Page 36 of Totally Opposed

The guys say their final farewells, and we head through to the checkpoint. When I finally step on board the plane, I pass Harrison and Alan sitting in one of the first rows in coach, and as I keep moving through the section, it looks like my row couldn’t be any further from him if I tried.

“Fucking hell,” I say under my breath when I see him. Duckie is in the seat beside mine, his face already buried in a barf bag. Alan was supposed to be beside me. We would have had the whole flight together.

“Sorry, dude, I took the aisle seat ‘cause I’ll probably have to get up a few times,” Duckie says, looking up from the bag, his face taking on a green hue.

“No worries. Is there anything I can do to help?”

He shakes his head, then gags but holds it together.

“It’s bile at this point. Not much to do but ride it out and hydrate the second I get my feet on solid ground.”

“We haven’t taken off yet. You’re on solid ground now.”

“Yeah, my stomach doesn’t think so. The thought of flying.” He gags. “You know, then the smell of the plane, too.” He gagsagain. “It’s just…” The third time, he can’t hold it back, and he gags, then spits into the bag in his lap.

I press the call button above my head.

“Is everything okay over here?” the stewardess asks, frowning down at Duckie.

“I think we’ll need a few more bags.”

She nods and leaves and while I hate that I missed my chance to sit next to Alan this whole flight, I’m probably the best person to be stuck beside Duckie. Once you watch your granny dump half a gallon of pig’s blood into a bowl and tell ya to get mixin’, not a lot of things gross you out. It sure smelled better than Duckie barfing beside me, but once they swap out his bag for a fresh one, the smell mostly leaves with it, and I settle back into the chair and pull out my phone. We’ll be taking off any second, so I connect to the plane’s internet and flick it to my socials. The Banana Ball page is blowing up with videos of the airport serenade proposal, and watching it over again, even with the sound turned down, I can feel my body reacting the same way it did in the moment. Stevie had no reservations, no doubt about what he was doing. He wanted to ask Bella to marry him, and he wanted the world to see it. That’s the kind of love I want.

Chapter fourteen

Alan

Finding time to bealone with Ryan on the tour hasn’t been as hard as I thought it could be. With Dennis and the choreographing team setting us up with these star-crossed lovers numbers, we’re tasked with extra rehearsals on nights at the hotel after everyone else heads to bed. It’s working, too. In the last three games, when either of us played against an OG team, we won. We’ve played against each other a couple of times, too, and it looks like whatever luck our hookups are giving us stops there. We won the first time against them but the Funky Monkeys kicked our butts last game. I sneak back into my room that I’m sharing with Phillip and crawl into bed just before eleven.

Ryan and I were…rehearsing our next number and lost track of time. We play against each other tomorrow, and our late-night shenanigans will probably have more influence over his fastball than it will my ability to cover second base. But we’ll see. My phone vibrates on the bedside, and I grab it, expecting amessage from Ryan. But what I get instead is a notification from the group chat I have with the guys.

PHILLIP: Sooo Alan, what’s going on with you and the Funky Monkey?

WTF? Do they know? Did someone see us?

BENNY: Come on, guys, leave him be. If he and the kid have a thing, then they have a thing.

Kid?They can’t mean Ryan. He’s like a year younger than me. He’s no kid.

HARRISON: You remember what happened when Casey and Pat were hooking up and then Casey met that bartender from Missouri. We hadn’t even started our tour yet and the infighting in that team was so bad Casey quit. Ryan is the best pitcher that team has. Do you think the bosses would be happy if he up and left?

STEVIE: Didn’t Casey do his knee?

GORDON: He did his knee after he quit, got drunk, and fell down a flight of stairs. Luckily, he didn’t break his neck.

BENNY: This is not like that. They play on opposite teams. If it didn’t work out, worst it might do is make Alan swing for that fast ball a little harder.

STEVIE: We can’t tell Alan who he can and can’t date. If you are dating. It’s okay if you are or aren’t. No judgment here. You better always be swinging hard for that fast ball either way!

HARRISON: You all used to tell me all the time who I could and couldn’t date. ***Middle finger emoji***

GORDON: We strongly advised you who you should and shouldn’t fuck, and that was different.

HARRISON: Because it was me?

GORDON: Because you were blind drunk, hitting on anything that had a dick. Are we really going to argue about how many times we stopped you from sleeping with random men? Should we add Arlo to this chat?

Seriously, why the fuck am I in this chat?

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