"It's embarrassing," he replied.
"Say no more, Hufflepuff."
My attraction to him grew when he indulged me in a half-hour long conversation about wizardry in our seats in section 141 of Nationals Park, my favorite place to sit. I told him if I went to Hogwarts I'd be a Potions master. We both agreed that Charms class would easy, the one where almost everyone gets an A. Neither of us liked the idea of Divination, and we thought that Transfiguration would be the hardest, especially with the I-take-shit-from-no-one Professor McGonagall teaching it.
Our conversation drifted away from our imagined roles in the Harry Potter universe as the baseball game began. The Nationals were playing the Phillies, the second of a three-game series in early June. Stephen Strasburg pitched that night, and serendipitously, I happened to be wearing my Strasburg shirt. I drunkenly bought that shirt in the summer of 2012, when the team stores only had extra large sizes, so I made it into a cut-off. I worried I looked silly wearing that shirt with a black mini-skirt, but when I caught him looking at my butt in line for a pretzel later in the game, I knew I looked good.
I had gone to the previous night's name, a shut-out win for the Nats. That night, I sat in left field with my co-workers, cheering loudly as it was Ryan Zimmerman's first day back after being on the disabled list for the better part of the first two months of the season. I told my co-worker and his girlfriend how nervous I was for the following night's game, which I had asked him to on a whim. Surprisingly, he agreed to go, but I didn't know if he just wanted to be friends with me.
--
"Come on, Zim, it's not golf!" I shouted as he swung another strike.
"Don't listen to her, man! You got this!" he shouted in response. I smiled back at him, noticing how his blue-gray eyes scintillated against the reflection of the stadium lights.
It started drizzling at the seventh inning, but it didn't stop him from putting his arm around me as we swayed and sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." We sat in our uncovered seats contemplating whether the rain would stop. It wasn't until the grounds crew started putting the tarp over the field that we decided to go back into the stadium.
"What do you think?" he said.
"It doesn't look like it's going to let up any time soon. To the metro?" I responded.
We hesitated before stepping into the pouring rain. We started to walk fast, but when my sandal fell off and I stopped to put it back on, we slowed down, committing to getting drenched. He was standing on my left side, and he took my hand in his. When we finally made it down Half Street to the Navy Yard station and through the turnstyle, I melted into him on the escalator. Holy shit, I thought. It's happening.
"Keep moving down the platform! Let's keep it moving!" the metro police shouted at us, and we scurried along to find a place to stand.
We let the first train that arrived go by, parking ourselves on a bench. And through the hustle, the shouting of the station managers trying to herd the crowd, the murmur of the crowd itself, and the whirring sound of the train on the opposite side of the platform, he kissed me, slowly and softly.
We shuffled onto the train, stealing kisses whenever possible. And that's when he told me in no uncertain terms: "I like you. I like you a lot, actually."
After the rain delay, the Nats won. And they won the night after that.
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