Sweet Spot: Homeruns #4 (16 page)

“Okay,” I quickly conceded. Right now was good. Nick worked his way down my body, sucking and biting hard enough there would be marks long after I went back to Milwaukee. Fuck. I sucked at trying to put tomorrow out of my mind. I’d just gotten him back; I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

“You’re thinking again,” he reprimanded me. I felt his fingers and the button of my shorts and focused on his skin against mine. “We can’t change it, so let’s make sure we have this to get us through until the next time.”

“Okay,” I said again. He started stroking my cock and I would’ve agreed to just about anything he asked of me right then. He knew exactly where to touch, how to play with me to bring me right to the edge, and then he’d pull back and give me time to calm down. “Want more…want you…need…oh, fuck!”

Nick wrapped his lips around my head and sucked lightly. Not enough. He licked his way down my shaft and I felt myself coming unraveled. He popped off my dick and sucked his own fingers deep. I wriggled around as much as the unforgiving fabric around my thighs would allow, knowing where those fingers were headed. “Please, Nick.”

Yes, I was begging. No, I didn’t care. I needed him to get me ramped up enough that I couldn’t possibly think about anything other than him. His fingers spread between my cheeks, toying with my hole but never entering. He bent down and kissed me again. Slowly. Deeply. Every lick and nip full of promises I knew he’d keep this time. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

“I know you do.” And I did. I wasn’t sure how I’d gone from promising myself I’d never allow him in again to so gone for him I believed his words without fail, but I wasn’t about to linger on those thoughts. The simple fact was we’d been given another shot, and I wasn’t going to second-guess whatever brought us back together.

S
ean offered
me a ride to the training complex the same as he had every day since I’d started staying at the house. I thanked him but declined. Today was going to be tense and emotions were going to be running high. I didn’t want anyone who was called back to the manager’s office to lash out at me because they thought I’d abused my situation to get ahead. Yes, I still struggled with others’ perceptions of me, but I was working on it. I knew who I was and how hard I’d worked. I truly believed I had earned my place on whatever team I was a part of at the end of the day, but others wouldn’t necessarily feel the same way. I’d seen players lash out at some of their best friends when one was cut and the other wasn’t. Even though we were all friendly, this was still a cutthroat world. Today, it was going to be every man for himself in that clubhouse.

“Hey, you about ready?” Cody asked.

He’d walked into the bedroom to find me sitting at the edge of the bed staring at a tattered old baseball card. I did this every year. It was my dad’s rookie card. Collectors would likely fall dead on the spot if they saw the condition of it, but I didn’t keep it around for the monetary value. In past years, it was a reminder of the high bar I had to meet in order to make something of my life. This year, I didn’t see it that way at all. I stared at the card and thought about Cody reminding me of everything my parents had gone through early in Dad’s career. I recalled memories of those years when Mom was home with us kids while he was on the road all summer. I thought of the late-night phone calls they didn’t realize I’d overheard. Life wasn’t always easy or happy for them, but they stuck through the shitty times, believing something better would come eventually. They’d survived and so would we. We had to.

“No,” I admitted. “But we have to get going.”

I lifted my equipment bag and let out a heavy sigh as I made my way to the door. Cody wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his head in my chest. Depending on how things went today, this could be it for us. It was a slim chance, but if I got cut to Double-A, we’d be heading out later today, on our way to Pennsylvania. It wasn’t a bad place to live and there were some great host families out there, but Pennsylvania was way too far away.

“Hey, you’ll be home tonight,” he told me. He was much better at staying positive than I was. It came naturally to him, where I had to constantly remind myself to push the negative thoughts out of my head. “I know you’re worried. You don’t have to hide from me. But you do have to have faith.”

“I do,” I told him. “At least, I do when I remember how hard I’ve worked. But I’ve busted my ass in the past and still wound up getting called back to the office. I swear, I love Jimmy, but I don’t want to see him today.”

Jimmy was the grim reaper of the team. At the beginning of training, everyone loved him because he was the one who happily collected us from the airport and welcomed us to Arizona as if it was the first time we’d been here. But not now. Now, he was the poor sap tasked with hunting down the players who hadn’t made the cut. Some of them would be lucky enough to end up on a team other than the one they were hoping for, but a lot of them were headed home. This was the end of the line for a lot of guys, and it sucked.

“You won’t,” Cody said confidently. “Well, I take that back. Knowing Mason’s been hanging around lately, I wouldn’t put it past him to have paid Jimmy to fuck with you. It’s like his love language or something. But don’t freak out on Jimmy if that happens. You know how persuasive Mason can be.”

Yeah, I did. He was the prankster of the group. Most days, it was refreshing to see what he’d come up with to keep him from dwelling on the fact he missed playing. Today? Today, I would kill him with a smile on my face if he fucked with me. There were just some things you didn’t do.

