The Sweetest Game(9)

Someone yelled from the dugout area, but Jack waved them off with his glove hand. I scooted to the edge of my seat and automatically held my breath, anticipating the pitch. Jack leaned down, eyeing the catcher before nodding his head in agreement with the called pitch. He lowered his glove to his waist before bringing it back up in time with the rising of his knee. His entire body lurched forward with the release of the pitch and the crack of the bat meeting the ball distracted everyone else’s eyes but mine. My eyes stayed loyally focused on the guy I loved.

Because my eyes never left Jack, I witnessed the entire incident. The ball screamed back at him and he reacted as best he could; his body twisted to get out of the way as his pitching hand instinctively reached out to stop the flying ball. I watched as the ball crashed against Jack’s exposed hand before dropping to the ground near his feet.

He scrambled to make the play, but a pained scream tore from his lips as he tried to close his hand around the ball. Face contorted with pain, Jack took a knee and pressed his chin tightly against his chest.

Someone yelled for time out and Jack’s manager bolted onto the field. He helped Jack to his feet and walked him out of view.

“Shit,” I muttered to myself.

“Go, Cassie,” Tara demanded. “Get down to the locker room. That’s where they’re taking him.”

Without a word I nodded, grabbed my things, and hurried toward the staircase that would take me underground. I flew down the last set of stairs to where anyone in the public could go before heading through a private door. Once inside, the air of the cold brick tunnels hit me. The tunnels ran the length of the stadium and unless you’d been under here before, you wouldn’t know they existed. I rounded the corner and jogged up toward the burly security guard.

“Hey, Jimmy, is he here? Did you see them bring Jack off the field?” I asked, my voice distraught.

His forehead creased as he answered, “Jack? No. What happened?”

I released a shaky breath. “He hurt his hand.”

“Really? Damn. I hope he’s okay.” He stepped aside, revealing a small clearing between the guardrails, and I rushed through, walking as fast as my nervous legs would allow.

I followed along with the bricks as they curved gently, noticing the Mets sign attached to the wall up ahead. My pace quickened as I ached to reach the double mahogany doors that read NEW YORK METS CLUBHOUSE.

Another security guard sat in a folding chair next to the entrance, his face pinched with concern. He stood upon my approach. “Cassie. He’s in there with the doc.” The sympathy in his sad eyes rattled me even further, and my mouth went completely dry.

“How did he look, Joe?”

“He was in a lot of pain,” he admitted grimly.

My throat constricted, making it hard to swallow. I realized in that moment that I’d never once considered the possibility of Jack getting hurt. He seemed invincible in a way … like his body was born to play this sport and it would never allow him to be hurt by it. It would never betray him like that.

But it did.

And I found myself scared to death about what this meant for him. Jack without baseball … well, that wasn’t Jack at all. I wouldn’t even know who that person was; I’d never known Jack when baseball wasn’t a huge part of his life. Worry shot through me and I couldn’t stop a nervous shiver.

“Cassie?” Joe’s voice echoed in the tunnel, followed by the sound of him hanging up the rotary phone. Unable to speak, I looked up at him helplessly. “No one else is in there,” he said gently. “You can go in.”

He opened one of the large doors for me and I walked through into the one place at the stadium I’d never been before. I eyed the oversized couch and the carpet patterned with the team’s logo, before my gaze fell on the lockers bearing each player’s name and jersey number, a soft spotlight highlighting each one as if they were museum exhibits. I laughed to myself that the guys called them “lockers” when they looked more like the thin oak closets you would find in hotel rooms.

I found myself longing to photograph the room as each individual detail called to me in ways that only new places can. Occupational habit, I supposed. Or denial, maybe.

“Kitten?” Jack’s voice rang out through the large space, an undertone of pain causing it to sound different somehow.

Snapped back to the present, I called out, “Jack? Where are you?”

“Walk to the back of the room and make a right.”

As I hurried past the row of lockers, number 23 grabbed my attention and I couldn’t resist the impulse to pause for just a second at Jack’s locker since I’d never seen it, and might never have the chance again. His travel bag and street clothes hung inside, waiting for him, and I ran my fingers down the fabric, moving them slightly. Taped against the back wall was a picture of the two of us on our wedding day, flanked by other candid shots of us. I loved how much this man displayed his love for me.