Page 4 of The Fall Classic

I run straight to the media room.

The videographer looks up when I come through the door, adjusting his glasses and his floppy hair. His supervisor looks over from a booth. I catch my breath.

“There was a woman in the stands,” I say, panting. “Third row, first base side. Waist-length blonde hair. I need to find her.”

The supervisor looks at the videographer. The videographer looks at the supervisor. I take that as a yes and pull up a chair.

“I don’t know—” the supervisor starts.

“Is it illegal?”

“No.”

“Then please. I’m begging you.”

The man scratches his mustache, looking at the videographer and then back at me.

“If I find out anything happens to her⁠—”

“You can report me, but nothing’s gonna happen,” I say. “Just please.”

He narrows his eyes and then shrugs, and we all start looking. It takes two minutes to find her. I know because I’m watching the clock in the corner of the monitor while they pull angles and fast-forward through time-stamped footage and I try to breathe like a normal person, not the creep they must think I am.

But how do I explain that I’ve been looking for her for months without sounding like a walking red flag? Two weeks after that fan event where we met, my family and I were attending a game as fans when I spotted her in the crowd. I convinced myself the universe was handing me a second chance since I’d spent two weeks kicking myself for not getting her number the first time. I chased her through half the concourse and lost her anyway. All I found where she’d been standing was the patch I’d noticed when we first met—a patch from Meant to Bean coffee shop right here in Mullet Ridge, South Carolina.

I’ve been to that shop probably a hundred times this season. She’s never once been there.

During the bottom of the second inning, we spot her walking down the stairs, impossibly balancing two hot dogs and two drinks, as well as a cotton candy under one arm, while her curly-haired niece, Lulabelle, walks in front of her with a pretty woman who must be Lulabelle’s mom.

I track her down each step until she takes her seat in the third row.

“That her?” the videographer asks.

“That’s her,” I say. “Now any chance you can tell me where she went after the game?”

I can feel the two men swap looks over me. Don’t care.

“Uh—” the supervisor starts.

“Guys,” I say, trying not to let my impatience turn me into a jerk, “I swear this isn’t as weird as it looks. We met a few months ago. She gave me her number. I lost it like an idiot. That’s it.”

It’s true enough I don’t feel bad, and it’s convincing enough they believe me. Soon, we’ve fast-forwarded to the end of the game and are tracking her up the stairs and through the concourse, different cameras picking her up in sequence as she moves. The videographer deftly clicks between feeds.

When she gets to the parking lot, the truth slaps me in the face.

“There are no cameras in the field lots,” the supervisor says, making the connection at the exact same time as I do.

I slump.

“Wait. She’s stopping,” the videographer says.

I perk up, watching her and her group stop at …

The valet stand!

I could kiss whoever invented valet parking. While hundreds of fans push past them out to the grass field used for parking on game days, Georgiana’s sister or sister-in-law or whoever is giving the valet her ticket while Lulabelle and Georgiana talk animatedly and Georgiana adjusts something in the back pocket of her shorts.

I squint, trying to see what it is. Then I grin.