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"Nah, I got into snowboarding for a while when I was a teenager, but then I hurt my shoulder and couldn’t play ball for almost three months. Never again."
"Did you ever want to do anything else? Besides play baseball?"
"Of course I didn’twantto, but sure, it’s unrealistic to not at least consider what you might do if a pro career doesn’t pan out. Hell, I could be out of job tomorrow if I got injured bad enough or just lost the touch. That happens to some guys. They wake up one day and just can’t hit the ball."
"And?" she asked. "What did you come up with?"
"My only two passions, if you want to call them that, have been baseball and…ahem…photography."
"Photography?" The surprise was evident in her voice.
Landon gave a self conscious shrug. "Yeah, it’s not something I share with many people. I uh, got into it a bit in high school, even took a class in college. Pretty much the only one I went to."
She twisted in her seat to look at him through wide eyes. Seeing him through entirely new eyes, actually.
"Did you take all those photos hanging in your apartment?"
She knew the answer even before he gave an uncharacteristically modest nod.
"But,photography isn’t going to pay the bills, son," Landon mimicked in a deep voice, then switched back to his own. "So if I’d never gone pro, I probably would have done military or law enforcement or something like that. That’s the route my brother Luke took. Definitely not college. School was never my thing. I only went to BC to play ball. If I lost the touch now? I’ve got enough banked away I wouldn’t have to work, so I’d probably focus on my charity or maybe do something in sports broadcasting. That’s what my older brother Levi does."
"Levi, Luke, and Landon. So I guess you look up to your brothers?"
"Sure, they’re my older brothers." Landon nudged her with his elbow and pointed out in front of them. "We’re about to get to the top. Do you want to get off and look around or stay on and ride back down? Your call."
"Look around, of course."
His face lit up and he took her hand again to help her off. They spent some time strolling around, taking in the scenery and the stellar views. They glimpsed only a handful of other people, all far away, engrossed in their own exploration of nature.
Landon led the way to an even more secluded spot, weaving off the path and through the trees to a flat-topped boulder that hung out above the forest. Miles and miles of green trees stretched as far as the eye could see below them. They settled down shoulder-to-shoulder, cross-legged on the rock, far enough from the edge to keep Katie’s anxiety at bay, but close enough to get a sense of what tiny specks of space they inhabited in this vast wilderness.
Landon pointed out a building jutting out of a craggy cliff. "If our situation were a little different today, that’s where I would have taken you to eat. They serve the best fresh caught fish and they have a huge outdoor patio. The view is pretty cool."
"I think you’re doing pretty good on the views today," she pointed out.
"Yeah, it’s pretty amazing from where I’m sitting too," he said with that cute eyebrow waggle. Then he smiled and looked out over the trees towards the mountains on the horizon, before he bobbed his head in a long nod of contentment. "Mmmhmmm, down to one."
Katie looked over at him, nose scrunched. "Down to what? One?"
"Yeah, down to one. Something else my dad used say, but I actually kinda like this adage of his."
"Down to one." She tested it out, but still had to ask, "What does it mean?"
"Oh geez, I don’t know, how do I explain it? There are millions of options and possibilities surrounding us at every given second, right? Do I go left or right or straight or diagonal or backwards? Do I hold, swing, run, bunt, walk? Do you buy or sell or stay or go or stay in or go out? So many possibilities it can overwhelm you, right? But only one matters."
Katie’s eyebrows only dipped further together. "Which one?"
"The one you choose, the one that happens, the one that leads to the moment you’ll never forget. Where wrist surgeries and playoff games and fake media stories don’t even exist. Where everything is just right in your world. Like right now."
Katie chewed on her lower lip because she didn’t know how to respond. What could she say that would be as deep and pure and true as what he’d just said? And she was glad she didn’t have anything to say because Landon kept going, peeling back more layers on this unexpected side of him.
"That’s how I hit the ball like I do. When you’re in the stands, it seems like the batter takes forever, with all the rituals and prepping between each pitch. When you’re in the box, a full count flashes by in an instant. For most people, that first strike gets in their head and there’s no time to work through that ding in their confidence. I’ve always been able to compartmentalize it. When I get strikes, even when I strike out, it doesn’t matter, because it will all lead down to that one. The one the bat cracks against so right that you know it’s going over right in that instant. Mmmmm, it’s orgasmic. Or a damn close second anyway."
Katie fell in love with him. Yep, right there in that instant. She’d never been in love before. Not with Kyle or anyone else. That was infatuation—and she was infatuated with Landon too—but this was something else. This wasn’t merely an acceptance of his soul and who he was and how he viewed the world, this was anappreciationof all that. This was a desire to meld her being to his so she could exist with the same sense of peace and contentment and joy about life.
They sat in silence for a long time, taking it all in. Thinking. Long enough that she felt the rhythm of his breaths through the spot where their upper arms pressed together. Long enough that her own exhales fell into the same pattern as his. A breeze brushed across her cheek and a cool tingle shocked Katie into wiping away the tears she hadn’t even noticed falling.
She leaned her head against Landon’s shoulder so he wouldn’t ask all kinds of questions she didn’t want to come up with answers for. For just that moment, Katie allowed herself to take refuge in some alternate universe where she and Landon weren’t just allowed to be together, they were the only two people living in it. One moment to remember forever.
