39. Dane

The Hotlanta Softball League championships were a big deal, at least to those of us who played. In the lower divisions, teams had to beat out dozens of others to make it to the finals. For us, it was yet another game against our only competition, the Aces. It might as well have been any other Sunday of the season.

But this was the championship. We played that day for bragging rights and a permanent spot on a trophy that would tower over the Parks and Rec office for generations.

Well, it would gather dust in the lobby, but it was permanent. And we wanted our team name etched on the tiny golden plate beneath the plastic statue of a swinging batter, not the fucking Aces.

This was a pride thing, and the guys were fired up.

Late September still sweltered, as was its wont in Atlanta. Without an ocean nearby, breezes were rare treasures. Humidity bathed us while the sun baked us. And we wouldn't have had it any other way.

As the higher-seeded team, we took the field first. Our coach gathered us in an amoeba-like huddle and worked us up into a shouting, chest-pounding, fist-pumping frenzy. Then we ran to our places in the dirt and grass.

This is why we play the game … for these moments … for this feeling.

The ball zipped around the infield as we stepped through our well-worn warm-up drills. Every throw screamed, streaks of a blurred ball hurled in the straightest line, the pop of the first baseman's glove our reward for a perfect pitch. A few times he actually removed his glove and shook out his hand, grinning like a madman at Eduardo or me.

Pain was weakness leaving the body.We had no weakness. We were fucking beasts.

By the third inning, we were leading the Aces by three runs. Their bats were nearly as live as ours. Both teams used up their requisite two over-the-fence homers in the first inning. Now, the championship teetered on defense and strategic batting.

As a player in a very different sport once said, "Hit it where they're not."

That was our plan. By the fifth, we were tied.

No one joked or jibed in the dugout. We didn't tease or laugh like during the regular season. Every man was focused and intense, gripped by the moment, driven toward the thrill of battle with every pitch and smack of the bat.

The seventh inning came too quickly. The score remained tied. The Aces were up.

Single over Eduardo's head, dropping halfway between him and the right-center fielder.

Single down the third base line, nearly foul but curving around the base fair.

Pop-up to left field.

Groundie right into my glove. A quick underhand toss got the runner out at third.

Two outs. A man on first and second. Top of the seventh, the last inning.

I crouched into my ready position, slapped my glove, and waited for the pitch.

The batter's eyes narrowed.

The ump adjusted his mask and squatted.

The entire world quietened and held its breath.

Smack!

The ball sailed over all our heads to slam into the fence and carom awkwardly toward the dugout. The Aces went wild, cheering and hooting and clapping. Their runners streaked around the bases, two stomping on home plate to the roar of their teammates.

We tagged the batter out as greed drove him toward third.

But the damage was done. We were down by two.

The teams changed sides, and tension, already as thick as the stubborn summer air, solidified, making it hard to breathe.

Eduardo was up, the first batter in the bottom of the last inning.

"Come on, you sexy beast. Give it to me now."

The team roared at the double entendre, but not in laughter. We were too focused to do that. What poured out of our dugout sounded like a group orgasm mixed with a sadistic cry.

And it was fucking hot.

The ripples of Eduardo's biceps sent a surge through me. The stretch of his triceps made me yearn.

When he smacked a line drive past the third baseman all the way to the fence, I thought I might cream my pants. He made it to second before the ball smacked into the pitcher's glove, halting play.

The dugout exploded in chants of, "Wardo, Wardo, Wardo!"

Our next batter flew out to right field, advancing Eduardo to third.

Then a single brought him home.

Down by one, runner on first.

Our pitcher—and reliably weakest batter, per the stereotype—strode from the on-deck circle to the plate. He smacked dirt off his cleats with his bat then set his stance, holding up one palm to the ump to buy time. He glanced at us one time, then lasered in on the pitcher like some Major League player readying for a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball.

The pitch came. It arced high, so slow. The stitching on the ball barely spun.

Smack!

Pop!

"Out," the ump called.

He hit it straight back to the pitcher, racking up our second out without advancing the runner.

Shit. Last inning. Last batter. Down by one. Two outs. Runner on first. Championship on the line.

And I was up.

I did the "smacking the dirt out of my cleats" thing.

"Come on, Walkman. You got this," one of the guys yelled.

"Fucking fireman. Damn right he's got it," another shouted.

"Bring me home," Eduardo called, and I almost laughed.

