughed me off with a wave of her hand.
“You better be right. ” I sighed, wondering how long I had to stay. I avoided looking anywhere near the team’s dugout, afraid of who might be looking back at me, when Melissa called me on it.
“He won’t see you, Cass. You can look in there. Hell, you can even photograph the dugout. He won’t know,” she informed me, her face serious.
“How is that even possible?” I gave Melissa my best duh look.
“Because Jack’s all business out here. He doesn’t look in the stands. Ever. And I mean, ever. Last year this girl took her freaking top off and screamed Jack’s name like a lunatic the entire time he was up to bat. He didn’t move a muscle to look in her direction. I could light your ass on fire and he wouldn’t even know. ”
I laughed super loud. “Please don’t test that theory. ”
“Look around, Cassie. I’m pretty sure this is the one thing in life he takes seriously. ” Melissa leaned back into her seat, taking a sip of the soda she’d just bought from a roaming vendor.
I scanned the crowd and noticed that we were surrounded by what appeared to be major league scouts. Each carried their own radar gun to measure the speed of Jack’s pitches, and notepads to write everything down. There was a forest of television and press cameras lined up on tripods behind home plate. It was the closest thing to a media circus I’d ever seen. And I currently held my own professional-sized camera, which definitely helped us fit in with all the madness.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Fullton Field!” The announcer’s voice filled the air, as the cheers slowly died down in volume.