Nothing Like the Movies

Liz

“Buxxie!”

I turned and Jimmy Rockford was waving me over to the dugout with his enormous arms. He was a senior catcher coming off of a torn ACL, and the guy was built like a gorilla.

A ginger gorilla with a braided beard. He was a lot to look at, but that was part of his charm.

“Yeah?” I asked, pausing my playlist as I pointed toward the field, where it looked like the outfielders were getting in their fly ball reps. “I need to get shots so I can’t chat right now.”

“Any extra tickets for Friday? My brother wants to come.”

As if. His twin brother, Johnny, played rugby with Clark and was a walking stereotype. He was huge and rough and wild, and when he drank, he was prone to fighting and general destruction. I liked Johnny, but I wasn’t about to invite him to a party at our adorable new off-campus apartment.

“Sorry,” I said as I walked in the other direction, grateful my roommates and I had all agreed upon a strict adherence to the party rule. The three of them were wildly social—I was less so, and it just made sense to use tickets to ensure our parties didn’t get too big. “I’m all out. Check with Clark, though!”

Clark was over by the bullpen, getting footage of the pitchers. I could see the back of his head (not tough when he was six foot seven with a blond man-bun), so I unzipped my camera bag while I approached and pulled out everything I’d need.

“Right on time,” he said to me as he filmed someone throwing, somehow knowing I was there without looking up.

“Heads up, Johnny Rockford is looking for a ticket.”

Clark muttered, “I already told that fucker no.”

“Ten bucks says he shows up anyway.” I set down my bag, adjusted the camera settings, then raised it to take shots of the guy Clark was filming.

Clark and I had gotten good at being invisible, and since most of the athletes were used to being filmed, no one even noticed us there. I looked through the lens at the tall pitcher as he let loose with a fastball, and wow—that was some impressive speed.

At a glance he didn’t look familiar, so he was probably a freshman.

Although technically I was behind him and couldn’t see his face at all, so I guess I meant that his backside didn’t look familiar.

No, his backside just looked like a very nice baseball backside.

God bless the woman who’d designed baseball pants.

And yes—it had to be a woman.

“Crap—do you have a spare battery?” I asked, irritated that I forgot to charge the camera while I’d been in the office. The little icon in the corner was blinking, which meant I was down to only a couple of minutes.

“My bag,” he said, still taking video. “In the back of the truck.”

“Okay,” I said, annoyed I’d overlooked the obvious. Charge the freaking battery, dumbass. “I guess I’m going back to the truck, then.”

“If you see they’ve started BP, would you mind getting some shots?” Clark finally lowered his camera and looked at me. “I have a feeling that’s going to be better content than bands and bullpens.”

“Sure.” I ran back to the truck, and after changing the battery, I spent the next hour getting shots of batting practice. It was fun to see a lot of the players from last year—Mick and Wade were my favorites—and to watch the new guys. UCLA had the number-one recruiting class in the country, which didn’t necessarily guarantee a good season, but it made their preseason feel like more than just training.

It felt like a prologue.

I zoomed in on Wade as he did tee drills, snapping shot after shot of the seriousness on his never-serious face.

God, it’s great to be back. I never would’ve imagined I could fall in love with sports, but so help me God, this job had made it happen.

Because in addition to learning the ropes by doing things like labeling footage and holding the film crew’s stuff, the craziest thing had come out of my low-level production job. I’d discovered that in addition to music, I loved the process of taking flat footage of athletes in their habitat and tweaking it into a compelling story about the human experience.

“Wanna go to Ministry of Coffee when you’re done?”

I lowered the camera and Clark was standing there, his equipment all packed up. He said, “I’m bringing coffee for, like, half of my night class tonight, so I could use the extra hands.”

Typical Clark. He knew half the class and it was only the first day. “You’re finished already?”

I glanced down at my watch and wow—we’d already been there for two hours.

“Yeah, but I can wait if you’re not,” he said, running a hand over his hair. “I’ve got, like, ten people I promised tickets to since we got here, so I can text them while I wait.”

“I know you’re overselling the party, by the way,” I said accusingly, reaching down to grab my bag. “But I think I’ve got enough hitting shots. Let’s go get coffee and figure out how screwed we are.”

“Sounds good to me.” He pulled out his sunglasses and slid them up the bridge of his nose. “But the world’s not going to end if our party goes a little big, you know.”

“Says you.” I rolled my eyes and started walking with him toward the parking lot. “You’re not the one who can’t sleep when there are still sixty people in the living room at three in the morning.”

“It definitely wasn’t sixty,” he said, throwing his arm over my shoulder. “And if you would’ve just drunk a little more, sleeping wouldn’t have been a problem.”

I had to laugh at that, because Clark was fazed by nothing.

Ever.

A bomb could go off in his bedroom and he’d say something trite like, “Well, I guess the universe thought it was time for me to redecorate.”

“Just tell me you didn’t promise Woody a ticket,” I said, knowing without a doubt that he probably had. Every person I knew loved the bullpen catcher from Alabama, Mr. Southern Charm, but I did not. He wasn’t a bad guy, but I went on a date with him last year. It was my one and only college date before I realized I no longer believed in romance when he (A) told me he hated cats, (B) called me “Red” like that was a universally accepted pet name for a redhead, and (C) kissed my neck while we were standing in line at the movie theater concession stand.

And ever since that ill-fated date, every time I saw him, I had the pleasure of answering his twenty questions about why I never let him take me out again.

“I gave some to a couple of the freshman pitchers,” Clark said defensively, “so I had to give one to Woody. I mean, he was right there—I had no choice.”

I shook my head at my pathetically soft friend. “Well, if I murder him, I’m making you bury the body and get rid of the evidence.”

“Deal,” he said. “I’ll even spring for the shovel.”