Page 103 of Diamond Ring
“How about a third?” Alex passes him the tablet he’s holding. “What have you been seeing the past few games?”
“Probably nothing you haven’t.” Said self-effacingly, like Alex shouldn’t point out that Jake spent most of the series literally sidelined.
“You’ve got a good perspective,” Alex says.
Jake makes a face. “You mean being stuck in the bullpen?”
“Knowing the game the way you do.” Alex swallows, squares his shoulders up, prepares himself to say what he’s been rehearsing for a couple days, even if he didn’t mean to say it in a dingy video room. “You should play next year—in Japan or wherever else you want. It makes you happy. And fuck, you deserve that.”
Alex isn’t prepared for the full force of a Jake Fischer smile. For Jake to let Alex kiss him and crowd him back on the table, pushing papers off in a scatter.
Jake glances toward the door that’s shut but not locked. “Someone might come looking for us.”
Alex leans down, Jake’s legs on either side of his, taking in the sight of him: his hair, his lips, the particular fond look that Alex wants to bottle and save for a long New England winter. “I’ll tell them I don’t know where you are.”
Jake smiles a bright, impossible grin, and Alex presses him to the tabletop, not contemplating when he has to let him go. For now, he holds on.
They win, decisively, collectively, a win that feels surreal even as the team crowds him at home plate, as they pop champagne over one another, more of it going in their hair and eyes than in their mouths.
A reporter in a rain poncho pulls Alex aside, shouting a question over the din. “How’s it feel to be going back to the Fall Classic?”
An unanswerable question, because Alex has been here before, has come close enough to see victory on the horizon but never quite achieve it. He’s grateful for the sheltering cover of his goggles, for the noise around them, for the reporter accepting an “Ask me when we’ve won.”
Their victory gets curtailed by the reality of having to get on a cross-country flight the next day, by having to face the Gothams at home, in a stadium that prides itself on its hostility, one happy to dump beer and insults on visiting players.
The Elephants upgrade the plane to include space for family—“and anyone else,” Courtland says, shruggingly—who wants to accompany them. What results is an influx of spouses and kids and various other relations, including Charlie rolling up with a woman he introduces as hisex-wife and a tall, dark-haired guy Alex can’t place but vaguely recognizes.
The energy is frenetic for the first two hours before kids start getting cranky about being in a confined space. He and Jake claim a row behind Johnson, who’s traveling with his wife and daughter. The latter keeps peering over the seats at them with wide, assessing eyes.
Alex doesn’t know if peekaboo is developmentally appropriate for an eighteen-month-old, but he does it anyway, cupping his hands in front of his face and watching her joyful giggle.
After a minute, her laughter intensifies and Alex turns to see Jake, having woken from his nap in the next seat, pulling a series of silly faces—fish lips, crossed eyes, a comedian’s frown. He can apparently wiggle his ears individually, something Alex didn’t know. She hits the top of the seat with her tiny fists in delight, then demands to be put back in her father’s arms.
“You’re good with her,” Alex says.
Jake shrugs. “I babysat for guys on the team sometimes. It was fun.”
Alex doesn’t know, exactly, how to ask everything he’s been wanting to. If Jake would like kids of his own or just likes occasionally taking care of other people’s like an indulgent uncle. So he settles for saying “Do you want kids?” bluntly enough that Jake laughs.
“Yeah, I mean, I figured with moving around all the time, I couldn’t. And all mystuff”—and he cycles his hands as if indicating his various habits—“is pretty heritable. I worried about passing that along. Not that we couldn’t deal, but it’s a concern. So I’d be good with adopting.” He blinks. “You’re smiling.”
“You saidwe,” Alex says, feeling corny as hell, except for the way Jake is smiling back at him.
Until Jake’s face falls a little. “Going overseas makes things hard, huh?”
“Yeah.” Because what else is there to say? He told Jake to do it. He can’t be mad that Jake listened.
Jake glances over at Alex’s now-closed book, one on parenting that Johnson recommended. “What age are you thinking about adopting?”
Theyoufeels like taking a pitch off Alex’s chest. “An older kid, maybe.” Because everything he’s read says that’s where the greatest need is, even if the thought of messing it up makes his gut churn. “I got a soft landing. Maybe I could be that for someone else.”
Jake shifts in his seat, resting his head closer to Alex. “You’d be good at that.”
So would we.Their hands are close but not quite touching. Jake taps his knuckles against his, fleeting enough that Alex almost thinks he imagines it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
October
