Page 74 of Diamond Ring
Alex sends back anokaythen goes to bed smiling at his ceiling.
Chapter Eighteen
June
Jake
Jake spends the morning they’re leaving for an extended East Coast road trip remaking his bed to the soundtrack of his bedroom’s rattling ceiling fan. His thoughts rattle in much the same way.You get five.Five times ripping off and laying out his sheets. At least it’s not ten—but it’s not zero either.
One. They’ve kept it casual since he left Alex’s six weeks before—occasional texts, not-quite-dates making out on Jake’s couch or in various hotel rooms on road trips. Nothing at the ballpark. That much they were clear on, even if Jake’s body feels magnetized in a way he hasn’t in years, kept apart by his fraying common sense. A reminder to himself that if they don’t get too far into this, then it’ll hurt less when it ends.
Two. Jake’s next start is against the Gothams. Jake finds New Yorkers charming, if aggressively brusque, but less so when they’re reminding him—at length and in detail—that he once lost a Fall Classic. As if he forgot.
Three.His stomach churns: his meds, which rob him of his appetite in the morning, his ability to get hard, even when he really wants to. He thought about chucking the bottle down the toilet, except some days they’re the only thing keeping him on the planet—a thought that, when he said it to his mom once, made her start crying.
Four.He’s here. He can stop after this. He can lie to himself and say this is because he’s tidying up before he leaves and not because the world feels like it’s going too fast, a full-tilt spin that threatens to throw him off.
Five.Okay, enough.
He pulls the bedspread taut one last time, then backs away before he can lose his nerve.
His suitcase is already sitting by the door, packed. In his carry-on, he stashes his necklace, his headphones, his sense of uncertainty and his greater one of hope—that for once, things might work out. He’s not sure which is heavier as he hauls his luggage to his truck, scanning himself for any twinge in his elbow.
They’ve taken a few other road trips this season: to play other teams in their division, a longer roadie down to Texas, followed by short-hop flights between cities before heading home. Nothing like the time-travel feeling of a haul between the coasts.
After boarding, Jake settles in a seat, one of two on this side of the aisle, reclining his seatback and relishing having enough legroom the way he never had in the minors. That this isn’t a lurching overnight bus. That later they’ll bring him one of two catered meals, and whatever he wants to drink, even if he mostly sticks with water.
Stuff he should be writing in his journal, along with confessing to that morning’s meltdown.Write everything, erase nothingis easier when he doesn’t do stuff he wants to pretend he doesn’t.
He takes out his journal. At least his pen is autograph smooth, though he hasn’t had to sign one of those in years, except by people who somehow think it’s funny to ask.
Remade the bed five times this morning. Stopped. A set of sentences like he can’t even admit this to himself, that his anxieties have shown up as unwanted, if expected, guests. That he’s worried about the series, about reinjuring his arm, about embarrassing himself in front of forty thousand people. And Alex.
A shadow hovers over him. Jake closes his journal and looks up to find Charlie standing in the aisle. “Mind if I sit?” Charlie asks. Like it’s not his clubhouse prerogative to sit wherever he likes, even if two guys their height next to each other might not be the most comfortable.
Jake was hoping to spend most of the flight pretending to watch movies to distract himself. “Sure.” He clears his stuff off the neighboring seat, leaving Charlie to shrink himself into it.
Charlie doesn’t say anything for a minute, though that’s not that unusual for him. Long enough that Jake starts digging around in his bag before pulling out his Nintendo Switch.
“What’re you playing?” Charlie asks.
Jake doesn’t really know Charlie all that well, though he doesn’t seem like he’d give Jake a hard time. “This open-world fantasy game.”
He gets an assessing noise as a response—possibly a criticism of gaming generally. Until Charlie digs in his own bag, pulls out a laptop that looks custom-built, and fires up the load screen for a strategy game that even Jake thinks is kind of nerdy. He doesn’t put it away for taxi and takeoff, just folds it in his lap, then reopens it once they hit cruising altitude. Jake wastes time running around, exploring various caves and dungeons, while Charlie builds galactic empires with a diplomatic seriousness.
“Long trip,” Charlie says finally.
“Yeah.”
“You feeling prepared?”
A fraught question, since Jake had a few decent starts in May but got skipped for off-days or when the bullpen needed some work. The team is playing well. He can’t complain. Out loud. “More or less.”
A concerned line etches its way onto Charlie’s forehead, as if his success is somehow riding on Jake’s. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
You gonna give me your elbow?Jake doesn’t say, because Charlie is being friendlier than he needs to be, especially when Jake blew him off when he reached out all those years ago. “I’m still getting used to the bigs,” he admits.
Charlie nods like he understands. “My first season back after surgery was tough.” As if Jake’s just been rehabbing his elbow for the past decade.
