I’d never been affected like that by anyone, not even the women I’d dated. To get hard just thinking about them? Nope. Not that I didn’t have good sex once I got in the mood, but nobody had really set my blood boiling in my veins like Maclain. The guy Gemma thought was cute had nothing on him, and that was the problem. I couldn’t shake the Pirates’ star pitcher, especially since I was the team’s first-string catcher.
It was probably good that I hadn’t laid eyes on Maclain in weeks, but it only amped up the tension to our inevitable meeting at the official start of the season, which was right around the corner.
“Okay, how about you?” Gemma asked, eyeing a couple of women choosing their balls on the racks. Ever since I’d broken up with my girlfriend, she had been laying it on thick, thinking I was moping about being single again. Little did she know, I was moping about something else altogether. “Eyes or hair?”
“I haven’t noticed.” I wasn’t lying. My girlfriend and I had been growing apart since last summer, but my feelings were getting so confusing that I’d decided to officially call it quits over the holidays. It wasn’t fair to her that I was constantly thinking about somebody else.
Gemma pouted as she adjusted her ponytail. “You’re no fun.”
“Maybe you’re just not asking the right questions.”
“Yeah?” She quirked an eyebrow, but before she could read too much into it, Mom called her over to assist with the soft-pretzels machine that had been mysteriously shutting off. She needed Gemma to crawl under the counter and adjust the cord. Like I said, this place needed sprucing up.
As I watched her skip off to help, I wondered what my family would think about my strange fascination with Maclain. We were tight, and got along well for the most part, but we were also a large Catholic family. Mom had less time nowadays to attend church, but she still clutched her cross necklace and sometimes referred to Jesus when stressed. I knew what she believed in her heart—that everyone deserved the same kindness and compassion—but would that extend to her own child if he told her he might be harboring sexual feelings toward his teammate? I thought the answer was yes, but you never know. I might’ve been way off base.
Maybe I should talk to Donovan about it. He’d apparently never been into guys before Kellan. Go figure. Now he was so into Kellan, and it seemed completely natural between them. Not that I ever thought it wasn’t, just never considered it for myself before.
Besides, I wasn’t into Maclain. He was a dick. I simply didn’t understand my body’s reaction to him. And since he hooked up all the time with different women—at one point I thought he might be dating Kellan’s roommate, Jasmine—I was banking on him not understanding the weirdness swirling around us either. Also, I could’ve been reading into it, in which case it might come back to bite me in the ass.
My phone buzzed with a text from Fischer, one of our team’s outfielders.
Get the text about the team meeting?
Yeah. Guess that means I’ll be seeing your ugly mug soon.
Not if I see yours first.
Fischer and I hung out sometimes, outside of baseball, and we always roomed together at away games. Sometimes I’d spout off to him about my frustration with Maclain, especially when we weren’t connecting well on the field.
“What the hell is that guy’s problem? Daddy issues?” Fischer would sometimes ask, making me cringe, not only because Maclain would be pissed if he heard us, but because I felt this strange protectiveness toward him, like only I was allowed to push his buttons. Ridiculous, I know.
I didn’t like it when the guys joked behind his back about his family—not so much because it wasn’t true, but because of how it affected his moods, or seemed to. What else would explain it? Honestly, it was fucking sad, and sometimes I thought he was just blowing off steam because he was suffering inside, but it wasn’t any of our business.
Then the shower incident happened and, Christ, that still haunted me. I had never in my life stood and watched another guy jerk off. It had made me so fucking hard, and then when he’d said my name? Mind. Blown. And whether he’d said it by accident or intentionally—or hell, I could’ve just been delusional that day—it still wasn’t something I could easily shake.
Every time I saw him afterward, he would either avert his eyes or be an absolute prick. And sometimes it would come to a head, like that time when he tried to wrestle me in the locker room after a hard loss, or near the end of the season when he’d given me a bloody nose at the bowling fundraiser. I was getting frustrated all over again just thinking about it. How…unreasonable he was. Here I was, trying to find some common ground, and he was all arrogant and irrational. What the fuck was his problem? Even Mom had started giving him the side-eye after that bowling stunt, though everyone knew it was an accident.
I supposed I had no business walking over to him that night to begin with, even to pretend to teach him how to bowl. I was way out of line. But his initial reaction to me before he shuttered himself away again had been surprising, to say the least. I’d heard this little gasp in the back of his throat as he’d trembled. Actually fucking trembled. And that was not something I could lock away. That was some sort of clue, right?
I hadn’t seen Maclain since November, and now it was January. And I figured it would all work out one way or another. Maybe it would even be smoother between us now.
“Hey, Mom, baseball officially starts again next week,” I said, helping line up the plastic nacho boats, as Gemma liked to call them.
“Good. You should make the most of your last year.”
As I kissed her cheek, I noticed the tiredness behind her eyes. My parents worked so hard, and probably even more so when I was away for baseball. They had my sister and part-time help, but once I earned my business degree and finished with the season, I would be glad to relieve their burden, even a little bit.
“Don’t get that look in your eye,” she said, waving the bottle of ketchup refill in my direction. “I know you, and there should be no regrets. You are here plenty for us.”
“Yeah, okay.” I reached for a towel to wipe my hands, then looked toward the lanes, logging the number of patrons we had tonight. “Why don’t you and Daddy knock off early, and I’ll close up for you?”
“No, honey, that won’t be—”
“Please,” I insisted. “It’s the least I can do before my schedule gets crazy again.”
“You’re a good son, Dominic.” Mom pulled me into a hug and I squeezed her tight, feeling like I needed that extra affection to soothe my turbulent thoughts.
3
Maclain
The team packed together in the Pirates’ clubhouse. From what I could tell as I glanced around, most of the team was in attendance, including the new players. Our former third baseman had graduated last year, and we’d heard that he’d gotten drafted to a minor league team in the summer, and Devers, our power hitter, had been scouted pretty hard all fall after he’d hit a grand slam in the regionals. No doubt, for Devers this season hinged on his stats and whether he’d be invited to try out for the big league.
The meeting room held rows of long tables and folding chairs, and the coaches used the projector to watch game tape and the whiteboard at the front to strategize plays. We were all very familiar with this space and normally sat in the same spots, but since this was a new season, I decided to head to the other side toward the back, just to shake things up. Plus, it would obscure my view of Girard.