Chapter 13
I had to work the following morning, but I couldn’t let the evening end. Every time EJ came to Pittsburgh, I had this feeling that it was the last time I'd see him. I knew he was planning on staying the weekend, but I already felt like it was going too fast.
That being said, we decided to seize the day and go to the late feature with my friends even though I had to work the following day. I had a few one-on-one conversations with people behind EJ's back during the evening, and all of them loved EJ and wanted to know if I was going to start dating him.
He and I had been an amazing team, but there had been no physical contact or outward flirting in front of my friends.
They all knew where I stood with men, so I got by with assuring them there was nothing between us and that we were just old childhood friends.
Even still, they were all really impressed that I brought over someone so famous, and everyone was doing their best to be cool and funny in front of him.
I wanted so badly to reach over and hold his hand during the movie.
It would have been easy enough to "accidentally" touch him.
But my friends were there, and the space between us in those movie theater chairs seemed like a gigantic chasm.
I just couldn't reach over and make contact without my friends noticing.
I knew I probably shouldn't do it at all.
But I wanted to. It was wonderful having him there.
It was a good evening, and I hated it to end, but it was after midnight when we got back to my place, and I knew I had to get some rest. EJ got out of his truck when he parked in front of the salon.
"I'm not coming in," he clarified, coming around to meet me on the sidewalk.
"I just wanted to walk you to your door. "
I smiled at him, wondering where he got the energy to hustle. I was feeling dazed and out of it. I had a long day of work, followed by the surprise visit, game night, and then the movie. We walked along the path and toward the outside staircase on the side of the house.
"I don't feel like I can fall asleep right this second, but I know I need to," I said to him.
"I know," he said. "You do need rest. Do you want to hang out after work tomorrow?"
I gave him a grin. "I thought we were. I thought that was the plan."
"Yes. Definitely," he said. "What time?"
"I get off at three if you want to come by then."
"Okay. I'll be here," he said. "Bye, Savannah. Thanks for tonight."
Before I knew what was happening, EJ picked up my hand, gave the back side of it a quick kiss, and put it down again. He didn't even hesitate or try to do anything else.
"Oh, okay, bye," I said, a wave of disappointment washing over me.
He was already turning to walk away, and he looked over his shoulder. "Thanks. I'll see you tomorrow."
I waved and smiled at him, and he took off.
All I could see was his athletic backside as he walked away.
What had just happened? I couldn’t help but feel rejected.
I thought I was the one who had the walls up.
I thought for sure he would be standing at my door right now giving me the 'for old times' sake' routine. But no. He had walked me to the stairs and said goodnight. He left with no hesitation. I couldn’t help but wonder if I had done something wrong.
I went to bed that night overthinking everything. Maybe he just didn't kiss me because he assumed I didn't want to be kissed. I had told him that, after all. I was happy EJ was still in town, though, and I couldn’t wait to see him the following day.
My morning was booked. I wasn't supposed to work this Saturday, and the rest of the stylists had a wedding party booked from eight to noon.
My clients came in one after another, and we worked around the chaos of having a bride and all of her bridesmaids in the salon.
It was loud and great, and my customers were part of the action all morning.
For lunch, I ate a bite of some two-day-old pasta salad that I had gotten at a deli.
One of my afternoon appointments had some cookies with her, and she gave me one of them.
I ate half of it at 2pm, and the next thing I knew, it was three and I was finishing up with my last appointment.
I finished a little early, thinking EJ would be waiting for me, but he wasn't. I told Bree to send him to me when he got there, and I went back to my station to clean.
EJ came in a few minutes later. I had done such a thorough job of overthinking the non-kiss last night that I wasn't even sure if he would show up. It felt like such a relief to see him. I went up to him as soon as I saw him, giving him a hug.
"How was your day?" I asked.
"It was great," he said. "I worked out at the hotel, and then I went to the mall." He pointed at his clothes, and I nodded and looked him over.
"Nice," I said, trying to act cool even though I could hardly look at him when he was dressed like this.
He had been somewhere nice—to some department store.
He had on black jeans with a black and white button-down shirt.
The jeans were fitted to perfection, and he had on those same spotless tennis shoes.
He was manly and he knew how to dress. I had a few male clients who dressed well, but none of them…
honestly, none of them even came close to the handsome, polished appearance of EJ.
