Grant feigns shock. “What? You’re not staring at every other guy around you? You don’t want to bang everything with a dick? C’mon. If you like dudes, you must like every dude, right?”
I smile, digging his sense of humor. “That’s the gist of it. So, I asked if they wanted to bang every woman they saw.”
“That made it clear, I hope.”
I snort. “Not entirely. A couple of guys were like, I’m up for pretty much any chick who wants to sleep with me.”
Grant cracks up. “Men. We’re pigs, right?”
“Total fucking pigs,” I add.
“Did your boyfriend come to games?”
Unfortunately, he did, even after I told him we needed to cut back, that I had to focus on the sport. Kyle would hang around after the last pitch, waiting for me in the parking lot. When I explained I needed space so I could play the game, he went out and got a press pass and used that to get into the locker room after a game.
I shake away the unpleasant memories and tell Grant, “He showed up at too many games.”
The rookie winces. “Ouch.”
“Yeah. Ouch, indeed.” I pause, weighing what I’m about to say, and who I’m really telling. It’s for me more than him, but I think he’ll listen. He seems to notice a lot, to take everything in.
“I’ll give you one piece of unsolicited advice,” I say solemnly. “Don’t get involved with a soul your rookie year. You do not need distractions in your first pro season. It’s a make-it-or-break-it time.”
He gives an I’ve got you grin, clearly on board. “I couldn’t agree more. My best friend calls me Grant ‘Lock It Up’ Blackwood.”
I arch a brow at that. “You don’t say?”
I know I need to eighty-six this convo now. By my own advice, I shouldn’t give in to curiosity when something about him intrigues me. But how do I resist when everything about him is so damn intriguing?
“Only way to do it, right?” Grant says.
“Only way,” I agree. We’re at my door and I reach for the key card. “You know, they’re going to think that we’re fucking.”
It’s just an observation, but once those words make landfall, I can picture it, crystal clear.
Him. Me. Tangled together in the sheets. Sweat, heat, muscles, moans, grunts.
It’s too damn tantalizing.
And . . . I should not have put that out there as a hypothetical.
Now the image of us fucking is playing on repeat in my head.
And it’s turning me all the way on.
“Good thing we’re not then,” Grant says.
“Damn good thing,” I echo.
I head inside, shutting the door between us and leaning against it, blowing out a deep breath.
I reach for focus and finish the poem.
And miles to go before I sleep,
Having met Grant, I’m going to have to revise Robert Frost’s famous ode.
And miles to go for me to resist.
8
Declan
I learned my lesson from Kyle, and from the tons of men and women who came before me, pro athletes who found out the hard way—the way I did—that love and sports don’t mix.
To perform at the top, at that one percent of one percent of one percent, you need to laser in on the job.
If love lures you with a whisper or a sexy smile, convinces you to give your energy to it, then more often than not, the sport loses out to temptation.
Sure, there are cases where things work out. Maybe a guy has had a girlfriend or boyfriend for years, maybe since high school even, so by the time he enters his rookie year, romance is the baseline, part of the fabric of his existence. But I suspect those happy endings happen to people who live a charmed life in the first place.
That’s not my story.
It might seem like a fairy tale, especially from the outside, and I won’t pretend things aren’t good right now—fat salary, plum endorsements, a swank house in San Francisco.
But it wasn’t always this way.
My mother worked in advertising, penning copy for commercials at an agency in Los Angeles before we eventually moved to San Francisco. She met Tyler there and opened a boutique shop for writing and recording commercial jingles.
My dad was a terrific minor leaguer once upon a time, racking up batting titles in the farm leagues. When that played out, he owned a tow truck business, and that went belly up. Last I heard he was still in the Bay Area—he moved there when I was in high school—and is now with wife number three, trying to start a new towing business with his cousin.
It was a workaday world, growing up. When I was younger, my parents did alright, but no one was getting rich, no one was paying off loans. But my dad was developing other interests—other than baseball, work, for his family. He kept them hidden for a long time, but eventually, painfully, his bad choices spilled over onto my mom, my life, and my sport. Baseball was my one true love, and memories of him showing up at my games in the worst way, over and over again, still make me cringe.
I’d give a lot to erase them, along with the crap that happened after.
To me.
It took me a long time to right the ship after it capsized, but I managed, and I vowed to never forget. To never fall back. I learned firsthand that focus is a rare and precious thing. You need to hone it, nurture it, protect it.
No one else in the whole entire world can do that for you. You can only do it for yourself.
In college, I was damn good at staying zeroed in on my goals, but man cannot live on sports alone.
I’m human. I need connection now and then. And every once in a while, I need some intimacy.
Plus, I suppose I’ve always been a sucker for a soft heart, and Kyle had one.
He was a friend from college, and the two of us reconnected when I played minor league ball in Bakersfield. He came to some games. We went out. Everything was . . . fun.
Then I went to spring training right as it was getting more intense with him. He was a gentle soul, a writer who wore his heart on his sleeve, poured it into his words.
And into me.
More than I expected. More than I had room for.
I tried to make room for those emotions—talking to him in the evenings after practice, trying somehow to sustain a long-distance thing.
“I miss you, babe,” he’d say. “Do you miss me too?”
“Send me a text in the morning, so I know you’re thinking of me.”
“Can I come see some of your games? I’ll catch a plane. Root for you.”
Soon, my answers—“Thanks, but my schedule is crazy,” or, “I was out for a run at six-thirty in the morning so I forgot to text”—weren’t enough.
He wanted more. Wanted to buy a ticket to Phoenix to see me play. Wanted to go out to dinner after a game.
I was stretched thin, with little experience at balancing a boyfriend’s needs with my own. I was twenty-two with a pro contract and a future I desperately needed. I didn’t know how to manage his hurt. The more he needed me, the less I could give, and the more it weighed on me.
I didn’t want to be that kind of boyfriend.
Soon enough, the late-night calls and the early-morning pleas affected my game.
There is no room for a few bad games in the Major Leagues. There’s barely room for one when you’re a rookie in spring training.