Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Cassidy
“You can observe a lot just by watching.”
Yogi Berra
The grass was too green.
That was the first thought that hit me as I stepped onto the field, the Arizona sun making everything too bright, too sharp, too …
real. My sneakers felt too loud on the dirt.
My shirt stuck to the small of my back, and my fingers wouldn’t stop twitching around the glove.
The roar of the crowd ebbed and flowed, but it almost vibrated.
I had to look like an ant to people at the top but I felt pressure.
The pressure of all their eyes on me, their opinions, their phones. God.
I didn’t want to mess up this pitch. It sounded amazing at the time, but now it was killing me.
If I messed it up, I could laugh it off and make a spoof of it, but that felt disloyal to my dad and this team.
Even if Nate hurt me with his words, his comment about giving him this one moment …
that helped. I stared around the stadium, trying to picture this through my dad’s eyes.
He loved the unity of the field operations team.
How they knew how to work in sync to get the field ready.
They walked around in vibrant red shirts, all with a plan.
I felt him here. I felt his presence and voice and absolute love for this game.
I might not get time back with him physically, but this?
This was why I agreed to this stupid PR thing with Nate.
“Cassidy, hey! You look great.” Lauren smiled at me, waving us over toward the first baseline. She wore a headset in one ear and a clipboard in a hand. The Gila Monster logo plastered to her polo once again.
“Thank you.” I felt Nate near me, but I didn’t dare look at him.
My feelings were complicated right now. He saw me break down, and tried to help in a weird, Nate-way, yet the second I thought maybe we could be something more than frenemies, he hit me with rudeness. It hurt my feelings and I knew better.
I rubbed my lips together, then reached for my cherry lip balm because I was nervous as hell. I reapplied quickly just as Lauren gave directions.
“Stand here, please. Cassidy to the left, Nate beside her. We’ll get a few shots for socials and then you’ll walk to the mound together. Cassidy, you’ll throw to Garcia. Big smile. Don’t forget the kiss!”
I nearly choked. “Sorry—the what now?”
Lauren didn’t even look up. “Did you read the email I sent?”
“Uh, I skimmed it.”
“Fans are eating you two up. You two sold out Nate’s jersey after the post went live yesterday. Give them a moment they can root for.”
I looked at Nate, who almost looked ill. He closed his eyes, his nostrils flaring as he stared in the distance. He clearly didn’t want to do this and honestly, I didn’t either. Not anymore. “I’m not sure we should.”
“Lauren, I’m not doing it,” Nate blurted out.
She blinked at the seriousness of his tone before she collected herself. “Very well, I can’t force it upon you.”
I ran my hand over my dad’s old hat, hating how we let Lauren down. That’s when an idea hit me.
The cap on my head. The worn, sweat-stained brim brushing my ponytail. The way he used to rub his nose against mine every time we went our separate ways, even when I was thirteen and too cool for affection. “Wait,” I whispered, mainly for Nate. “I have an idea.”
His green eyes narrowed. “I feel like I’m not gonna like this.”
“I don’t have time for you right now.” I grabbed the glove from his hand and pulled it off.
“Hey, what—”
“I’m going to use it to shield us. We can still give Lauren what she wants, without actually having to kiss since you’re so opposed to it.”
“Me? You said you absolutely wouldn’t do it,” he whisper-shouted back.
“Those were not my words, Nate. I said I’m not sure we should. You’re the one who looked ready to pass out at the idea of kissing me.”
“No, that’s not true. I was trying to follow your lead—”
“So you do want to kiss me then?” I fired back, my stomach doing a weird summersault with this new revelation. “Is that what you’re saying, O’Brien?”
His gaze dropped to my mouth for one second, his eyes turning a deeper shade of green as his jaw tightened. “You should know, Cassidy,” he said, his voice deep now. “If I kiss you, its just for me, not everyone else.”
Holy shit batman.
A part of me wanted to grab his jersey and yank his mouth to mine, just to do something with this energy boiling under my veins. Yet, the other part remembered how he hurt my feelings. I didn’t want to give him an inch. I would never surrender to this pompous dude. “That’s presumptuous of you.”
He smirked. “I know what I’m good at.”
“Good for you, buddy.” I smiled, remembering that fans could see us even if they couldn’t hear what we were saying. I held up the glove and closed the distance between us,
“Bend your head,” I said, totally aware of how clothes our mouths were. The glove protected us from the fans, but him and I here in this moment was almost too much. “Bend more, I can’t read your nose.”
“You’re not giving me a nose kiss like I’m five, Cassidy. It’s stupid.”
Again, I had no idea why but his dismissal of that stung. I took the hit, avoided his gaze and dropped the glove just as I plastered on a cheeky smile. Lauren gave us the thumbs up and I was counting down the minutes until I was off the field and away from Nate O’Brien.
Only a few more minutes. They had me in a suite that I could’ve invited anyone to, but I didn’t have a lot of friends.
Most of them were online, all over the country where we’d get together a few times a year and hang out for a long weekend.
