Page 84 of Trip Through Your Wires

Heading into the shed, I move around the boxes I brought from home, until I find the one I’m looking for. Removing the lid, I set it aside, and when I reach in, pull out my glove. It still feels the same—smooth, worn to the touch—and when I bring it to my nose, it still smells the same, too. Leather and grass. A combination that stirs memories. Some fond, others painful.

Setting it aside, I remove the lid to another box, and dig around until I find my backup glove and a ball. With both gloves tucked under one arm, I return the lids to each box, then grab the ball, and head back outside.

“You good?” Jake eyes me carefully as I make my way over.

I nod, handing him the backup glove. “It’s probably a little small for you, but a catcher can catch anything, right?”

He winks and shoves his hand inside the glove, rubbing the smooth leather with his hand. “Tight, but perfect.”

My cheeks warm with the obvious entendre, and I turn and make my way toward the patch of dirt where a makeshift mound used to rise. Forty-three feet. Nana measured it and Daddy marked it so I could practice when I was here. Only, in those days, there was a pitch back where Jake now stood, ready to spring the ball back to me.

The first time I came here after I hurt my knee, I tore down the pitch back and got a shovel out of the shed and removed the dirt of the mound, smacking the earth with the flat side of the shovel until it was gone. Standing here now, it’s almost as if I can feel the ground rise under my feet.

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a mask?” I call down the line to Jake. He’s in his catcher’s crouch, and damn, if I don’t want to crawl onto his lap and have my way with him right there.

“I’m fine.” He holds up the ball, wagging it back and forth. “Ready?”

Sliding my hand into the glove, my fingers wiggle as if greeting an old friend, and when I feel them settle into their familiar slots, I stick my hand up for him to throw me the ball. While still in his crouch, he lobs it my way and it lands in my glove with a pop.

I hold it for a moment—the fact we are standing opposite one another, in the positions that we are, not lost on me. I don’t think anyone else could have gotten me back on the mound. But it wasn’t the mystical catcher/pitcher bond that did it. It was him. Jake was his own kind of magic altogether.

I reach inside and grip the ball—seams rough against my now smooth fingertips—and when I pull it out and roll it in my hand, my heart starts to race. I used to love this time. When I stood on the mound in silent contemplation with nothing but the air in my lungs and the ball in my grasp. It was my religion. The one thing I truly believed in. In those seconds, the game spoke to me, its language sacred.

Pushing down the emotion swelling within me, I hold the ball in my right hand at my side, kicking at the dirt out of habit, then look up. When I’m ready, I step back with my left foot, keeping my right steady in place, ready to drive, then bring my glove down over my knee, as my right arm swings back, coming high over my head.

My muscles scream with the stretch, my once pliable core now tight, but they remember well, the sling-shot rotation of my windmill as my arm swings back in a counterclockwise rotation. Driving with my right foot, my left leg leaps forward as my right toe drags in the dirt, opening up my hips, and when the ball reaches my hips, I release. The snap is quick and the ball sails toward Jake, rotating with a spin that is both beautiful and powerful, and when it hits his glove with a slap, I’m stunned.

“Yeah, baby!” He jumps up, muscles in his arms pulled tight as he clenches his fists in excitement. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”

I stare at him in disbelief. Did that really just happen? Did I just throw a pitch and not fall on my ass? Looking down at my knee it’s holding steady—no wobble or give as I push up and stand straight.

He watches me, a beautiful triumphant smile on his face, then throws the ball back. “Want to do another?”

I catch it easily and look down at the ball in my glove. Nodding, he crouches back down as I look down and roll my shoulders, loosening up to throw another. When I’m ready, I wind up again, driving harder with my right foot this time, and when I release the ball, it sails toward him harder and faster than the first.

“Again,” he throws it back to me, this time staying in a crouching position.

I throw another pitch, and then another, and with each I feel my resentment growing. Jake was right. I did love this game. So much so, I pinned my future on it. Softball had been a part of me for so long, that when I lost it, I lost a part of myself and where it used to be, bitterness grew.

I should not be here, taking classes at DCC so I can work and save. I should be playing ball at a D1 school, just like Jake. With each pitch I throw, my anger grows stronger, and when I can’t take it anymore, I scream with my snap and release a pitch that is so hard and fast, the slap when it hits his glove, reverberates along the back of the property.

He stands up and takes off his glove, looking down at his hand, and when he looks back up I storm down the line, eating up the distance between us.

“What do you need?” he asks when I stop short of our chests touching.

“You,” I pant, my breathing heavy. “I need you.”

Jumping into his arms, I climb him like a tree, as he wraps one arm around me, and spins me around, gripping the back of my neck with the other.

“Christ, I want you,” he groans while slamming my back up against the side of the shed. “Seeing you on that mound, watching your wind up…fuck, it was hot.”

“Then take me,” I kiss his chin, jaw and neck, needing him more than anything right now. “Right here.”

Letting go of my waist, my legs slide down his body and when my feet touch the ground, he spins me around. Placing both hands on the aged wood of the shed, I lower my head and he yanks my sweats and panties down in one fell swoop. Shoving one hand under my shirt, he grabs a tit, while moving his other between my legs.

While kissing my neck he rubs my clit, and when my moaning and writhing reaches a fever point, he brings one hand to my hip and with his other, pulls his cock out of his sweats, and nudges the head against my entrance.

I push back slowly, desperate to feel him, and when he bottoms out, he pulls back and thrusts into me again. He does it again, and again, opening me up, and when my arousal coats his cock and he glides in easily, he brings both hands to my hips and starts pounding into me.

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