Page 108 of Fake Love

The second half of the eighth has Maddox coming up for his fourth at bat. His walk-up song taking over the whole stadium.

“Please tell me you didn’t choose his walk up song.” Hunter says to me with a groan.

“I did, thank you very much.”

“It’s such a shit song,” his face wrinkling up.

“I didn’t hear you complain about the song all season and now two weeks before its over you decide to?” I narrow my eyes at him.

He shrugs. “I just noticed.”

“Well, Jacobi you can choke on a hot dog.”

He lets out a laugh and we turn back to face the field.

Maddox takes the first pitch and pops it into the stands. The second pitch he takes is a walk, but the third is what gets the crowd up on their feet.

He hits the ball into center field, where the outfielder misses it completely causing it to fall to the floor and for Maddox to end up in first.

I’m always proud of him during the games, but for some reason, with this game I can’t help but to be extra proud.

One more Miner ends up on base, moving Maddox to second, where he stays for the rest of the inning.

When the inning ends, every single person stand up when Maddox walks up to the mound.

From the looks of things, every single person here knows what is happening, what could happen and every single one of them is waiting with anticipation.

Me, I’m waiting with so much anxiety.

Maddox has gone through a lot in the last year and a half. So much that he thought that he would never play baseball again, that nobody would ever take a chance on him.

The Miners took a chance on him, now here he is, playing again about to pitch a perfect game.

Shit, does me thinking it mean I jinxed it?

God, I hope not because Maddox really needs this. If he does this it will be a way to show everyone that has doubts about him that he is still as good as he was before his unfortunate events. If not better.

Including my dad.

The first batter of the ninth steps up to the plate, and all Maddox has to do is throw a minimum of twenty seven pitches and he gets this.

He gets this perfect game.

There I go thinking the words again.

The first pitch is thrown, and the umpire calls it a strike.

One pitch down.

When the second pitch comes, the player swings and ends up hitting the ball up and when it comes down, it gets caught by the third baseman.

I let out the breath I was holding and cheer with everyone else as the second batter walks up.

One out, two more to go.

“You got this, baby. You got this.” I whisper into my hands.

Selena hears me, because she comes over to me and wraps her arms around me as if she’s giving me emotional support.

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