107

Ryan

No Intention Of Fucking It Up

With my arms folded over my chest, I watched as some of the tech guys worked on the big screens in the stadium, flashing Kassie's animations. I gazed up at them. I'd seen them from the rough planning stage she'd sketched out over miles of paper to the scribbling lines she'd played with and now this . There was a kind of dance to them.

She put so much work into that. I was mesmerized.

Beyond the first layer of bleachers, I could see the television screens, flickering to life.

That was her work. It was all of it.

"It looks good." Unable to look away, I watched each cartoon. I couldn't tear myself away from them. They were all I had left. She'd spent half her time in my apartment, carefully planning those out, and the other half I spent massaging out the carpal tunnel she'd gotten from working on them. "It looks really good."

The screen went bright blue.

"What happened?" I stepped forward, staring hard at it. "I just saw it."

"We're doing a font change," one of the tech guys told me.

"Font change. Got it. How long's that going to take?"

He shot me a look. "It's a brand new file we're working with. We have to adjust them for the different aspect ratios."

"Okay. Got it." I nodded. "Have you heard of copy and paste? It's pretty great. You can just copy something on to something else. My girlfriend—my ex girlfriend—showed me how it works. I don't know if that's helpful."

"Hey, Ryan." Cleo's hand slipped through my arm and she directed me back to the field with her clipboard in hand. "Let's give them a little space. They're doing the best they can."

I glanced over my shoulder. "It's not back up yet."

"Let's talk about your announcement."

"What about it?"

"Don't you want to hear the responses?" Cleo raised her eyebrows. "I have phones ringing off the hook right now."

"Do I need to hear about it?"

The head intern shifted back on her heels, surprised. "You don't…want all the details?"

"I trust you, Cleo. You'll do right by me."

For a long moment, she blinked at me in surprise and I remembered something else that Kassie told me. Taking a sharp right turn, I walked back to the tech workers, getting the animations back on the screen, but without the motion. King was stuck on the screen, halfway between throwing a football.

"Hey, do you know about unplugging electronics?" I asked. "She taught me that too. If someone's not working, you can just unplug it and plug it back in and it works great."

"We're good, Mr. Cross," one of the tech workers muttered.

"Ryan?" Cleo called behind me.

"One minute," I told her over my shoulder and rolled up my sleeves. "How can I help with the screens? Do you need something copy pasted? What can I do?"

"We don't need help, Mr. Cross."

I took a step forward. "I can find some cords. Do we need cords?"

" Ryan, " Cleo repeated.

"You know what you could do?" A tech worker nodded at me encouragingly. "You can count all of the TV screens in the stadium. We have no idea how many we have. That'd be the most helpful thing you could do."

" Ryan! Cross! " Cleo barked.

I glanced back, ready to start counting TVs, when I saw the look on Cleo's face. She motioned off to the bleachers across the field, an incredulous look on her face, and my eyes flickered over, to the dark hoodie by two white columns, taking hesitant steps like she hadn't been to the stadium dozens of times.

Kassie .

Slowly, I released the breath I didn't realize I was holding and made my way across the empty stadium. I didn't think about it. I just walked.

That was her. I knew it was her, I knew in my bone marrow it was her. The way she walked, the way her dark braids over her shoulders. The way she shoved her hands in the pocket of her hoodie. I could've picked her out of any lineup, blindfolded.

The grass melted to the dark hallways, the dark hallways lead to the stairways with metallic clangs, and each of those vibrated with every step. And every step was one step closer to her.

She was here, and if she was here, that meant I had a chance.

And I had no intention of fucking up that chance.