Page 122 of Hot Streak

Yes, he did.

Jackson pulled up his text conversation with Connor.

And while, yes, Connor was a huge fan of abbreviations and emojis, most of which Jackson had actually been forced to look up, there were probably four or five messages from him to one of Jackson’s. Texting had never been his favorite thing to do. You wanted to say something to someone, you should say it, not send a string of images and hope they got the point.

But he could do this. It was the right thing to do. But not only that, he wanted to do it. He wanted to fix this yawning, gaping chasm of misery inside him.

Maybe fixing it wouldn’t bring Connor back into his life. After all, there were no certainties in life, but doing nothing wouldn’t fill it, either.

Hey, a little bird told me your first start was today, Jackson typed. Good luck. Remember. Fear and arrogance. You got this.

He pressed send before he could chicken out, then shoved the phone back in his locker, resolved not to look at it until after the game.

The terror rising inside him felt so real, so visceral Connor felt like he was going to choke on it.

“You good, man?” Alejandro, his new catcher asked, as he dropped down next to him in the dugout.

“Yeah,” Connor said, his voice cracking.

But was he really?

Connor didn’t know anything anymore. He’d thought he would be fine. Fear and arrogance, he’d repeated to himself so many goddamn times, surely it must come true, but arrogance was MIA and there was only fear. Not even a normal kind of fear but an amplified version of what he’d felt the last few times he’d seen the major league scout at his starts.

The warmup had been rough. He’d kept looking down to home plate, expecting to see Jackson looking up at him. But it was Alejandro, instead. Alejandro had proven to be a good catcher—a great catcher, probably—but the fact he wasn’t Jackson unsettled him.

Anything about Jackson unsettled him these days.

“Listen,” Alejandro said, “it’s a big deal, your first major league start. But I’ve watched some tape of you, when they called you up. You got this. You’ve got the skill. Just listen to my signals, alright?”

Jackson had told him so many times how meticulously major league catchers prepared, and so he shouldn’t be surprised that Alejandro had done his research.

Or that he’d heard about all the bad habits he’d developed during his minor league stint.

Don’t you fucking shake me off, was what Alejandro was really saying.

And he wouldn’t.

That wasn’t going to be the problem. It was the fact his stomach was currently trying to crawl out of his body and that every time he thought about taking the mound in a few minutes, his nausea only increased. Would he even be able to hit the pitches Alejandro called for?

“Okay,” Connor said, nodding.

Alejandro patted him on the knee. “Just take a few deep breaths and try not to vomit all over the field, okay?”

“Yeah,” he croaked.

In another time, he would’ve really liked Alejandro. He did like Alejandro.

But Alejandro’s problem was that he wasn’t his catcher. Wasn’t the catcher who’d taught him what it was to really be a baseball player. Wasn’t the man he loved. Because that was what this panicked terror had to be, right?

He wouldn’t be so terrified Jackson would never talk to him again if his feelings weren’t so fucking serious.

“Come on,” Alejandro said encouragingly. “Remember—you got this.”

A few of his other new teammates might’ve greeted him on his way out of the dugout, but frankly the whole thing was a fucking blur.

When he stepped unsteadily onto the field, the crowd roared in approval, filling his ears with their applause.

There’d been a time, Connor was sure of it, when that kind of approval and encouragement would have only boosted his ego another notch.

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