Page 78 of Diamond Ring
“I trust you.” He doesn’t wait for Jake’s response before setting up.
Jake’s fastball is slow by any standard of the game but blazing for a ball thrown between people having an evening catch. He tosses one, and Alex snags it, then takes off his glove and shakes out his hand to give Jake a hard time. He returns it with almost as much force.
Jake throws again, a flutter of a changeup that alights into Alex’s glove. A beauty of a pitch, even if he and Alex and the elms are the only ones to fully appreciate it.
A fastball after that, and Jake tries to rein in his velocity, but it comes out with almost max effort, and Alex really does have to shake his hand out after he snags it. Jake waits for his assessment, to see if thegood, really good, greathe feels matches the reality of what he just threw.
“Hey, Fischer,” Alex calls, “c’mere.”
Jake focuses on the ground between them, the compaction of earth under his sneakers, the burgeoning sensation like they might have stumbled into something. When he looks up, Alex is giving him a full measure of a smile. He throws down his glove like he just caught the last out of a championship, then wraps Jake in a hug. “That looked amazing.”
“Really?” Jake’s heart is going, his mind days ahead with plans for how he wants to use that.
Alex hasn’t let go of him yet; he tightens his arms. “If I was a hitter facing that, I’d trip over my own feet trying to chase it.”
“It’s pretty unrefined. We’d have to be clear on where you set up.”
“Jake”—another squeeze, this accompanied by the slow drag of Alex’s knuckles at the back of his neck—“just be happy about it.”
“Yeah,” Jake says, “okay.”
They stand like that for a minute, the city pulsing around them, Alex’s lips at his neck. “I want to kiss you,” Alex breathes.
“There might be people watching us.”
“I know.” Alex doesn’t lose the intensity of his grip. “You ever want to tell the world to go fuck itself?”
Jake laughs. “Every single goddamn day.”
“Good. Now, c’mon, let’s try that again.”
Chapter Nineteen
June
Jake
Dinner the next night is in the blue-painted back room of a Mediterranean restaurant, sequestered from the main dining area to spare other patrons the sight of big leaguers eating. It’s mostly guys from the Elephants, but a handful from New York as well, including both teams’ catchers: Eugenio Morales, who plays for the Gothams, and Zach Glasser, who plays for the Union. They’re sitting catty-corner to one another when Jake rolls in, looking over the menu with a seriousness Jake reserves for scouting reports.
Morales he knows only by his All-Star reputation. He’s built like a catcher, broad, a little taller than Alex, with a mural’s worth of tattoos. Zach he knows through the much more direct method of being Jewish ballplayers from Maryland and possibly—probably—being somehow related.
Zach waves him over, then gets up to give him a ballplayer hug, a back thump he accompanies with a “Good to see you” that makes Jake’s voice go momentarily hoarse in his throat.
“Good to be here.”
Morales offers a hand, nails painted electric orange like a dare. Jake shakes it briefly, then sits in the chair next to Zach’s. Zach doesn’t sit for long, though, when the rest of the group comes in—including Alex, who sits at Jake’s other side, Charlie, and Johnson.
Zach and Charlie exchange a brief, cordial greeting, but Johnson and Zach are apparently actually friends.
“You’re really not gonna tell me?” Zach asks as soon as Johnson seats himself in the chair opposite Jake’s.
Johnson smiles. “I could be persuaded.”
Morales lets out a huff. “Please tell him. He’s mentioned it four times in the past hour.” Said fondly, especially when Zach looks faintly embarrassed and doesn’t deny it.
“If y’all really want to know that bad”—Johnson takes out his phone, types something on it, then slides it across the table—“there you go.”
Zach studies it for a minute, and Jake absolutely doesn’t try to read over his shoulder because that would be nosy. Also Zach is about his height, so it makes the angle difficult. “One-seventy,” Zach says. “Is that, uh, good?”