He had his face in the media quite a bit, and he had developed a good style.
It made me proud to have cut his hair because he wore it so well.
"You bought all this stuff today at the mall?"
"Right down to the socks," he said with a bright smile.
"Your hair looks good," I said. I reached up to touch it and mess with it some because that's what I would normally do. I had to remind myself that I couldn't be afraid to touch him just because I noticed him differently now.
"Is it okay?" he asked, turning a little, letting me work.
"Yes. You did amazing. I'm just playing with it since I'm in hair mode."
The truth was that I was aching to be near him. Continuing to touch his hair was a shameless attempt to break some sort of invisible physical wall that seemed to have formed between us last night. I only did it for a few seconds before focusing on getting my things.
"What should we do?" I asked. We both knew we would make simple spur-of-the-moment plans today based on how we both felt.
"I've already got something set up," he said. "I hope that's okay."
"Oh, yeah, of course," I said. "Do I need to change? I was thinking we'd run upstairs anyway… so I can pay attention to my face for a second."
"What's wrong with your face?" he asked, scanning it seriously.
I grinned. He was so handsome that it was difficult to be close to him without getting distracted and having crushing butterflies.
"Nothing's wrong with it. I hope. I'm just talking about powdering it or whatever if we're going somewhere. What did you have in mind?"
"A baseball game," he said.
"A baseball game?"
"Yes."
"Professional?"
"Yes," he said with a smile. "The Pirates. They have a game at five today, and I got us tickets."
"Oh, that'd be fun. I'd love to see a game of baseball. Thank you. What time do we need to leave here?"
He shrugged. "Thirty minutes. Forty-five, maybe. We don't have to be on time."
"Did you tell anyone we'd be there?"
"Well, I told a few people. But they're busy playing, so we don't have to be in a hurry. They're not going to be looking up in the stands watching out for us."
"I'm excited about this," I said, smiling at him. "This is going to be fun."
***
During the next few hours, I experienced things that not many people got to experience. I sat next to a former MLB player and had the game commentated to me by a pro. We ate a hot dog, peanuts, and crackerjacks, like the song said. Then we sang the actual song.
The only thing that failed was that we did not end up on the kiss cam.
I knew there was such a thing at professional sports games.
I also knew it would be a convenient way for things to happen between us.
Some part of me thought that, since he had connections, he might pull some strings and have the kiss cam come to us.
There was no such luck. They did a kiss cam, and they spotlighted five or six couples, but none of them were EJ and me.
He didn't even look at me during that time or notice that the kiss cam was happening.
That was the only thing that could have used some improvement.
Otherwise, it was an amazingly good experience.
I had never been to a major league baseball game before.
In fact, I had never been to a baseball game at all.
My older brother had never played sports, and Christian wasn't into any sports when we were together.
EJ had to explain things to me, and it was fun and interesting.
He laughed at my questions, and he said more than once that he was impressed at how quickly I caught on.
We were technically there supporting the visiting team, which was the Phillies.
We cheered freely for them because we were in a group with other Philly friends and family.
It seemed that about a quarter of the crowd was dressed in red and white, so we were among friends in the stadium in general.
EJ had friends on both teams. It was just that Thad Mitchell had gotten us the tickets.
Thad, shortstop for the Phillies, was one of EJ's best friends, and he was having a great game, which made the whole experience so exciting.
We (the Phillies) were winning the whole game, and the Pirates came back to tie it in the ninth inning and win it in the bottom of the tenth.
The fans in the stadium were on their feet when the home team scored the last run, and I looked at EJ when they erupted.
"Does that mean they won just now?" I asked as fireworks began to go off.
"Yes," he answered, speaking loudly. The crowd had erupted, and there was so much chaos and literal fireworks that I thought he might throw caution to the wind and kiss me. I smiled at him, and he smiled at me, and I wished as hard as I could that he would lean in and kiss me.
"You wanna head downstairs?" he asked instead.
"Sure," I answered, even though I didn't know what he meant by that.
I assumed he meant we were leaving. He motioned for me to follow him, and we exited the row along with thousands of others, heading into the aisle, leaving in a moving sea of people like fish in a stream.
I followed behind him, and every so often, he would glance back to make sure I was still there.