Treating us like human beings instead of objects would be step one.
“What are you looking at there?” Eric leaned over. He smelled like beer cheese and bug spray. “My little sister is into those old movies. I watch them with her sometimes on Netflix.”
I soften at the mention of his little sister. Nice abs and an appreciation for the VHS era was a formidable weakness. “I review them on YouTube.”
“No way. If my sister isn’t on Netflix, she’s on YouTube.” He sounded genuinely impressed, which gave me a little bubbly feeling in my stomach, even if I still thought he was kind of a douche. “Maybe I’ve seen one of yours.”
“I doubt it.” I wasn’t well-known. Not yet anyway. But one day I’d take Misty Morning, the persona I’d created to host R3ntal Wor1d, all the way to the top of the YouTube food chain. I tucked those thoughts away, though, reminding myself it would take time to build my audience. “I just uploaded one a few days ago. Do you want to see?”
“Yeah, why not?” His arm brushed mine as he tried to get a better view of my phone. All my nerves prickled with awareness. “Why are you calling yourself Misty?”
“It’s like a stage name.” I had Instagram and Twitter accounts under my real name, but those were just for me. Misty Morning and R3ntal Wor1d were for something more.
I watched him watching my video. It was a weird experience to be sitting next to someone while one of them played. I didn’t even let my friends watch while I was in the room. I thought it would be easier with a stranger, since strangers watched me every week, but nope. Every tic or movement on his face threw me into overanalyzing. Was he drawing his eyebrows together because he didn’t get my viewpoint? Or was he just concentrating extra hard? Did the pulse in his jaw mean he was working up the courage to tell me it sucked? Or was that just his regular pulse? Did he think it was silly and immature? So many questions rolled around in my head, I nearly shut off my phone mid-review.
After it ended, I pulled my phone back and sucked in a deep breath. “What did you think? It’s okay if you think it sucked. I’m still new at this. I’m sorry it wasn’t good.”
“Slow down. Breathe.” He laughed, which made me want to shrivel up and roll away. “You have some good thoughts. Really good. What’s your channel called? I’ll tell my sister to look for you.” He took out his phone and opened his Notes app.
“It’s R3ntal Wor1d.” I had to explain that I needed the 3 in Rental and the 1 in World because Rental World was already taken. At which point it occurred to me that I could’ve offered to text it to him. A perfectly reasonable excuse to get his number, but he’d already taken it down and now it would just be awkward.
I literally had no game.
I’d just pulled up my John Hughes/Molly Ringwald review when Mondesí hit a line drive down the middle. Eric launched out of his seat, screaming and hollering with the rest of the crowd as the Tigers shortstop missed the catch and sent Merrifield home. Mom grabbed my arm, cutting off my blood supply as she jumped up and down. The overwhelming presence of the shirtless wonder almost made me forget why I’d come here.
Mom didn’t get a lot of breaks. As a full-time waitress at the diner, this was the first Saturday she’d had off in over two years. She’d gone to night school when I was a toddler, and even got an associate degree in business, but there weren’t a lot of jobs in Honeyfield. We couldn’t afford to move somewhere else. So she stayed at the diner.
She never wanted that to be me, to barely get by, soaking my feet in salt water and trying to fight lines around my eyes in my twenties. Though here in Kauffman Stadium, she looked younger and happier than I’d seen her since the Royals went to the World Series. It made all the saving and planning worth it. I tucked my phone into my back pocket, vowing to get more into the game and really make this a day she would remember forever.
I put Eric out of my mind—okay, to the side of my mind—and focused on trying to get the crowd hyped to do another wave. Because it was goofy and made my mom smile. I grabbed another round of Cokes, and somewhere around the fifth inning, I really had to go to the bathroom. I shifted in my seat, not wanting to get up. I had a serious aversion to public restrooms. But after five straight minutes of squirming, I finally stood.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked Mom.
“Somewhere over there.” She pointed toward the food stands. So helpful.
The lady with the enormous pink bow behind me tapped Eric on the shoulder. “You’ve been here loads of times, right? Why don’t you be a dear and show this young lady where the restrooms are?” She gave me a conspiratorial look that made me vaguely uncomfortable.
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I’m sure I can find it.”
“Oh, hey. No worries.” Eric jumped up. “I’ve got to go too.”
Before I could protest, he shuffled me past an aisle of spectators until we reached the stairs. I walked beside him, and he put his hand on the small of my back, steering me into the short hall that led to the bathrooms. I took a careful step to the side to shift away from him.
His arm skimmed my shoulder as he pointed to the women’s room, like I could miss the giant stick figure in a dress, and I didn’t know if he was trying to flirt or if he really thought I was that helpless. I looked up at him. “Are you going to help me pee, too?”
“Only if you want me to.” He gave me the kind of grin only a boy cocky enough to know how good he looked could give. Like he’d spent his whole life getting whatever he wanted with just a few smiles.
“I’m fine, thanks.” I pushed open the bathroom door and an uneasy feeling hovered over me. As if I’d just walked into a room and everyone stopped talking.
When I came out of the bathroom, I was surprised to find him waiting for me. At my questioning look, he said, “Just in case you couldn’t find your way back.”
“Thanks?” If he was flirting, he really sucked at it. Maybe he’d never had to hone that particular skill, since his strong jawline and ridiculous abs did all the work for him.
This time, I walked ahead of him. We passed a popcorn stand, and I made a mental note to pick some up on the way home. We headed back to our seats, and had just reached our row when the crowd got to their feet. A middle-aged man nearly hit me in the face as he stretched his arms, and I turned in time to see a baseball headed right for me.
Instinct had me whipping my hat off. I stretched my arm, reaching as my pulse hummed. The crowd, the movement, the noise around me faded to a blur. My vision narrowed on that single white speck in the sky. As if I could mentally coax it closer. Someone tried shoving me to the side, but I kept my feet planted, my eye on the ball.
And I caught it.
The swelling crowd jostled me around, and I stumbled, cradling my hat with the ball in it against my chest. Eric kept me upright and grabbed my hand, thrusting it into the air as he screamed with the rest of the crowd. We appeared on the jumbotron and my head went light. I’d never had a rush like that in my life.
People patted me on the back as I made my way to Mom, who was bawling. The “no crying in baseball rule” went out the window when it came to fly balls. I handed it to her, and she hugged me so hard, my back cracked. Best birthday ever.