The Sweetest Game (3 page)

“Sucks you’re so far away,” Dean added before reaching for his glass of orange juice.

“You can come visit us anytime, Dean. Just let us know. We’d love to have you,” Cassie said with a smile.

“Thanks, Sis.”

“What about me? Can I come visit anytime?” Melissa cocked her head to the side and Cassie rolled her eyes.

“No,” she said before laughing. “Of course, dummy. Actually, you and Dean should visit together sometime.”

She winked and I seconded the suggestion. “You two should definitely come out together.” Dean’s shoulders tensed noticeably as a grunt escaped his lips.

Despite how much I razzed him, I wanted to help my brother get the girl. Yesterday I had caught them hooking up before our wedding, and if I could do anything to get them together once and for all, I’d do it. The boy deserved to be happy.

Gran changed the subject before I could ask any more questions. “Speaking of Dean and traveling,” she said, “when do you start at the agency?”

“Yeah, bro,” I asked as I kicked Dean under the table. “What’s up with you and my agents?” My agents, Ryan and Marc, had offered Dean a job at their sports management company as soon as he graduated.

“It’s part-time now, but I start full-time at the end of May,” he said with a smile.

“What will you be doing exactly?”

“I’ll be a junior agent. They’re going to teach me the ropes when it comes to dealing with guys like you.” He gave a slight head nod in my general direction.

“Good luck with that,” Cassie said with a snicker.

“But I’ll mostly be researching at first. I’ll be looking at new talent for the guys to check out. It’s going to be a lot of computer work and apparently I’ll be the local contact for any of the players or their families.”

“For everything, or just certain things?” Cassie asked.

Dean shrugged. “I don’t know yet. I’m sure there will be questions I can’t answer, so maybe just helping facilitate their moves if they get traded, or talk about the trade deadlines and stuff.”

Warming up to the subject, Cassie asked, “Do the families call a lot?”

“You have no idea,” he said, shaking his head. “Not everyone understands the business side of things, so sometimes they get really frustrated. I have to literally explain every single thing to them that they don’t quite grasp.”

Cassie’s eyes grew wide as she inhaled audibly. “I bet those are some fun and long calls.”

Dean nodded. “I was on the phone for over two hours the other day with the wife of one of your ex-teammates.”

“Who?” I asked.

“One of the outfielders for the D-backs. She was concerned about him not getting a long-term extension after last season and wanted to know how that would affect his playing time and reaching the full pension package. I had to explain the entire business side of things to her and I think she was still confused. She’s obsessed with the pension.”

Gramps dropped his fork and it clanged against the table. “Sorry,” he said as he picked it up with a funny look on his face. “How many seasons do you have to play before you get the pension?”

“To get full pension benefits, you have to play for ten full seasons.”

“What happens if you get hurt before then, or if you can’t play all ten?”

Dean sucked in a breath. “Then you only get a partial pension, but it’s way more complicated than that. Your contract terms, the number of years you signed for, it all comes into play.”

“Oh, enough of this talk. Let’s let the kids have some time together before they leave.” Gran pushed back from her chair and started collecting her dishes and the plates closest to her.

“Let me help, please?” Cassie asked and Gran swatted at her hand.

“No, dear. You’re a newlywed. Go spend your honeymoon with your friends,” she said with a wry laugh as we filed out into the living room.

The rest of the afternoon flew by as we hung out with Dean and Melissa. Before I knew it, Cassie was reminding me we needed to pack our things and say our good-byes. I hated leaving, but at least I wouldn’t be alone. I’d never be alone again.

Three Months Later …

Engrossed in my work, I fiddled with the key that hung from a chain around my neck, my fingers running across the letters that spelled out
STRENGTH
across the top
.
Melissa had given it to me after all the drama with the tabloids and mean fans during Jack’s first season. The rule of the necklace, she told me, was that I should keep it until I saw someone else who needed the message on the key more than I did. I hated the thought of ever giving that special gift away, but had to admit it was a really clever idea.

Sitting in my cubicle, I pored over photos I had recently shot during my last assignment. Nora, my boss, wanted to submit one picture for a highly respected photography award. But as I looked at them, I realized that I couldn’t pick
the
one.

As usual, I’d become emotionally involved on my assignment, and could no longer see the photo for just what it portrayed. I saw the emotions behind it, the meanings that weren’t necessarily captured through my lens.

When I looked at the photograph of the elderly man desperately clutching a child covered in dirt and blood, I saw the hundreds of other people in the background just as desperate and dirty who didn’t make it into my picture. Just out of view sat houses demolished into piles of debris, and their owners, faces filled with disbelief, digging through the rubble in vain. Several square miles of land that had once held schools, businesses, and homes, were now completely leveled into what could only be described as a war zone. It sounded so cliché, but that description was the most accurate. Mother Nature sometimes brought hell to Earth. And I captured it with my camera.

It was one thing to see devastation on the news or in magazines, but was quite another to walk through the scene and witness the destruction firsthand. There were no words to describe what it was like to feel your feet crunching through the broken glass and debris of what used to be someone’s home. Or what you felt as you saw the shock on people’s faces as they realized that everything they’d ever held dear had vanished into thin air, or been crushed into particles of dust. I’d never felt as helpless as I did the day an elderly woman admitted to me that all her family photos and heirlooms had been lost, and I could do nothing but watch as she crumpled to her knees in grief. There was such raw and exposed pain in those first few days after a tragedy, that I often found it hard to shoot. It was virtually indescribable to witness, and almost unbearable to live through.

