23. Alana
One of thegreat things about Ben working for one of the big fancy law firms was that he got all sorts of things for free, which was kind of ironic, considering how infrequently he was able to go to any of said activities. The whole lawyering thing really took a hit on his social life. But when he was able to go to whatever activity, the rest of the group bent over backward to try to join.
And when Ben told them that one of his clients offered him some suspiciously good tickets to the Yankees game that night, what were they gonna do, not go? The weather was beautiful, and Alana wasn’t going to turn down a chance to eat a hot dog and watch a bunch of man children hit a ball.
Was it weird now that the majority of the players were younger than her? Well, yes, sort of. It wasn’t like she had ever deliberated dating one, or being one, but that was the weird part about no longer being the youngest adult in the room.
Granted, it was also weird to have access to seats this nice in a baseball stadium, when Alana grew up sitting in the seats closer to the sky than to the field. That was one of the very few things she had bonded over with her father, and in some ways every game she went to now was tinged with the grief of not being able to text him to tell him about it.
But she was with other people, with better family, and she was going to concentrate on that. Well, that and also giving Hudson a hard time about being a Mets fan.
“I didn’t say I was a Mets fan,” Hudson argued. “I specifically said that I was an equal opportunity clapper, and you took offense to that.”
“So if this was the Subway Series you’d clap for both?”
“If it was a Yankees Red Sox game I would clap for both.”
“I’m divorcing you immediately, Hudson, I cannot believe you would do something like that.”
“Not loudly,” Hudson protested.
JP turned around. “He’s not lying,” he said gleefully. “We went to a baseball game in Boston one time when we were there in college and he clapped for both teams. I thought he was gonna get murdered.”
“And you kept on flirting with the dude sitting in front of us decked out in all Red Sox gear, except the way you flirted with him was by shit talking the entirety of Boston, and then gave pointed critiques of every guy on the team.”
JP grinned. “But did it work, though?”
“Considering you’re not dead, I’d go with maybe,” Alana answered. “Hudson, you can’t clap for everyone.”
“Why not?”
”Well, it’s not like they can hear you or anything.”
“Well, I can hear me.”
JP shrugged. “Your husband is impossible to rationalize with,” he said, and boy, didn’t Alana know it.
Hudson leaned his feet on the railing in front of them. “I hope nobody tries to throw a ball in this direction,” he said. “I really don’t want to have to watch Ben fistfight someone to keep it.”
Ben, who was head down firmly in his phone, looked up, startled. “What about me?”
“Ben, put your phone away!” Ophelia exclaimed. “The whole point was for you to not be lawyering while you’re here!”
“Actually, no, the whole point was to be lawyering with a different scenery,” Ben argued.
“How are you supposed to calculate your billing hours at a baseball game?” Cal asked.
“Magical lawyer powers?” suggested Jamie.
“They didn’t give those out in law school,” Ben said.
“Do they include that with your yearly bonus the first year as a lawyer?” Alana asked.
“If they did, I wasn’t there that day.” Ben finished his email and put his phone in his pocket. “See? No more phone. Although if they would hire an assistant for me, I wouldn’t have to contemplate working through the game, which, let me remind you, has not started yet.”
“But it will soon,” Alana said. “Who’s singing the National anthem?”
“I dunno, some Broadway person,” Cal said. “And Shannon’s not here to tell us anything further than that.”
Alana snapped a quick picture of Ben, and sent it to the group chat. “Ben is off his phone!!!!” She added. “Also, Shann, there’s a Broadway person singing the national anthem tonight (no we don’t know who it is) and we all miss you a lot.”
“Did one of you steal his phone?” Oliver responded. “Did JP pay someone to stage an elaborate mugging??”
“Fake muggings are still probably a crime in some capacity,” Ben texted. “But I will not be researching and finding out.”
“PHONE IS BACK OUT!!!” Oliver responded. “Although I did provoke it.”
