Ace's Wilder

A nice rock and some comic relief

The game had slowed to a crawl. Ace had worked for the parent club for nearly fourteen seasons, most of those ending with a losing record...this game was reminiscent of something in the thick of those losing years. Erie, well, they'd sucked all year. But the AA Baysox were making them look like league champs.

Still, she didn't mind. The team's ineptitude was delaying the inevitable. And, she got to hang out with Max, although being the middle of the 6th inning, he was out dragging the field. Ace absentmindedly took another long pull off the giant, now watered-down lemonade and vodka he'd left behind at the counter in front of her.

How did I get here? She thought to herself. Or maybe she'd said it out loud. The guy from the Carroll County Times was looking at her, but maybe he recognized her from the pressbox up the road. She liked hanging out in there sometimes. She blamed it on the Orioles, anyway, always sticking her in here from the beginning. She was used to this vantage point.

"Nice rock," the Carroll County Times guy said, nodding toward her right hand, currently wrapped around the lemonade in front of her.

Nope, he definitely didn't recognize her. Otherwise, he would have known all about that and been afraid to say shit.

Ace just raised her eyebrows and nodded in that noncommittal way she'd crafted over the last six years that said without saying please fuck off. It was on her right hand after all. All four carats of flawless old mine cut diamond. On her right ring finger.

She knew it was a nice rock.

* * *

Today, Ace was re-reading the book he'd given her when he walked over to their table. Jase grinned. "I love you," he greeted her, setting his tray down.

She looked up and beamed. "Just brushing up on the finer points of Sabermetrics before state."

His stomach clenched, but he didn't let it show on his face. One more game to go on Friday night, and he'd have led his team to the destiny they'd been shouting about all season. And Ace would be there in the pressbox, keeping the books for Coach Maddox.

He was never nervous about a game. Until this one. But as captain, he couldn't let anyone know. Least of all his girlfriend, who looked at him like he was some kind of god.

Ace, in turn, pressed her lips together. "What's wrong?"

Uh, what? "Nothing, babe, why?"

She scoffed. "Ok, first of all, never call me that, ew," she laughed. "Second of all, you get all tense around the eyes when you're nervous. Talk to me."

"Shit, really?" he sat down, bewildered.

Ace grinned. "Yeah, you don't feel it?"

He frowned. "Jesus. Now I will. Sorry. I'll never call you 'babe' again. Gross. I'm sorry, Ace."

She opened her mouth, then stopped, reaching across the table for his hands like she knew they were the only things that could hold him down to Earth at the moment. "Talk to me."

Jase bit his lower lip. "I'm freakin' out, Ace."

She laughed. She actually laughed.

"Come on, let's get out of here," she grinned.

"What?"

"Come on," she shrugged. "Let's skip. I'm like 3 weeks ahead in every class, which basically takes me to the end of the year. You've only got three weeks left and you can tell them you're sick and going home. Let's get out of here. Go have some fun."

And so that's what they did.

Jase and Ace both knew the attendance secretary in the lobby knew neither one of them had a legitimate excuse to leave school, but Ace had an impeccable record and Jase, well, he was headed to the baseball state championship and basically the king of the school, so no one was going to stop him.

They ended up out on the river, in Ace's dad's canoe.

"Now," proclaimed Ace, "are you feeling better?"

Jase grinned reluctantly. "Honestly, not really."

"Ahhhhh, damn it!" she tossed her head back and wailed. "I thought for sure this would work!"

Jase laughed. "Yeah ok, maybe a little. That helped."

"What, you like to see me be over-dramatic?" she laughed, kicking one of her tan legs in his direction.

"Hey, everybody needs some comic relief," he winked at her.

"So what's up, Jase Wilder? You're not usually like this," she pressed her lips together as if to study him.

He sighed. "This is what I've been working toward all season. I'm just afraid I'm going to mess it up now."

"Well that's some bullshit if I've ever heard it," she rolled her eyes. "Jase Wilder doesn't get scared."

God damn it. "How do you do that? Can you read my mind? Do you have ESP?"

Ace laughed. "Like Miss Cleo? No. I can just read you, Jase. I know you."

Jase felt his heart crack in half and he had to catch his breath. How was he ever going to live without her? "I'm nervous because no matter what happens in this game, this is the end."

Ace pushed her sunglasses onto her head and studied his face as they floated along. "The end of what?"

He shrugged, looking at his flip-flops. "The season. High school. Being the best," he looked up. "Being your next door neighbor."

She looked like she was about to burst into uncontrollable laughter. "Well Jase, I seem to have done a number on you, kid," she pretended to be surprised.

Kid. He called her that on a regular basis.

"Jase, you're planning on entering the draft, right?" she continued.

He nodded, but she already knew the answer.

"So I can't speak to anything else, but what I think you're trying to tell me is...you're scared things are going to be different...with us, yeah?"

How does she do that?

"I'm not going anywhere," she gave him a smile he'd never seen before, but it seemed to hold all the answers he was scared to seek. "Besides, you aren't leaving town the day after the game. Friday night's not the end. At least not for us."

Thank God she can do that.

"I love you," she added.

Jase finally grinned one of his smiles he saved only for her. "I love you too, Ace."

Two days later, catcher Jase Wilder, starting pitcher Justin Vance, and the rest of the Spartans Varsity baseball team brought home that state championship trophy they'd been talking about for the last two years. Ace grinned as she hastily tallied the columns of her scorebook and shoved her pencil into her sloppy ponytail-bun hybrid before descending the pressbox stairs of some high school she'd never heard of before to meet her boyfriend at the backstop fence during their on-field celebration.

"What are you doing out there?" Jase asked, grinning wildly, having walked over to her at the fence, still in his catcher's gear. "You're part of this team, too. You should be out here."

She shook her head. "This is all you, Wilder. I'm just happy I get to be here to watch."

Ah fuck. She might not have been going anywhere, but at the moment Jase couldn't imagine not being near her every day of the week when the new school year started. God willing he'd be drafted by an organization with a farm team within driving distance of home. It wasn't time to leave yet, but his heart was already broken, thinking about being away from her.

* * *