Chapter Thirty

Chelsea

“Welcome to the Warriors Family and Friends Night Out!” The PA system boomed to life with a louder than normal version of Take Me Out to the Ballgame and the entire crowd joined in. I was running late and still making my way to the seats Cody had been given. Each player got a hundred tickets to pass out to family and friends, or friends of friends, and many players ended up booking additional seats. The place was packed. Laughter, cheers, and happy faces surrounded me as I scuttled down the stairs. I stopped short of my row and glanced down the narrow aisle to catch my breath.

The last few weeks had whizzed by with so many highs and lows that walking into family and friend’s night at the Warriors’ stadium felt like disembarking from a crazy rollercoaster and I hadn’t quite got my legs set underneath me yet. Cody and I had been nearly inseparable since the night in the sushi lot parking lot. He was going above and beyond to make me feel included in his life and doing a damn good job. Summer Pratt had been fired from her PR job with the team and from what Paris had gleaned, her relationship with the team’s owner had also fizzled. Cody’s reputation was safe as was his place on the team.

The low part of the past weeks was that my new game, Lucky Plays Fishball had opened to crickets, despite the promises from my investment firm that they were dumping money into the release. I wasn’t hunched over a computer day in and day out to distract myself, instead focusing on interviews with podcasters and online magazines to talk about the game. But it didn’t seem to help much.

After a rough conversation with my investors, I’d changed into Cody’s authentic issued shirt and hurried to the stadium. The words of the call were still bouncing around my mind and ruining my best efforts to put on a happy face. I wanted to move on to the next game, mostly to have something to throw myself into, but the investors wanted another three months of promotion for the Fishball game before they would even open the possibility of funding another game. And if they decided to opt out…well, then I’d be screwed. A washed up developer before I even hit my mid-twenties.

Cody kept telling me it would turn around. I appreciated his confidence, but in the end, he knew baseball. Not the tech world. Things move at a faster clip when technology is involved. If the investors passed on my next pitch, there would be hundreds of other young, hungry developers standing behind me, prepared to take my place. The investors wouldn’t even miss me. But my life would be a mess. I refused to bank my future on being with Cody and using his money—although he’d offered on more than one occasion to help me out.

I had to figure it out. Myself.

Three people in Wright shirts were getting to their feet as the PA guy announced Cody was taking to the mound. I snapped myself out of my anxiety, shoving all thoughts of Fishball to the back of my mind to obsess over after the game. I plastered a big smile on my face and tried not to let my hands shake as I approached the trio who I knew would be Cody’s parents and his younger brother, Jordan. They had flown in this morning and since Cody had all day practice leading up to the big game, we hadn’t been able to do a meet and greet before the game started. It was odd to formally meet his family without him present, but he had included me in a video call a few days ago, so they knew who to expect.

It was a big step for Cody and me, and I knew it was essential that we all get along. He’d confessed that they’d never officially met anyone before. In high school, he had been a self-proclaimed player who bounced between girls too fast for his parents to really pin down which one he was with. In college, with Summer, she’d begged to meet his parents but he’d purposefully kept them apart. He didn’t want to give her any more fuel for her grand plan of marrying a pro ballplayer.

Which left me wondering what exactly his intended message was by having me meet them. Surely we weren’t anywhere near a formal commitment like an engagement or marriage. I didn’t go to each game waiting for the scoreboard to light up with the all-important question. I actually would want to kick him if he proposed that way. If the time ever came, I wanted that moment to be as far removed from baseball as possible. It didn’t matter, at least not yet. I knew that wasn’t where Cody’s head was at. He was working his angles to try and get me to agree to move in with him but I was holding back on that step a little while longer.

First, I had to meet his family. With my smile fixed, I scuttled down the narrow aisle and tapped his mom on the shoulder. Paula Wright turned to me and her smile lit up like Christmas lights on the front porch for the first time of the season. She was about my height, with a full face of makeup, shoulder length sandy brown hair that was obviously colored and highlighted. She wore a simple pair of diamond studs—no doubt real—and a casual pair of jeans with her Wright t-shirt.

“Chelsea! Darling, we’d started to wonder if you were ever going to get here! It’s so good to meet you in person, honey.” She wrapped me in a bone-crushing embrace before I could get a word out. Over her shoulder, James and Jordan smiled. They’d been expecting this reaction. “I told Cody that this was too much. Us meeting without him here.”

She released me but kept one hand on my shoulder. “No, not at all. I was on a work call and it ran over.”

“Oh, he told us that too,” Paula said, smiling sweetly.

“What?”

“That you work too damn much,” James filled in, leaning past his son to offer me a hand. “James Wright.”

“Hello, James,” I said, smiling politely. James was a head taller than his wife. He probably had a couple of inches on Cody. His face was lined with years of being in the sun and his build was nearly identical to Cody’s despite his added years. He looked like he could take the field and fit right in with the other players. He had sparkling blue eyes that were sharp and crafty. Cody had warned me that his dad could be a stickler but that he was a marshmallow on the inside. He was the one that I was most nervous about. I wanted him to like me as I knew that his opinion weighed on Cody the most. Regardless of what Cody would say. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Jordan,” his brother said, adding his two cents. We shook hands too.