“Aren’t you in a meeting now?” Shannon texted. “PAY ATTENTION TO THE MEETING OLIVER I DON’T WANT TO DIE.”
“Finished the meetings for the day, waiting for Martin to finish attempting to hit on one of the women so we can head back to the hotel. I would save her but she’s currently tearing him a new asshole and I don’t want to take that joy away from her.”
“How magnanimous,” Ben responded.
“This is why I have been employee of the month every month since I’ve started,” Oliver replied. “I know you’re jealous.”
“Oh, yes, desperately.”
“Ben, stop flirting with Oliver,” JP said. “They’re about to start.”
“Jealous much?”
“Of my two favorite straight men flirting with each other and not with me? A little, actually.”
Alana snickered, and leaned over to Hudson. “Our friends are dumb.”
“And that’s why we like them,” he replied. “Usually.”
The sun was shining, and even though things had never really gone back to the way they had been before the visit to Dr. Flua, Alana was choosing to believe that everything was fine, and everything was going to stay fine. She was able to just be with Hudson now, in this weird in-between state, hoping he didn’t notice that she stared at him for too long, that sometimes, she held onto him so tightly because she was scared that if she didn’t, he would leave.
None of this was supposed to have been this serious, and yet, here she was, instead of enjoying some extremely nice seats at Yankee Stadium on a beautiful spring day with some of her favorite people, worrying about what Hudson thought of her.
She glanced over at him, and he was placidly watching the first player walk up to bat. The player tapped his bat on the ground, and then got into position, and Hudson, as promised, clapped.
“He hasn’t done anything yet!” Alana protested.
“He’s here,” Hudson replied. “He got here. That deserves clapping.”
Alana sighed, leaned against him just a little. Just enough to assuage the part of her that needed to touch him all the time. “Okay, Pollyanna, I won’t harsh your vibe.”
“Thanks, pal.”
She glanced over at their friends. Nobody was paying attention to them. Ben and Ophelia were in deep discussion with each other about something, Cal was rebraiding Jamie’s hair for her, and JP was typing furiously into his phone, which meant either he was in the middle of some dramatic romantic relationship that was going to inevitably sour, or he was writing a song idea down, or possibly he was planning world domination.
There was nobody who would notice if Alana snuggled with Hudson. And even though they had sort of straightened things out after the gallery, the fight still hung over them like an incessant cloud.
“You know,” Hudson said, a few batters later. “I forgot how much singing happens at a baseball game.”
“It’s just musical theater with points,” JP said.
“That’s probably deeply offensive to both baseball players and also musical theater people.”
“And yet what’s his name from High School Musical figured it out at the end, didn’t he?” JP said. “And, not that I don’t appreciate a good musical theater, but the food’s better here. Not sure which one is more overpriced, but the baseball selection is superior.”
“If I spend the next three days at work singing the baseball song from High School Musical, I will be filing a complaint with HR myself,” Alana said, leaning over Hudson so JP could hear her over the clapping of the crowd.
“Can you file a complaint with HR if I don’t work there?”
“I’d be filing the complaint on myself.”
“Is that a thing you can do?” Hudson asked.
Alana laughed. “I love that you are two boys who have never, ever worked an office job. What’s it like to have never had the joy and pleasure of writing an email that contains the phrase ‘we’ll circle back’?”
“Honestly, pretty great,” Hudson replied.
“They didn’t cover that part of HR rules in The Office,” JP said. “I’d say or Mad Men, but I’m pretty sure HR rules have changed since the 50’s.”
“They have,” Ben replied. “Which, let me remind you, is a good thing.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious.” JP reached over and patted his leg.
Ben gave him a look. “As Alana said, as you are someone who never worked an office job, I’m just here to clarify things for you. What do they call that in journalism? A primary source?”
“Every day is another day you bless me with your stunning pizzazz and spectacle,” JP replied.
Ben rolled his eyes. “Fine, I love you, too. Happy now?”
