Team-Building

Ahead of them, the low evening light painted the softball field gold.

North tried not to look excited.

"Plus you'll get so much good exercise," Shaw said. Tonight, he'd gone with a crochet shirt, spandex shorts, and rainbow-striped platform shoes that he'd told North (without North asking) would let him run, quote, as fast as a rainbow . "Which is great, because I've noticed that sometimes when we're, um, spanking soldiers, you start breathing really hard, like, super hard, and I don't want to be one of those widows who have their husband die on top of them, you know, in the middle of it, and then they're screaming and screaming because they're stuck under the body—" He cut off with a squeal.

North released his grip on the spandex and kept walking. "My breathing is fine, jackhole. And I'm not doing this for the exercise. I'm doing this because you won't shut up about me not having any friends."

Hobbling after him—North knew that Shaw was probably thinking of it as soothing his nethers —Shaw said, "I know, and I think it's cute that you want to try, but in case, you know, it doesn't go as planned, I want you to consider all the other benefits—"

When North spun around, Shaw squeaked and tried to cover the shorts.

"It's going to go exactly as planned," North said. "It's going to go perfectly. It's a fucking rec league, Shaw. And I played softball in college."

"Intramural. We both did, actually."

North ignored that. "So, I'm going to go out there, and I'm going to show those asswipes who's boss. End of story."

"That doesn't exactly sound like making friends—"

North lunged, and Shaw tripped over himself trying to escape.

When North reached the field, a group of men were milling around the chain-link backstop. They ranged in age from their twenties to their fifties, but he pegged the majority of the men as solidly in their dad phase—expensive athletic apparel that didn't hide beer guts, high-end running shoes that probably hadn't clocked anything longer than the walk to the garage, and mile after fucking mile of male-pattern baldness. North studied the group, trying to pick out the competition. Maybe a couple of the younger guys who still had that cut look like Auggie. He rolled his shoulders to loosen them up. He pulled one arm across his chest. Then the other.

"You've been doing a lot of stretching," Shaw said. "And I want you to know that I appreciate how butch and manly it makes you look—"

Shaw cut off.

Then North saw it too.

He said, "Fuck me."

And Shaw shrieked, "Oh my God! Jadon! Nico! Over here!"

Jadon wore a gray athletic tee and mesh shorts, and he looked like six feet and change of lean muscle and great hair. Nico had gone with a tank that said KWEEN in giant sequined letters, and he was about four inches of pink nylon shorts away from doing full-frontal. North's interactions with the pretty man had been minimal, but he was still annoyed on general principle by how fucking perfect the two of them looked together. It might have been North's imagination, but he thought he saw Jadon hesitate like he might try to run.

Shaw, of course, didn't give him a chance.

"What are you guys doing here?" Shaw asked after several long hugs.

"They're playing tiddlywinks," North said. "Look how they're dressed, dumbass. He's going to fuck him in those bushes. What do you think he's going to do?" To Jadon he said, "Be more careful this time. You don't want to get your dick in the poison ivy again."

"Hi, North," Jadon said. "You guys know Nico."

"We love Nico," Shaw said. He was, somehow, already holding Nico's hand, and Nico looked both bemused and pleased. "Mostly because he's sweet, and also because he's perfect for Jadon, and also because he's so beautiful inside and out."

"Inside and out?" North said. "What the fuck do you know? He might be a huge bitch."

"I am, actually," Nico said.

"He's not," Jadon said flatly. And he gave North a warning look that almost—almost—made North smile. "Are you guys on the team?"

"No," North said automatically.

"North is," Shaw said. "He's going to be the pitcher because he told me the pitcher is the boss."

Nico actually giggled before he managed to get a hand over his mouth. Jadon gave him a look.

The heat in his face, North decided, was because the evening was so muggy.

"Small world," Jadon said in that same flat voice.

Nico giggled again. "Because Jadon wants to be the pitcher too."

"Oh my God," Shaw whispered.

"No," North said—automatically, again.

"Oh my God," Shaw said again, more loudly. "It's like my dream!"

"It's not like anything!" North snapped. "And it doesn't matter what fuck-of-the-week wants. I'm the pitcher."

"Because the pitcher's the boss," Shaw said, and then the traitorous little weasel burst out laughing.

North stalked off to join the rest of the men.

