Page 84 of Diamond Ring
Alex
Three innings into Jake’s start and Gothams Stadium is, as ever, a din of encouragements and invectives,fuck yeahs andfuck yous.
Alex generally prefers East Coast bluntness—there’s no mistaking how people feel about you or what they want—but not when it’s forty thousand people all telling him that a ball skidded off his wrist ten years ago.
Morales basks in it, coming to the plate with his bat assured on his shoulder. He has batting gloves on, though he strips one off quickly, his bright orange nails making Alex miss his own days of eyeliner and hair spiked up with rubber cement.
Alex calls for a fastball that Morales fouls off. Still, a strike. A curveball. Another foul. That’s two. A fastball that misses the zone, high and away. Morales doesn’t even sneeze at it. Then Alex taps out the signs for a changeup, a slow one. He expects a skeptical shake of Jake’s head, anIt’s not readyexpression from sixty feet away. Which it probably isn’t, but fuck it, Morales won’t be expecting a pitch no one but them has seen before.
Jake nods. Comes set. Throws. The ball wobbles out of his hand, flapping like a butterfly’s wings, like something remade, and Morales swings—way too early. The ball arrives half a second later with enough residual motion that Alex has to shift his glove to field it.
Or tries to. Because it bounces off the dirt, then against Alex’s arm, and rolls away. Of course. Of fucking course.
Morales is fast for a catcher, but slow for anyone who isn’t made mostly of thighs. He takes off jogging toward first base, leaving Alex to scramble the ball out of the dirt, to throw it to their first baseman who catches it, easily. An out. A good one.
Except of course that the ball ricocheted off Alex’s arm. When he looks up, Jake’s face is buried in his glove. Alex waves to the umpire to call time, then goes out to the mound, ready for Jake’s anger or, worse, his pessimism.
Jake’s shoulders are hunched, his expression impossible to read in the slim border between the leather of his glove and the green brim of his hat, and he’s making a noise as Alex approaches the mound like a choked, buzzing sob, except—
Except when Alex gets there, he removes his glove and he’s laughing like he can’t believe that happened either. A laugh that makes it hard not to laugh with him, Jake’s hand planted on his shoulder, the music of his voice in Alex’s ears.
Something in Alex’s chest comes unknotted. “That was a good pitch.”
“Yeah”—Jake smiles, an unburdenedJakesmile, bright as ballpark lights—“yeah, it was.” He looks around at the spectators. “My parents came up for the game.”
“You good?” A larger question than they have time for, though Jake gives him another grin that Alex carries all the way back to home plate.
That good mood doesn’t last. Jake is still Jake: a fifth starter. His fastball velocity dips in the fourth inning, enough that Courtland and the trainers come in. With it, the irritated shake of Jake’s elbow, either in annoyance they assume he’s injured or because he’s actually injured.
Alex stays at the plate, insulated by sixty feet, by letting Jake turn his angry biting smile on someone else. Cowardice, possibly, but cowardice Alex is okay with, given Jake’s family up in the stands. Because if Jake comes out of the game, Alex doesn’t want to be part of that decision.
Jake stays, but only for another inning. Alex goes out to the mound at the pitching change, into the cluster of their infielders. Jake twists his arm in a way that might mean a trip to the MRI, then slaps the ball into Courtland’s hand. A retreat, shoulders hunched, while the stadium soundtrack plays a goodbye like a childishnah-nah-nah.
Alex wants to go after him, but there’s almost half a ballgame left. So he squats at home plate and encloses his mask over his face, and tries to think only of Jake’s earlier laughter and not the jeers of the crowd.
That night, after dinner—Jake having gone out with his family, Alex with a few of the guys from the team—Alex practically whistles down the hallway toward Jake’s room. The possibilities lie before him: an evening spent together, a night, maybe the following morning, if Jake will let him order room service and can tolerate dishes near the bed.
He knocks when he gets there. A pause, then a few muffled thumps. Finally Jake opens the door, standing in the doorway and blocking Alex from the rest of the room—except for the obvious white spill of the hotel comforter across the floor like Jake tore it off.
“You okay?” Alex asks, though it’s clear the answer isno. He expects a shrug, aBed had a weird lumplike that’s all there is to it.
Instead he gets the subtle shake of Jake’s head, followed by the reflexive dig of his nails into his palm. “I know we had plans but...” Jake glances back at the room. “I need to get out of here for a little while, if that’s okay.”
Alex suppresses the urge to reach for his hand. “Sure.”
New York in June is hot, pavement soaking in the day’s heat and slowly releasing it to the sky. Cooler when they cross the street to the shaded periphery of the park. Alex doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, letting Jake’s shoulder bump against his.
“My parents were at the game,” Jake says finally. “It’s rough, you know? I mean, I shouldn’t complain. They’resupportive.” A shrug. “I probably should have just quit and, I don’t know, figured something else out. Something with job security.”
Another pause. A rolling of his fingers like he’s repositioning a ball. “It just seems so stupid that I’m still at this. My family immigrated here withnothingand worked and worked, and I spent most of my life just trying to throw a fucking baseball and I can’t even do that some days and it’s just—” Jake wipes a hand across his eyes. “Just feels like a waste.”
A waste. Like there’s a point to baseball other than to play it. “Doesn’t seem like one,” Alex offers. “At least from my perspective.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a real, live major leaguer and I’m just lucky to be here.”
“Doesn’t mean you should quit.”
Jake laughs, though it lacks any of the musicality of his laughter during the game. “Sorry, you didn’t sign up for a self-pity fest either.”