There wasn't a gay man alive who didn't want to hear those words out of his mouth, even if they didn't mean what he thought in that moment.

I stepped one foot into the batter's box and took a practice swing then stepped back out. My neck was tight. I snapped my head, earning a loud crack and flood of relief—but glimpsing something all too familiar beyond the fence.

Right there, on the top row of the bleachers, was Patrick.

He was sitting hunched over, elbows on his knees, though his legs bobbed as though he was so nervous he might vomit all over the row in front of him. He was wearing a tank top, and I could tell he'd been working out. Sweat glistened off new muscles, rounded shoulders, and firm arms.

I blinked a few times, trying to move.

"Batter up," the ump urged.

Patrick smiled and raised his hand in an awkward wave.

My face rebelled against my brain. Fuck me. I smiled back.

"Come on, batter. Let's go," the catcher taunted. "Fuck him later, and not just with your eyes."

The ump's rumbling laugh brought my feet back into the box. I shook my mind free of Patrick's gaze and tried to focus on the mound.

The pitch arced toward me. I swung, rolling my wrist like a fucking pro. My hips snapped. My shoulders wheeled.

And the bat whiffed right over the ball.

"Strike one," the ump said for the crowd.

The Aces rattled the fencing of their dugout in salute to their pitcher, but more to tease me for missing a pitch in slow-pitch softball.

I tried to ignore them, tried to ignore that Patrick was sitting behind me, watching me, had shown up months after—

"Strike two."

It was a perfect pitch, right down the middle to land just behind the pointy part of the plate. I hadn't even swung.

"Pull yourself together, idiot," I muttered, stepping out of the box and straightening my cap.

The guys in our dugout were statues. No one spoke. I wasn't sure they were breathing.

I stepped back into the box and shadowed a swing.

The pitcher bent. Then he tossed.

I swung, and …

Smack!

The ball sailed over the first baseman, streaked above the right fielder, and hit the upper railing of the fence, just barely staying in play. The ball barely bounced off the metal, dribbling a few feet from the fence to die smack in the middle of right and right-center.

Both dugouts erupted. The stands roared.

I rounded first and saw the runner ahead, a much faster guy, almost touching third. He'd made it home before I stepped on second base.

Our third base coach signaled wildly, his arm waving massive circles in the air, willing me on.

I rounded second and barreled toward third.

The coach's eyes widened, and his arms shifted. With both palms facing down, he motioned like he was "not worthy," the universal sign for "get down now!"

I readied to slide. Softball be damned. Leg skin be damned.

Then the ball flew over the third baseman's head and bounded off the fence, returning in wild bounces back into the grassy outfield.

Coach leaped up, his arm a rotor again, whipping with such excitement and speed I thought it might sail off into the sky.

I shifted gears and rounded third. Red clay flew behind me in billowing clouds.

The Aces' players pounded the fence and shouted as I streaked by.

The ump and catcher waited, each crouched and ready for whatever might come.

When my foot touched the plate a heartbeat before the ball smacked into the catcher's glove, the entire softball world shattered into shouts and screams and trills.

My team flew out of the dugout. Eduardo was the first to tackle me. Then our pitcher. Then our first baseman. Before I could think, a dozen men squished me into the dirt with my head pillowed by the hard, unforgiving home plate.

And I couldn't feel a thing.

My heart sang with the cheers of my teammates. We'd done it!

They peeled off one by one in an unpacking that took forever. By the time Eduardo reached his beefy palm down to lift me up, every muscle in my body ached from the weight of the pile.

And I didn't care.

"That was so amazing!" Eduardo held up his palm for a high-five.

I hugged the brute and plastered a kiss on his cheek.

He nearly leaped back, his eyes wide, so I punched him in the pec and laughed.

It was only then that I remembered the stands. And Patrick.

I wheeled about, unsure how to feel or think, unsure if I should even acknowledge his presence, though my little grin from the plate had already done that. I knew I should be pissed. He'd shown up unannounced, uninvited, and nearly blown our chances of winning. He'd thrown me off so badly, I'd not even watched a fucking pitch as it crossed before me. My brain screamed at me to give him a piece of my mind, to hurl insults and vent my frustration, to tell him to fuck off and leave me alone. I knew that's what I should do.

But I wanted to look, to see him there, to feel—

The bleachers were empty. Patrick was gone.