Jason, Drew, and Sean had already left for the training complex by the time we got downstairs. That left Eric, Bryce, Cam, and Mason all staring at us as we entered the kitchen. The conversation they’d been having moments earlier died the moment my foot hit the slate tile in the room. Eric offered me a friendly smile. “You’ve got this, kid.”

“Thanks.” The past few years, I’d spent the last morning of camp holed up in my hotel room waiting until it was time to catch the last shuttle in. I was grateful to not have to suffer alone this year. Maybe a change of my typical routine was exactly what I needed to have a different outcome. I shrugged. “I know it’s stupid to freak out, but I still do.”

“That’ll never change,” Mason told me. “Even when I was consistently putting up good numbers, I still worried the last morning of camp. And there’s an added pressure for you, because you don’t know who’s going to get cut from Milwaukee. It’s like a super shitty domino effect.”

Cam smacked Mason to get him to shut up. Cody placed his hand at the center of my back and started rubbing gently. “Man, they should hire you to give the pep talk before every game with smooth words like that,” Cam chastised Mason. “Do you seriously think you’re helping? He knows he can’t do a damn thing about what’s going to happen today.”

“I was just trying to help.” Mason shoved a piece of bacon into his mouth and kept talking. “All I was saying is you’ve done all you can do. Maybe I shouldn’t say anything just yet, but Sean’s real impressed with you. He wants you in Dubuque. If he has anything to say about it, you’re going to be fine.”

Somewhere in the middle of Mason’s speech, I stuffed my fingers into my ears. I didn’t want to hear any of this. Not because it was any sort of unfair advantage, but because I didn’t want Mason fucking this up for me. Hearing from someone that you were in a good spot to make the team was pretty much the same as a groom seeing his bride before the wedding. It’s like Fight Club. You don’t talk about it. Ever. And fucking Mason should’ve known better. When his lips stopped moving, I took my fingers out of my ears.

“Sorry, I was just trying to help.” Mason sulking was quite the sight to see. He hunched over his plate and turned away slightly. That made me feel like shit. He was right. He hadn’t been thinking like a ball player, he’d been trying to be a good friend. Cody could’ve easily said the same things and I wouldn’t have gotten so pissed off. I would’ve realized he was simply trying to be supportive.

“No harm done,” I assured Mason. “I’m just tense and don’t want to fuck it up today.”

“I get it,” Mason responded. Asher ran into the room and Mason scooped him onto his lap. He was getting so big. The petulant toddler I’d played catch with was now a little boy getting ready to start his first year of little league. I smiled, thinking about how lucky he was. It was going to be tough for him since both of his parents were former players, but at least they’d be able to be there for his games. Well, at least one of them could be. He deserved that.

“Get out of here,” Eric said, shooing us toward the door. “If we don’t get to see you before you go, it’s been good having you around.”

Cody snarled at him but I put my hand on his forearm to silence him. Eric wasn’t being a dick. He was also being a friend in his own way. It actually helped because that was a pretty normal send-off on cut day. Hope for the best, but head in prepared for the worst.

The worst, in this case, being I could wind up states away from Cody. Double-A wasn’t the biggest of my fears anymore. I’d been there, done that. It was comfortable and I knew my way around down there. But it’d suck ass not being able to see Cody for most of the season.

The drive was quiet, neither of us knowing what to say. I wanted to reassure Cody that everything would be okay, but I wasn’t about to make him any promises now. I wanted to remain confident that I’d be going to Dubuque, but doubt had started creeping into my own mind.

Cody pulled into a vacant parking lot a few blocks from the complex. He unbuckled and turned in his seat. I couldn’t look at him. This shouldn’t be so hard. I had to stay strong. I wasn’t going to cry like a little bitch. This wasn’t goodbye. It couldn’t be. Cody believed; so would I. He curled a finger beneath my chin and forced me to look at him. “Hey, I just wanted you to know how proud I am of you.”

“For what?” I asked. It felt strange to hear those words from him.

“You’ve given it everything this year,” he told me. “Not only have you worked hard on the field, but you’ve gotten over some major hurdles in your mind. Your dad was right. It wasn’t your talent holding you back, it was your head. But not anymore.”

He was right. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t been walking around with the weight of my sexuality on my shoulders and my dad’s legacy strapped to my ankles. This was the first time I’d been able to walk into the complex and only think about what was happening on the field.