“Yes.” JP grinned. “And it is taking all of my self-control to have not recorded you saying that and then using it in a song.”
Ben sighed. “I applaud your self-control.”
JP nodded seriously. “As you should.”
Hudson had leaned back in his chair and draped his arm around Alana’s chair. Not in any sort of romantic way, but in the ‘he was a big guy and he needed to stretch’ kind of way. She was going to believe that it was in a romantic sort of way, because she was feeling a little delusional like that.
The game sailed by smoothly, with much singing and fanfare (Hudson was right, the folks at Yankee Stadium loved to break out into song), and no baseballs being hit in their direction.
And then the Kiss Cam swung onto them.
What a horrifying feeling, to be minding your business and then looking up and seeing your face reflected back to you on a Jumbo-tron size screen.
Even weirder was to see it and then immediately have the entirety of the stadium start chanting “Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.” Possibly that had to do with how long it had taken her and Hudson to notice they were being filmed. In her defense, they were arguing over what deserved to be considered a fun fact that went up when the players went up to bat.
“What the fuck,” Alana hissed. “Since when do they do that?”
JP was too busy chanting and laughing to answer. None of their friends, in fact, were of any help at all.
Hudson looked at her, grinning. “Kiss?” he said. “To assuage the stampeding crowds?”
“Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.”
“They’re not stampeding!”
“Not yet.”
Alana rolled her eyes. “Make it good, then.”
Not that she had doubted Hudson, or anything, but stakes were slightly higher when approximately forty thousand people were avidly watching them.
He cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her soundly, and the stadium erupted into cheers.
Alana was blushing furiously when the kiss was over, and the cameras swung onto something else. Hudson was laughing.
“JP, how much money did it cost you to bribe them to do that?” Alana asked.
“Alana, my love, I am endlessly delighted that you think I wield that kind of power,” JP replied. “I could not have orchestrated that better if I did have some way of manipulating things, though.”
“You know, you can deny it from now til next century, and I’m still not fully going to believe you,” Alana said. “Should I tell you my theory of what happened?”
“Oh my God, I would love to hear it.”
“You know, you all but rubbing your hands together and evil cackling is not going to make me believe that you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
JP covered his face, and uncovered it. “Do I look like a serious journalist now?”
“No, but I’ll let it pass.”
“Phew. Okay. We’re ready for the theories.” JP turned to Hudson. “Do you also have a far fetched theory as to how I possibly could have orchestrated this?”
“I’ll let Alana lay hers out first, and I’ll see if mine was any different.”
“The sound guys,” Alana said promptly. “All of you sound people know each other, and you asked them to do you a teeny tiny favor.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Oh, you definitely lied to them about our relationship,” Alana said. “So they did it out of the goodness of their hearts.”
JP’s evil grin got even more maniacal. “What relationship, Alana? What relationship?”
“I am not answering that question, John Paul, because you know damn well. You did, in fact, witness the wedding and everything.”
“And what an incredible witness I was.”
“Adding that to your LinkedIn profile?” Ben asked.
“It’s already on there, Benjamin. Which you would know if you checked it.”
“LinkedIn gives me the hives, Jay. It’s not personal,” Ben replied.
“Yeah, yeah.” JP turned back to Alana and Hudson. “You know, the two of you are really good at kissing. One would wonder, perhaps, if you were practicing.”
“Orrrr, we’re just naturally talented,” Alana replied, having no interest in disclosing to JP just how much she and Hudson had practiced kissing.
Although, was it practice when they had perfected it?
“What a fascinating talent to only discover you have once you get married,” JP said. “I’m going to assume that’s what happened, since I never heard mention of it before then.”
“One day, JP, you’re going to mysteriously vanish, and nobody will question why,” Hudson said.
“Yeah, because I’m going to pull an Agatha Christie.”
“Everyone wondered why she vanished,” Hudson argued.
