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The blogger bounded off, but Sean could see that Serena was still tense. She'd actually cringed at the thought of the guy taking her picture. That was how much she hated it.
And yet she'd offered to model for him?
"Hey," he said, reeling from the knowledge of just how huge her offer had been--and how tempting the thought of photographing her was even though he never thought he'd want to pick up a camera again, "it's okay. He didn't know who we were."
She stepped out of the way of a couple of girls who were taking a selfie. "Thanks for throwing that guy off our scent."
He knew she was trying to change the subject, but first he had to know, "If you didn't like your job, why did you do it for so long?"
"I liked it at first, or at least I thought I did because everyone was so nice to me when the pictures were good. But by the time I realized I didn't want to spend the rest of my life standing in front of a camera..." She paused. "So many girls dream of being on magazine covers and in Paris fashion shows that I always felt like a snot when I wanted out, so I tried to stop wanting it. But then I realized I couldn't keep ignoring my own dreams forever. I just couldn't. So that was when I made the decision to apply to college."
"Sometimes baseball feels like that for me."
"It does?"
He could see that he'd surprised her. Hell, he'd surprised himself, too, not only by admitting that, but also by saying it out loud.
"I'm good at it. Really good." It wasn't bragging when it was the truth. "And when we're winning and everything is clicking and the crowd is going nuts, I'm not going to lie and say it isn't pretty damned fun."
"Being on the runway was like that sometimes. If the designer was really spectacular and I knew fashion history was being made that day, it was pretty cool. But every time I met people who had real passion for clothes and fashion, I'd end up feeling like a fraud for not being one of them."
"Most of the guys on the team, especially the ones who are good enough to go pro, they live and breathe the game. So I know what you mean about feeling like a fraud sometimes."
Just then, the campus mascot--a seven-foot-tall redwood tree made out of sewn-together pieces of felt--danced by them with the Stanford band not far behind. The campus band was notorious, not only for their crazy outfits, but also for their shocking antics. Tonight it looked like they were going to be putting on one of their better shows, as the guys were all dressed in drag and they were playing a dirty "alternate" version of Come Join the Band.
There was no way Sean and Serena could have kept from laughing at the perfect break in what had become far too serious a conversation for a Friday night football game. He wanted to get to know her better, but he was just starting to realize that sharing didn't go one way. He couldn't just dig into her past, her secrets, her fears and dreams without letting her do the same to him.
The things was, he thought as he handed the girl at the gate their tickets, he didn't know if he was ready to go there yet. But could he do it for Serena?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"Wow," Serena said as they stepped into the stadium, "this place is huge. And loud. Really loud."
Deliberately shaking off the dark cloud of his thoughts--his worries about the future and his grief over the past--Sean made himself focus on the here and now.
His family had been coming to games for as long as he could remember, and they'd worked their way up over the years to sweet seats right at the fifty-yard line. But if he and Serena sat there, it would make their disguises pointless. Which was why he'd sucked it up and bought a couple of crappy seats in the nosebleeds.
Clearly, though, she had no idea that their seats were terrible as she looked around her with such wonder on her face that he could read it from behind her sunglasses. "This is so great."
He'd taken girls to games a couple of times in the past and had always regretted it. They were too cold, too hot, too bored, too annoying. But Serena was already perfect.
"How much do you know about football?"
"Nothing."
He'd assumed as much, guessing that a supermodel with an always-there mother and no dad in the picture probably didn't have many chances to watch football on TV or live at a stadium.
"The game's pretty easy to understand. You have an offense trying to score and a defense trying to stop them. The offense has four chances to go ten yards to get the first down. If you don't get at least those ten yards, the other side gets the ball. You score by getting the ball in the end zone, or depending on your field position you can try to kick the ball through the uprights for a field goal."
"Surely it's more complicated than that."
"There are a bunch of extra details I could add in like penalties, turnovers and safeties, but if you just remember that the offense is trying to get the ball in the end zone, and the defense is trying to stop them, you've pretty much got the point of the game." He waved over a teenager who was selling concessions. "I'm thinking popcorn, hot dogs, candy, and Coke. What kind of candy is your favorite?"
"If I had to guess, I'd say all of it."
If she had to guess? Hadn't she grown up eating teeth-rotting candy like the rest of them?
He told the teenage girl to give them one box of each kind of candy, along with loaded hot dogs, a huge bag of popcorn and two bottles of Coke.
"Tonight must be costing you a fortune," Serena said when he came back with the pile of junk food in his hands. "I want to pay next time."
He loved that she was talking about next time. "Nope. I asked, I pay."
"Then I'll just have to ask you first, won't I?" Before he could interject, she said, "Will you go out with me next Friday?"
He had to mess up her green lipstick then by kissing her. "You know," he said when he made himself draw back, "that means you're in charge of finding something normal for us to do."
That seemed to take the wind out of her sails a bit. "What if I blow it?"
"I have faith in you."
She stopped then and stared at him as if he'd just blown her mind. But before he could say anything else, the ref blew the whistle for the opening kickoff. Together, they sat back in their seats, his arm around her shoulders, her head nestled into his chest, and both enjoyed forgetting about everything else in their lives for a few hours.
Everything but each other.
&nbs
p; *
Serena quickly picked up the game and by the end she was so into it that she was screaming and jumping out of her seat along with everyone else when Stanford won in the final seconds of the fourth quarter.
She threw her arms around Sean. "We won!"
Who cared about the game? He felt like the biggest winner in the stadium just for getting to be with her. Her smile was so big and wide that he could see the face paint cracking at the corners of her lips. "Let's go take off this goop so that I can kiss you properly."
That was all it took for heat to rise between them. He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the stands and down the stairs to the exit. For three hours he'd been close to her, had gotten to hold her hand and put his arm around her shoulders.
But it hadn't been close enough.
Thank God their Friday night date wasn't over yet. Not even close.
"Where are you taking me now?"
She was slightly breathless from the speed at which he was making them walk as they headed across the street from the stadium to the empty baseball field and the locker rooms.
"I've got this fantasy," he teased her, "about you and me...and an empty locker room."
She laughed, but it was a nervous sound. One that had him stopping in the middle of a patch of grass to tell her, "You know I'm kidding, right? I just figured it would be a private spot for us to take off the face paint and hang out for a while until the crowds thin out. I meant it when I told you that I would never do anything to hurt you. And I won't do anything you don't want, that you're not ready for, either." Even if he was beyond ready for all of it.
For all of her.
"I know you won't. It's not you, it's me." She gave another shaky laugh. "That didn't come out right. I need to explain and hopefully, I won't just end up making it worse."
It was nearly completely dark out by then and they were far enough away from the crowds that she finally slipped her sunglasses up to the top of her head so that he could see her eyes. He'd missed being able to look into them. Missed being able to see what she was thinking, what she was feeling.
"My mom had a pretty hard time with my dad. It's weird to even call him that, when he was more like an accidental sperm donor. When he found out she was pregnant, he split. And even before him, I don't think she'd ever been with a guy who treated her well. All my life, she's been worried that the same thing will happen to me. That some guy will use me or hurt me." She shook her head. "Even though I know her experience with men is colored by what she's been through, and that all guys can't be bad, the truth is that it's hard to forget what she's taught me my whole life." She paused before adding, "And it's hard not to be scared that she's going to be right."
