Page 5 of Totally Fanatic

“Oh, no, you could never let me down. You’re amazing. Just be you and it’s going to be awesome.”

The hostess clears her throat.

“Your order will be ready in about five minutes. You can wait at the bar on the right side, and they’ll bring it out,” she tells us, and Duckie links his arm in mine.

“Have a great night,” Duckie tells them, dragging me away.

“Yeah, enjoy. The ribs here are the best. See you later,” I call back.

Duckie leans in close to my ear. “Dude, are you trying to get Misery-ed?”

“Get what now?”

“You know that old movie where the fan kidnaps their favorite author and ties them to a bed?”

I glance back at where Lion and Mary Beth huddle close, smiling and glancing our way.

“I can’t say I’d really mind if he tied me to a bed. He’s kind of hot.”

“Not exactly the brightest bulb in the box. But you just like that he is obsessed with you.”

“That’s not nice. He was sweet. You’re just pissed he wasn’t obsessed with you.”

“It’s weird. He didn’t look at me once. I swear his eyes were locked on you like you were a meal and he hadn’t eaten for a month.”

“Again, not a bad thing.”

Duckie nods, but I get the feeling he doesn’t agree. I know I’m right. There are way worse things in this world than being desired and my ex is one of them. We only dated for a few weeks at the beginning of last year, but it was the longest few weeks of my life. It’s funny how that works. A good week will fly past, but a bad one drags on forever. He was a drag, that is for sure. He loved to point out what I did wrong in games, like he knew baseball, even though he never spent a day on a field. Then he’d bag out my arms or my legs, saying I really needed more muscle if I was going to try to compete with the professionals. Yeah. I’ll take being desired by a gorgeous muscle man any day.

***

I manage to stay off my phone until I am home and on the couch with my order of ribs and two servings of mac and cheese in my lap. There are a lot of notifications to click through, more than normal, and as much as I want to check out all of them, I want to post first. Keeping my social media time-limited means that I don’t even go on to update my feed through the day, so I grab a selfie I took on the field after training and take a picture with my dinner, and a close-up of the food in my lap where you can see the restaurant bag in the background. I add all three pics then add a caption.Best start to the season ending with the best ribs in Savannah.

I shovel a mouthful of mac and cheese into my mouth, the creamy cheesy sauce coating my tongue in its deliciousness. The notifications are mostly reactions to my posts or other people’s comments, and I get through a serving of mac and cheese and half my ribs before I am through them all. But then another notification comes through. A comment on the post I just made. It’s Kittyball100, and they’ve shared a pic.

Totally agree!They’ve captioned their photo comment, and the image is of a table at The River Steakhouse with two plates of ribs and two bowls of mac and cheese. Could Kittyball100 be Lion?

Chapter four

LION

It’s game day, andMary Beth and I eagerly follow the stream of people headed to find seats, and I’m even more thankful for the allocated seating that comes with the Big Banana Season pass. It’s a little chilly, but the sky is clear, and the smell of hot dogs and nachos fills my nose as we make our way to our seats. The stands are packed and some of the players are still out, snaking their way through the crowd, taking photos and signing autographs. I already have the only autograph I need. Tim’s. He signed the back of my vet’s business card last year. It’s in the shape of a cat and has King’s last check-up appointment time written above it, but it still looks super cute framed and on my hall table.

The speakers above us crackle before the music starts, and we pick up our pace. I almost trip on the last step before our row but grab the back of the chair on the aisle just in time.

“That was nearly your season over,” Mary Beth laughs, and I scoot in front of an older man and woman wearing OG jerseys to reach our seats.

They’re not as close as the ones I had last year in the final game of the season. I was right near the front then. It’s how I got Tim’s autograph. We’re about seven rows up this time, but we’re also right over the dugout, so it has its advantages.

The general manager, Bart Erricson, walks onto the field wearing his signature yellow pinstripe suit and patent leather yellow shoes.

“Welcome to another incredible year of Banana Ball.”

The crowd erupts in cheers, and he gives them a moment to settle before he continues.

“There is no other place in the world we would rather be kicking off this year’s tour than right here with you, Savannah.”

The crowd goes wild again, but this time, Bart doesn’t worry about waiting for them to finish blasting their voices across the pitch. He turns, and as he does, three objects start to inflate on the field in a row behind him. They rise quickly, and before we know it, three giant inflatable baseballs are sitting on the field.

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