Chapter 8
Emily woke Saturday morning with a smile on her face and a text from Jake.
Ten still work?
She'd been awake since seven, which was unusual for a weekend. More unusual: she'd been awake since seven and hadn't reached for her laptop. She'd made coffee, stood at her kitchen window watching the parking lot fill with morning light, and let her mind do what it almost never did.
Nothing.
Ten works.
Wear something you can sit on bleachers in.
Bleachers. She had no idea what that meant, and she found she didn't care. Jake Walsh wanted to take her somewhere on a Saturday morning, and she was going to let him.
That thought alone would have sent her reaching for a legal pad a week ago. Pros, cons, risk assessment. The Emily Callahan decision-making matrix, tested and proven through seven years of federal prosecution and thirty-one years of never once doing something just because she wanted to.
She put her phone down and went to find jeans.
She put her phone down.
On the lock screen, below Jake's text, an email notification she'd swiped past without reading.
Katherine Winters, DOJ Criminal Division.
The subject line said Checking in — coffee next time you're in DC?
Emily had met her once, at a sentencing conference in Arlington, and Winters had spent ten minutes asking about her Montgomery strategy with the focused attention of someone who was cataloging talent.
Emily registered the name, filed it, and went to find jeans.
He picked her up at ten exactly.
She'd chosen a soft gray t-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. No armor. No performance. Just Emily on a Saturday morning.
"Morning," he said.
"Morning."
He looked good. Of course he looked good. Jeans, a faded Tampa Bay Rays t-shirt, sunglasses pushed up on his head. Relaxed in a way she hadn't seen at the office or even at The Anchor. This was weekend Jake. Off-duty Jake.
She liked this version too.
"You going to tell me where we're going?"
"Little league game."
Emily blinked. "Little league."
"My buddy's kid." He pulled out of her parking lot, heading north. "I told him I'd be there."
"And you're bringing me."
"I'm bringing you."
There was significance in that. Emily heard it, filed it away. He wasn't showing her his contacts or his network or his professional life. He was showing her the parts that mattered most.
"Who's the buddy?" she asked.
Jake’s hands shifted on the wheel, and Emily recognized the movement. Not tension. Preparation. The way a person arranges themselves before saying words that costs them.
"His name was Matt Wheeler. We served together. Delta." A pause that held an entire life in it. "He didn't make it home."
The past tense. The way he said it. Emily felt the words land and kept still, giving them room.
"I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago." Jake's voice was level, but she could hear what it cost him to keep it that way. "He had a wife, Erika. She was five months pregnant when it happened. Matt never got to meet his son."
"And you stayed."
"I was already there. Godfather. The kid's named after me." He glanced at her. "Matt was the best of us. Funny, smart, the kind of guy who made everyone around him better. When he didn't come back, there was no question. I'd be there for Erika, for Jacob. Whatever they needed."
Emily studied his profile. The way his hands sat on the wheel now that the hard part was said.
"You've been showing up for eight years."
"Every birthday. Every school thing. Whatever he needed, wherever I was." Simple. Like it was obvious. Like there was no other option.
Jake Walsh showed up. For his friends, for their families, for the people who needed him. It wasn't performance. It wasn't obligation. It was who he was.
"Jacob's eight now," Jake continued. "Started playing baseball a couple years ago." The steadiness in his voice gave way to warmth. "He's terrible. Absolute worst kid on the team. But he loves it."
"And you come to every game."
"Every one I could make while I was still in. Every single one since I've been home."
They drove in comfortable silence. The city gave way to suburbs, strip malls and palm trees and the sprawl she'd grown accustomed to since moving to Tampa.
She thought about Matt Wheeler, a man she'd never meet, and the family he'd left behind.
She thought about Jake, filling a space that could never really be filled, showing up anyway.
"Erika knows about me?" she asked.
"I told her I was bringing someone." Jake glanced at her again. "She's been waiting for me to bring someone for eight years. She's going to be thrilled."
"No pressure."
"No pressure." But he was smiling. "She's going to love you."
The baseball field was chaos in the best way.
Kids in oversized uniforms that swallowed their bodies, warming up on a diamond that looked scaled for dolls.
Parents clustered on metal bleachers with coffee cups and lawn chairs and the energy of a Saturday morning in suburban Florida.