“Nice to meet you too, Jordan.” He was nineteen and the polar opposite of Cody and James. He was still tall, though not as tall as Cody or his father. His build was lankier and the way he dressed reminded me of something from a punk band. His hair was jet black and flopped over his forehead. He wore a long sleeved black shirt under his Wright shirt despite the warm day. As soon as we said our introductions, he dropped his attention back to the device in his hands. Some kind of superhero game flashed and buzzed and he was lost within minutes. “Is that the new Klang Brothers game?” I asked, focusing in on the game.

Jordan looked up at me, his eyes bright. “Yeah. How did you know?”

I laughed. “It’s what I do. I’m an app developer. I make games just like that…well…except my ideal player is about half your age. I do kids games.”

“You do?”

Paula laughed. “Oh, well now you’re speaking Jordan’s language. I swear, I can’t get him off this thing.” She gestured at the phone in Jordan’s hands and gave a slight eye roll. Her smile was still in place, but a twinge of annoyance flashed in her eyes. “He wants to try his hand at programming too.”

“That’s cool. I can point you in the right direction if you want,” I offered.

Jordan nodded. “That would be great. Can I see your game?”

Paula, sensing she’d lost the conversation, shifted to the side to let Jordan and I sit together in the middle. The game was on a break and she excused herself to go get drinks for all of us. I got Jordan set up with the Fishball game and went through the basics for him to play.

“Obviously it’s a little young but I wanted it to be educational. So when you choose your team there are math problems to solve to unlock new players and even things like team colors.”

“That’s so cool!” Jordan exclaimed. I watched him take to it like a duck to water and smiled with a sense of pride as he went about constructing his team of little animated fish.

By the time Paula returned with the drink carrier, he was totally lost in the game.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the soda cup she offered me. “For some reason I always want a root beer when I’m at the game.”

She laughed. “Do you come to many games?”

“As many as I can. My friend, Paris, is engaged to Robby Brown so she always has tickets. I usually sit with her. Now that my game is done, I have more time to come out and watch Cody play.”

Paula smiled, a twinkle in her eyes as she watched me talk about Cody. “And you met at a game? Is that right?”

“Sort of.” My cheeks went warm, thinking about the night Cody and I met. Things had changed so much since then—it was almost like we’d become two completely different people. “We actually met through Paris and Robby, at dinner after a game.”

“Oh, that’s right! Cody told me that. Well, dear, I just want you to know how happy we are that you’re in Cody’s life. He speaks so highly of you and we just know you two have something really special.” She pat me on the knee and gave me another warm smile.

I returned her smile and melted into my chair, relaxing after all the anxiety of meeting them washed away. I had the feeling that Paula was already planning the arrangement for the next family Christmas cards to make a space for me.

James was locked in on the game and after the umpire made a call the crowd roared with booing and jeers. James joined in. “Damn it, Cody. Get his ass outta there!”

Paula shot her husband a warning look. “Now, now, darling.”

I smirked. She had the placating tone of a woman who’d been fighting this battle for years. I imagined that having a pro player for a dad made for some interesting Little League games.

Paula roped me back into conversation, asking about my family, hobbies, and business. We chattered away happily through three innings and only paused periodically to cheer Cody on. It was hard to focus on what Paula was saying because Cody looked so damn sexy down on the field. He was playing it up for the crowd and looked every inch the all-star player he was rapidly morphing into. I couldn’t wait to get him all to myself later that night.

James was glued on the game, cheering for the most part, but occasionally shouting out tips to Cody, though there was no way his son would actually be able to hear him. We had excellent seats, close to the diamond, but with the dull roar all around us, everything got blurred together. When Cody hadn’t allowed a single person to reach first base by the middle of the eighth inning, James started to really lose his shit. He was up on his feet, hollering and shouting for Cody to keep it up.

Paula just rolled her eyes and continued our conversation as best as she could with all the chaos.

James turned to us as it shifted into the ninth. “We’re going to have us a perfect game! Damn! That’s my boy!”

I smiled and made a note to tell Cody what his dad said later that night. He cared a lot about his dad’s opinion of him and his career. He never let on just how much, but I could see glimpses of it underneath his tough guy, nothing-bothers-me persona.

“Really?” Paula said, suddenly shifting to the edge of her seat. She trained her eyes to Cody as he jogged out onto the field. “That would be…wow.”

I wasn’t sure what a no-hitter or a perfect game was, or why it would be such a big deal, but if James was this excited over the idea of it, it had to be pretty damn cool.

“Come on, baby! You got this!” I shouted, rising to my feet with the rest of the crowd.

I got lost in the moment. The sound of thousands of Warriors fans screaming my boyfriend’s name. It was a surreal moment. Coach Robinson was on the field and had Cody’s full attention but I kept cheering anyway.

“That’s my man!”