Maid For Beckett Catching The Baseball Legend’s Heart novel Chapter 155

Chapter 155

Chapter 155

-Andi-

–

My head had been a mess last night Amber Wolves Stadium, taking in the

68 vouchers

that was the only explanation for why I was only now really seeing the sheer scale of it.

This stadium can accommodate fifty thousand spectators, and its towering height creates its own skyline. The crowd outside was already thick, even though the gates had just opened. A sea of navy and gold, face paint and foam fingers, vendors weaving through the noise with trays of overpriced hot dogs and commemorative cups. The energy was almost physical, like static in the air before a storm.

“You were here last night,” Lila said beside me, confused.

I hummed a yes.

“Then why do you look like a tourist who hasn’t seen this place before?”

“I am a tourist,” I giggled.

Lila was wearing Beckett’s jersey too. Maybe she did it for me, or maybe she just liked to support her brother, but the effect was still calming my weary mind.

“Where is Vivian?” My neck craned left to right, searching for Beckett and Lila’s mom.

Lila looped her arm through mine and steered me toward the VIP entrance, flashing her credentials at the gate as if she’d done it a hundred times. News flash, she had. “She’s stuck in a meeting. She told me to apologize to her favorite son.” She cajoled.

“She asked the favorite daughter,” I piped in.

“She did!”

The VIP lounge was out of my world. It wasn’t as loud here as where I sat last night. It sat above the stadium bowl with floor–to–ceiling glass overlooking the field, and the air conditioning was on full blast. The seats inside were wide, cushioned, plush, and nothing like the bleachers below. There were attendants moving through the space with trays champagne, sparkling water, small plates of food arranged with the kind of care that felt almost like it belonged to a restaurant. On a long table near the entrance, branded merchandise was laid out for guests: embroidered caps, commemorative programs, a tote bag with the Reapers logo stitched in silver.

–

Lila picked up a cap and placed it on her head, grinning widely. “Perks,” she said simply.

I smiled, but my eyes were already moving around the room. Scanning. An ugly habit that I picked up since that blurry photo of Carter and ine.

There were people here who knew who I was Or at least, who knew whose jersey I was wearing I could feel it. or maybe it was all in my head. The glances that lasted a half–second too long, the hushed conversations where they would sneak a peek at me. I was in my own head. I knew that I’d been in my own head since my first date with Beckett until I pulled Beckett’s jersey over my shoulders this morning and caught my own reflection in the mirror, But knowing that didn’t make it easier to ignore the feeling that every person in this

8:48 Tue, Mar 31 M…

Chapter 155

room was cataloguing my every move, ready to spread false gossip about Beckett and me.

I tugged at the jersey’s hem and tried my hardest to focus on Lila.

95

2 55 vouchers

She was already settled into her seat near the viewing deck, phone in hand, and she belonged to this place as if it were made for her.

I tried to blend in and sat beside her. She told me about Beckett’s first season, how he’d shown up to spring training two inches taller than the year before and promptly threw a no–hitter in his second start. She has a lot of stories about her brother, and somehow, I wonder why Beckett always made it seem like he wasn’t close to his sister. That’s not what I see. Her voice had a particular warmth when she talked about him kind that glossed things over, but the kind that had seen the hard parts too and loved him, anyway.

–

not the

“He used to make me sit in the backyard and call balls and strikes for him,” she said, shaking her head. “I was nine. I had no idea what I was doing.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Every single time!” She rolled her eyes. “You know him; he didn’t care.”

I laughed, and for a moment, I forgot about the eyes in the room.

Then the lights shifted over the field, and the announcer’s voice rolled through the stadium, and silence fell over the fifty thousand people in attendance. The air inside the lounge changed immediately – the easy conversation thinned out, drinks were set down, and everyone turned toward the glass. The tension that had been humming beneath the surface of the afternoon blanketed the entire stadium.

Lila straightened in her seat.

The Brighton City Reapers were first in the batting sequence, and the lineup began scrolling across the wide screen. I was just beginning to get comfortable in my seat when I heard Lila pull in a sharp breath beside me.

I turned. Her hand was pressed flat against her sternum, her eyes wide and fixed on the screen.

“What’s going on?”

She didn’t answer. I followed her gaze to the screen, to the batting order still scrolling through its lineup. My eyes moved down the list. Leadoff. Second. Third, and then, beside the designation for DH-

22. Hale, Beckett.

I stared at it, blinking it away.

“Beckett?” I asked.

Lila didn’t answer right away. When I looked at her, her chin was tipped up, her jaw set with a particular kind of pride that I had no other word for. She looked like someone who had been waiting a very long time to see something, and it had finally arrived.

“It’s about damn time,” she said.

(6

Chapter 155

“For real?”

