Summer, Year 3, Month 6

Reeve was wearing her customary baseball hat and sunglasses. They had become staples for every time she ventured outside ages ago. In LA, it helped, somewhat. People still seemed to notice her and even her baseball hat started getting recognition. Mainly because it was the only Red Sox hat in a heavily Dodgers city.

In Boston, she could have walked around waving a cardboard sign over her head proclaiming herself to be THE Reeve Keller, and only tourists would dare come up and try to take a picture. The locals simply didn't care. But still, she wore the baseball hat and sunglasses. Her head felt bare if she didn't.

On the day in question, the baseball hat and sunglasses were expected. It was a softball game in June. It was the dress code. Even Anton managed to wrangle his mass of curls into a Yankees hat, a hat that earned him a round of boos from Dani and Reeve when he was let into the house.

With Kelly, the four of them were some of the last people to arrive at the field. There happened to be a very large lawn attached to a large warehouse for some kind of book distributors. One of the softball team members was a manager at said distributors and had the right connections to let the non-professional adult softball league of the greater Boston area use their lawn to play.

Noah had assured them it was one of the nicer places they got to play. It sure beat the hard-packed dirt of the inner city baseball fields tucked in between buildings and squeezed down alleyways.

Dani dropped their cooler on one of the picnic benches that lined the building's perimeter, claiming it as their spot. It was the closest one to the parking lot and the furthest one from the rest of the players and their families who had already arrived and claimed spots closer to the action.

Reeve looked around to try and spot Noah, having seen his car in the parking lot when they pulled up. He appeared from one the side doors leading into the building behind them, tucking a neatly folded dress shirt into his gym bag and straightening his bright blue softball jersey, the team's name scrawled across the front.

"Hey."

Reeve nodded hello back and Noah dumped his bag with their things. He hesitated near Reeve for an extra-long second, asked her how she was, got a satisfactory answer, then nodded for Kelly to follow him, tossing her an extra jersey she could throw over her tee-shirt. Anton was already calling out cheers as they joined the rest of the team, Kelly stepping in as a substitute for one of the team members who couldn't make it.

"Can Kelly even play softball?" Dani asked. She looked to Anton for the answer but he only shrugged, the light in his eyes exposing his belief that Kelly could do anything.

"She played in college. Team Captain apparently. I think they might even have won some sort of championship."

Both Dani and Anton's head swiveled in Reeve's direction.

"Seriously?" Kelly's esteem in Anton's eyes rose with his eyebrows.

"Honestly I'm not surprised."

Dani made it seem like such a feat wasn't much of a big deal, like if she applied herself she too could become captain of the Harvard softball team and lead them onto victory.

"How do you know that?" Anton asked.

"She mentioned it on her resume. I got curious and looked her up online."

"And now she's your personal assistant."

Reeve gently shoved Dani with her elbow and her sister shoved her back, making Reeve's first smile of the evening break out. It soon disappeared as Reeve remembered where they were.

The game was starting up and the players from the two teams came together to shake hands before heading for opposite sides of the field. Noah took to the mound and Kelly took the outer field. Dani and Anton's cheers were the loudest already and the game hadn't even started.

Reeve stood stoned faced with her arms crossed but even she couldn't help a smile when Noah's first pitch landed right in the strike zone and his second sent a fly ball over their heads that landed perfectly in Kelly's mitt.

When Noah's team was out on the field and Noah held control over the pitcher's mound, Reeve couldn't look anywhere else. She watched his every move. She noticed his patterns. How he communicated with the catcher. The way he stretched out his right shoulder between every pitch. Everything.

It was impossible not too. He was the star of the show. The other team didn't get a single run out of him the entire inning. Noah's teammates slapped him on the back when he threw the final strike and they headed in.

Only then did he look over at her. While on the mound, nothing else seemed to exist. His eyes were narrowed underneath the dark shade from his baseball hat. The look was the same one Reeve had seen in the photos his dad, Walter, had shown her in their old photo albums the night Noah had brought her home to meet his dad.

He had been wearing that look of deep concentration ever since Little League.

Dani often mentioned Reeve's own look of concentration, when writing, when rehearsing, when performing. She had shown Reeve photos of herself to prove what she was talking about. It didn't look much different than how Noah did on the mound.

When not out in the field, Reeve watched Noah when he interacted with his teammates. He was quick to smile but it took something really funny to get him to laugh. He was closer to the older members than he was with the ones who were in his peer group. He checked in constantly with their coach. And always he shot a glance her way as if to check-in, to see how she was doing, to make sure she was enjoying herself.

She had enough entertainment that kept the game far from boring. Dani and Anton were determined to come up with an original crowd cheer. There was talk of trying to start the wave but they were too far from the others to even bother. And they were both all-around obnoxious when it came to cheering Noah and Kelly on. Noah laughed at their enthusiasm but Kelly rolled her eyes. It was followed by a sly smile that told them she secretly enjoyed it but still the eye roll came first.

