Page 13 of The Cadence

I blinked because my eyes hurt a little with the glare of it. “So much orange,” I muttered.

“That’s our color,” Will told me. “I thought you’d watched my games.”

“I noticed that you were wearing it, but I guess I didn’t see that everyone else in the whole stadium was, too,” I answered.

“It’s so bright!” I squinted at the crowd now entering through the tall doors, out of the sunshine and into the big room where the whole Woodsmen team waited at tables to greet them on their Fan Day.

The starting players sat near the front and up here, it felt like watching an orange flood rushing toward us.

He didn’t seem bothered. “It’s like this every year,” he mentioned. “We have the most devoted fanbase in the league.”

Their excitement and happiness seemed to make the air shimmer, and the sound level increased from quiet to almost deafening.

They came in droves to meet Will, to compliment him, to get his autograph and picture, and to shake his hand— they were genuinely thrilled just to be close, which I understood.

He’d had this power back in high school, too, with the student body orbiting around him. I had certainly felt the draw.

He wasn’t the only guy who inspired that feeling in the mob that had come to Woodsmen Stadium today, though.

All the players’ tables were surrounded and team employees in orange polo shirts tried to keep everyone in orderly lines.

I sat in Will’s area in a chair of my own and every once in a while, one of those employees would pop by to adjust the orange decorations and to see if either of us needed food or drinks, if his pens had run out, if there was anything at all they could do.

It felt like I was also a celebrity, or at least that I was someone very important.

The fans said hello to me as well, and I talked to them when they asked me questions.

“We’re friends from Tennessee,” I kept repeating. “We’ve known each other for years.” I didn’t mention that we were now working together, too, since the news about his company wasn’t ready for the public quite yet. “I’m Calla.”

“What’s your last name?” one man asked.

“Easterly. Like the wind direction,” I said, and spelled it when he asked me to.

That was a little strange, but I was happy to chat.

I was also happy to see how nice Will was to them, in his reserved way.

Some of the other guys were more extroverted, like the one standing near us with a teenager, a baby in a carrier, and a toddler on his shoulders. He laughed and joked with the fans.

“Robby Baines,” Will identified him. “His wife runs the dancer stuff for the team, so he has the kids right now.”

The dancer stuff was amazing. I had already watched the squad of orange-clad cheerleaders perform a routine on a stage outside and it was so impressive.

In fact, everything was. I had also taken a tour of the stadium, a private one for friends and family of the Woodsmen, and this place was huge—but Will also told me that it was far from the biggest in the league.

We’d walked through the locker room, which was nicer than the hotel suite where I’d puked in the bathroom.

Even the parking lots were impressive, and everyone was excited and friendly.

Everywhere I’d gone, I’d heard the words “go Woodsmen!” and I’d been smiling pretty much without stopping from the moment we’d driven in this morning.

I watched as the toddler in the next booth tried to dive off her father’s shoulders, but she was neatly caught by a woman who’d joined them.

She had to be their mom, the woman who ran the dancer stuff, because the little ones were obviously so thrilled to see her and even the teenager looked a little pleased.

Her husband stopped signing autographs for a moment so he could kiss her, and he was obviously thrilled to see her, too.

“That’s nice,” I mentioned to Will. “Look.”

He glanced over. “Is she pregnant again?”

“Wow, four kids. Isn’t that lucky?”

Apparently, he didn’t share that opinion. “Robby likes them. He seems happy.” He sounded doubtful, though.

“I’m going to say hello,” I told him, and did. I’d met several wives and girlfriends today and plenty of children, too. Most of them had been pleasant but everyone had been busy, so it hadn’t been the best way to make friends.

I had another opportunity, though, because I’d set up a meet and greet of my own.

The woman who’d given away her chest of drawers had texted me to ask what I had done with it, and I’d sent her a picture of how things were going.

Then her granddaughter, the one she’d said was visiting for the summer and who was so bored, had also texted.

Her name was Kirsten, she’d told me. Her grandmother was making her send this.

Who was I and why was I writing about furniture?

