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Did they sell tickets at the gate?
Figuring it was worth a shot, I snatched my phone and my keys off the seat of my car, and then bailed, barely managing to lock the car with my key fob in my haste to get where I was going.
It was only when I arrived at the gate that I realized I didn’t have my wallet.
Shit.
I pulled up my phone and started to pull up my Apple Wallet thingamajig as I waited in line to get to the woman behind the glass.
She smiled at me, taking me all in when I arrived.
“I need one ticket,” I told her.
She smiled. “Tickets are sold out but for the front row seats, and those are about a thousand dollars a pop…”
I swallowed back the cry of alarm that threatened to spill out of my throat and offered her my phone. “Do you take Apple Pay?”
She nodded, a smile on her face. “I do. You pay right there.” She paused. “What’s your name?”
I gave it to her, and her mouth dropped open.
“Oh!” she cried. “You don’t have to pay then. You have tickets that have been waiting for you at each home game for two years! I’ve always been wondering if I’d ever meet the infamous Conleigh Reins.”
She quickly did something on the computer, and printed out tickets, before handing them to me.
All the while I looked at her with bafflement.
“Enjoy your game. Do you know where seat 36A is?”
I had no clue, which I indicated with a shake of my head.
“It’s front row, middle of the field, and at the fifty-yard line on the home team side.” She pulled out a map and started to draw a line with a Sharpie marker to help me find my way. “Oh, I’m so glad that you’re here! Enjoy the game!”
The woman’s smile was infectious, and I found myself smiling back even though my heart was pattering like a battering ram in my chest.
But the moment I got into the stadium and saw all the people, I had a mini panic attack.
That was until I heard Linc’s name called over the loudspeaker as a particularly bad hit took him down, and then saw him on the big screen along the top of the opposing side’s stands lying there unmoving.
That’s when I truly panicked.
Before I could give it much thought, I was practically running down the stairs.
I’d made it to the front of the stands, practically at my seat, in less than five minutes.
It took me longer than I would have wanted because of all the goddamn people. Even worse, I’d spilled something on my tennis shoes as I’d hastily passed a man carrying four cups of beer.
My guess it was likely the beer he’d been holding, but I hadn’t given it much time to look at as I’d made my way by him.
Once I was at the railing that separated the field from the front row seats, I looked around for Linc, finding him sitting on his ass at the fifteen-yard line as a couple of athletic trainers asked him questions.
He took his helmet off moments later and then shook his head as he held out his hand to a teammate and waited to be helped up.
It didn’t take long, and then he was standing.
The stadium around him roared at finding out that he was okay, and he walked gingerly off the field, slightly favoring his left foot.
He barely made it to the sideline before an irrational surge of anger surged through me.
“Linc!”
There was a one in a thousand chance that he’d hear me, but I wanted him to know that I was there.
I also wanted him to know that I was pissed at him.
Linc’s head snapped up as if he’d heard his name called and started to look around.
His eyes stopped on the empty seat that likely was where I was supposed to be sitting and then moved on.
His gaze roamed over me, passing me almost as if he didn’t see me, and then returned to me a split second later.
When he was staring at me in stunned silence, I raised my hand and flipped him off.
His mouth dropped open farther.
“Ma’am.” I heard from my right. “Gonna have to ask you to find your seat. You can’t stand here.”
I did so, ignoring the man on my right, and making my way down the row to my seat.
I had no clue who I’d passed on my way to the chair, but I felt their eyes on me as I moved.
I also felt somewhat exposed in what I was wearing. Especially with the way Linc’s eyes never once left me as I moved.
I pushed the seat’s bottom down and turned, placing my ass in it, only then realizing that the reason Linc had heard me was because we were less than ten yards away from the team.