It probably didn’t help my career that I didn’t enjoy being intrusive. I wasn’t the type of photographer who pushed into people’s faces, piercing their personal space in hopes of getting the money shot. It didn’t bring me joy to photograph the agony of others. After being with them, experiencing it with them, their pain was forever etched in my memory, and I carried it with me wherever I went. I didn’t see the sense, or what good it brought, to expose that pain for all to see.

But then at some point during the recovery, something almost magical seemed to happen. You could literally feel the change in the thick and dusty air. The immediate shock had worn off and people in the community came together in the most incredible of ways. There was a sense of family and strength that was humbling to witness. Every. Single. Time. The focus shifted from each individual’s loss and transformed into the community’s pulling together as a whole to not only survive, but to come back stronger, more resilient, as a more cohesive whole. Experiencing that transformation was in itself worth all the earlier tears and pain.

That was why it had always been my goal on any assignment to look for the beauty amidst all the heartache. Those tiny moments of peace and happiness, like when two friends see each other for the first time after wondering if the other were dead or alive. When panic turned to elation, that was what I wanted to capture. If I could put hope into a photograph where it looked like none existed, I’d have done my job. At least, I’d have done it the way I wanted to.

“Cassie, come in here.” My phone buzzed to life with Nora’s voice over the intercom.

I pressed the flashing red button and responded, “Be right in.” I rose from my desk and glanced around the workspace. Joey, the guy I had gone on one date with when Jack and I were broken up, moved away a couple of years ago. He got a job offer back in his hometown of Boston and jumped at the opportunity. Jack had wanted to throw a party when he heard that news. Which I never really understood because, really? It wasn’t as if Jack ever had any real competition.

The faces in my office may have changed over the last five years, but the pace remained the same. The floor buzzed with energy of creative people working on layout, designs, and editing. I loved my job and I loved living in this city.

I rapped my knuckles against Nora’s door before twisting the knob and pushing it open. She waved me over and pointed for me to sit, her phone pressed tightly against her ear. I did as she asked and waited patiently. Ever since I moved to New York to accept the job offer with this magazine, Nora had always had my back. She supported me when Jack and I went through hell with Chrystle’s accusations and the backlash that followed. She even offered to do a full spread on our relationship, just to set the record straight.

In the end, we didn’t need to go through with the feature spread because Chrystle’s ex-best friend Vanessa did all the dirty work for us. Vanessa gave an exclusive interview to the magazine and spilled every detail of Chrystle’s plan to use a fake pregnancy to manipulate Jack into marrying her. My reputation got a much needed-boost, and the fans stopped their incessant name-calling and online hatred of me. Actually, the article had proved to be the best publicity for my relationship with Jack, and I had both Nora and Vanessa to thank for that.

“I’ll have them for you by the end of the day. Thanks, Bob.”

Nora dropped the handset onto the phone base, then leaned back and raised an eyebrow at me. “So, did you choose a photograph yet?”

I winced. “I’ve narrowed it down to five. That’s better than yesterday,” I said, thinking back to the thirty pictures I had scattered on the conference room table yesterday afternoon.

“Jesus, Cassie, just pick one! I’m sure they’re all brilliant. Hell, take them home to that hot husband of yours and make him choose,” she said with a hearty laugh.

My mouth dropped open. “I’m not making Jack pick! He’d probably close his eyes and see which one his finger lands on.”

Nora narrowed her eyes at me. “Which is what you’re going to have to do if you don’t choose one by the end of the day.”

“Fine. I’ll pick one,” I said with a slight huff.

Nora pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up against the bridge of her nose while she stared at me with a smirk on her face.

“What are you up to?” I asked warily. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Her smirk turned into a full smile. “I need you to photograph an upcoming feature story.”

I cocked my head to the side, knowing full well we had other photographers to handle that type of shoot. Each photographer had a specialty. Some excelled at taking indoor studio shots with models, but I wasn’t one of them. I worked best with natural light and unconventional settings, pretty much the exact opposite of a posed studio photo. “Like someone local? Who? Why me?”

“Because it’s Trina.”

Now I was the one smiling. Trina was the one Mets players’ girlfriend who actually talked to me the first season Jack played on the team. When we met, she had been dating Jack’s teammate Kyle. She was a model and missed a lot of games due to her travel schedule, but whenever she was there, she was my savior.

“We’re shooting Trina? That’s amazing! What’s the focus of the story?”

Nora waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Something about ‘From Models to Moms in Manhattan.’ I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but she’ll be the focus. And she’ll only work with you.”

As I shook my head in amazement, my mind drifted back to when I’d first met Trina, and the man who became her new husband.

After the fiasco where our driver, Matteo, tried to kiss me and Jack fired him, Jack eventually allowed him to work for us again. In the meantime, Matteo had opened his own car company for exclusive clientele only. Once he began working with us again, Matteo personally only drove and worked for one couple, Jack and me, but his company was rapidly becoming the go-to car service for all the local pro athletes.

Matteo and Trina started dating right after she and Kyle had called it quits. Their wedding ceremony several months later was small, but elegant. Trina claimed the rushed date had to do with Jack’s spring training schedule, so that we could attend the wedding, but I knew the real reason was because she didn’t want to be showing in her wedding pictures. Matteo also insisted that they be legally married before their baby entered this world. I remember him saying, “I could wait and marry you someday, but I’d much rather marry you today. Someday may never come. Today is already here. Please don’t make me wait to make you my wife.”