19. Maggie

"And with that strikeout, folks," the announcer's voice boomed over the speakers in the stadium, "Adam Steel has sat down his eleventh batter of the night."

"He's unreal tonight." Tommy came up beside me to lean on the dugout fence.

Tonight's game was a chance for some of the rookies to prove themselves to the managers. We were playing a weaker team, and it hadn't been intended for Adam to throw this long, but after the seventh strikeout, the coaches decided to keep him in to let him have his moment. It was one of my favorite times to be a photographer capturing history.

"Unreal," I agreed.

"Want to go to another pier with me tonight?" I bit down on a smile, nodding in response. I felt like a teenage girl with her first crush around Tommy, like my emotions were going haywire.

"What's with you and piers?" I asked, trying my hand at being coy.

"The view." Tommy looked at me then like I was the only important thing happening in that moment.

"The view of what?"

"You'll see." The only thing keeping me from getting frustrated with another surprise was the look on Tommy's face. He looked happy. It was lightyears away from the man I had seen in that conference room weeks ago.

Over the past week, Tommy and I had been wrapped up in the season. It was one of the busier weeks in the schedule this year, and our lives had been firmly attached to a ballpark across the country. Tommy had played in every single game, with tonight's game being the first time he'd been given time off.

Our interactions had been limited to conversations at the field and text messages, talking about different articles that had been posted about us. There were photos trending of us with Olivia at the pier in San Francisco and photos that fans had grabbed of us deep in conversation at various games. People had coined ship names for us and were calling the public storyline of our "love story" as one for the ages.

My personal favorite ship name was "Taggie," while Tommy continued to jokingly find a way to use "Mommy" in all our conversations.

It was overwhelming to watch. People I had never met in my life were passing judgment on the relationship that they could see publicly. I had debated deleting my social media accounts multiple times, and I would have if it weren't for another stipulation from Monica, asking us to post pictures we had taken on our dates. So I had to stay firmly plugged into the madness.

Because of our busy schedules between the game that we both loved and the other duties as assigned from the Cougars, neither of us had brought up what was happening with us. The chemistry that I had felt from the first day we met seemed like it was at its highest.

My emotions had never been more confused, but I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the casual flirting that happened in the dugout or the constant stream of texts full of funny videos, memes, and GIFs.

In the span of a month, Tommy had become one of the most important people in my life. My relationship with him was different from my relationship with Olivia. Olivia and I might be best friends, but there was a different level of intimacy to my relationship with Tommy.

The roar of the crowd brought me back to the present. Adam had struck out his twelfth batter of the night, solidifying his spot in the Chicago Cougars' records book. Tommy cheered next to me, his hands lifted over his head in celebration.

"He did it!" Tommy screamed before he grabbed me by the shoulders to shake me. I laughed, feeling like his excitement was intoxicating.

"Go!" I motioned toward his teammates running out of the dugout to congratulate Adam on his walk off the mound. Tommy took off to celebrate with his teammates. The pictures I snapped were some of my favorite kind to take. When there was so much joy on everyone's face. It was the best emotion to capture in an image.

Jamil and Tommy had their arms wrapped around Adam as they tried to strangle him in a hug. Adam was laughing as he tried to swat them away. It warmed my heart to see Tommy finding some happiness with his teammates. I wanted nothing more than for him to have more moments like tonight where he was overwhelmed with so much joy; with the hope that moments like this would replace all of the bad ones that plagued his mind.

It was an odd feeling when someone who was once a stranger had become so important to you that you cared about their level of happiness. Maybe it was because the smile on Tommy's face whenever he was as happy as he was now did something funny to my heart. Maybe it was purely selfish, but all that I cared about in that moment was seeing more of that smile.

The view that Tommy had talked about at the game was of the city and Lake Michigan from the top of the Ferris wheel on Navy Pier. The last time I had ridden the Ferris wheel, I was in the fifth grade and we had come to Navy Pier for a field trip. I remember how the city looked so massive, so grand from the top at that age. Now, it was still breathtaking, but the world looked a little more manageable than before.

Tommy and I walked down the pier completely unnoticed. It felt nice, like it was a date just for the two of us. That feeling stayed with us as our carriage gave us the perfect few moments without any cameras or any expectations. With only Tommy and me in the carriage, it was like we were the only two people in the entire city. The silence stretched out between us like a comfortable blanket. Within the past few weeks, Tommy and I had grown from strangers into people that looked forward to talking to each other every day.

I leaned over toward him as the Ferris wheel began to descend and rested my head on his shoulder. Tommy's arm went to snake around me, and for a moment, I could pretend that maybe we were something more.

"I've been thinking we need to do this more," Tommy said, shaking me out of my daydream of the two of us coming back to ride this very Ferris wheel every year.

