by Sierra Dean
“Right now it’s just an article.” He tapped the paper, and it crinkled under his neatly trimmed nails. “I’d like to avoid it becoming a whole issue, if possible.”
“Okay.”
“You’re good at your job. Better than good. I’m watching Tucker Lloyd pitch his best game in over three years. I see the difference having you around is making.”
She hoped he didn’t see everything.
“This article doesn’t change my ability to do my job,” she said defensively. She didn’t like the story any more than he did, but she didn’t think it was fair for him to question her ability to do her job because of it.
“I didn’t say it did. My concern is that stories like this draw attention. And I want people watching Felons games for the game. Not because we’re a beacon for social equality.” He must have seen her expression grow dark because he quickly held up two hands. “I’m all for equality, please don’t misunderstand. But you have to admit, you’re the exception in this sport, not the rule. And if people start watching our games thinking we’re something we aren’t? I don’t see it doing anything but backfiring. And we don’t need that kind of bad juju hanging around us this season.”
“You think this article is going to draw in a legion of new feminist viewers, and you’re worried they’ll get angry when they realize baseball really is a man’s game after all?” Emmy needed to restate his points because she wasn’t sure she’d absorbed the entirety of how stupid they’d been.
“I think you’re oversimplifying.”
“Darren, please don’t take this the wrong way, but there’s something you need to understand about baseball you’ve clearly missed.”
“And what’s that?”
“Baseball isn’t a man’s game. It’s the national pastime. And with all due respect to the female half of the nation, if this article brings in more female viewers, then maybe that’s a good thing, because right now Felons games rank behind NASCAR in TV ratings. So angry feminists or not, I think maybe you should worry more about how your team plays and less about the motivations of those tuning in to see them. Maybe if those new feminist fans see us win some games, they’ll stick around.” She’d wanted to stop mid-rant, but once her mouth was open it was like a floodgate. There was no stopping the torrent; it just had to run its course.
“I’ll take that into consideration.” His tone was flat, and she couldn’t tell if he was angry or impressed. The dead caterpillar on his lip twitched.
“May I go back to the game?”
“By all means. Apparently we need to start generating more wins to appease our new fans.”
Chapter Sixteen
Giordano’s Pizzeria was crammed the following night.
After a Saturday afternoon game, Tucker managed to convince Emmy it was a good time to meet her end of their bargain. If he’d known how busy the famous Chicago eatery would be, he’d have taken them somewhere else, but he remembered her speaking fondly of the place. Aside from the lengthy wait, he figured he had to get bonus points for taking her to her favorite hometown restaurant.
The restaurant had no available tables, so a harried waitress showed them the way to the lounge, and they were left to fend for themselves. A couple got up as they arrived, vacating two places at the bar, and Tucker snagged the tall stools before anyone else spotted them.
On the big-screen televisions behind the bar, a Cubs game was getting started, which explained why so many people were milling around the lounge. That and the proximity of the restaurant to the Willis Tower meant there would always be a steady flow of tourist foot traffic.
Tucker knew immediately no matter how many sentimentality points he gained for his choice of venue, there was no way this evening could be even remotely romantic.
The crowd was raucous, hooting and swearing as ESPN played clips of the earlier afternoon game between the Felons and the White Sox. Cassandra Dano, the skinny blonde reporter, was giving the camera a leering, salacious smile as she reported the day’s stories. He’d met Cassandra a few times and wasn’t certain she knew a damn thing about sports, which made him wary of her.
Men in the bar didn’t seem to share his apprehension. He overheard more than one comment volunteering to service her. Tucker cut a glance to Emmy, who had slid onto the barstool and was pretending not to hear any of it.
“What’ll it be?” A Spanish-looking bartender sidled up, his sleek black hair pulled into a ponytail. He didn’t sound rushed, but there was a precision to his words that projected urgency.
Emmy ordered a beer for herself and looked expectantly to Tucker, who added, “Sam Adams. And some menus?”
The bartender nodded and slid two somewhat-clean, plastic-covered menus across the bar to them and vanished to collect their drinks.
“You ever been here before?” Emmy asked once the beers had been delivered.
“Yeah, but it’s been years. You’ll have to tell me what’s good.”
“It’s all good.” She laughed and took a sip of her drink. “How can you come to Chicago as often as you do and not visit here every single time? I love this place.”
Tucker let himself swell with pride briefly, having picked the restaurant well. “I don’t know. I don’t explore a lot anymore. Once you’ve been to a city a few times, you stop getting the same tourist itch. You come, play, head back to the hotel. Rinse and repeat as necessary then go do it in the next city.”
Emmy must have had a sense of that mentality. She’d traveled with the Sox for four years. There was no way she still got the same thrill from visiting the same fifteen cities over and over. You can only go to Baltimore or Oakland so many times before they stop being fascinating.
At least Oakland would be a lot closer to home for her now.
And closer to him.
Funny how he hadn’t known her before that spring but the idea of her being away from him made a knot form in his stomach he didn’t know how to get rid of.
