“You signed a five-year contract.”
He shrugs. “It’s what my agent negotiated. As you’ve been more than happy to point out, I don’t need the money.”
“And so I ask again, are you just here for the ring? And then that’s it, back to retirement?”
“Maybe,” he says. “I’m not sure I really know.”
“Okay.”
I let it go, not sure if that should bother me or not. If I should want him to stay and keep doing this with me or if these ridiculous butterflies that have followed us from Brooklyn to Bozeman and now Glendale could be unleashed if he called it quits after a year and we’d be free to explore what that might mean.
“Okay?” he asks. “Nothing else to say?”
“Not really anything elsetosay.”
“Unlike you,” he mutters, and I’m saved from having to come up with a zinger of my own when the public address announcercalls us all to our feet and asks us to remove our hats for a local kid singing the national anthem.
And when we do, both of us generally standing taller than the rest of the crowd, it’s easy to see the three kids in Brooklyn Eagles uniforms standing just outside the dugout steps beside each other, all three of their gazes locked directly on us.
Yeah, we’ve been spotted.
“Told you so,” Charlie mutters, out of the corner of his mouth, and I’m not mature enough to keep myself from elbowing his side sharply, grinning at the wheeze he lets out at the contact.
“I think they’re looking atyou,” I shoot back, and get a glare from two extremely patriotic looking older men in front of us as the kid wraps up with a slightly off-key and warblingand the home of the braaaaveeeeee.
He makes that sound again, that half tsk, half grunt, but I let it go this time because I’m still thinking about that question he didn’t answer. Is this it for him? I’m trying to build something that lasts, a team that won’t just win one championship, but contend every year. And somehow, in the last two weeks, Charlie Avery has become a part of that plan.
And maybe it’s too soon to worry about it, too early to let it take up even the smallest bit of space in my mind, but it’s there now and it’s too late to forget it.
I busy myself arranging the jalapeños on my hot dog and then dousing it with some more deli mustard, a combination that feels like an odd convergence of the old and new in my life,LAheat and New York spice. Half Dodger Dog, half Eagle Weiner.
I take a bite and feel the heat spark against my tongue. Nice. Then I look to my left and Charlie’s spreading ketchup across his hot dog.
“What are you doing?”
He stops and looks over at me. “Eating?”
“No, with that ketchup, and what is that, mayonnaise?”
“I’m putting it on my hot dog?”
“That hot dog is a travesty.”
“It’s how I’ve always had them.”
“You can take the Midwest out of the boy . . .”
“Okay, coastal elite snob,” he teases. “Don’t knock it until you try it.”
“That will not be anywhere near my mouth. I have standards.”
He lifts an eyebrow at me and I can actually feel the pink in my cheeks as I flush, and it only grows when his eyes flick down to my lips.
I release a shaky breath, but he clearly doesn’t care one bit for my sanity as he flicks his tongue against his bottom lip, still staring at mine.
I reach for my beer to take a long sip and keep my stupid mouth from talking me right into another awkward innuendo.
Oh thank God, warmups are done and Archie Esposito stands on the mound ready to throw the first pitch and get this game going.
