Chapter 23 #2
Emmy bumped into the cameraman, jostling the shot in her attempt to get close enough, and reached for the microphone the reporter
held.
“What in the—?” the reporter said, and jerked back.
“Sorry! I just need to borrow this for a second.” Emmy shoved her way in front of the camera and yanked the microphone out
of her grip before anyone could stop her. Everyone was too shocked to react. “Gabe!” she shouted at the camera lens. The reality
of her actions didn’t fully hit her until she heard her own voice echoing around the stadium like a rock show. But she couldn’t
stop now. Surely she had but seconds before they cut the feed.
“Gabe! I’m here. I came here to find you. I read your message, and I’m so sorry. I misunderstood what I thought I heard. I
know you’d never lie to me about anything this important. And I agree: that fake number was the best thing that ever happened
to me too. You are the best thing that ever happened to me.
And what I said in the hallway the other day about how I feel—I still feel it, even more now.
I’ve figured out how to quantify my feelings too.
They are greater than. As in, greater than everything.
I want to tell you to your face. So please, if you’re here, I hope you are listening.
” Emmy hadn’t realized fifty thousand people were staring at her on the scoreboard and had just heard her confession until she stopped talking.
Her heart pounded and her breath rushed into the microphone.
Surely she was about to be tackled by security and hauled out.
Surely the cameraman was about to drop his lens, the microphone was going to cut out, and the scoreboard was going to go back to advertisements.
But none of that happened.
The whole stadium seemed to be holding its breath.
Emmy looked around in terror as everyone looked at her, either on the scoreboard or from the nearby seats. The expectant silence
expanded into an eternity.
“Where’s Gabe?” a man shouted from a section over. It was quiet enough that his voice rang out into the open space. Other
fans started murmuring. Echoes of Where’s Gabe? rippled around the crowd.
The reporter whose microphone Emmy had stolen pressed her fingers to her earpiece, clearly listening to instruction from the
other side. Emmy expected her to snatch the mic back, but she nodded and dropped her hand. She gestured at Emmy as if to say,
The floor is yours .
Emmy gaped at her in shock. She hadn’t planned for her idea to work at all, let alone to be given permission to keep talking.
She glanced back at Pedro and Beth. The security guard had given up trying to restrain them. Everyone was too invested to
pay attention to anything else.
“Gabe! Come get your girl!” one of the players hollered from the field, hands cupped around his mouth. It sent a roaring cheer
up from the nearby fans. Soon, a chant broke out.
“ Gabe! Gabe! Gabe! ”
The whole stadium was in on it.
Emmy was aflame with embarrassment and hope at the same time. She silently prayed he was listening, and she wasn’t about to
experience the most humiliating rejection in history. Aside from the scoreboard camera, dozens of smartphones were aimed at
her, surely streaming her desperate confession online. She smiled into the camera. “I’m behind home plate, first base side,”
she said. She nearly had to shout over the chanting crowd. “Are you here?”
The chant carried on, everyone looking side to side for the mysterious Gabe. Emmy’s heart raced until she felt like it might
give out. And then it slowed when nothing happened. No one appeared. The chanting died down, and Emmy felt like she could
sink into the earth. Her smile faded, and she lowered the mic. The reporter gave her a sad look like she’d been hoping for
a storybook ending. The nearby fans began to murmur. Her heart somehow managed to split another crack.
And then a small cheer went up out near right field.
Emmy snapped her head up to see a familiar figure jogging across the outfield lawn, coming in from the bullpen. She knew the
long strides, the swing of his arms. The feel of her heart surging in the knowledge he was near.
“Gabe!” a woman in the nearby seats shouted and pointed. “Is that him?”
“Oh my god, it’s Gabe!” someone else said.
“It’s him!”
Emmy nodded and felt her eyes gloss with a wash of happy tears. “It’s you,” she said, and handed the mic back to the reporter.
The stadium had resumed chanting his name.
“ Gabe! Gabe! Gabe! ”
Emmy hurried down the rest of the stairs to thunderous cheers. She kept her eyes trained on Gabe jogging into the infield now. He crossed the pitcher’s mound, and she could see the grin on his face. He threw up a hand and waved at the crowd, which only prompted them to further lose their minds.
The field security crew had gathered at the short, padded wall separating the stands from the field. Emmy wasn’t about to
leap onto the grass and get tackled despite having fifty thousand people cheering on her side. She found her way through the
safety net guarding the seats behind home plate from foul balls and stopped at the wall to wait for Gabe. He jogged the rest
of the way, and instead of stopping him, the security team cleared a path for him, probably wanting the show to be over so
they could keep the game on schedule. Gabe effortlessly hopped up and climbed over the small wall.
He was suddenly standing in front of Emmy giving her his signature cocky grin she knew was just for show. She knew the man
behind it now, better than anyone. Every fiber of her being had missed him, and she knew without a doubt how she felt about
him. The rest of the world—all fifty thousand screaming members of it—faded away as she looked for the truth in his eyes.
She didn’t have the microphone anymore, but their faces were still on the scoreboard; she could see them out of the corner
of her eye.
“Hell of an apology, Jameson,” he said.
“I considered spicy takeout but opted for larger scale.”
“Had to one-up me.”
“I learned from the best.”
He grinned at her.
“I’m really sorry, Gabe. For what I said yesterday. I made an assumption, and with my history in the department and your reputation—”
“I deserved at least some of what you said,” he said with a knowing nod. “I know my behavior hasn’t always been exemplary.
But those rumors about getting someone fired, it wasn’t—”
“I know. Alice told me the truth. I’m sorry I assumed the worst.” She shook her head in shame. “Thank you for what you did
for me though. That was really selfless of you.”
He gave her a small shrug. “Like I said: you deserve the job. I can’t stand in your way.”
She ached to touch him—and based on the noise roaring outside their bubble, everyone wanted to see it.
But she needed to know something first.
“Can you forgive me?”
He tilted his head like he might have been considering. Her heart tripped over a few beats. But then he smiled again. “Well,
I mean, you did just make one of my dreams come true.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” he said, and gestured at the field beside them. “Never thought I’d get to hear a whole stadium chanting my name as
I took the field.”
Emmy hadn’t even realized her plan had played right into that scenario. What a happy coincidence.
“We aim to please,” she said with a casual shrug. “Any other dreams I can make come true?”
Gabe stepped forward and cupped her cheek with his palm. His eyes melted into warm pools, and he softly smiled. “You already
have. My feelings are greater than everything too. I love you, Bird Girl.”
The words landed both featherlight for how easy and comfortable they were to hear, and with a sudden gravity anchoring her
to him in a way she’d never experienced before. She didn’t even have to think before she said it back, because the feeling
had been ripening inside her for ages. A seed planted years ago that had finally blossomed with the right care. The probability
they’d end up together had likely always been high, but it took random chance, a fateful stroke of luck, and a ten-digit string
of numbers for them to find their way.
And Emmy never wanted to turn back.
“I love you too, Axe Murderer,” she told him, and then kissed him to her favorite sound on earth. A baseball stadium full
of cheering fans.