Victor (Chicago Blaze 3)

I am okay. I’ve been through worse than this. But fuck, I just got cheated on and dumped in broad view of the entire Internet. The headlines were merciless and the photographers relentless. It would be nice if my career could nosedive in a slightly less public way.

Nice, but unlikely.Chapter ThreeLindyI don’t miss the hot Chicago days, but there are some things about summer in the South Side that I’m feeling nostalgic for on this early October evening. The walk from my train stop to home is quieter now that kids have gone back to school. No more splashing around in pools or running through lawn sprinklers or pick-up street hockey games.

There are still people sitting on their front porches—that’s a year-round thing here. When all the houses are narrow and stacked close together, everyone can hear the front porch conversations people have over a beer. I’ve had to listen to more than a few of the fights the couple next door is prone to having at night.

I’m glad their house is dark as I open the gate to the chain-link fence in our front yard and walk up the stairs of the small white bungalow. I’m tired. All I want is to wash away the day and any remains of blue ICEE and then read in bed.

I walk through the front door and immediately hear the sounds of a tirade about the Sox player at bat. I look into the living room and see the game on the TV screen.

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me with this guy?” my dad’s friend Chuck bellows. “My grandma’s got bigger balls than Hollinsworth. The ball barely touched the brim of his helmet last season—didn’t even hit his face—and he’s out for five fuckin’ games.”

“Hey guys,” I say to my dad and his three friends as I walk past them to the kitchen.

“Lindy, you could hit better than this guy,” Chuck calls after me.

They all groan in unison.

“What kind of a fucking moron swings at that pitch?” my dad cries. “That was about a foot out of the strike zone.”

“Yeah, hang your head, Hollinsworth,” my dad’s friend Don says. “Grab some pine!”

“Guy’s hittin’ about a buck fifty, way below the Mendoza line,” Chuck says with disgust. “He’s killing us!”

My dad and his friends, Chuck and Don, are die-hard Chicago sports fans. They’ve watched every televised baseball, football, basketball and hockey game that didn’t interfere with their 9-5 workdays since I was a young kid. Last year, they invited a guy about my age named Jerry, who works at a lumber mill with Don, to watch with them. So far it seems like Jerry’s pretty quiet—not that the other three give him much opportunity to say anything.

I’m starving. I scan the kitchen counter for dinner leftovers, but all I see is about a dozen empty Old Style cans and an open bag of cheese puffs.

“There’s pizza in the fridge!” my dad calls.

My stomach rumbles with approval. My dad only orders pizza from Tony’s, a local place, and it’s the best. I open the fridge and crouch down to pull a big slice of New York-style pepperoni out of the box.

“How was work, Lindy?” my dad asks.

I’m about to mumble that it was fine, like I always do, but my dad erupts into another loud groan with Chuck and Don.

“Fuckin’ Lowe!” Dad cries. “Guy could teach a class on how to hit into a double play! Christ! We finally get a man on base and he blows it.”

Leaning against the aging yellow Formica counter, I eat my pizza in silence. There’s quiet in the living room, too, as a commercial break begins. The pop and hiss of cans opening sound as Dad, Don and Chuck open fresh beers.

This slice of Tony’s pepperoni pizza is the high point of my day. My morning and afternoon were spent scrubbing floors and washing out dozens of stainless-steel ketchup, mustard and relish dispensers, the smell of them soaking into my skin. Then there was the ICEE Machine Incident. So now all my coworkers have seen what I’d look like in a wet t-shirt contest. Oh, and my obnoxious boss, too.

And as bad as that stuff was, the worst part by far, was seeing Victor at the VIP event tonight. Just walking into the same room as him made my heart race. I’ve seen him off and on during my time working at the Carson Center, but never as close up as I did tonight. Tonight, I discovered that his eyes aren’t just blue like I’ve seen in photos, but a thousand shades of indigo, ocean, and cornflower blue, the colors melding perfectly and holding me captive.

I knew he was tall—Victor is 6’3”—but tonight, I got to feel his height. As I looked up from the other side of my tray, nine inches shorter than him, my stomach swirled nervously as I imagined him embracing me. My cheek would rest in the most delicious spot between his chest and shoulder.