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While I sit wrapped in his arms, Max scrolls the streamingoptions on my computer and finally settles on a documentary series about America’s National Parks and after the episode on Olympic National Park, we start planning a trip for the off season. Max is giddy as he looks up the park online and finds that we can explore tide pools during the summer low tides.
“Our next day off at home,” Max turns and kisses my temple, “I’m taking you to the tide pools so you can tell me about everything we find.”
“You would love the tide pools,” I close my eyes and rest my head on his shoulder as he leans deeper into the corner of the couch. “My senior year, just before graduating, a few of my cohort took a trip to the Oregon Coast and because of the tide patterns, we were basically working third shift. We’d get up at two in the morning to go down to the beaches with our headlamps and notebooks, just to observe the pools. It was amazing.”
“What was the best thing you saw?”
“On that trip, we saw a lot of sea lettuce, nothing to write home about.”
“Well that settles it then, I’m taking you to the tide pools the first chance we get. You need to have something to write home about, even if you’re just writing it to me.”
Home.
That word has found new meaning over the last few months. When I lost my apartment at the end of spring training I was afraid I’d have no place to anchor, no place to call home and Max swooped in with the offer of his guest room. Home was a small, warm corner of his house, but the longer I’ve been there, the more I’ve seen my definition of home evolve. Home isn’t that house on Bainbridge Island.Home– the place where my heart is happiest, where I feel the safest and most secure – is Maxwell Harrison.
“Max…” It was easier for me to tell him I love him than it is to start this conversation. But I know we have to have it. We should have had it a while ago. “I’m not just your house guest, right? When the season is over and I start looking for a place to live and all the shine comes off of…whatever this is…”
“Sutton,” Max interrupts me, sitting up so that we’re fully facing each other. “You can’t possibly think you’rejusta house guest.”
“Well…we’ve never really talked about it.”
“What about on the ferry that night? We finally talked about October.”
“Right.” I take a deep breath, doing my best not to let my frustration show. “You opened your home to me. I’ve been living in your guest room for months. We’ve been on a few dates when our schedule allows. We take up the same spaces when we’re…”
Home.
“What’s going on in that head of yours, Duckling?”
“What are we? What amI? Am I your houseguest, your girlfriend, your…”
“My girlfriend?” He asks.Asks.As if he’s wondering the same things I am. “I thought. Or…I guess I hoped. I didn’t really think we needed to talk about it. We’ve been on dates. We’ve made out in hotel stairwells. We’vebeen caughtin hotel stairwells. I guess I just assumed that we were on the same page. Do you…Sutton, do youwantto be my girlfriend?”
I’d like to be more than that, if he’ll have me. But for now, I’ll take it.
“I do, Max. But I can’t be the girl in the stands for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know in those baseball movies? The baseball player always has his girl in the stands. Somehow he canalways find her, even in a sold out stadium, and after his big heroic moment he runs into the stands and kisses her. I’m sorry you’ll never have that.”
“That’s okay,” Max smiles as he draws me into his arms, one hand around the back of my neck as he slants his mouth over mine. After a moment he breaks the kiss and leans his forehead against mine.“I’ve got my girl in the dugout.”
Double headers are exhausting for everyone involved. Add in the early warning signs of a migraine, and I’m struggling to stay on my feet as the first game winds down. Washington doesn’t give me a designated space to change and store my things, so I’m huddled in the corner of Roger’s office with a bag of ice – meant for pitchers’ shoulders – over my eyes and forehead.
Roger is meeting with the coaching staff to discuss our second game and course of action with the kids we called in from our minor league clubs at the last minute in the very early hours this morning.
“Sutton,” Roger gently calls from across the room, “it’s your call whether or not you stay. Jose can handle things if you need him to.”
Just as I’m about to protest my body lurches with a wave of nausea that has me more than a little worried about the already questionable carpet in this office, and in the end Roger decides for me, calling for a driver to come and take me back to the hotel. It’s not easy, but I change out of uniform and back into street clothes, stopping Roger on my way toward the waiting car.
“Make sure Max knows. But not until after you pull him, okay? I don’t want him distracted.”
“Oh for crap’s sake.” Roger pinches the bridge of his nose. “Do you think he’d believe a cardboard cutout of you?”
“Probably not.”
“This is why it’s a bad idea. But I didn’t say that. And after tonight I’m going back to pretending that I know nothing about this.” Roger heads up the tunnel toward the dugout grumbling under his breath the whole way. I love Roger. He’s been such a positive force in my life for so many years, and after I lost my dad he stepped into those shoes in his own Roger Galligher kind of way. Roger turns around, his voice calling down the tunnel behind me. “Do I need to send a trainer back with you?”
