Page 45 of Diamond Ring
Mike: Yeah, I hear that
A pause. It really is late. Jake should just go to sleep, even if this is better than most of the conversations he has on here, which are either perfunctory or excruciatingly dull.
Mike: There’s no real great way to ask for pics now, huh?
Jake laughs, an actual laugh, loud against the walls of his bedroom that for once don’t feel like they’re closing in on him. He scrolls through his photo roll for the go-to picture he took a while ago and reuses. But it feels like cheating not to send something new.
He takes a few pictures, careful not to get his face in them, showing off the acreage of his chest and stomach, a slight twist in his waist to display the curve of his ass. The waistband of his boxers has ridden up. He pulls it lower, getting the transition point from the line of hair down his stomach where it widens, but going no further.
He sends one and tries to predict the response: a set of sweat droplets. An ask if he’s cut. A notification that Mike tried to screenshot the picture. A message comes through instead.
Mike: Don’t think it’s being vain when you look like that
Ben: Damn, what a line.
Mike: You know what you look like
It’s teasing, familiar. Very few things come from these apps, but Jake wants—with an ache beyond wanting to hook up—something else. To meet Mike in person. To go out for dinner or drinks. The fantasy of being an actual human being and not just a ballplayer who moves every few months.
Mike: I gotta turn in for the night
That’ll probably be that. Of course.Fuck. Jake should have just gone to sleep.
Mike: If you’re around for the next couple days, maybe we can talk?
Jake shouldn’t let his heart beat against his ribs. It’ll probably turn out to be nothing. Maybe it’s the late hour or the possibility of spring, as sentimental as it feels. A new season. A chance, even if it’s his last one, to make it.
Or maybe the bad ventilation in this place is making him dizzy. That doesn’t stop him from typingI’ll be around.
Chapter Twelve
April
Jake
When Jake gets to the clubhouse the next day, he half expects the team to have moved his stall as far from Alex’s as geographically possible. They haven’t. He sits and forces down a breakfast smoothie while being watched by theAngelidesplacard above the neighboring stall.
He’s about to get his work in for the day when Courtland comes into the changing area. He gestures to Jake with a vaudeville hook of a finger. Which probably means a talking-to. Jake’s stomach tightens even further.
Someone else comes in with Courtland who Jake doesn’t recognize. He’s wearing team gear though he looks less like a baseball coach and more like a stock photo in a brochure for a cruise: white, tanned, gleaming.
“This is Todd.” Courtland manages to makeToddslightly derisive.
Todd extends an uncallused hand, pumping Jake’s a few times in greeting. “I’m the mental skills coach.” Which would explain why he’s wearing happiness like a cloud of body spray.
“You know where Angelides is?” Courtland asks.
“Haven’t seen him,” Jake says.
Alex contradicts that almost immediately, coming back into the changing area, hair wet from the shower, a towel tied around his waist. Jake doesn’t look at him, not at the slide of the water down his chest or at the birthmark—a constellation of freckles high on his hip—that Jake was only moderately obsessed with during their rookie year, though it’s hard to make out from this distance.
Alex catches him watching, then turns and starts pulling on clothes, his shirt clinging to the damp part of his back.
Courtland clears his throat. “I might be forgetful in my advanced age, but I seem to recall there being some issues between you two. The kind that make it difficult for the rest of us to operate.”
Meaning someone—probably Martinez—ratted them out for getting into it yesterday. “It’s been ten years,” Jake says, which isn’t a denial. He can work with Alex. He might grind his teeth to powder, but he can do it.
Courtland looks unconvinced. “The thing about getting older is that you realize time doesn’t exactly heal all wounds.”
