Page 17 of Diamond Ring
“We can trade.” Alex gives Jake his beer and accepts Jake’s—he takes a sip—very badly made cocktail. “Why do you order those if you hate them?”
“’Cause I know you’ll trade with me.”
A few women come over, mostly to Jake, though one who would be Alex’s type if he was straight or even glancingly bi—taller than him and built like Wonder Woman, with a few visible piercings that imply a few less visible ones as well.
“Good game,” she says. At least that spares them the awkward navigation of telling them who they are, because there’s no real non-asshole way to say that they’re young, hot, rich, and famous for a very limited value of fame. Or Jake is, anyway.
Alex thanks her, yelling to be heard over the bar clatter, and asks what she wants to drink.
“I’m good.” She indicates her friend. “I’m her ride-slash-creep deterrer.”
“Same,” he says, thoughrideis a strong word for pouring Jake into a cab later. If he and Jake end up leaving together. Which is unlikely.
Jake doesn’t seem to have a type. He’s gone home with everyone from a tiny, imperious brunette to an Amazonian redhead who looked like she could bench-press him. (“She did,” Jake said, smugly, when Alex mentioned it the next day. After that Alex stopped asking.)
But always women.
The woman Jake’s talking with has just as many piercings as her friend. He’s looking at her with clear interest, usually Alex’s cue to have a wingman side conversation. At least if it’s about body art, it’ll probably be interesting.
Jake’s necklace is still out, sparkling in the bar lighting. He catches Alex looking, then tucks the pendant below his shirt collar. Something about that reminds Alex of the grind and click of the jewelers’ vault the day before.
Jake smiles, the same smile he aimed at the stands, at the media, and gives an approving nod to the woman standing next to Alex, who’s checking something on her phone, understandably bored.
And Alex takes a long gulp of Jake’s watered gin and prepares to make shouted conversation.
Chapter Five
October
Alex
The postseason is a blur of plane flights and champagne celebrations. The division series. The league championship series. Then, impossibly, the world championship series.
Jake starts game one, Alex catching. He puts down signs though he barely needs to, Jake knowing what he’ll call before he even points his fingers toward the dirt. When the Elephants lose by one run, guys punch Jake on the arm and say,Hey, nice throwing, man, andWe’ll get ’em the next day. But they lose games two and three, their bats asleep.
Game four. The all-or-nothing game. Scoreless, a deadlock, until the seventh inning.
Alex calls for a changeup with a runner on third base. Jake throws one.
Except.
Excepthe misses his location. The ball deflects off Alex’s mitt right at the juncture of his wrist. Alex chases it to the backstop, heart in his throat. The runner scores, easily, and it’d be ashit happensbaseball thing if this was a random day game and not the Fall fucking Classic.
When Alex sets up behind home plate, Jake’s wiping his face with his jersey. Sweat, possibly, though it’s a cool, evaporative California night. They finish the inning, three easy outs. When Jake comes off the mound, it’s obvious he’s crying even from sixty feet away.
Alex catches two more innings, outs diminishing along with their chances. By the ninth inning, his eyes are wet, from crouching in two hundred days’ worth of dust, from knowing that they came this close to winning it all, only to have it snatched away.
So they lose.
They get swept and they lose. One hundred and sixty-two games and a division series and a championship series, all to walk away ringless.
Alex drifts to the clubhouse, unmoored. His vision blurs. His shoulders hurt, like the pressure of being deep underwater. He tears off his uniform, throws it toward his stall. He showers. Puts on clothes. Wishes sincerely for the San Andreas Fault to swallow him, personally. It doesn’t.
A reporter shoves a microphone toward him, and he almost shoves it right back, before shaking his head. “Get me tomorrow.” His voice sounds like old gravel.
He could get drunk. Other guys are making plans, as if whiskey is a valid substitute for champagne.
He can’t find Jake. It’s possible he’s already iced his arm and left. Alex texts a few times, aWhere are you?then anI’m going home. By the time he leaves, Jake still hasn’t responded. Alex drives back to his apartment. He rides the elevator up from the garage, praying no else one gets on. One of his neighbors is in the hallway; they wave at each other vaguely. With that, a pitying grimace, aGet ’em next timeaffirmation.
