Page 3 of Totally Played
“Four minutes.”
He reluctantly sits and pulls on my former underwear. “Do you have to be so loud?”
“Do you have to go out drinking the night before a game?”
“I had two drinks.”
I cock my eyebrows. “Bullshit, you look like death warmed up.”
“I feel like it, too. My head is splitting. Give me two minutes for an aspirin and a shower.”
I grab a towel hanging over his open drawer and toss it at him.
“Get in the shower, I’ll bring you the aspirin.”
After ten minutes, we’re finally out the door. Lucky for us, we live close to the field.
The loft apartment is one of twenty in the converted factory known as The Presses, after its original use one hundred years ago printing newspapers. They didn’t do much to actually convert this place into apartments. The floors are still concrete, except for the bathroom, three of the walls are exposed brick with peeling cream paint from fifty years ago, and the fourth wall is half covered in plaster that’s got a giant crack diagonally across. Thankfully, it looks worse than it actually is. I guess people pay good money to have this kind of grunge-chic living. We pay moderate money to sub-let it from our cousin who’s travelling the world in what was supposed to be her leap year between high school and college, but she went viral online for one of her posts about a facial she had in Bangkok and now she’s travelling the world as a beauty influencer and paid ridiculously well for it, too. She says it’s challenging work, but the photos she texts me of her cabana and tray of Mai Tai’s say different.
“Tony, you’re late,” my brother’s coach says before he spots my Funky Monkeys training shirt. “Sorry, Calvin, you’re late. Where’s Tony?”
“I know, sorry, Coach. Tony’s right behind me. I’ll get out there,” I reply, dropping my bag at my locker and heading for the field. I don’t bother addressing him, mistaking me for my brother, it happens too often to bother me now. It’s game day, and we have warm-ups, a final run-through of the opening number, and then we have to shower and change for the meet and greet with the fans pregame.
“About time,” Duckie calls, tossing me a ball. “Pivot drills, let’s go.”
As a shortstop, I run through about five different drills every training session and lighter versions on warmup. Pivot drills help my body get loosened up and flexible for when I have to pivot quickly to throw the ball. I set myself up next to a pile of baseballs and plant my feet, arms in a ready position, then pivot and throw to Duckie.
“Again,” he calls, and I work through the pile before we move on to reaction drills and targets.
“Nice touch with the ducks,” I say, spotting the little yellow rubber duckies sitting on home, first, second, and third base.
“Now let’s see if you can hit any of them.” Duckie laughs, then tosses his first grounder. I catch it low and fire it off toward second base but miss the duck by a good foot.
“You can do better than that,” Duckie calls, and he throws another. It takes six more before I hit one of the ducks.
“Shouldn’t the targets be more like mid-height?” I ask, and Duckie scoffs.
“If you can hit the duck, you can hit the glove. Come on, I want a win today.”
“So do I. Okay, your turn,” I say as I throw Duckie a grounder. He grabs it quickly and sends it flying toward home plate and knocks the duck over in his first go.
“Yesss! See? It’s not that hard.”
“Okay, third base, ready, go.”
I throw the ball, he picks it up, pivots, and sends it down to third. It skims the top of the plate and takes the duck out with it. Fuck.
“Keep that up and we’ll win today for sure. You think you can knock the one off first, too?”
“Only one way to find out. Give it to me,” he says, bouncing on his toes. I throw the ball, and he grabs it, spins around, and throws it right toward first base.
“Yooooo,” he’s cheering before it even lands, but his celebration is short-lived when it hits the edge of the base and bounces clean over the duck.
“That should still count, I hit the base.”
“Did you hit the duck?”
“No.”
