Pitch Perfect(85)
Tucker had struck him out with a knuckleball.
The pitch he’d used to keep himself from drowning was the pitch that had just won them the game.
A perfect game.
The moment ended, and it was like the pause button had been released on a freeze frame when the ball thumped into Alex’s glove. The catcher threw it down the second the umpire called You’re out and ran across the field, leaping into Tucker’s arms and hugging him so tight he thought he might not breathe right for weeks.
The Felons swarmed the field, whooping and clambering all over each other to get to Tucker. Even the crowd, once against him, gathered to their feet to applaud and cheer for what he’d accomplished.
He must have done something right if Yankees fans were cheering for him rather than against him.
Tucker stared in awe at the tiny white orb, now speckled with rust-colored dirt, that sat next to the batter’s box. One ball, one pitch, and he’d just done the unthinkable. If anyone wanted to doubt his right to be there now, he figured they were welcome to. In that moment, for that day, he was perfect.
He accepted the congratulations and the joy, the hugs and the grown men welling up with happiness, lifting him fully off the ground for suffocating bear hugs. And then the men parted and there she was, hanging back on the edges while Chuck, Mike and the staff shook his hand and gave him rare smiles.
Tucker wove his way through them, dropping his glove as he went. He and Emmy met in the middle of the infield, and she beamed up at him, her face glowing with pride, hazel eyes wet with tears. That she was so happy for him was more rewarding than he could have ever hoped. The part she’d played in getting him here meant his victory was as much hers as his, and he’d never stop being grateful to her for it.
“You did it,” she said.
“You helped,” he told her emphatically, wishing she could understand just how true his words were.
She laughed and touched his cheek. “It was all you.”
Tucker grabbed her wrist and pulled her against him, not caring who was there or that forty thousand Yankees fans were watching in person and however many million at home and around the country.
“Emmy, if you don’t know by now that everything good about me is because of you, you aren’t nearly as smart as I thought you were.”
After hesitating briefly, she looped her hands around his back and smiled at him. “What are you saying, Tucker Lloyd? Am I more than just a good-luck charm to you now?”
“You are my good-luck charm. The best damn luck.”
“In that case, you’re about to get very, very lucky.”
“Promise?”
“I’m pretty sure I did.”
“I love you, you know,” he said.
She pulled back and stared at him, and for a moment he thought he’d made his first mistake that night, and it had been the worst one. Then she smiled, and her smile kept getting bigger and bigger.
“I love you too.”
He cupped her face and lowered his towards her. When their lips met, she melted into him, his arms circling her waist, and he kissed her for all he was worth. The sports shows and reporters could say whatever they wanted about the game. This was all the reward he would ever need.
The boys continued to cheer, jumping around him and Emmy like they were in the middle of a mosh pit.
And then someone remembered the Gatorade shower.
Chapter Thirty-Six
October 17
Emmy sat in an imposing leather wing-back chair, facing the owner of the Felons, and she wasn’t sure which of them was winning the staring contest.
“Do you know why I asked you here?” Louis McKeller asked.
“I’ve learned it’s usually best not to answer that question.”
Louis, a young man who opted for a comb-over in spite of a having full head of hair, smiled politely and slid a copy of Vanity Fair across the desk to her.
If Emmy had a quarter for every time someone had called her into a private meeting because of a published article, she’d have fifty cents. She pulled the magazine onto her lap without opening it. She knew the article he was talking about, a puff piece about her and Tucker’s big romantic moment. They were claiming it gave “new romance” to baseball.
As someone who adored baseball, she loathed that people were missing the love story already inherent in the game. The underdogs could come from behind to win it all. One day you were on top of the world, the next you were at the bottom. A man’s career could be defined by one good hit or one bad injury. Plus, who didn’t love a sport where someone who missed seven out of ten times they went to the plate was considered a gifted athlete?
Baseball had plenty of things to wax poetic about. It didn’t need an article about her and her boyfriend to make the sport more appealing.