There had been a tense moment or two the morning after the attack, but once I realized no one was shying away from me or treating me like a pariah for being gay, I relaxed. Mark had been released by the team and sent back to Wisconsin to face charges for Drew’s attack. The stupid fucker didn’t realize the statute of limitations hadn’t run out and sang like a damn canary when they asked him about it. He figured there was nothing they could do about it and he’d gotten cocky. For that alone, everyone in the clubhouse seemed to put me up on some sort of pedestal. It was fucked up, but everyone loved Drew and hated Mark, so the fact beating me up had gotten him to open his big mouth about what he’d done was seen as a victory for everyone.

For the first time in my life, I was walking into work every day as Nick Stone, pitching hopeful for the Mavericks. I wasn’t Marcus Stone’s son. I wasn’t the closeted gay kid in the clubhouse. I was just Nick.

“Thanks. You deserve a lot of the credit for that,” I told him, because it was the truth. He was the one who’d made me see my dad for who he was. He was the one who gave me the strength to quit lying about who I was. He was the one who made me understand what my dad meant when he told me life was more than baseball. Today, I was more worried about leaving Cody than I was about my placement in the organization, but that’s how it was supposed to be. Baseball was my job. Cody was what mattered.

“I didn’t do anything,” Cody scoffed.

I leaned over and kissed him softly, cupping my hand around the back of his neck. I pressed my forehead to his as I spoke. “Yeah, you did. Everything I have at the end of today is because of you. You’re the one who’s helped me through. I love you, Cody.”

Those words terrified me. I’d never said them to anyone other than family, but it felt right to tell Cody how I felt about him. It left me exposed and vulnerable, but it was right. I choked up, knowing I’d do anything to keep Cody looking at me the way he did right then. Stunned. Happy. In love.

“I love you, too.” Cody sighed. “I’ve wanted to tell you for a while now, but I was worried it’d freak you out.”

I hated knowing he still had traces of lingering doubts. I’d planted those in his head with my actions years ago. I shook my head and swallowed hard as I thought about how to respond. I’d promised him I was through apologizing to him, but that was exactly what I wanted to do now.

“I don’t want you to feel that way, Cody.” I buried my head against his shoulder. “I never want you to feel like you can’t tell me what you’re thinking. I know why you do it, but that’s only going to make things harder for the next few months.”

“I know,” Cody responded, sounding like a kid who’d just been scolded. “I’m trying, I promise.”

“That’s all either of us can do,” I parroted the words he’d said to me several times since the first night we’d talked. “Someday, it’ll be easier.”

“Yeah, it will be,” he agreed. Cody rubbed his eyes and I could tell he was struggling just as much as I was with my possible early departure. “Look, I just wanted to tell you before I dropped you off. You know, that you’re doing good. No matter what happens today, remember how far you’ve come.”

“I will.” This was the pep talk I really needed. It was important to me that he understand what was going on, and he was the one who was able to say what I needed to hear. “And I’m going to keep busting my ass so I can get to Milwaukee. I have too much there to stay away for long.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” With one final kiss, Cody straightened in his seat and refastened his seat belt.

Our goodbye at the training complex wasn’t what I wished it could be. Even though I was out, I still didn’t flaunt my relationship where my teammates could see. I had nothing to prove to them and I wanted to keep what Cody and I shared between us. He squeezed my knee and smiled before I got out of the car. I leaned in after grabbing my bag, wishing I was strong enough to say fuck it and kiss him regardless of who was around. “Wish me luck.”

“Nah, you don’t need luck,” he quipped. “You’ve got skills, baby. And that’s why you’re going to be a star someday.”

“God, I love you.” I threw my head back and laughed. “I’ll call you later.”

“I’ll be here at noon when you guys get done,” he told me. “Love you, too.”

The lockers on either side of mine were already cleared out by the time I got to the clubhouse. That meant Brantley and Thomson were gone. I wasn’t shocked about Thomson. He was a good pitcher, but he was a liability. It had to have been at least three seasons since he’d had a healthy year. He was one of those players who was getting older but didn’t want to admit it might be time to hang it up. Brantley, on the other hand, shocked me. He had a good arm. He was a solid, dependable player. If he didn’t get a spot, what did that say for any of us?

I held my fingers up in a cross when Jimmy walked in my direction. “Get away from me, man. I don’t want to see your ugly mug anywhere near me today.”

“Sorry, Stoney,” Jimmy apologized. “You know I just grab the boys they tell me they need to talk to.”

Fuck. This so couldn’t be happening. Mason said Sean wanted me on the team. Everyone said I looked good this year. There was no way in hell I was getting cut. Not happening. Not this fucking year.

I threw my glove toward my locker, not giving a flying fuck where it landed. This was such a bunch of bullshit. I knew better than to listen to the hype. I knew it didn’t mean shit until my ass was on a plane bound for Iowa. God, who other than a damn baseball player would be upset about
not
going to Iowa? No one. That’s who. But I’d have given my left nut to be headed there right now.