Five Years of Fame [COMPLETE]

26. The Softball Game

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.