I’d explained my identity and what I was doing in Michigan, and she’d gotten more welcoming. She’d said that she was also coming to Fan Day and I had told her where I would be seated, at this table near the front with Will Bodine.

He kept signing and talking, and the polo-wearing Woodsmen employees kept moving the fans along.

The crowd didn’t diminish but the players had a fixed schedule for their appearance.

“Otherwise, we’d sit there all week,” Will had explained.

Eventually, I heard an announcement on the stadium address system that the autograph signing would close in fifteen minutes, but Kirsten still hadn’t shown.

I checked my phone, but she hadn’t written, either.

“There’s a line outside,” Will mentioned. He shook his hand and flexed his fingers, which seemed to be in a permanent curve from gripping the Sharpie today. “She’s probably stuck in it.”

“Probably,” I said. I looked at the people waiting and wondered if she was somewhere in that crowd.

“The quarterback is throwing a party tonight for the team,” he said next. “Would you want to go?”

“I do want to, absolutely!”

“I didn’t tell you what kind of party it is. What if we were all going to sit around gutting fish?”

“I would wear boots,” I answered, and he smiled.

It was just a regular get-together, he told me next, with no dead fish involved.

He added that it would be at a bar nearby that wasn’t the fanciest place, so I still might not want to wear open-toed shoes.

But he had to get back to talking to people and I resumed looking around.

Eventually, they did shut the doors and the crowd gradually thinned.

Almost the last fan in line was a girl who might have been the only person in the stadium not wearing the team’s color (even I had on one of Will’s home game jerseys, which was white but had orange writing).

She looked at him but she also stared hard at me, and suddenly I knew who she was.

“Kirsten?” I ventured, and she nodded.

“You’re Calla,” she answered, and I nodded too. “You’re really pretty.”

“Oh…thanks,” I said. “That’s a nice thing to say.”

“It’s just the truth. She didn’t mention that to me.”

I assumed that she was talking about her grandmother, so I just nodded again. “So are you,” I told her.

Kirsten returned her eyes to Will. “Hey,” she greeted him, and smiled.

I’d meant what I had said about her looks.

She had short blonde hair that was cut in a way I never would have dared to try on myself, but it looked so cool on her.

And she was built in a way that I also would have wanted for myself, but would never achieve.

I was tall, which I’d come to terms with after praying for a couple of years that I would shrink, and I was also fairly straight up and down.

But Kirsten had hips and a chest that I admired quite a bit, and she dressed to show it off.

The Woodsmen jersey I wore, Will’s, didn’t show much of me besides my neck and knees—and despite more praying, there weren’t a whole lot of curves beneath it anyway.

“I had to wait outside forever. Can I sit down?” she asked, still looking at him.

“No,” he told her. “I can’t ask you back behind the table.”

“Oh, ok. We can talk more later,” she said. “Aren’t we going out?”

“There’s a party tonight,” I volunteered, but Will glanced at me and shook his head.

“It’s Woodsmen only,” he said and then told her, “Sorry.”

“Another time,” she suggested, smiling again.

“Definitely,” I answered.

“Great.” She looked over at another of the players, one who didn’t have a wife, girlfriend, or kids seated in his area. “I’m going to talk to that guy.” She smiled in his direction and moved fast.

“Kirsten seems nice,” I said happily as I watched her walk away.

“Does she?” Will sounded doubtful again.

“She said I was pretty,” I reminded him. “She didn’t have to lead with that, and it’s a good way to make friends.”

“Sure, I use that line all the time with strangers.”

“Well, as long as you’re being honest. Am I really included in a Woodsmen-only party?” I asked.

“Didn’t I invite you?” he reminded me.

Yeah, he had. “What should I wear, besides my boots?”

“Party stuff,” he suggested vaguely. I followed his eyes over to where they had fixed on Kirsten as she talked to another of the players. “That dress that your grandma made was good.”

“She made so many of my clothes,” I said. “I can sew but not like she could. I bet if I’d lived with her since I was little, I would have learned better.” Not for the first time, I wished that I had lived with her for always. “I’ll wear that happily.”