Page 39 of Totally Played
“No problem. Calvin and I bought it in high school, and we’ve shared it ever since. It’s still just as soft now as the day we got it. Besides, being in our baseball uniforms most nights, we get used to the cold. Those pants we wear are surprisingly thin.”
This is Calvin’s jacket. I’m instantly ten degrees warmer, and I lower my head to nuzzle the collar. Suddenly, all I can smell is him, and I wrap it tighter around me.
“Did you grow up here?” he asks, shoving his hands into his pockets, and I refocus.
“No. My boss chose Savannah for his office, and seeing as I work for him, I moved here, too.”
“You don’t sound too happy about it.”
“It’s not that I don’t like Savannah. I do. It’s an awesome city. I just don’t understand how a grown man can move halfway across the country because of a sport he doesn’t even play.”
“Is he a Banana Ball fan?”
“Through and through. He’s been bugging me for years to come to a game.”
“But you always said no.”
I nod.
“Then Calvin invited you and you said yes?”
“I don’t know how. We were watching the replay of your game, the one you left early because you were sick, and then suddenly he had set it all up for me to have a ticket waiting, and I was sitting with your sister and parents. It was a lot of fun, though. Oh, this is me,” I say, stopping out the front of my apartment building. It’s like most of the others in this part of town, five stories, brown bricks, and a double entry for security. Crime isn’t big in Savannah, but I like the added safety.
Tony steps closer.
“I had a really good time,” he says, looking up at me, his blue-gray eyes so similar to Calvin’s, but something is missing behind them, and he doesn’t have that cute little heart freckle like him either.
“Yeah, I had a good time, too. Oh, you should take this,” I say, about to shrug out of the jacket, but he closes the gap between us and lifts it back up onto my shoulders.
“Wear it to the game tomorrow,” he says, pushing onto his toes and kissing me on the cheek. “I’ll see you then.”
“Yeah. Umm, see you then,” I reply, turn, and unlock the first of the doors. I’m through the second set before he waves and turns on his heel to leave.
I know I said if he got ten points, I’d kiss him good night, but wearing Calvin’s jacket, all I can smell is him, and if I kissed Tony, I would have been picturing Calvin, and I just couldn’t do it. Tony was great. He really was. I should be into him. There is no reason not to be, except I’m not. Fuck. What am I going to do now?
Chapter thirteen
Calvin
SomyconversationwithTony revealed three things. One, Tony knew since middle school he wasn’t straight. Two, he had a giant crush on our sixth-grade teacher. But the third thing that I learned, was probably the most significant and enlightening. While Tony returned to watching the replay, I started searching online for answers. It’s much easier to put the question into the void of the impersonal internet: why am I attracted to just one person of the same gender? The results opened my eyes to a rainbow of possibilities I never even considered and a quiz that I took way too many times. Now I’m confused even more, because while I see how I might be bi, too, I also might be pan or demi, but then I was attracted to Ash right away, before I got to know him so that rules out demi, doesn’t it? The longer I spend with him, the stronger my attraction has grown. So the third thing I learned… never ask the internet to explain your sexuality.
Except that is what I am doing again while he’s out on a date with the guy I’ve been dreaming of since we met in that barthe first night. The same bar he’s meeting Tony at. I don’t have any right to be jealous. But there is no other way to explain this feeling. This tight churning in my gut that hasn’t stopped since Tony asked me if I knew where our leather jacket was. I’d worn it to Riverside Barbeque to pick up my takeaway dinner earlier that afternoon. It’s our favorite and looks great on both of us. All the more reason I hated taking it off and handing it over. I didn’t want Tony to look good for Ash. I wanted the date to go badly. I wanted Ash to see all the ways Tony is wrong for him, and that’s so messed up in so many ways. We aren’t like this. We don’t get jealous of each other. We definitely don’t get jealous over a guy. Fuck. Come on internet, make this make sense to me.
“I’m home,” Tony calls, slamming the door behind him.
I check the time. It’s still early. Really early. When I was out with Ash, we spent hours together, at the bar, then Tim’s, and then the slow walk home. It was like neither of us wanted the night to end. Tony has only been gone for what, two, maybe three hours.
“How was it?” I ask, the horrible churning picking up as I wait for his reply.
“It was amazing.”
A lump rises in my throat.
“That’s…good,” I manage before he jumps over the back of the couch and lands beside me.
“He’s coming to the game tomorrow.”
I stop myself from saying, “I know, I arranged his ticket, remember?” and do the supportive brother thing instead. “That’s good, so you hit it off?”