The team manager was a little-pronged guy who was sweating before he even opened his mouth, and the introductory remarks started at piss-poor and went downhill from there. The only part North heard was that the man would be making decisions about positions after observing everyone during the practice.

First up—and most importantly—were the throwing drills.

North played it cool as the men paired up, watching the dad-types who seemed to be drawn to their own kind. He tried to catch the eye of a couple of the younger, fitter dudes, but they'd formed their own little cluster.

"Need a partner?" Jadon asked.

"No," North said.

Jadon sighed. "Come on."

They moved away from the other men until they had room to work. North pulled on his glove and took a few seconds to adjust it. Jadon was already in position, chucking the ball against his own glove as he waited. When North was ready, Jadon threw the ball. It cut the air in a nice, clean arc—a great throw—and thunked into North's glove.

North rocketed it back.

Jadon caught it, but only barely, and by the look on his face, he'd felt the heat.

"Yay, North!" Shaw called from the stands. "You threw it so hard!"

Nico was shouting too. "What the hell was that?"

North grinned.

Jadon didn't. He set himself and threw the ball back. Smooth, controlled, flawless.

And North launched it right back at him.

"North! North! North!" Shaw chanted.

"Are you kidding me?" Nico called. "Jay, light his ass up!"

Jadon's face was all hard lines.

"Yeah, Jay," North said. "Light my ass up."

Jadon threw the ball. This time, it was like lightning. North barely got his glove up in time. The ball cracked against the leather. Pain flared, and then a tingling numbness swept through North's hand.

"Fuck yeah!" Nico screamed. "Fucking get a taste of that!"

Shaw seemed to have a less clear idea of how to trash talk because he shouted, "Take your shirts off!"

The other men were starting to look now.

North ignored them. He ignored his hand. And he threw.

They settled into a rhythm—ripping the ball as hard as they could, as fast as they could, until North's shoulder was screaming and his hand had moved beyond that tingling numbness into a dead ache that was actually a little worrisome. Nico and Shaw kept up the boos, jeers, shouts of encouragement, and occasionally confusingly sexual advances from the stands. (Shaw's "I want to have your babies" got a lot of eyes.)

But North kept his attention on Jadon. And Jadon, for his part, had lost the boyish charm, and his face was fixed now in hard-planed focus.

North almost didn't realize it when they started talking.

One of his throws went outside, and Jadon had to jump to catch it. Before he sent the ball back, he said, "I'm over here, North. Maybe Shaw's right. Maybe you do need glasses."

And when Jadon fumbled for the first time, North didn't miss a beat. "It's all in the grip, Reck." And he grabbed his junk to make sure Jadon didn't miss the point.

It escalated from there.

"You want the ball to go in the glove, big guy."

"Who taught you how to throw? Nico?"

"Nice fucking meatball."

"What the fuck was that? I've got more heat in my ass than that throw."

For some reason, that one cracked Jadon up. And then North was laughing too. Laughing so hard, in fact—and in spite of his shoulder, and his back, and his hand—that he could barely stay upright. Laughing until tears streamed down his face as he staggered over to collapse against Jadon.

The rest of the team was staring at them.

Shaw's scandalized voice cut through the night: "Stop laughing! You're supposed to fight!"

"Yeah, Jay!" Nico shouted. "Kick his ass!"

Somehow, North got himself upright. Jadon managed to stand too, and North slung an arm over his shoulder. Together, they looked at their bloodthirsty boyfriends.

"God," Jadon muttered. "They really got into it, didn't they?"

"They really did," North said. "Want to teach them a lesson?"

"Absolutely."

They were halfway to the bleachers, carrying the water cooler between them, when Nico and Shaw realized what was going on.

"No," Shaw said, trying to scramble backward. "No! North! No!"

"Jadon Reck," Nico said, pointing a finger, "don't you dare!"

"One," North said.

"Two," Jadon said.

They said, "Three," together, and they chucked the icy water out in a long, clear arc.

And, at the same time, Nico and Shaw screamed.

"We can never come back here," Jadon said as he hoisted the now-empty water cooler, and he tipped his head at the men who were still watching them. "You get that, right?"

"Fuck these fuckos," North said.

They were halfway to their cars when North decided it needed to be said. "You know he would have made me pitcher, right?"