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“Yeah.”
“Well, tellin’ me what you do won’t tell me who youare.”
Red waved a hand dismissively. “Pshh, not in my book. Iamwhat I do. Besides, I feel like you can tell a lot about a person by what they do for a livin’.”
“How do you figure?” I asked, genuinely curious as I leaned my back against the waist-high stone railing.
“Well, say you’re tryin’ to get to know someone...” She trailed off, seeming to pause for suspense.
I played along. “Uh-huh.”
“And they tell you they play professional baseball.”
I crossed my arms, enjoying the glint in her green eyes as she dropped her next breadcrumb. “Okay.”
“Then you ask if they love it, and their eyes light up all big, and they get this wide smile on their face.” She demonstrated, and even with the mask, I could see what she wanted me to see.
I chuckled. “All right.”
“What do you think you might know about them?”
“That they... love what they do?”
“Yes, exactly!” She pointed at me, looking mighty pleased with herself.
Only… what exactly did that tell me other than the basic fact that they loved what they did? That wasn’t much to on. I scratched my jaw and gazed out at the large, well-manicured grounds that surrounded Laney’s mansion before my eyes met hers again.
She pursed her lips. “You look skeptical.”
“Good eye.”
“It’s more than knowin’ if they love their job. It’s about...” She trailed off, looking up at the night sky like it’d help her gather her thoughts.
I waited patiently, transfixed by the long curve of her neck as it cascaded down to the dark red gown that hugged her body like it’d been custom-made. Likely, it had been.
She focused on me again, appearing ready to make her point. “Think of it this way: it takes a lot of hard work to make it from t-ball to the big leagues, right?”
“Sure.”
“So, that means they’re a hard worker, and have probably been under a lot of pressure.” She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. “Imagine all those years they spent playin’ against other great players, lookin’ into the stands for scouts, hopin’ they’ll do somethin’ big in the game so they’re named MVP. Then imagine how many times they thought they’d catch that game-winning ball and dropped it instead.”
“Ouch.”
“Ouch, yeah, but what if that feelin’ only fueled their fire, inspirin’ a comeback the very next game?”
Well, shoot.
I should’ve seen that coming. I’d poured a hefty amount of blood, sweat, and tears into my dream of becoming a military police officer, after all. But she’d gone deep with it. And watching her light up at just the mention of all that hard work paying off…
It was downright breathtaking.
“You know what else?” she asked, her eyes gleaming as she leaned in.
“What?”
“I bet they’re still livin’ with pressure, so you’ll learn a lot about them based on how they’re dealin’ with it. Most people don’t think about how they’ll handle it when they make their dreams come true. They only think about what it’ll take to get there.”
She tucked a loose strand of black-as-night hair behind her ear, gazing thoughtfully into the distance. I followed the path of the long curl that ended just below her collar bone and then back up again. The moonlight glinted off her diamond earring, and I found myself holding my breath.
