He grins so wide it looks like it might hurt. “Third row. Aisle seat.”
“Third row. Aisle seat.”
“Told you.”
“You did.”
He stands up, cracking his knuckles. “Don’t thank me. Buy me dinner after the season.”
“Deal.”
Somewhere in the fifth inning, I became aware of Coach Bishop watching me differently.
It’s not the worried watch. Not the calculating watch of a man doing math in his head, weighing whether to pull me early and protect the bullpen. It’s the watch of a man who has been coaching for thirty years and occasionally, not often but occasionally, sees something worth watching without managing it. He’s leaning against the dugout railing with his arms crossed and his eyes on the mound, and the lines around his mouth are doing something other than their usual configuration.
I can’t tell from the mound what it means. I won’t try to figure it out until the game is over. Right now, he gets three hours of my complete and undivided focus, which is what he’s wanted from the beginning of this whole mess, but what I’ve been unable to deliver and what I owe him tonight of all nights.
I throw twenty-two pitches in the fifth and sixth combined.
All twenty-two find the zone.
The seventh inning starts 3-0, Wildcats. Tommy hit a two-run shot in the third that the crowd is still talking about, and Rodriguez drove in the insurance run on a single up the middle in the sixth. My job right now is simple—hold the line.
Simple.
The first batter in the seventh is their cleanup hitter. Four-hole, left-handed, the kind of swing that punishes anything over the middle of the plate. He’s been patient all night, working counts, fouling off pitches, waiting for mistakes. I haven’t made a mistake yet tonight. I don’t plan to start.
Garrett calls for the slider. I agree.
The slider starts middle-in and breaks out of the zone at the last possible second. The cleanup hitter’s eyes light up before it moves, then it moves, and the swing is beautiful and entirely wrong, the kind of swing that looks athletic, accomplished, and misses everything.
“Strike three!”
The stadium hits a frequency I don’t hear very often. Not the normal crowd noise, not even the championship-game crowd noise. The sound of people watching something they’ll remember, a particular combination of moment and atmosphere that creates a specific audio signature I’ve only heard a handful of times in my career.
The next batter goes down on four pitches.
The third batter, their number nine, is a contact hitter who battles every at bat with the stubborn persistence of someone who knows he’s in a lineup of stars and refuses to be the easy out. He fouls off my first three pitches with that deliberate, grinding approach, each foul ripping off in a different direction.
Full count.
The stadium goes silent.
I step off the mound again. Second time tonight, first time since the first inning.
The club section stays in my peripheral vision. No need to look, I know Ava’s there.
I step back up. Find the rubber. Take a breath.
Garrett’s sign is a curveball, low and away.
The ball drops out of the zone like it’s following a groove only I can see.
The batter swings through it.
“Strike three!”
And the stadium loses its collective mind.