55 voucher

“Uh–huh. He’s been a two–way player since Little League.” She paused. “But every coach he ever had kept him on the mound and off the plate. Said it was too risky and it might split his focus.”

“Ohhh,” I was still wrapping my head around this new discovery.

“I told him he could be both a pitcher and a hitter, but he never argued with his coaches. He just kept showing up and kept hitting in practice, and kept waiting.”

She finally looked at me.

“Looks like someone finally let him.”

I turned back to the field. I didn’t know what to say. I thought I had reached the limit of what Beckett could do to surprise me. He had surprised me in so many ways already, but this felt different, as though he was showing me another side of him.

I didn’t have words for it. I just watched.

The stadium fell into a hush as Beckett stepped into the batter’s box. He took his time. He dragged his cleat along the dirt at the edge of the plate, as if he were leaving a mark. Like he was saying, I was here.

I held my breath, watching him with pure wonder, and so did the crowd.

On the screen, the camera found his face.

He was calm. Not the forced calm of someone trying to manage nerves, but something deeper than that – the stillness of a person who had been waiting years for a specific moment to come.

The Amber Wolves‘ pitcher wound up and threw the first pitch. It sailed wide, well outside the strike zone, and a ripple of noise moved through the crowd. Even the pitcher looked rattled. He adjusts his cap, stepping off the rubber.

The second pitch came in lower – a slider catching the left corner. Beckett swung.

Foul ball.

Strike one, the umpire announced.

A simultaneous ooh rolled through the stadium, fifty thousand people exhaling at once. I realized I was gripping the armrest and holding my breath.

The pitch timer countdown clock began. The air in the lounge went still. The pitcher set, wound up, and delivered a hundred miles per hour fastball, low in the zone, the kind of pitch designed to be unhittable.

—

Beckett swung.

It happened almost in slow motion – the way bis hips rotated, the way the bat came through the zone, the way he got under the ball and scooped it upward from the lowest corner of the strike zone. The crack of contact was so clean and so loud that I felt it hit my chest.

8:49 Tue, Mar 31

Chapter 155

“For real?”

:

ล 1950

65 vouchers

“Uh–huh. He’s been a two–way player since Little League.” She paused. “But every coach he ever had kept him on the mound and off the plate. Said it was too risky and it might split his focus.”

“Ohhh,” I was still wrapping my head around this new discovery.

“I told him he could be both a pitcher and a hitter, but he never argued with his coaches. He just kept showing up and kept hitting in practice, and kept waiting.”

She finally looked at me.

“Looks like someone finally let him.”

I turned back to the field. I didn’t know what to say. I thought I had reached the limit of what Beckett could do to surprise me. He had surprised me in so many ways already, but this felt different, as though he was showing me another side of him.

I didn’t have words for it. I just watched.

The stadium fell into a hush as Beckett stepped into the batter’s box. He took his time. He dragged his cleat along the dirt at the edge of the plate, as if he were leaving a mark. Like he was saying, I was here.

I held my breath, watching him with pure wonder, and so did the crowd.

On the screen, the camera found his face.

He was calm. Not the forced calm of someone trying to manage nerves, but something deeper than that— the stillness of a person who had been waiting years for a specific moment to come.

The Amber Wolves‘ pitcher wound up and threw the first pitch. It sailed wide, well outside the strike zone, and a ripple of noise moved through the crowd. Even the pitcher looked rattled. He adjusts his cap, stepping off the rubber.

The second pitch came in lower – a slider catching the left corner. Beckett swung.

Foul ball.

Strike one, the umpire announced.

A simultaneous ooh rolled through the stadium, fifty thousand people exhaling at once. I realized I was gripping the armrest and holding my breath.

The pitch timer countdown clock began. The air in the lounge went still. The pitcher set, wound up, and delivered – a hundred miles per hour fastball, low in the zone, the kind of pitch designed to be unhittable.

Beckett swung.

It happened almost in slow motion -the way his hips rotated, the way the bat came through the zone, the way he got under the ball and scooped it upward from the lowest corner of the strike zone. The crack of contact was so clean and so loud that I felt it hit my chest.

The ball dimbed and climbed. And kept climbing

I was on my feet before I knew I had stood up. So was Lila So was everyone in the loung stadium rising together as the ball arced against the afternoon sky and disappeared into back of the upper deck.

I screamed. It was pure excitement, raw and unfiltered. Lila’s voice tangled up with mine a other’s arms and watched Beckett round first base with the same unhurried calm the show) theatrics. Just Beckett, rounding the diamond at his own pace, like it was a walk in the park

I pressed my fingers to my mouth, heart hammering, eyes stinging for reasons I cannot exp surprised me again, and damn, I was glad I wore his jersey.