Page 27 of Diamond Ring
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Alex says finally. “I’m sorry. I’m worried about next season. I’m worried about a lot of stuff.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Lying at this angle, Jake’s arm twinges. He sits up, grunting loud enough that Alex says, “Are you okay?”
“My arm hurts. All the time. I thought it’d be like, quick surgery—the incision wasn’t even that big—but it aches. Apparently, this is normal.”
He adjusts his arm in the sling; his elbow gives another bark of complaint.
“How long is it supposed to be like this?” Alex asks.
“Who knows? Every body is quote unquote different. It’ll hurt until it doesn’t, and then it’ll probably hurt trying to build strength up again.” Jake readjusts his arm. It’s getting bad. He could take something, even if it means being out of commission for most of the day. He only has so many of the good painkillers left before the doctors want him to transition to over-the-counter stuff. And weed. Which they didn’t technically say so much as heavily imply, and Jake’s mother pretended their backyard has an endemic skunk problem all through his high school years, so there’s no reason to think that’s going to change.
But he doesn’t want to get off the phone in case he and Alex spend another two months not speaking. “Sorry, this all just kind of sucks a lot,” Jake says. “My mom told me to stop moping.”
“It’s fine. Not the elbow. The moping.”
“This is why I put off telling you. So you wouldn’t try to coddle me.”
“I’m not.” Though Alex’s tone is warm, fond.
Whatever’s going on at Alex’s house gets louder, background noise increasing from a clatter to a full roar. Jake should probably tell him goodbye, that he’ll text him. That he wants to know what Alex is up to so he can live vicariously through the offseason he was supposed to have, minus the Fall Classic loss. Minus whoever Alex sent that check-in text to.
“You probably have to go,” Jake says.
“Yeah. We’re making lunch soon. They got Evie these knives and now she wants to cut everything.”
“They got a nine-year-old knives?”
“Kid-safe ones. They’re nylon or something. She has to have someone supervising her, which is usually me.”
Jake’s only met Evie once, when they were playing Boston and Alex’s family drove in for games. Evie, skinny and blonde just like Marianne, her biological mom, and nothing like Alex. Except for the facial expression they both make when they’re frustrated, which was kind of adorable. Even more adorable when Evie fell asleep during the late innings and Alex carried her back to his aunts’ car asleep on his shoulder.
“That sounds pretty terrible,” Jake teases.
“Mostly, if I try to slice anything, she criticizes my technique.” Another clash in the background. “But I’m glad you told me about your arm.”
“I should’ve sooner. I don’t know what I’m gonna do all year. Probably crawl out of my skin, honestly.”
“I meant it about coming down there. I could get a hotel room.”
“You could stay here.” Even if Jake’s parents’ guest room-slash-office is really more the latter and is currently occupied by his mom’s work files. “I’m not really that much fun to be around.”
“I don’t mind.” Said softly.
Jake taps the mute icon again, so that he doesn’t say something he’ll regret. Like that he’s going to miss Alex for the season, stuck on the other side of the country, different from how he misses his Maryland friends when he’s playing nine months of the year. That he has his friends and teammates—andAlex, who’s both, but more than that, in his own category.
“Let me ask my parents,” Jake says after he unmutes his phone.
“Maybe like, New Year’s or right after?”
New Year’s is only a few days away. Now that the possibility is there, Jake doesn’t want to wait that long. “Yeah, sounds good. I’ll text you.”
For a second, neither of them hangs up, Jake breathing into the phone and Alex doing the same. A reminder of that night in Oakland. One that Jake should ascribe to being drunk and in shock and nothing more. Even if, with Alex coming to see him, it’s maybe not just that.
“Let me know.” Alex disconnects the call without waiting for Jake’s reply.
Afterward, Jake spends a few minutes staring at the unblemished paint of his bedroom ceiling, wondering if Alex sleeping in the next room is a terrible idea—or the best one he’s had in months.
