Page 108 of Hiding in the Outfield

O’Neil pauses his game and finally looks my way. He nods. “I’d be down.” And just like that, the tension breaks.

Slater pops up. “I’ll grab some beers while you guys get our roster set up. I am obviously going to be pitching.”

I sit in the armchair next to the couch and pick up a controller so I can log in to my profile. “Where’s Henderson?”

“Hookup,” Slater yells back from the kitchen.

“I’m surprised the app hasn’t crashed yet with how often he’s on it,” O’Neil says.

I grin. “I guess I should expect him to sneak in sometime in the middle of the night then.”

O’Neil shakes his head as we start choosing our roster. “I don’t know where the guy finds the energy. I’m fucking dead on my feet every day. The last thing I could do is stay out until one or two in the morning. As much as an orgasm sounds nice, I have a right hand, and I don’t need to leave the house to use it. Plus, righty is an inexpensive date, and I’m broke as fuck.”

I snort and lift my fist. “Touché.” O’Neil shoots me a smile and dabs me.

Slater comes back into the living room, three beers in his hands, his phone tucked to his shoulder as he talks to someone. He wiggles the beers, and we take the hint and grab them from him. “Yeah, it’s no problem at all, Matt. Of course, I’ll do it.” He holds up a finger and mouths, one minute. “No, no, stop. It’s not too much. I don’t give a fuck. Gray is not facing that douchebag alone. And he’s not declining the invitation. We’ll show that fucker. I’ll go as his date.”

My eyebrows fly off my face. He’ll go as his date? I glance at O’Neil, who’s frowning at Slater, just as thrown off as I am.

Slater ends the call and slips his phone into his pocket. We both blink at him.

“What?”

“Dude,” O’Neil says. “You’re just going to drop that and not explain. When did you start dating guys?”

Yeah, seriously. Slater is queer too?

Slater shrugs. “Apparently, this fall. My little bro’s best friend has to attend his ex’s wedding. His ex of one month.”

“Fuck,” I murmur.

Slater nods, his jaw clenching. “Yeah, fuck that bastard. Grayson is such a sweet guy. He’s the quiet to my brother’s obnoxiousness. He’s more of a shy, artsy type. The two have always been attached at the hip, but he was finally kind of standing on his own two feet, and then this ex went and did this. My brother wants me to go as his date, because obviously I am a huge upgrade over that twatwaffle. Gray can show the tool he’s doing perfectly fine on his own.”

“Damn, that is low. Good for you, doing that for him,” O’Neil says.

“You don’t care that people will assume you’re gay?” I ask slowly.

Slater rolls his eyes. “Why the fuck would I care about that? I know you were best friends with a total douchecanoe, but you do realize we’re not all like that, right? Being gay or queer or whatever isn’t an insult. The world wants to make us think it is, and I refuse to play into that bullshit. Am I into men? Not that I’m aware of, but I also give zero shits if someone assumes I am.”

He looks back and forth between me and O’Neil. “Like, I truly do not understand. Why the fuck would me loving a man be an insult? Someone, please explain this to me. Because I’ve never been able to wrap my head around it.”

“Misogyny,” O’Neil murmurs as he puts our roster together. “Men are all powerful, right? Women are our objects. If you’re in a relationship with a man, who’s the object? Who’s the one in power? Someone has to be vulnerable and used, and that person is going to be a man. It disrupts the power structure they cling to. They have criteria for what they believe a man should be; you deviate from that in any way, and they throw it in your face like it’s a bad thing.”

“The box they’re determined to force us into,” I say softly. “Because they know keeping us locked in these boxes is the only way they can maintain their control.”

Slater’s gaze sharpens, and he eyes me curiously, like he can’t believe the words came from me. “That’s…exactly it. Fuck if anyone’s putting me in a box.”

“Unless it’s a batter’s box,” O’Neil pipes in.

“Trust, you do not want me in a batter’s box. Shohei Ohtani, I am not.”

I snicker because facts. Most pitchers are not good hitters, Ohtani being an exception and a literal baseball god. The guy has four MVPs and is looking on track to picking up his fifth. He has the second most MVPs ever, behind Barry Bonds, who holds the record. The MVP started in 1931. That’s almost one hundred years of MVPs, and he’s number fucking two. Shit is legend status.

“Thank fuck the National League doesn’t require pitchers to hit any longer.”

“I think we’re all better off with that change,” Slater says as he picks up his controller.

“Can throw the heat, but can’t handle facing it,” O’Neil snarks.