Chapter 8
MOLLY
I watch the game by myself in my office. It’s really not much of an office, more of a corner of a large room with a partition, but it’s surprisingly quiet during a game. Everyone else has either gone to the staff lounge downstairs or over to the stadium proper.
As support staff to “front office,” we work in a wing attached to the back of the stadium that runs alongside the private parking lot for the players and staff. In the morning, it’s a very busy space, but now that the afternoon game is underway, it’s gone very quiet.
I try to focus on work, but the marketing schedule blurs in front of my eyes.
I swipe at the tears that keep threatening. Crying at work is not acceptable. Just because I’ve made a huge mess doesn’t mean I can’t be professional.
And today should be a victory. The announcers have a lot of fun when the cameras zoom in on the bobblehead that sits on the dugout railing, which happens more than once. They zoom in on Coach Rosehill even more, of course. I see him from every angle over and over again.
He’s so handsome it hurts my chest. The ache intensifies when I think about the pickle I’ve gotten us into. I don’t know how to tell him.
It looked so bad when I dodged Helen’s request for me to go see the coach, but I just couldn’t look him in the eye. Not yet. I would have broken down in tears in front of him, and that’s the last thing he needs.
The bobblehead amusement is the only fun the announcers really have, too.
The game doesn’t go our way, and fans start to stream out to the parking lots in the seventh inning.
Those who stick around to the end are rewarded with a two-run homer in the ninth, but it’s too little, too late, and we start the season with a loss.
I feel even worse.
When my coworkers start to stream back to their desks, I keep my head down and pretend to be working on the marketing schedule for next month. People come in, check their messages, and head out.
There’s a chorus of goodbyes, people saying, “See you tomorrow,” and “One down, a hundred and sixty-one games to go.”
And then our floor is quiet again.
I think about leaving too. I want tacos for dinner. And maybe an extra-large margarita.
But I don’t close down my computer and I don’t pick up my purse because I can’t leave until the coach’s car is long gone from the parking lot.
I was here already when he arrived. I know which one is his, and I’m watching it like a hawk out the window.
Which is why I don’t even notice the man himself appears in the doorway of my office.
“Funny, you don’t look busy right now,” he says.
I whirl around from where I’m standing by the small window. “Oh.”
He holds up the bobblehead. “This was a hit.”
“I’m glad.” My voice cracks.
He frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lie. Everything.
“Have you been crying?” His frown deepens.
Fuck, is it that obvious?
He flicks his gaze over his shoulder, then gestures to the chair in front of my desk. “Can I sit?”
I don’t answer that question, either. I can’t. There’s a lump in my throat.
So instead of sitting, he wiggles the bobblehead in the air.
“Most people don’t know it’s us,” he says gently, more gently than I deserve.
“But I do. And I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate what you did that day. And all the days since. You’ve worked so hard to build some excitement for this season for us.
Even though we didn’t play the best today, the fans had a good time. ”
“That’s not true,” I protest, trying desperately to not let the tears fall. “They started to leave in the seventh.”
He just shrugs. “Gotta beat the traffic. And that was their loss. We had some good pep in the ninth.”
“I saw.”
He grins, and it feels so genuine that it hurts my chest anew. “You watched the game?”
“Of course.” My voice cracks.
“Hey, hey …” He comes closer to where I’m standing. He stops in front of me, tipping my chin up as he smiles down at me. “What’s with the sad face, Molly who works PR magic?”
I burst into tears.
He swears under his breath as he turns and closes my office door. Then he looks around, maybe trying to decide where the best place is to put a sobbing woman.
I try to wave him off, but he takes me by the shoulders and puts me in my chair before tugging the visitor chair around so he’s sitting right next to me, our knees so close they’re brushing.
“What happened?” he asks.
I can’t tell him.
We’ve only met twice. Three times if you count the time we got married when I was wearing a mascot suit.
He finds me a tissue. Hands it over. And just … waits.
Which is the worst part, because it’s so kind. I’m not surprised that the gruff, growly coach has a kind side; he’d have to, to be good at his job, and he’s deeply loved by the team.
But still.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“For what?”
My fingers shake. My throat closes up. I can’t tell him.
But I don’t need to.
I feel the moment his eyes land on the official piece of paper sitting next to my keyboard. The words are small, but maybe he can feel his name popping off the page.
His name.
My name.
My real name typed out in plain English.
Not Captain Citrus. Molly Henderson. My signature scrawled above that too.
“What the hell?” He picks it up. His furrowed brow tightens to a frightening thunder-threat. Like a dark storm cloud swirling in mid-afternoon after a morning spent at a theme park. Not a care in the world, and then suddenly, it’s a deluge.
And I’ve been caught completely unprepared.
“I don’t know how it happened,” I whisper so faintly I’m not sure he hears me.
“Helen asked me to sign something.” His voice is distant too. Rough and confused.
I know the feeling, but I’ve had a few days to sit with it.
A few days where I tried to sort out the mistake, only to find out it wasn’t a mistake in the eyes of the state at all.
“I think it can be fixed,” I manage to squeak out. “But I can’t afford a lawyer.”
“Fixed?” That thunderous gaze lifts, heavy and dark, and aims right at me. “Molly, are we married?”
I laugh. High-pitched. Nervous. A can you believe it? burst of relief now that the truth is out there. “Accidentally, yes.”
“And that’s why you hid from me today.” He sounds so disappointed, it hurts me all over again.
“I’m sorry.”
A muscle tics on his jaw. “Stop saying that.”
“I don’t know what else to say. I wish I could make this go away on my own, but I can’t.”
“How long have you known?”
“A few days. I got a certificate in the mail, which I thought had to be a mistake, so I went to the clerk’s office over on the coast yesterday and got a copy of the marriage license. That was, uh, filed with all the others. I told them it was a mistake. They suggested I get a lawyer.”