"Do what more?"

"Go out. Just the two of us." His hand squeezed my shoulder, pulling me even closer to him if it were possible. Then his free hand slipped under my chin and raised my lips to meet his. I was sure my heart would explode from all the emotions pumping through it. My words felt like they might fail me, so I nodded my head. That foreign feeling of hope was growing inside my chest, and it scared me that all of this could come crashing down around me.

Tommy hadn't said anything that blatantly confirmed what we were. He had simply stated that he wanted to go on more dates with just the two of us. I wasn't sure if he meant something more than what our contract stated our fake relationship was or only on dates that weren't planned by Monica. Sure, we were currently on a date as just the two of us. But there were plenty of people around that could take a picture of us and continue the narrative of our online relationship.

So I held on to that feeling of hope inside me a little tighter. I just didn't realize that it would come crashing down around me so soon. As Tommy and I started to make our way back down the pier toward the city, the shouts and flashes started.

"Tommy! Maggie!"

Flash.

"Want to give us another kiss?"

Flash.

"Maggie, what happened with Luke Greenberg?"

Flash.

My blood felt like it had frozen inside my body when my brain finally processed what had been yelled at me. Tommy wrapped his arm tightly around my waist to continue steering me away from the paparazzi. If he hadn't done that, I would have stopped in my tracks, sure to be surrounded by the vultures with cameras.

"Maggie! Does Tommy know about Luke?"

Flash.

I was sure those photographs would be everywhere tomorrow with my distressed face as the focus. The headlines were going to be horrible. I was only hoping that they wouldn't be complete monsters and that they'd leave Luke out of it.

But it seemed the world was only meant to laugh at me today because as Tommy and I entered the safety of his car, my phone rang and my mom's name flashed across the screen.

"Mom?" I asked.

"Oh, honey." My heart sank at the tone of her voice. I didn't even have to ask to know that whatever it was she was about to say wasn't going to be good. "Have you seen it?"

"Seen what?"

There was a pause on the other end that made me grip my phone tighter.

"I'll send it to you." Another pause. "Your dad and I love you, honey. Let us know if you need anything."

My phone buzzed, and I pulled it away from my ear when I heard the click of the line from my mom hanging up. Every part of me wanted to throw my phone out the window instead of opening whatever message was waiting for me. I was faintly aware of Tommy trying to ask me what was wrong as I clicked on the link in my mom's messages, but it was like he was speaking in a tunnel. The article loaded and my heart dropped, my worst fear being confirmed.

The picture must have been taken off my parents' or my social media accounts. It was the same picture that was framed on their mantel. I quickly scanned the article, feeling hotter with every second.

Maggie Redford, a photographer for the Chicago Cougars and recently attached to the Cougars' star shortstop, Tommy Mikals, was previously engaged to Luke Greenberg. The two met their freshman year and were engaged by the end of their junior year. Longtime college friends of the couple tell NewsWeekly of their insatiable energy for each other. Where one half of the couple was spotted, the other would never be far away. Their love was undeniable, and they both knew they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together early on. However, tragedy struck when Luke passed away in a car accident that had Maggie Redford behind the wheel.

"Maggie!" Tommy's hand gently laid over the screen, finally drawing my attention to him. "What's going on?"

My eyes danced across his face, taking in the sharp cut of his jawline with the slight stubble that had started to grow in. His blue eyes were a darker hue tonight than normal. The slight crease between his eyebrows showed me how worried he was about me. And the way his body was turned toward me, like if there wasn't a center console between us, he'd hold me forever to protect me from the world.

I started to shake my head, unable to speak the words. I didn't even know where to start. While keeping his eyes on me, he gently pried the phone from my hands and glanced down at the article so he could read it himself. It was ages before he lifted his eyes back to mine again. I was afraid that I would find disgust there when I finally looked into them again, but instead I saw understanding. He was putting the dots together between the picture in my parents' house, my reaction to his question, and this article.

"Maggie, I am so sorry."

The anguish that laced his voice made me realize that he wasn't necessarily apologizing for what had happened, which I was grateful for. Once you hear it about a hundred times, it begins to grate on you. He was apologizing for putting me in a position where the most private parts of my life would be shared with the world.

But I had to remind myself, none of this was only his fault. I had signed that contract willingly. I never thought it would come to this though. Tommy didn't say anything else. He sat with me in the silence of his car, giving me the space I needed to feel ready to speak. It was the most perfect thing he could have done, and I was so thankful for him.

"Can we go back to your place?" I asked once I was sure my voice wouldn't fail me. Tommy immediately put the car in drive and took off down the road. His presence was the only thing keeping me grounded as we drove through the streets of Chicago. The only bright part of that moment was the city lights out the window, slightly blurred in the tears that fell from my eyes.