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Yet here I was. Just stumbling into the opportunity he’d dreamt about every day for the past many years.
I can’t believe that’s really him.
Versions of that sentence ricocheted through my mind as I stole glances at Cole between every pitch.
He had black hair and olive skin, which made him look strikingly different from Adam, yet so damned similar at the same time. The shape of his jaw was just like his brother’s. Same with his sculpted cheekbones. His long, straight nose. From where I sat, I couldn’t tell his eye color, but I could see that he looked about the same height as Adam, with a build that was slightly leaner, and a gait that was… actually so different it made me want to smile.
Maybe I was projecting, but it just felt like the gait of a little brother. It was boyish. Almost surly. He stood tall—he didn’t slouch by any means—but he had a way of leaning to the side, tipping his chin up and looking bored as hell as he surveyed the infield. Like he was waiting for someone to impress him. To give him something to do.
Unfortunately for the Wolves, that happened in the bottom of the fourth when their pitcher gave up a triple that put a man on third right where Cole was.
He’d had his stoic game face on as he waited to make the out, but once it was ruled a triple, I watched in awe as he nodded a hello to the runner, who said something or another to make Cole laugh.
And… there it is.
That smile.
It was Adam’s. The same boyish grin with the dimple that transformed Cole’s face completely. Suddenly, I could imagine the little boy who worshipped his brother. The kid who was still the baby of the family before Adam left.
I stared so hard I was briefly convinced that from third base, he looked in my direction and saw how hard I was staring.
But that would be impossible. He’s more than an infield away and he’s focused on the game, I told myself.
So I let myself keep staring and in the fifth inning, when he hit a single and made it to first, I found myself staring at him from a distance so short I for some reason held my breath. He can’t hear you, idiot, I thought.
Just as he looked directly at me.
Fuck.
I shifted my eyes immediately to the batter, telling myself it was a coincidence. That my seat was front row right behind first. Of course we’d make eye contact at some point.
For God’s sake, get a hit or strike out, I urged the batter, just so we could get Cole off first.
Because now he was occasionally eyeing me while chatting up with the first baseman.
Except he’s really not, I told myself even the second time. The third too. But then his teammate struck out, the inning ended and he jogged off first and headed toward the dugout.
But not before fully turning his head and looking at me with a completely unreadable face.
Uhhhh.
“You know number twenty-four?” the older man next to me asked. My eyes shifted.
“No,” I said.
“Well, he just looked right at ya.”
“Oh?”
“Dead in the eye.”
Okay, yeah. Thanks, guy.
I spent the rest of the game trying to not look at Cole at all, but that was actually pretty hard because he kept frickin’ getting to first. Another single a few innings later. Then a walk in the eighth.
I avoided looking anywhere but the batter after his single, but then my old man friend nudged me. “Twenty four’s lookin’ at ya.”
“I don’t think so.”
