Page 32 of Diamond Ring
“You’re gonna think my friends are a bunch of boring suburban kids.”
Alex laughs. “Probably. But so are you, and you’re weirder than most people think.”
“Thanks?”
“It’s a compliment.” Alex’s grin makes him want to skip the party for a bunch of other reasons.
Alex drives them to his friend’s house, hands at the ten and two o’clock positions on the wheel, slowing at every yellow light. He works the radio dial until he finds something acceptable, a rock radio station from Baltimore that fades in and out.
The street in front of Jake’s friend’s house is filled with cars. Alex parks, jumps out then opens Jake’s door like he can’t do that for himself. Music blares from the house every time someone comes to the porch to pump the keg. It is, in fact, top forty, and Jake laughs when Alex looks like he sucked something sour.
“We can go home,” Jake offers.
“I’ll be all right.” Though he says it with the tone of a man wearily going to war.
Inside it’s better lit than most high school parties Jake went to, the beer smelling marginally less foul. He gets a few enthusiastic calls of his last name at top volume. He doesn’t get any drunken-reunion hugs mostly because Alex growls when anyone comes within six inches of Jake’s arm.
They end up in a cluster of people Jake vaguely remembers from AP Spanish. Most of them are talking about themselves at increasing volume, about their internships and post-bacc fellowships and semesters abroad. Jake’s button-up shirt isn’t at all out of place, though Alex looks like he got the wrong address. The light catches the faint shimmer on the rise of his cheekbones.
One of Jake’s former classmates—Blair, who ducked his workload on every group project Jake ever had with him; who went with Jake to a danceas just a friend—approaches. Blair looks like he did in high school: blond, all-American, plus a few inches and thirty pounds of gym muscle. At the time Jake thought he was the hottest guy he ever saw in person. Now he’s wearing the same blue button-down as half the party and a beer-induced flush. His eyelashes are pale.
He thumps Jake on his good arm. “Man, what have you been doing with yourself?”
“I play ball,” Jake says. “Uh, professionally.” Next to him, Alex smirks around the cup of soda he’s drinking.
“Wow, still?” Blair says. Like baseball is something easily given up.
Jake nods. “Yep, still at it.”
“My mom said you didn’t go to college, so I guess you had to have a plan B.”
A comment that slides irritatingly under Jake’s collar. He offers his best media smile. “Pretty much.”
“You know he pitches in the majors, right?” Alex interjects.
Blair goes through a series of expressions that settles on exaggerated shock. “I’m messing with you, dude. You think we all weren’t watching the series? Too bad how it ended.” He nods to Jake’s slinged-up arm. “That how you got hurt?”
Jake ignores the look Alex is giving him. “More or less.”
“Really, good for you. I’d be scared to do something where if I got hurt, I got fired.”
“Our contracts are guaranteed,” Alex says. “Even if we’re injured.”
Blair’s eyebrows shoot up at the “our,” and he blinks at Alex like he’s trying to see past the sweater, the scowl, theglitter.
“Alex plays for the Elephants,” Jake clarifies. “He’s a catcher.” And he doesn’t saymy catchereven though the team hasn’t paired Jake with anyone else all season. Something normal in a clubhouse and strange anywhere else, with Alex standing close to keep people from crashing into Jake’s arm.
“Huh,” Blair says, as if recalibrating their relationship. “I was just talking about that dance—the one where you drank like half a bottle of vodka and puked on a playground?”
The one they went to together, but nottogether. And Jake didn’t date guys in high school—not for lack of trying with Blair, which at the time felt subtle and in hindsight was very, very obvious. The same obviousness he feels now, sitting on his skin like Alex’s glitter.
“Those were some wild times,” Blair adds.
“Sure were.”
Blair doesn’t do more than give him a slightly knowing look and a “good to see you,” before investigating more beer.
“I think he thought you were my date,” Jake says after Blair leaves. He means it in afunny ha-haway even if it doesn’t feel that funny.
