Page 71 of Diamond Ring
“Only one?”
Jake opens the box of doughnuts, picks one up, and holds it up to Alex. “Are you gonna argue or are you gonna eat?”
Alex laughs and takes the doughnut.
For a while, they sit there, each chewing, Alex drinking his whiskey and Jake his milk. “What are you gonna do after you retire?” Jake asks when he’s done, when he’s wiped his hands on a paper napkin and is eying their crumb-scattered plates.
“Don’t know if I’m actually retiring. I’ve just kicked it around.” A thought Alex considered late at night, sometimes turning to tell it to the empty pillow next to his. “Feels like we have unfinished business here.”
“You mean, you want to win and shove it in everyone’s faces?” It’d sound like a criticism if Jake’s face wasn’t lit up with a grin.
“That why you kept playing?”
Jake’s smile dims. “That and I don’t have any other skills. I looked at law school, then I looked at college, then I looked at community college. I don’t know if I’d be any good at that.”
Though it’s hard to imagine Jake, a perpetual good student, failing at something. “You’d be great at it and hate every second.”
Jake looks at him in question.
“The pretty-boy dumbass act only works on other people,” Alex says.
“So you think I’m anuglydumbass?”
A flirtation Alex should absolutely shut down, if only because Jake’s eyes shine with laughter. “You know what you look like.” Alex tries for despairing and misses, so ignores the look Jake throws him in favor of another burning sip of whiskey.
“I thought about quitting,” Jake says quietly. “The first year when I was rehabbing at home, my arm wasn’t healing the way it should’ve. PT sucked. Being on the other side of the country from the team sucked. But I always justknewI’d get better. After that...” He shakes his head. “The Elephants sent me to the minors to build up my strength. It was like learning how to pitch all over again. Eventually, they decided that it wasn’t gonna happen, and they released me. Maybe I should have walked away and saved myself the trouble.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I quit a bunch of times. I’d go home to Maryland, then I’d hear from someone that a team was looking for an extra pitcher, so I’d un-quit for a while. I played in Mexico, which was pretty cool. And winter ball in the Dominican. Thought about Japan, but that was probably too far for me to do alone. Then back here, I guess.”
A playing career that gifted Jake the creases by his eyes, the hard-won strength in his hands. “I always told you that you were stubborn,” Alex says.
“What’s the difference between stubborn and quixotic?”
Alex tries for his best impression of Jake’s wide-eyed interview look. “What’s ‘quixotic’ mean?”
Jake laughs and shoves him in the arm.
“That first year you were gone in Oakland wasn’t great for me either,” Alex says. “I was distracted all the time. Like I’d turn to say something to you, and you wouldn’t be there.” The next year was even worse, and the year after that bad enough that the Elephants traded him to Toronto and called up another catcher in his stead. He shrugs, like he didn’t spend the flight from Oakland to Toronto drinking and wiping his eyes. “I probably would’ve quit if not for the money.”
“Oh, right, just that.” Jake reaches forward like he’s going to stack their plates before he withdraws. Something that looks like it takes willpower, and Alex isn’t sure what if any reaction he should have, so he settles for arranging his hands on his knees.
“I’ve been thinking,” Jake says. “What are you gonna tell Todd if he asks about that list again?”
“Other than to go fuck himself?” Alex imagines reciting his list in front of Todd, three things said in a rush—Jake’s family, pitching, and a third thing Alex hasn’t thought of. But it feels different to say here, with nothing between them but the faint strip of air separating Jake’s thigh and his. “Your parents, I guess. And playing.” Things Alex would say about any teammate that sound silly now that he says them out loud. “And that story when you climbed up a tree just because someone else did.”
“The one from when I was in high school?”
Alex shrugs. “When I first got called up, I thought you were gonna be awful. Like big-name prospect, of course he’s gonna be an asshole.”
“I probably was.”
“Would’ve been better if you were. But it felt like everything was going to work out okay, just being around you.”
Jake’s face falls a little. “That part didn’t go so great.”
“If I was you, I would’ve quit five years ago.”
