Instead, I left my bag with Raúl and made sure those heel clicks echoed even louder as I headed into the stands so he’d know I was coming.
Down in the front row, just behind home plate, Charlie Avery sat unmoving with Dodger Stadium laid out in front of him. The field was pitch black except for the soft glow of the city behind us. Just enough light for him to see me when he turned at my approach.
“Sullivan,” he said. He’d only ever used my last name in thefive years we’d worked together. I was never sure if it was passive aggressive or begrudgingly respectful. And I’d never asked.
“Avery,” I responded in kind, and lowered myself into the seat beside him.
It’s a hell of a view. Even in the dark, a major league stadium is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
“It’s late. You should go home. You have things to do tomorrow.”
“And you don’t?”
“You and I and the entire world know I don’t.”
I hummed a non-committal agreement.
“You could always come back, if you wanted,” I suggested.
“So my knees can collapse out from under me on the field? So that kid in Triple A can take my job from me? So they,” he gestured to the empty stands around him, “can boo me when I can’t keep up anymore?”
“So they can say goodbye?” I offered. “They cheered for you for twenty years. Grew up with you. Don’t you think they’d want the chance?”
“The team’ll do a thing next year, bring me out and I’ll throw a ceremonial first pitch and that’ll be that.”
“Well, what about me, then? Who’s gonna give me crap about my analysis before every game?”
“What, are you gonna miss me, Sullivan? I always enjoyed our little discussions.”
He turned in his seat and, for the first time, met my eyes with his. The crystal blue is swimming with unshed tears.
Fuck.
I shouldn’t have been there. It shouldn’t have been me to find him like this. But it was, and I had to do something.
“Discussions? Is that what you’re going to call them? You getting soft in your old age, Avery?”
And, thank God, it was the right thing to say. He barkedout a laugh, but the suddenness of it had the tears drifting to his eyelashes, one and then another falling to his cheeks. He brushed them away with impatience and then waved off the apology that was about to spill out of my mouth.
“Fuck, I needed that,” he said, a broad grin spreading across his face.
I had no idea what else to say, so I just smiled too before sitting back in the seat and letting out a long sigh. He followed suit, his knee knocking gently into mine, his large frame nearly too big for a stadium seat. His knee was warm against my bare one, which was only just peeking out from beneath my pencil skirt – Dodger blue, of course.
And for a moment we might as well have been the only two people in the world, breathing in the slightly chillier than normal autumn air.
“That last at bat,” he murmured, his head turning toward me, drawing my eyes to his again.
“Your last at bat? The home run?”
“Yeah. What did that computer of yours say I was gonna do?”
“Not that you’d hit it out. I can’t predict things like that, but odds were over fifty percent that you’d barrel it, though, which is basically as good as those odds get.”
“Fifty/fifty shot, huh?”
“Not a bad way to end a career, with a World Series home run.”
“Not as good as a championship, though.”
