1/31/13

Take me out to the Ball Game
By Sheryl Winters


“How long have you been dating him?” Riley asked over the bad organ music playing in the background. He glanced at his best friend, Katherine, “Kit-Kat” Johnson. She had been his best friend for most of his life. He vividly recalled the first time he saw her at the tender age of six. He had been outside, playing with a baseball and glove when a moving truck pulled up to the empty house next door. He tossed the ball to her, she caught it. They were best friends from that moment on.

Right now she was waving to the first baseman, a Jackson someone. He could only presume by their many smiles that they were dating. They couldn’t have been seeing each other long, Kit-Kat hadn’t mentioned him in any of their phone calls or text messages while he was away on business. Riley had heard of relationships moving too fast. But still, wouldn’t he have noticed if she had fallen for someone new?

“I met him just after you left. He knows where my heart belongs.” Kit-Kat shrugged.
She always played her cards close to her chest. She was nervous today, fiddling with her long chestnut hair, dragging it into a ponytail, before throwing on her favorite baseball hat, emblazoned with the words Got Baseball on it. She slipped on her darkest sunglasses, the ones that hid her beautiful blue eyes.

“Headache?” Riley asked.

“Yeah but I think almost gone.”

He leaned over and began massaging her shoulders. Her sigh of relief, was instantaneous. “Why are we watching him play again?”

“Are you not having fun, I thought you liked ball games?” There it was again, the slight twitch to her shoulders, “Why the third degree Riles?”

“Just curious,” He withdrew his hands and placed them in the pockets of his jacket.

She always called him Riles as in "he riles me up, makes me angry, ticks me off; Rile’s, as in best friend, but never lover." This was the first time she’d ever dated a baseball player. She’d gone through lawyers, doctors and that strange mathematician.

Riley stretched out his long legs, taking up the bench below him. The blonde seated next to his feet gave him a pointed look, then a longer one, as she took in his lean frame, blonde hair and blue eyes.

Riley was used to the appraising glances of the women around him and he always shrugged them off. It was clear to everyone who ever met him where Riley’s heart belonged, to Kit-Kat. This trip, more than any other, had taught him that--the car accident, the one he still hadn’t told her about, the slick ice, the slide of the car, landing in the ditch; the long cold night trying to keep warm until help came. Images that flashed through his head as he thought he was dying. Her smile, her laughter, the way her fingers curved around a bottle of beer. The look of mischievousness in her eyes when she won a game of pool.

“You hungry?”

“Well yes, but I thought maybe we’d get something afterwards. We could go to that restaurant you like, the Greek one. The one you always want to go to.” She was rambling, Kit-Kat never rambled. She was always short and to the point. A cheer went up and people began to mill around between innings. The first ball player was waving to Kit-Kat and Riley had a moment of panic. He needed to get out of here before her boyfriend decided to stroll up the bleachers and kiss her.

“I’ll get us hotdogs, be right back.” He got up, ignoring her hand on his jacket. He hated it when people pressed against him, making him feel claustrophobic. But it was either deal with all the people wandering around or watch some player make the moves on the girl he loved.

He wandered around for a while before purchasing two hot dogs, extra mustard on his and plain ketchup for her. The two sodas were next, one Diet Pepsi, extra cold, and one Coke, hold the diet.

He was almost back to her when he noticed the commotion. A large TV camera was filming her reaction. He watched in horror as her boyfriend, bent on one knee, held something out to her.

The hotdogs fell to the ground and the sodas followed. He had waited too long, she belonged to another. He turned and left the stadium, pushing through the crowds, ignoring the muffled curses and dirty looks.

“Riley wait, you have it all wrong.”

He made it to the heavy metal doors before her hand touched his sleeve. It was her "please" that made him turn.

“Just wait... It's not what you think. Riley, please. This was a set up for you. Jackson’s just a friend. I wanted to surprise you, but you left for food and when you didn’t come back...” She pulled on his arm and pointed, forcing him to look at the overhead screen where three words flashed. Marry me Riley.

“You were all I could think about when you were gone. Don’t you know Riley? It’s always been you...,” she whispered. She stood there, ball cap and glasses off. Looking stunningly beautiful in plain jeans and faded flannel shirt. Her hair escaping from her ponytail.

“Riley, will you marry me?” Katherine's smile was tremulous and her hands shook as she gave him the box. Inside was the baseball he tossed to her the first time they met.

Riley couldn’t help it. He had to pick Katherine up and swing her around, baseball and all. “Yes!”

The roaring crowd faded to silence as they kissed.


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Sheryl Winters lives in a small town in Alaska where she enjoys fishing, four wheeling and sunshine.