5. Ellis

CHAPTER 5

ELLI S

"I fucking hate you," I grumble as my brother lowers a batting helmet over my head.

"Aww, come on. The uniform looks good on you," Elliot says, palming the helmet and shaking my head around like you would a puppy. "You're officially part of the team now."

I scoff and swat him away. "Oh yeah? Does that mean I can move into the athletic dorms? Is there a scholarship in this? Hell, Elliot, is there anything in this for me at all? Why am I doing this?"

"Because I'm your favorite twin brother and you love me, and the team needed someone. You've been locked in the art studio your entire fall break, anyway."

"Not true. I came to your stupid poker game last weekend."

Elliot shoots a finger gun at me. "Oh yeah, that's right. And you lost a bet, so you have to help us out."

"I swear you cheated, and you got all your team buddies in on it."

"It's not my fault you have no poker face. "

I grumble some more about him being a cheater, and he throws his arm around me as several of his teammates arrive in the locker rooms. There are cheers and patronizing pats on the shoulder coming at me from all angles, to which I grit my teeth and give them the closest semblance of a grin back. Elliot and I arrived early to make sure we could find an extra uniform that fit me, so I'm thankfully dressed and able to slip out of the locker room before it all becomes too much. I catch myself staring at each guy that walks in, wondering if they could be him . I don't want my inability to keep my curiosity to myself to get me in any hot water. It's bad enough that I got roped into being the equipment manager, aka bat boy , for the baseball team's first intra-squad scrimmages. Thankfully, there are likely to be very few people in the stands since this is just a scrimmage. Sometimes the diehards and sponsors come out to assess the talent, but not many students come to watch these pre-season practice games.

Huffing, I head to the field to make sure everything is ready for both sides. By the time the players make their way onto the field for warmups, I've tucked myself into the shadows on the far side of the home dugout with a sketchbook, losing myself in the pencil drawing of myself wrapped around a dark figure.

"Hey, Little E."

I snap my sketchbook shut, scowling up at Gabe as he enters the dugout with his arms full of his catcher's gear. He drops the equipment on the bench and walks over to me. As casually as possible, I put my sketchbook to the side, scolding myself for drawing in public. I should know better, I do know better, but I have little to no control when I get lost in a drawing. And lately, my drawings have taken on a distinctly sexual tone that I am absolutely not interested in sharing with anyone. Except maybe Johnny. In the six weeks since the party, we've shared so much with each other that I think he might know me—truly know me—better than anyone has before .

"Drawing anything good?"

"What? Uh, no. Just doodling," I tell him, hoping against hope that it's dark enough to hide the way my face is heating.

"Can I see?"

So he can hold it up for everyone to see, like the last time he got his hands on one of my sketchbooks? Yeah, hard pass. I've learned my lesson. Considering the sneers my innocent caricatures of Elliot and Gabe's high school teammates got me, I imagine that my semi-nude shadow monster porn wouldn't be received well.

"You need to stop calling me Little E," I say, deflecting the conversation to yet another lost cause. I stand and slip past him before he can crowd me and force me to hand over the sketchbook.

"Your brother used to not like being called 'Hopey', but if the uniform says it, that's what people are going to call you," he says, chuckling.

"It doesn't," I tell him, turning around to show the back of the jersey. Since this is someone else's old uniform, the back says Smythe or something like that.

Gabe laughs. "Stay still," he says softly, stalking toward me. Immediately, my anxiety goes into overdrive, wrestling with my flight or fight instincts, and I freeze instead of doing anything. His dark gaze has me locked in place, my breath catching at the way he seems to move in slow motion. When he reaches me, he stands close enough that I have to crane my neck to look up at him. His expression is unreadable. But I've spent the past few months in LaLa land, pretending my anonymous lover is him, and now my brain interprets it as something close to desire. His hands come to rest on my shoulders, gently turning me around so my back is facing him. Gooseflesh prickles the skin at the back of my neck when he gently brushes some of the hair that has come loose from my ponytail to the side. I know I'm imagining things when I swear I can feel the heat of his breath on my skin, and the smell of cinnamon tickles my nose.

This isn't real.

I'm jerked out of my ridiculous haze when the coach blows a whistle, and the players break up into two groups, running toward the dugouts. The warmth of Gabe's body against my back disappears, and he holds out a piece of masking tape that has the words "Little E" written in blocky letters.

Fucking Elliot.

JOHNNY: How was your day?

ELLISH: Annoying, mostly. Yours?

JOHNNY: Pretty entertaining, actually.

ELLISH: Oh?

JOHNNY: Yeah, I watched the baseball scrimmage. Team looks good. The new bat boy looks better, though.

"Oh my God," I choke, my head snapping up to look around the dining hall. I'm here early for a Pride Alliance meetup. It's still a couple of hours until dinner is served, so it's empty aside from Ivy and Jamie walking through the tables to get to me.

Ivy looks concerned. "Are you alright?"

"Uh, f-fine."

"Why do you look like you've seen a ghost?" Jamie adds .

"I think Johnny figured out who I am," I say, a little flustered.

"Ohh," Ivy says, but she has a funny expression on her face. Jaime gives her a knowing sideways glance.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Their expressions are too close to pity for my liking.

Tyrell appears, sitting on Ivy's left. His gaze moves from me to Ivy and Jamie, who are still looking at me funny. "What's happening? Why are we staring at the baby gay like that?"

"Is he wearing those baggy jeans again?" Antoni says, peering around Tyrell's shoulder. "Ellis, we've talked about this. A cute little ass like that deserves skinny jeans." He comes around the table and peers down at my pants.