Emily followed Jake through the crowd, noting heads turn as he passed.
People knew him here. Waved. Called out his name.
"Jake!" A small voice cut through everything else.
Emily turned to see a boy sprinting toward them, baseball glove flopping on his hand, jersey hanging past his knees.
He launched himself at Jake with the full-body commitment of an eight-year-old who hadn't learned restraint yet, and Jake caught him like he'd done it a hundred times.
Swung him up, held him there for a beat, then set him down.
"Hey, buddy." Jake crouched to his level. "You ready?"
"I'm gonna strike out. I always strike out."
"You got a hit last game."
"It went four feet."
"A hit's a hit, buddy."
Jake's laugh was different from the ones Emily had heard before. Unguarded. The laugh of a man who wasn't performing for anyone, who had nothing to prove, who was here because an eight-year-old expected him to be.
"Maybe today's the day," Jake said.
"That's what you said last time." But Jacob was grinning, a gap where his bottom teeth should be. He looked past Jake to Emily, studying her with the unfiltered evaluation only small children and federal judges were capable of. "Who's she?"
"Jacob, this is Emily. Emily, this is Jacob Wheeler, future Hall of Famer."
"I'm not that good yet."
"Yet," Jake agreed. "Key word."
Emily crouched down. "It's nice to meet you, Jacob."
"Are you Jake's girlfriend?"
"Jacob." A woman's voice, warm with exasperation. "What did we talk about?"
Jacob ignored this entirely. He leaned toward Emily with the conspiratorial intensity of a child sharing state secrets.
"Jake got drafted. To the pros. For real.
He could've played in the MLB but he joined the Army instead.
" His eyes went wide, as if the incomprehensibility of this decision still staggered him. "Can you believe that?"
Jake was suddenly very interested in adjusting Jacob's cap. "Don't you have a game to play?"
"Mom says you were really good."
"Your mom talks too much." But Jake was smiling. He turned Jacob by the shoulders and pointed him toward the field. "Go. Show Emily what you've got."
Jacob punched Jake's arm with a fist the size of a plum and ran back toward his team, glove flopping, jersey flapping, completely unconcerned with anything except the fact that Jake was here.
Emily straightened to find Erika Wheeler approaching.
She was beautiful in a understated way. Dark hair pulled back, eyes that held both warmth and the steadiness of a woman who'd rebuilt her life around a hole that would never fill. She looked like someone who'd learned to carry weight without letting it define her.
"You must be Emily." Erika's smile was genuine. "I've heard about you."
"All good things, I hope."
"He said you were brilliant and intimidating and completely out of his league." Erika's eyes cut to Jake. "He undersold it."
"Okay," Jake said. "Does anyone see me standing here?"
Erika laughed and linked her arm through Emily's before Emily could decide how she felt about that. "Come on. Let's find seats. I'll tell you embarrassing stories about Jake while he can't escape."
She led Emily toward the bleachers. Jake followed, shaking his head, and Emily caught herself smiling at the ease of it.
The way Erika claimed her without hesitation.
The way Jake let himself be the butt of the joke.
No performance. No posturing. Just people who loved each other showing up on a Saturday morning.
They sat on the metal bleachers. Jake on her left, close enough that his leg pressed against hers. Erika on her right, already pointing out which kid was which, which parents were insufferable, which coach had no idea what he was doing.
"The one in the red cleats is Tyler Buckman," Erika said. "He's eight and already has an agent. His dad, not Tyler. Though honestly, it's only a matter of time."
"An agent for little league?"
"Welcome to suburban Florida youth sports."
The game started. If it could be called a game. Eight-year-olds stood in the outfield picking at the grass. A kid on second base sat down. The pitcher threw four straight balls into the dirt before the coach came out to settle him down.
Jacob came up in the second inning. He walked to the plate with his bat dragging behind him like a sword too heavy for its knight, positioned himself, and stared down the pitcher with the focus of a surgeon.
He swung.
Missed by a foot.
"That's okay, buddy!" Jake was on his feet, hands cupped around his mouth. "Reset. Eye on the ball."
Jacob swung at the next pitch. Connected this time, a weak dribble that barely cleared the dirt. It didn't matter. Jake cheered like it was a walk-off homer. Full volume, full commitment, no self-consciousness whatsoever.
Emily watched him, and the ground moved under her feet.