Hooked (Hooked #1)(11)

“About as good as it gets, I’d say,” Drew nodded, looking out over the field. His blue eyes flitted over the players, over the rest of the stands. “I can’t believe you’ve never been here before.”

“I can’t believe this is a part of your regular life,” I gasped, taking a sip of the cool, refreshing Old Style in my hand. The sun was high in the sky at this three o’clock start time, and I felt myself sweating with the adrenaline of the day.

“So,” Drew began, turning toward me. All his interest was fueled directly to my eyes, my face. He placed his hand on my knee before taking it off quickly, out of respect. “I was surprised to hear from your assistant today—“

I panicked, suddenly. I didn’t want him to know I worked at the dance studio, not yet. It was still so strange. People were so weird about me being a dancer—an actual, trained dancer, and I was so weird about having failed as a “real” one. It was just too personal of a topic to even discuss. I waved my hand over my face. “You know. She’s my assistant, yes. But I don’t currently have a job. She’s helping me parse through the city, discover where my talents should really lie.”


Drew nodded, a tiny wrinkle forming above his nose. “I see. She’s putting your name out everywhere. What are you looking for?”

I bit my lip for just a moment, my mind rushing. “You know. I studied journalism, public relations, that sort of thing in college. Which fits a broad range of jobs, of course.”

Drew nodded, his eyes bright. “Yes. I, myself, studied PR a good deal. A lucrative career, if you know where to look.”

“Right,” I nodded. I tried to remember everything that my roommate had told me in college about PR. Her homework had seemed so boring, but the fact that she could do many different things outside of college—beyond the realms of just dancing until your body gave out—was always very interesting to me.

But I couldn’t sift through everything she had told me; it had been another lifetime ago. “What about you?” I asked him. The game was close to starting; the men were running from the field to their respective dugouts. “I know you’re in Chicago to open up a bookstore—“

“Right,” Drew nodded. “I own a small chain of bookstores—all mostly throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. They’re called the Femme Fatale bookstores. We sort of dim the lighting, make everything a little darker in there—a little mysterious while you look at the books.”

“So you feel like you’re in a spy novel?” I chimed in, rolling my head back a bit.

He nodded. “Yeah. But mostly, they’re just regular bookstores.”

“Except they seem to be thriving,” I blurted in, knowing that bookstores were generally on the decline in greater cities, especially with the rise of e-books—airless readers.

He shrugged his shoulders, beginning to unwrap his Chicago dog. He took a long sip from his Old Style. “Man, this tastes good. You know, my first drink ever was an Old Style, at a pub down the street.”

“When you were twenty-one?” I asked him.

His eyes grew mischievous. “My grandfather—diehard Cubs fan—brought me to the ballpark when I was seventeen, maybe early eighteen. And he took me to that bar—his bar, he called it. And the bartender didn’t care at all. Round here in Wrigleyville, the Old Style might as well come out of the tap. We drink it like water.” He glugged it down for a moment before smashing it back in the cup holder. The players were taking the field. The other team—the St. Louis Cardinals—were up to bat. The age-old organ was playing old-fashioned baseball music, and the entire crowd, all of the Cubs fans were singing along.

I felt the amazing rush of having so many people around you, rooted in the same belief, the same love. I sipped my Old Style, eyeing Drew to the side as he looked out on the field. His face was bright, so happy. He kept pointing things out to me; watch how he does that, Molly, or look at that hit, Molly! We cheered the Cub boys on through their up to bat, screaming wildly every time one of them hit the small ball into the outfield. The Cardinals seemed no match for the great stadium’s power. Here in Wrigleyville, there was a sense of magic that could not be beat.

During the end of the fifth inning, after the Cubs scored their fourth run and they struck out their last batter, circus music began to play throughout the stands. The crowd began to freak and scream with happiness. I watched as the cotton candy man bobbed his great pink head throughout the crowd, selling small satchels of sugar. I watched as a small child, just a few seats away from me, crawled up on his grandfather’s lap and pointed out at the field, his nose red from the sun. “What a wonderful place,” I whispered to Drew.

“I’m glad you’re having fun. But—Oh! Watch out!” Drew was pointing up to the great screen, where they had flashed the words “MAKE OUT CAMERA!” Drew turned to me, his eyes bright. “What do you think about that?”

I turned pink, shaking my head. “They surely won’t land on us,” I sputtered, smiling. I watched as an older couple, both of them with bright white hair, appeared on the camera and then turned to one another, administering a brief, smooched kiss on each other’s lips. Another couple appeared—a woman holding a baby and her husband directly next to her. They were bickering. When someone pointed the screen out to them, they pushed each other’s faces together briefly before the camera fled away.