"Ew, it's worse," he says before sitting down on my right. Since I came directly from the scrimmage, I'm still wearing the team-issued baseball pants, but I took off the jersey and pulled a black hoodie over my t-shirt.

Sean joins us, sitting on my other side. "What's up?"

Ivy clears her throat. "It seems Ellis' anonymous chat friend has figured out who he is," she says. Her words are slow and sarcastic, full of blatantly fake concern.

Sean pats my shoulder, and Antoni pets my hair. Tyrell pushes his bottom lip out. I snort out a laugh, because even if I haven't caught on to the joke that everyone else is clearly enjoying at my expense, I fall in love with these people a little more every day.

"I'm not, like, worried or anything," I tell them. "Just surprised."

"That's good," Jamie says with a patronizing nod. "You know, since your username is your actual name. Which is attached to your profile. With your name, grade, and major."

I roll my eyes. "Well, duh. I mea n, all that stuff is private on my account. I knew the risk of keeping my username, but I'd already started talking to him before I could consider changing it. But, you know, it's a big campus, I kind of assumed it'd be less likely that we'd cross paths."

"Except that you said he's an athlete, and you hang around athletes almost exclusively," Ivy points out.

"Is that why you've been spending so much time at the athletic dorms?" Sean asks.

"No." Yes . "My brother lives there, and?—"

"And you two are so close," Ivy interrupts sarcastically.

"We are twins," I remind her. "And I hang out with all of your dumbasses there, too. Although I'm starting to wonder why," I say, my tone dripping with sarcasm. I have a love-hate relationship with the way this group calls each other out on their bullshit.

"I'm just saying, you had to know this was going to happen eventually," Tyrell says. "But, moving on—How did he find you?"

Careful not to show them any of last night's more explicit flirtations, I show them the last couple of messages with Johnny.

" The new bat boy is hot A-F ," Antoni reads out loud, assessing my outfit again. "Well, that makes more sense."

"That's a little creepy," Tyrell says, just as Ivy exclaims, "That's hot."

Then they launch into a conversation about whether Johnny is coming off a little stalker-y, and if it's sexy if he is. Apparently, Ivy's description of Johnny being "a little creepy in a hot way" does not compute with Tyrell. He blames it on all the weird smut she reads, and then turns a concerned glare on me.

"How do you feel about it?" he asks .

"I've liked being anonymous," I answer honestly. "But I don't think I'm in any sort of danger, physically or otherwise. I feel like I know him," I say with a shrug.

They don't know just how close Johnny and I have gotten. I've never told anyone about our anonymous hookup in the dark the night of the dorm party. They don't even know just how far past flirty our texts have grown, that we've been getting off most nights to pictures and videos of each other jerking ourselves. Just the other night, I defiled my art studio and used blue paint as lube to jerk myself off because it's Johnny's favorite color. It was hell to wash off, but I got some artsy photos out of it. Some cum may or may not have made it onto the canvas I was working on.

"Except you still have no idea who he is," Antoni chimes in. "Does that bother you?"

"Maybe it should, but it doesn't," I shrug.

"You have no idea who this guy is, and it sounds like he's watching you," Tyrell says, brows furrowed.

A shiver runs up my spine, and my face flushes. That he knows who I am and might be watching me is giving me the opposite sort of reaction than it should.

Sean laughs, covering it up with a fake cough, barking out "closet freak" between coughs. Everyone laughs, but it takes another twenty minutes of promising that I'll be careful and keep everyone updated if Johnny says or does anything weird before they will drop it.

It's not until they're all gone and I'm back in my room that I pull my phone back out and decide how to respond to Johnny's last message. If he was at the scrimmage, does that mean he's a baseball player? Or was he one of the people in the stands? The first intra-squad game wasn't closed to the public, but the players' families were the only people officially invited. Since many of the players are from out of state, there were only a few parents in the stands. It ended up mostly being girls who are dating team members, talking amongst themselves and not paying much attention to the game.

ELLISH: So. Tell me about this bat boy…

JOHNNY: I'm not sure I remember much more than his ass. Nearly lost my concentration every time he walked past.

ELLISH: *laughing emoji* I can see how that would be entertaining.

JOHNNY: All I could picture is what he was wearing underneath those tight little pants.

ELLISH: Briefs, probably.

I smirk as I give him a sarcastic, boring answer. But I underestimate how much Johnny likes my basic briefs.

JOHNNY: Mmm, yes. Tight enough that I can see the outline of that perfect little cock.

Maybe I should be embarrassed or even outraged at the way he refers to my cock as little, but either I'm a lot more secure in my masculinity than I think I am, or he's broken my brain. Because I have a very different reaction to his praise. Johnny calling me little or pretty is such a turn on, even in reference to my cock, that all the hairs on my body stand up at the amount of sheer arousal that flushes through me. Besides that, I' d imagine most people would be considered little when compared to him.

ELLISH: Like these?

Since Brad won't be back from his fall break until tomorrow, I've had the room blessedly to myself, and I've taken advantage of it. Pushing the dark blue material of the baseball pants down my legs, I stand close to the mirror inside my wardrobe door and show him the black briefs I'm wearing underneath.

JOHNNY: What I wouldn't give to taste you again.

ELLISH: You know who I am now. We could meet again.

JOHNNY: …

The three little dots that tell me he's typing pop up and then disappear. I hurry to type another message before he can finish whatever thought he's trying to work out.

ELLISH: I won't peek, I promise.

JOHNNY: Wear the white ones tomorrow.