My one cousin I loved lived in Italy and unfortunately, I lost myself a little when I was with Mathias.
He became my world and when we broke, so did all those friendships.
So I’d throw this pitch, go sit in a suite alone, then go home alone.
Fuck. I thought I was getting better with grief, but it hit me like a wave as I walked toward the mound.
The stadium swallowed me whole. My name echoed over the speaker system—Cassidy Calloway, here to throw out the first pitch—and the crowd roared. I mean roared. Not all cheers either. There were boos. Screams. My name chanted in a weird, drawn-out rhythm. My throat closed up.
Do this for dad. You can do it.
“Don’t trip,” Nate said low behind me. “And don’t fall.”
“Right,” I replied, but my voice cracked.
Everything hit me all at once and I wanted to get the hell out of there.
Nate’s rejection still lingered, twisting with the grief into a confusing unpleasant rock in my gut.
My pulse raced and I felt sick. I turned to Nate for something, but he already took off to warm up, leaving me alone.
For a moment, I thought we were a team, but I needed the reminder. Maybe it was better this way. It really was me against the world now.
Garcia crouched behind the plate, smiling like this was a championship game and I was the star.
The lights were so bright.
The glove was so slippery.
I swallowed down the panic clawing its way up my throat and tried to remember what my dad always said when we played catch in the yard: “Keep your eye on where you want it to go. Don’t think about anything else.”
Easier said than done when the entire stadium is watching you try not to throw like a toddler.
I stepped onto the rubber. My chest tightened.
This is for him.
I wound up—and threw.
The ball arced like a wobbly rainbow. I stood there, frozen, not breathing. It wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t embarrassing either. The ball popped into Garcia’s glove and the crowd roared again.
Garcia popped up, held the ball high, and ran toward me. He high-fived me so hard my palm stung and pulled me into a half-hug.
“You crushed it,” he said, grinning. “Best one this season, I swear.”
I laughed—and it wasn’t fake. It was loud and messy and so real it made my chest ache. Because for just a second, I could hear my dad in that laugh. In the crowd. In the sound of the glove snapping shut.
Tears formed in the corners of my eyes, half relief, half adrenaline rush. “Oh my god.” I wiped my eyes, just as Garcia frowned.
“Girl, why you crying?”
“I’m sorry.” I sniffed, my face flushing from embarrassment. “My dad, the pressure—”
“I get it, honey.” Garcia pulled me into another hug. “Let’s get you out of the spotlight, hm?”
I ducked my head as he guided me away from the spotlight, away from the noise and heat and dirt. I scanned the dugout, spotting Nate’s rigid posture. He stood there, glove tucked under one arm, watching me with a strange expression I couldn’t place.
For the first time, I wondered what it must be like to do this every single night—the pressure, the noise, the lights.
And I realized … I’d been messing with him for weeks without ever really thinking about how it affected him and his game.
Mine was a silly pre-game pitch and I wanted to vomit.
Hell, I still could. But that gross, regret like feeling filled my stomach.
I needed to stop teasing him, stop actually causing the man harm just to distract myself from pain. It wasn’t fair. I was better than that.
“Where am I dropping you off?” Garcia asked, his face twisted with concern. “I don’t mean this negatively, but you don’t look well.”
“I might throw up, actually.” I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. “Thank you for helping me there.”
“Gotta take care of my buddy’s woman.” He winked, just as another teammate called him over. “Take care of yourself, Cassventures. No more tears.”
I gave him a watery smile and waited a beat before glancing back where Nate was before. He hadn’t moved, nor has his face changed. He stared right at me, his green eyes blazing with something. I gave him a small wave and disappeared back into the tunnel.
Lauren wanted me to go to the suite she reserved, but the thought of going alone was too much.
Whenever I felt overwhelmed like this, I needed distractions.
That meant attention or a challenge or a task.
I could totally go find people in the crowd and interview them, do a silly dance, engage fans more. I could flirt and—
No.
I didn’t want to do any of that. For the first time …
maybe ever, I wanted to sit with this feeling and actually feel it.
I didn’t want to tease it away or push it down.
This grief and connection to my dad felt like a warm sweater, wrapping me and comforting me in a way I hadn’t had since he passed.
I was in the team tunnel. I threw out the first pitch. I met Garcia! I was fake-dating his favorite pitcher. My dad would lose his mind at all of this and I wanted to remember his laugh and how he’d demand to see every post.
Not many people knew this, but my dad created a fake account just to watch everything I posted.
He’d comment and tell off the rude comments.
It never bothered him that I was a social media star.
He was proud of me for doing something I loved and I blew off baseball because I was so focused on it.
He always said he never wanted to distract me with his life, because mine was so much more interesting.
But why didn’t I push back on that? Why didn’t I ask more questions about him?
Tears prickled my eyes as I made my way to the elevator. It’d take me to the suite level where I’d go and watch the game. Alone. No dates. No social media trends to chase. Just … me.