Reeve started paying attention to the other on-lookers, the wives, girlfriends, significant others of the team members. A few had kids. A few had laid out blankets and were sitting on the grass, sweating in the hot sun barely starting to set. All had nice long hair, cute outfits on, and were chatting incessantly with each other while the game carried on without them even noticing.

A few glanced Reeve's way. If they did it was because of Dani and Anton but she was the reason behind their second glances. She did not match the rest of the wives and girlfriends.

She was in sneakers and an old t-shirt that she was pretty sure used to be Dani's. She had her hair in a ponytail sticking out of the back of her baseball cap. She was standing straight, her arms crossed over her chest, clapping when Noah hit a double. She did not fit in.

And yet it was her Noah kept looking at. Watching him and watching the other women, Reeve could tell he was a fan-favorite among the spectators. When they cheer it was for him. When he passed they called out greetings. Reeve found herself jealous. These women had known Noah longer than she had and she didn't think she could forgive them for it.

Halfway through the game and Noah's team was leading. The only runs the other team had scored was when the relief pitcher had taken over for an inning. A dinner break was called and everyone split up, moving towards where their families had set up food.

Noah and Kelly joined them at their table and Dani started handing out sandwiches, opening a bag of chips, and offering Kelly a bottle of water. Kelly sat down next to Anton, Dani had her own bench and Noah took the spot next to Reeve.

Dani was soon forcing Kelly to relive her glory days on the Northwestern University Women's Softball team with her endless barge of questions. Reeve nudged Noah and asked the question that had been creeping up on her ever since she saw him throw out the first pitch.

"So, when you said you played baseball as a kid..."

"Varsity team all four years of high school. Team captain junior and senior year. State champions three years in a row."

"Right. So you were good."

Noah nodded and took a bite of his sandwich, unconsciously rotating his right shoulder to fit in a stretch.

"Why didn't you go pro?"

"I almost did. But I tore a ligament the first game my senior year. Had to watch my team play the rest of the season from the dugout."

"Oh. Wow. I'm sorry."

He shrugged like it truly was no big deal. There was no nostalgia glowing in his eyes as if he was reliving his glory days.

"I went to school instead. And now I get to do a job I truly enjoy. I don't think the majors would have been right for me, anyway. All that traveling, being away from my family. But you have no idea what that's like."

Now it was his turn to nudge her and Reeve smiled. But the spark of a thought that would become an idea that would eventually come back to haunt her flashed in the back of her brain. She was around now. She was home now. But she still had a job to do. Eventually. Sometime in the future. There was going to be a time when she wasn't around all the time. When she would have to travel.

But Noah started explaining the history of his different teammates and the spark faltered. When she focused on him, she didn't think about what their lives would look like in a year. It was good enough to just focus on the present.

The game resumed and by the end, even Reeve couldn't help cheering as Noah struck the last batter out and his team won. She clapped, cheered, gave a holler, even let a high-pitched whistle escape her lips. Dani and Anton were jumping up and down, screaming.

They declared the night far from over and in need of ice cream to celebrate Kelly and Noah's victory. They were the first to the parking lot out of all small groups of families. On the way, Reeve grabbed Noah's hand from where it swung freely by his side. He looked down at it, shocked, and looked up at her to make sure what was happening was really happening. She smiled underneath her large sunglasses at the stupefied look on his face. It was the most PDA they had ever engaged in in front of her friends, or in front of anyone for that matter. When he had first kissed her, it was when saying goodbye, late at night, in the doorway, surrounded by no one else.

"Hey, Dan!"

"Yeah!"

"Take my keys. I'm going with Noah. We'll meet you guys there."

"Got it, Oli!"

Dani made the final catch of the night, grabbing Reeve's keys out of the low evening twilight as Reeve tossed them to her. The other three climbed into her car as Reeve followed Noah to his.

He threw his bag in the back seat just in time to open the passenger door for her. She stopped before climbing in as he asked a question.

"Why the nicknames? I mean, they're sweet. But..."

"But they're guys names."

"Yeah."

"My dad used to call us that when we were little. It kind of just stuck."

"Was the guy name thing purposeful?"

Reeve shrugged, taking a moment to think.

"I don't know. I don't think so. But subconsciously, probably. My dad always wanted a son. It only took him two wives and four daughters to get one."

"Funny. My mom always wanted daughters. I was going to be named Natalie. But she got a second son instead."

"You can't always get what you want."

Noah looked around, taking in the evening before his eyes landed on Reeve.

"I don't know. Sometimes, if you're really, really lucky..."

Reeve met his gaze for one long moment and then moved to close the space between them, stepping on the tips of her sneakers to meet him.

She didn't care if people saw. They did.

She didn't care if they took pictures. They did.

She didn't care if those pictures were released and then seen by millions of people all around the world. They were.

She was falling in love. For the first time.

A/N:

I waited THREE YEARS to write this scene. And I love it. So. Much.