Page 43 of Hiding in the Outfield

Michaels nods seriously. “Love some salty nuts with my sweet cream.”

I choke, and Nebs loses it completely behind him.

Michaels, still dead serious despite Nebs’s squeals of laughter filling the locker room, turns, searching again. “Slater. That was some of the nastiest stuff I’ve seen you throw over the plate. You beat your record fastest pitch tonight, didn’t you?”

He nods and goes to open his mouth. I can see his rebuttal because he was throwing fast but missing the strike zone.

Michaels shuts him down. “What’s your ice cream?”

“Double-fudge brownie.”

Michaels’s eyes flutter shut. “Yessss, bro. Good choice.”

“Olander!”

I snap to attention.

He raises a brow. “Home run. Do I need to say more? And can we all take a minute to appreciate how deep you went? Like, give me that every night, bro.”

A few wolf-whistles echo through the room, and Michaels grins. I shake my head, lips twitching. The guy has a serious talent for turning everything into innuendo. It’s amazing how different the atmosphere is with Dev gone. I can almost feel him leaning into me to mutter a hateful comment. But now…now I can laugh and enjoy the banter with my teammates.

“Come on now. Cough it up. Ice cream flavor?”

“Moose Tracks.”

“Ooooh, we’ve got a wild one here, folks.”

Laughter ripples through the room.

Michaels continues his tirade, stopping over every guy who played tonight, highlighting something they did well, and ending with their ice cream flavor. By the end, I have tears in my eyes, and we’re all out of breath and red in the face from laughing. The heaviness from earlier is completely gone. This is the most team-like we’ve felt in a long time.

Bad energy out, good energy in.

“Now channel that and play better,” Shane demands. “Or I will break out the golden thongs.”

A few of us grin—those familiar with the story—and some look a little nervous, which only has me chuckling as I head for the workout room to cool down on the bikes.

Are we magically going to win all our games now that we know each other’s favorite ice cream flavor? No. But it makes a world of difference when you walk out onto that field manifesting the win versus assuming an inevitable loss.

When I get back to my cubby, I snatch up my phone. New text notification.

Frankie

Sleep over tonight.

I hesitate. I didn’t get to see him today, so it’s really tempting. I’ve stopped by whenever I could the past few days. Bringing him coffee, keeping him company while he’s bored-as-fuck, making sure his icepacks are changed out and fresh. We’re getting scarily good at Jenga.

He also sat me down and had The Talk with me.

The extent of that talk with my dad had been: Wrap it up. I don’t want to deal with a woman bitching you got her pregnant. I grimace.

Frankie’s talk was much more comprehensive. It covered the gamut: safe sex, condoms, PrEP, STI testing, the importance of lube—he could not emphasize more the importance of lube. He threw condoms and lube packets at me like confetti.

But he also addressed things no one had ever bothered to say out loud: consent, communication, and the reassurance that there was no rush. He sent me home with pamphlets and a handful of websites, and let me know I could go back to him with any questions. I do have questions, a lot of them, but I haven’t been ready to voice them yet.

I glance back at the text. Sleeping over also sounds like…I swallow hard…like the next step. Which is good. Obviously. So great.

Only a teeny tiny bit of pressure crashing over me. Tidal waves are teeny tiny, right?