Page 92 of Triple Play

We’re five hours into an almost silent ten-hour trip when the Monsters’ manager, Skip, finally answers my text saying Blake and I will be late to spring training. I sent it a day and a lifetime ago, when my biggest worry was if I was going to slip up and kiss Shira in the middle of a rest stop. If Blake would figure out that I knew Shira from when she danced.

He’s very clearly in love with you—or Melody, or whoever—and you’re pretending like he isn’t. Is it because you’re in love with him too?

What my brain won’t stop playing on a constant loop. Miles of highway are good for contemplation, especially after Blake insisted on driving. Shira spends most of the ride shifting around the backseat like she can’t get comfortable. We promised to leave her squirming. Just not like this.

When the text comes in, the fact that we’re not talking to each other only makes the buzz of it louder.

Skip: Thanks for the head’s up.

No yelling, not even a whiff of disappointment from the team. Must be the consequence of having Blake with me. Another message comes through a second later:

Skip: Let us know when you get in. We’d like to talk in person.

Which, fuck. Most baseball business is done in person, but there’s always that feeling like being summoned to the principal’s office when team personnel ask to speak with you. They could just be doing pre-spring training meetings with all the guys. Or they could shake my hand, thank me for my baseball services, and trade me to another team or release me outright.

I could ask Blake if he got the same thing. If he didn’t…then he’ll know I might be losing my job when we get to Florida. As if he didn’t already.

There’s no way to know until we get there. I check the clock. Only another five hours. So I just write back Sure and go back to staring at the highway.

It’s evening when we get into Fort Lauderdale. I forget how much Florida in the winter throws me off—how strange it is to be someplace that’s warm but dark early. Blake pulls up at what must be his rental house. He drove the whole way. Waved off Shira’s and my attempts to give him a break.

“Driving really takes my mind off things,” he says, which certainly ranks as the politest fuck you I’ve ever received.

Now he gets out, stretches his legs. On the other side of the car, Shira does the same. This would be an appropriate time for a goodbye. Like a fool, I canceled my rental reservation when Blake said I could stay with him. But at least there’s a cheap-ish hotel nearby that’s a cheap-ish Uber ride away.

“Thanks for driving,” I call to Blake. Completely inadequate, but what else is there to say? “I’ll see you at the ballpark tomorrow.”

For a moment, Blake looks surprised. Then he nods. “Night.” As if he’s not necessarily wishing me a good one.

Which only leaves Shira. I spent much of the last ten hours—the parts where I wasn’t worried about losing my job or if Blake was going to change his mind and deck me—wondering what I should say.

I’ll just quit the team. Not when I need the money.

We could date. Not if Blake and I are going to be teammates. Not if I don’t want the entire baseball world to think that I stole Blake Forsyth’s girl. She was mine first. But that isn’t right either.

Shira’s her own person. Right now she looks road-weary, her teeth gnawing on her bottom lip. She’s leaving tomorrow—taking a train north back to Boston. It’s a big city. We might not run into each other again. After all, we lived there for months and didn’t. Because she didn’t want to.

This might be the last time I see her. Goodbye doesn’t feel adequate. So I nod to Shira. “Have a good night.”

Then I go to the corner to summon a ride and tell myself I’m not disappointed that Blake and Shira don’t yell for me to come back.

Spring training means early mornings, so when I roll into the clubhouse, coffee in hand, dark circles under my eyes, my teammates probably won’t guess it’s because I didn’t sleep.

I’m used to farmers’ hours—used to breaking the film of ice on the water trough in the barn, to watching my breath fog in the morning cold and feeling the crunch of snow under my boots. Entirely different from the kind of do-nothing milling around that makes up most early morning baseball activities.

I take a long sip of coffee. Swallow. Yawn.

Another player—a former triple-A teammate—catches me. “Rough night?” Said with same tone he’d use when I’d come to the clubhouse with a shimmer of Shira’s glitter lotion stuck in my beard.

“Hotel beds, ya know?” I say. Except this bed was comfortable. Comfortable and far too empty.

I don’t have much time to linger. Skip comes out of his office. He’s older for a manager, a throwback in a game that favors younger and younger coaches. He’s the kind of guy who defaults to calling everyone son whether he likes you or not. Well, I’ve gotten worse news from worse people.

He’s making his way toward me, clapping various players on the shoulder, inquiring about their breakfasts and their wives and their offseasons. Finally, he gets over to where I’m standing. “Son, you have a minute to talk?” As if it’s urgent.

My coffee sours in my stomach. It’s one thing to drive down here knowing I was probably heading toward a demotion. Another to trail behind him as we walk back up the hall. Something about the situation calls for dramatic music, not just the squeak and scrape of my teammates’ shoes against the floor, the silence that echoes around me as we walk.

And when we get to his office, Blake is already there, seated in one of two chairs in front of our manager’s desk.

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