“But she wrote mysteries. Maybe she had to create one to solve,” JP argued.
“Just because she wrote mysteries didn’t mean she solved them, nor did it mean she committed crimes so other people could solve them,” Hudson said, his tone deeply implying that this was an argument that he and JP had already had before.
Alana’s phone buzzed. It was Shannon.
‘WELL WELL MOTHERFUCKING WELL.’
‘What?’
‘LOL ‘what’. You know exactly what. That kiss!!!’
‘It’s not like it’s the first time we’ve kissed, Shannon.’
‘ARE WE FINALLY GONNA HAVE THE CONVERSATION!!!!!!’
Pfft. There was no conversation for them to have. Shannon, as always, was reading more into things that didn’t need to be read into.
‘We kissed when we got married.’
‘Please know I am currently screaming into a pillow,’ Shannon texted.
‘...sorry?’
‘Liar. You aren’t sorry at all. And also, that wasn’t the only time the two of you kissed.’
‘Says who?’
‘My soul, Alana Rose.’
Alana laughed. ‘Your soul is a romance writer. I don’t know if it can be trusted.’
‘Oh, it one hundred percent can be. At all times. For all things. Especially relating to kissing activities.’
‘I think you should use that for marketing.’
‘What?’
‘That your soul can be trusted for all things, especially relating to kissing activities.’
‘I don’t write paranormal angel books, so I don’t think that would be niche-appropriate.’
‘I miss you.’
‘Ugh, same,’ Shannon replied. ‘Montana only has big skies and an abundance of drama I do not want to be a part of.’
‘And New York has skyscrapers and an abundance of drama you do want to be a part of?’
‘Precisely.’
Several innings later, the Yankees had one, and the stadium had sung one more song in celebration (bless Frank Sinatra with composing a damn good song about New York), and they were slowly making their way out of the stadium.
“Excuse me,” a woman approached them. “I’m sorry, are you Hudson Miller?”
Hudson stopped. “Yes,” he said slowly.
“So sorry to bother you. But I’m Melissa, and I’m one of your Patrons.” she laughed nervously. “Just wanted to say hi and tell you how much your art means to me. Honestly, some of the best five dollars I spend a month.”
Alana bit down the urge to squeal in excitement, as that wouldn’t be professional or anything, but internally she was fangirling.
Hudson had been recognized by someone who loved his art! In public! At random! She was so proud of him she was going to explode.
“Hi Melissa,” he said. “Thank you so much. That means a lot to hear that from you.”
“Can we take a picture?” she asked.
“Sure,” Hudson said, looking a little bewildered. “Alana?”
Alana smiled.
Melissa smiled at her, and handed her the phone. “Thank you so much,” she said.
“Of course,” Alana said. “My pleasure.” She snapped a few pictures of the two of them, before giving Melissa back her phone.
“You’re so lucky,” Melissa whispered to her. “Me and a group of my friends have been obsessed with Hudson’s art forever, and then once he started posting pictures of his face?” She blushed. “Don’t tell him I said that. I don’t want to sound like a creep.”
“Your secret’s safe with me. Promise.”
Hudson waited until Melissa went back and joined her friends before taking Alana’s hand. “What was that about?” he asked.
“Secret girl things.”
“Fair enough.”
“Was that the first time that happened?” Alana asked.
He nodded. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“Makes sense. But you should be proud of yourself. That’s really cool, that she knows you for your art.” Alana smiled up at him. “I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks,” Hudson said. He squeezed her hand. “I’m proud of you, too.”
“For what?”
He shrugged. “Just for being.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Miller.”
Hudson laughed. “Every day I am more and more like my parents.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” Alana said. As opposed to her being like her parents, which. She did not say out loud. She wasn’t going to ruin the moment by making it about her. Which would have been a thing her mother did.
“Yeah, but it’s still kind of weird.”
“Adulthood as a whole, I think, is kind of weird.”
“That’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one.”