She also liked how open he was. “Thank you. You look good, too.”
Featherlight kisses landed on her skin as his dark head followed the curve from her neck to her shoulder. “Close your eyes. I have a surprise for you.”
Her first instinct was to be defiant and not to do as he asked, but she did because he’d asked nicely, and because she liked surprises, too.
He brushed her hair over her right shoulder, and a subtle cool weight settled against her décolletage.
“Open your eyes.”
She looked in the mirror and gasped. Her hand immediately went to the delicate gold paperclip-style link chain that hung from her neck. It was just like the one she’d bid on at the silent auction when they’d gone to the Arizona Bar Association Banquet. At the center, a charm of the number thirteen hung from a round clasp. Her favorite number. His uniform number. “I love it!”
She turned around to Javi and wrapped her arms around his chest. His arms wrapped tightly around her, and he kissed the top of her head.
Once her emotions were under control, Camdyn looked up into Javi’s crinkly-eyed smile.
“I’m glad you like it, but if you don’t want to wear it tonight, I understand.”
Truly baffled, she asked, “Why wouldn’t I?”
“It’s not fine jewelry. It won’t bother me if you want to wear pearls or something more elegant.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, suddenly angry that he was downplaying his thoughtful gift. “Will this necklace turn my neck green?”
Now, he seemed confused. “What?”
She poked her finger into his chest. “Is it real gold?”
He scowled. “Yeah. I’m not cheap.”
She smiled sweetly and reached up to fix his messy locks of hair. “I didn’t think you were. This necklace is beautiful, and I plan to wear it every day unless you piss me off.”
Javi rolled his eyes. “So it’ll be off by tomorrow.”
“That’s up to you,” she fired back with a smirk.
The next day was the first game of the last three-game series at home for the Diamondbacks. Somehow, they’d made it to October.
Camdyn and Lola had arrived early to Chase Field so that Camdyn could give Lola the grand tour. Every stadium had something that made it unique, and Chase Field had two things that really caught the eye of first-time visitors. The massive retractable roof was the most noticeable thing, but the stadium also had a pool and hot tub that fans could rent in the right center field stands. But Lola was in awe before they ever made it inside. The size alone had her gawking. This massive stadium could hold ten times the amount of spectators that the Blue Wahoos Stadium could.
They walked through the bowels of the stadium wearing number thirteen La Costa jerseys. They visited the team store and looked at the menus of the different food vendors. Camdyn even pointed out the little ice cream helmets, and she promised Lola that they’d get some soft-serve at some point during the game.
When they finally arrived at their seats, Camdyn settled in for her routine of filling in her binder with the lineup from the program.
“What are you doing?” asked Lola.
“I like to keep score when I go to games. I didn’t have my binder with me when we were in Pensacola, but I always bring it to games here. Do you see this sheet I’m writing on?” she asked.
Lola nodded.
“I keep score on these. I also have pages for stadium stamps,” she said as she flipped to those pages and pointed. “See this stamp? That’s from the last game I saw here.” Then she flipped a little farther to the plastic sleeves of baseball cards in the back. “And I keep my good baseball cards that I want to get signed back here.”
“How do you get those?” asked Lola.
“Oh, you buy packs, but it’s a mystery as to whose card you’ll get in your pack. You could get a really good player or someone who maybe only played in a few games before being cut. The players could be from any team or division. It’s all in the luck of the draw.”
“I want a Javi card,” said Lola.
“Me too!” replied Camdyn. “Maybe we can buy a pack at the team store later.”