“That makes me really sad,” she commented, steering them back to the subject at hand. “I lived in Chicago, grew up here, and I still go to my favorite places at least once a year.”
“Like what?”
“The Lincoln Park Zoo, for one. The most fun you can have in Chicago for free.” Emmy nodded at her own statement, making him believe it though he hadn’t tried to argue. “Shedd Aquarium, obviously. And the Natural History Museum. Sometimes I’ll walk the riverfront from Navy Pier in the morning and end up at the museum. You can kill an entire day in Chicago that way.”
“What if we didn’t have a day?” Tucker took a swig off his beer, trying to pretend he hadn’t said we. “What if…someone only had an hour or two?”
She fiddled with the label on her bottle, hazel eyes gazing thoughtfully into the air. “Let me get back to you.”
The bartender returned and gave them an expectant stare.
“Do you trust me?” Emmy asked Tucker.
“I do.”
She looked back at the bartender. “We’ll have the small deep-dish, extra cheese, with Canadian bacon, ground beef, garlic and banana peppers.”
The man nodded and plopped a caddy on the bar in front of them with napkins, dried parmesan and a container of hot pepper flakes.
“Banana peppers?” Tucker asked.
“You said you trusted me.”
“I did. I do.”
“Then believe me. You’ll love this.”
“And here I thought you were just ordering the garlic to keep me from trying to kiss you.”
Emmy choked on her beer. Tucker was starting to see a trend of him attempting to murder her with his own poor choice of words.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, handing her a stack of napkins.
Emmy wiped a small wet spot of beer off her chin and checked the front of her shirt to see if she’d missed any. “You said this was just dinner.” Her voice was soft and low. It wasn’t accusatory, but he still felt guilty.
“It is just dinner.”
“Can you be
my friend, Tucker?” Now she looked up from her shirt and met his gaze directly. He didn’t know how to interpret what he saw there.
“I don’t know.”
On the TVs the Cubs were playing poorly, and the crowd got noisier, alternating between cussing out the umpires for questionable calls and then damning their own team for losing. Baseball fans were like older siblings: it was totally fine for them to insult their kid brothers, but if you did anything to hurt them, you were in for a beating.
Only a Cubs fan could badmouth the Cubs. It was true of every team, but Tucker was seeing it in its truest form here.
He and Emmy sat in silence, a new awkwardness between them, and watched the game while they waited for their pizza. She seemed lost to her own thoughts, and he didn’t know if he was welcome to intrude, so he stayed quiet and waited for her to speak first.
Between the third and fourth inning their food arrived, and Emmy spoke to him at last.
“You’re going to be a problem for me, aren’t you, Thirteen?” She wasn’t looking at him, too busy cutting their pizza and divvying it up onto small white plates. The insides were steaming hot and full of gooey cheese, and Tucker didn’t think he could remember a pizza ever smelling as delicious as this one.
“That depends on you.”
“Oh?” She shoved his plate towards him and sat sideways on her barstool, staring at him.
“Problem has a negative connotation, don’t you think?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t want to be something you view negatively.” He pinched a thread of melted cheese and pulled it free of his pizza slice, popping it in his mouth while she watched him. “I don’t have to be a problem.”
Emmy rested her chin on her hand and sighed. “I like you.”
“You know I like you too.”
“So you see where my problem is.”
“No.” He gave his head a shake. “Your problem isn’t me. Your problem is somewhere else.”
She chewed on her lip, prodding her hot pizza with a fork. “You asked me where to go if we only had a few hours.”
His heart hammered, and blood began to circulate rapidly below his waist. She could have said she wanted to fuck him right then and there, and her choice of words wouldn’t have sounded any more erotic.
“Yes.”
“I think I know the place.”
Emmy needed to escape her own head, where thoughts were colliding and buzzing around like fat confused bees on a hot summer day. She needed to understand better what it was she wanted from Tucker before she went and did something stupid like calling it quits on a perfectly amiable four-year relationship.
Who wants to call their relationship amiable?
They left the restaurant and wandered into the cool night. Overhead, a train rattled along its rusty track, filling the evening with the loud squeal of metal on metal. The scent of fresh pizza followed them as they crossed the street.
“Where are we going?” Tucker asked, trailing a half step behind her.
“You’ll see, we don’t have far.” She went a few blocks in silence before they arrived at an intersection where she stopped and looked straight up. The bright blue neon sign for Willis Tower Skydeck was visible from their place across the street.
“Seriously?”
“Have you ever been?”
“Once. It was still the Sears Tower then. I wanted to relive that moment in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where they lean their heads against the glass.”
Emmy smiled, imagining a much younger Tucker Lloyd looking down on Chicago with his heart in his throat.
“It’s better now,” she insisted. “New name aside.”
“Are you one of those purists who will always call it the Sears Tower?”
“If Fenway or Wrigley were bought by a huge corporation, would you call them JCPenney Field or Axe Body Spray Park?”
Tucker made a face but pointed out, “You know the Felons play at Verizon Park, right?”
