“—uneven because you let your roommate cut it?—”
“CJ.”
“—and my hat was so big it kept sliding over my eyes, and I looked like a Little Leaguer playing dress-up.”
Evan pressed his lips together, fighting a smile before his expression slid quickly back to irritation. “This isn’t a heartwarming reunion.”
CJ should have let it go, but the warmth from the interview and the surge of half-fond nostalgia made him reckless. “It kind of is.”
The second he said it, he wished he hadn’t. Evan’s glare flicked toward him, a sharp enough rebuke that CJ immediately regretted having a mouth. He lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. You’re right. It’s an absolute PR nightmare. Worst thing that could’ve happened. Tragic, really.”
A reluctant, barely there twitch pulled at the corner of Evan’s mouth before he smothered it with a sigh. CJ pretended not to notice. Pretended that almost making Evan laugh didn’t feel stupid and warm in his chest.
Margo poked her head back into the room. “Break’s over, guys. Team meeting in ten. Do not make Coach send someone to look for you.”
CJ frowned. “Why did that sound like a threat?”
Evan grabbed his water bottle. “Because itisa threat.”
CJ followed him out of the room and into a hallway buzzing with players funneling toward the video room. Someone whose name he couldn’t remember offered him a fist bump he barely registered. He could feel Evan walking beside him, close enough that their arms brushed once, accidental and quick but more than enough to short out his brain for a beat. He kept his eyes forward, pretending it hadn’t happened.
He wasn’t delusional enough to think Evan would welcome him sitting next to him, so he hung back until Evan took a seat in the second row on the aisle. Once he was settled, CJ slid into a seat in the third row on the far side of the room, close enough to see the straight line of Evan’s shoulders. Around him, chairs scraped, coaches murmured, and the scent of grass and sweat settled in the air.
Coach Reyes strode to the front of the room. “All right,” he barked, his voice cutting through the chatter. “Let’s get rolling.”
He ran through expectations, training and game schedules, and early notes from the drills he’d watched that morning, then he paused to look over the room.
“Some of you are fighting for jobs,” he said, eyes landing on CJ before flitting away. “Some of you are fighting to keep them. All of you are here to make this team better. If you want to be on the field in April, handle your business now. I don’t want any bullshit or drama once the season starts.”
The words landed harder than they probably needed to. CJ opened the notepad that had been left on the table for him and started taking notes he didn’t really need. He knew his numbers coming from Chicago were solid, but he was still the odd man out. Baseball had a way of turning names into headlines, and trades like his came with expectations and opinions attached. Hewould have to prove to everyone that he deserved his spot on the roster.
He flipped to a clean page in the notepad and wrote in small, neat letters:do not be the story.CJ shoved the memories, the interview, and the stupid warmth in his chest to the back of his mind and let baseball mode kick in. For the moment, it would have to be enough.
10
EVAN
Coach Reyes hada voice like gravel scraped over concrete: raspy and heavy, and blunt enough to silence a room in half a second. Evan liked that about him, that he didn’t waste time, didn’t sugarcoat. He didn’t pretend that baseball was anything other than a business at this level, and if you gave it a chance, it would chew you up and spit you out. He sat where he always sat, in the second row on the end, notebook open and pen ready even though he’d heard Reyes’s opening speech for five years running. In his periphery, he saw CJ choose a seat on the other side of the small room, and his chest expanded in relief.
Reyes gave his usual speech about expectations and competition, and about spring training being a proving ground and not a vacation. Around him, he could see the rookies nodding in acknowledgment while the veterans slumped in their seats, waiting for something new to be said. He tried to focus on the meeting, but he couldn’t help but hear the faint scrape of CJ’s shoe on the floor as he fidgeted. He hated that he still knew the rhythm of CJ’s movements, that he knew the way his breathing changed when he was concentrating too hard or bracing for something.
He hated that he still recognized anything about the boy he used to know.
He forced his attention back to the meeting, keeping his eyes fixed on Reyes, taking notes, and nodding when appropriate. He was good at this. Good at control. Good at compartmentalizing. But an hour later, when Coach Reyes dismissed them with a grunt and a pointed reminder to a pair of rookies to be on time tomorrow, the knot in his chest still hadn’t loosened.
Evan didn’t linger, but he didn’t bolt out of the room either. Around him, his teammates began to stand, their voices rising with them. Chairs scraped the floor, and a laugh echoed too loudly behind him as someone to his right snapped their gum. He made his way to the hallway and the noise followed him, bouncing off the narrow walls and creeping under his skin. Every sound was sharp, and the air was thick as it wrapped around him, tightening his chest like a vise.
He needed to get out of there. He didn’t need fresh air or to get out of the crush of people. He needed to getout.
Evan pushed past two rookies arguing about where to order dinner and a group trying to see if they could get a last-minute tee time. Rizzo was loudly asking if anyone knew if scorpions could climb into duffel bags, slight panic lacing his voice, and Evan shrugged silently as he passed him to open the side door and step into the blazing daylight.
The sun hit him full in the face, bright enough to make him squint as he crossed the parking lot. Even in February, the Arizona sun had a way of making everything feel brighter than it should. His SUV had spent the morning baking in the open lot, leaving the interior stuffy and carrying the familiar scent of warm leather and sun-heated plastic, and he was already starting it and setting the AC to full blast as he slid in. The steering wheel was warm beneath his hands, but he held on anyway, welcoming the mild burn against his palms if onlybecause it gave him something tangible to focus on besides the storm brewing inside his head.
“Fuck,” he whispered, dragging a hand down his face before putting the SUV in drive.
The ride back to the hotel was twenty minutes, and Evan spent every second of it ordering his mind back into the tight, disciplined lines he lived in now. He focused on the road in front of him. Focused on the air-conditioning finally cooling his skin. Focused on the fact that CJ being here, on his team, meant nothing.
Meantnothing.
