Page 11 of Diamond Ring
Something, in the best possible scenario, Jake would shrug off as Alex being drunk. In the worst, might ruin things between them.
“You should probably get your zipper,” Jake says.
Alex does, easing it down, grateful for having drunk enough that he can’t get fully hard, even if his skin is hot all over. He kicks off his jeans and slaps a hand on his bedside table until he finds the bottle of water, uncaps it, and swallows a few mouthfuls.
Jake reaches for his pants where they’re piled on the floor, shakes them out, and lays them in the hamper. “If you’re all set, I’m gonna head home.” The red numbers of Alex’s alarm clock say that it’s late, though Jake’s place is a five-minute drive mostly spent exiting then entering parking structures.
Alex is sobering up, every second slightly more lucid than the previous one. Still, his mouth disobeys him. “Stay.”
Jake frowns slightly. “You need some help?”
No. But he doesn’t want Jake to leave, either. “I, uh...” He tries to think of an excuse. Around him, the room gives another jolt.
“Point me at your spare blankets,” Jake says. “I can probably survive a night on the couch.”
Though Alex mostly meant that he should stay here, in Alex’s bed. With Alex. “In the closet.”Who isn’t?He laughs at that, reflexively, earning a puzzled look from Jake, who rummages on the shelf above Alex’s hung-up clothes—a few suits and a mesh shirt that might answer questions Jake hasn’t ever asked him.
“Found ’em.” Jake pulls down one of Alex’s thick, Rhode Island winter blankets along with a pillow.
Alex’s room isn’t big. It would be easy, nothing, to reach out. To ask him, again, to stay. Instead Alex mumbles, “G’night.”
Jake cuts the lights as he leaves, though ones are on in the hallway, silhouetting his shoulders. It must be Alex’s imagination that he pauses there, like he’s waiting for Alex to say something else, before waving a hand and telling Alex to get some sleep.
Chapter Four
September
Alex
September twenty-fourth falls on a Thursday. The Elephants play a day game that’s as relaxed as baseball gets, the team having clinched the division a week ago. An off-day for Alex. Still he watches from the dugout railing, mostly so he doesn’t think about what day it is.
Sofia called him that morning. He talked with her for a while about the team’s playoff chances. About how he’s feeling. About if he’s doing anything that day for the anniversary of his father’s death.
A question that followed him to the ballpark and into the game.
Jake sidles up next to him. For a while, they talk about what ballplayers talk about during games: pitching, opponents’ weak spots, their team’s own strengths. Jake quizzes him on what he’d call for in certain counts, if he’d go ground ball or fly ball. If he wants to eat the team-provided meal tonight or go out somewhere.
The last of which will involve beers and food and watching Jake flirt with an entire bar. None of which Alex really feels up to.
“Probably not.” Alex looks around at their teammates, who are streaming out of the dugout to the field. “My dad died”—and he does the math—“sixteen years ago, today.”
Jake slides closer to Alex, like he’s going to hug him mid-game. Something that wouldn’t be objectively that weird for him, even if the idea makes Alex’s throat tighten.
“May his memory be a blessing,” Jake murmurs. He doesn’t say much else for the rest of the game. He doesn’t move away from Alex either.
After the game, Alex goes back to his apartment, which feels emptier than when he left. It’s a little silly to mourn someone to Prince and Sheila E, but he puts music on anyway. He drinks, not the intentional drinking of trying to get drunk, just enough to ease the feeling that he might burst into tears.
He wishes he knew what to do, had some emotional checklist to manage his grief. His dad was ten years older when he died than Alex is now. That alone feels strange. If they met, they’d be more like peers. That one day, if Alex is lucky, he’ll eclipse his father and be older than he ever was.
He could call someone. An old teammate, just to talk. Sofia, to tell her he misses her, to hear Evie’s childish chatter over the phone.
Jake, who’d tell Alex distracting stories or listen to him breathe. Jake hightailed it out of the clubhouse after the game. Maybe he was eager to go out, though they rarely went places separately unless Alex was going out with the specific intention of getting laid.
Alex has his phone out about to push Call when there’s a knock. Jake, standing in his hallway. He holds up a couple of shopping bags a little sheepishly. Whatever’s in them clinks together when he sets them on the dining room table. He withdraws tall high-sided candles and a white pastry box with blue lettering on the side.
“Did you bring me a cheese Danish?” Alex asks.
“I wasn’t sure what else to do.”