“Of course. But it was never anything to me except for Verizon Park, you know? And this will always be Sears Tower. You can call something whatever you want, but it won’t change what it is.”
“So you’re a romantic then?”
“If wanting to call a building one thing instead of another makes me romantic, I guess I’m romantic.” She smiled, and they crossed the street when the walk hand invited them.
Emmy paid for their tickets in spite of him insisting he wanted to. Given the late hour of the day, the crowd had thinned significantly. It always amazed Emmy how the tourists faded away at night, when that was the precise time she would have recommended visiting the Skydeck.
They took the elevator all the way up, and a sullen attendant let them out in a maze of barricade ropes which they wound through until they emerged in the near-empty glass-walled observation deck.
Emmy felt a glow in her chest to see the vista of Chicago laid out before her like a platter of gems all lit with magic. The white, yellow and red lights of the city spread out for miles, turning the sky a bruised-purple color.
Tucker sucked in a breath next to her. “Wow.”
“Come on.” She took his hand before she could stop herself and pulled him towards one end of the floor. A small crowd of tourists had their faces pressed to the glass, while two small children were having their photo taken by a chubby woman in a University of Michigan hoodie.
Emmy wove her way around them all until they reached the next wall of glass where a large tour group had just moved out of the way. The Skydeck’s big bragging right was now fully available to them.
“Get up here,” she said, and stepped right off the carpet and into what should have been a midair free fall to her death. Her heartbeat pounded when she set both feet on the glass floor of the viewing box—an outcropping of window that let people stand on the outside of the building and look straight down. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but she often said a small prayer of thanks when she stepped out and didn’t die.
“No thanks,” Tucker replied, both feet still planted firmly on carpet.
“Are you afraid of heights?”
“No.”
Liar. His face had gone white as a sheet, and his palm had become sweaty in hers.
“It’s perfectly safe,” she promised.
“So is standing right here.”
Emmy gave his hand a slight tug, urging him to come closer. “Come on, Tucker, would I do anything to hurt you?”
“You routinely bend my arms into positions the human body was not meant to be in. That’s never fun.” He attempted to pull his hand back, but she held fast.
“Step out here, I’ll count to five, and then you can be done, okay?”
He looked like he might argue until she held up her hand and showed him five fingers, then he hesitantly stepped out onto the glass platform with her.
“One,” she said, squeezing his hand reassuringly. “How did you manage when you came up here to do the Ferris Bueller thing?”
“I didn’t do it. I got up, took one look at the glass and left. And back then they didn’t have these little death boxes.” He glanced down at their feet and shut his eyes. Sweat beaded on his brow.
“So this is a real Chicago first for you. Two.”
He squeezed her hand hard enough it hurt, but she didn’t say anything. “As long as it isn’t a Chicago last.”
“You’re doing great. Open your eyes.”
He did and stared right at her.
“Three.”
“Three,” he repeated.
“Just look out, not down.” She pointed to the horizon and the view of the full city below them. “It’s beautiful.”
“It is beautiful,” he replied, but he wasn’t looking at the horizon.
“Four. Look.” She nodded.
“I am looking.”
“Five,” she said.
And he kissed her.
Chapter Seventeen
It was the most romantic kiss of her life, and Emmy had to cut it s
hort.
The perfect view of her hometown glittered around her like Christmas lights, and a gorgeous man had her cheek cupped in one of his big, rough hands—touching her as though she were the most breakable thing he’d ever encountered. His lips tasted spicy from the banana peppers and hot chili flakes, and there was nothing unpleasant about it.
Her body curved into his like it was designed to fit alongside him, and she squeezed his hand when he parted her lips and grazed his tongue against hers.
She whimpered because she wanted more, she wanted everything, but she knew it wasn’t right.
“Stop,” she said, and that one word brought the perfect moment to an end.
He pulled back the second she said it, breathing harder than he had been before, and he disentangled his hand from hers, stepping off the ledge and onto the safety of the carpet.
Emmy looked down at the nothingness below her feet and felt dizzy, but she didn’t think it was because of the height.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not for the first time that evening.
“It was my fault.” She wasn’t sure how since he’d kissed her and not the other way around, but somehow she felt she must be to blame for what had happened. She’d brought him here, she’d given them this perfect backdrop. His actions made sense given everything she’d done leading up to it.
He never would have kissed her if they’d gone to the monkey house at Lincoln Park Zoo instead. Nothing romantic happened when primates were busy flinging poo at one another.
“No, it was my fault. I’ve been wanting to do that again for weeks. Every damn time I see you I want to.”
She knew. Part of her knew. And what was worse, that same part of her wanted him to.
“I knew you were going to be trouble.” She tried to smile, but they were both too distracted for it to work.
“I guess you were right.”
If there was an All-Star game for being a jackass, Tucker was a shoo-in to be the starting pitcher.
He’d made great progress with Emmy since his initial fuckup in Florida, and what had he done when she finally started feeling comfortable around him again?