Page 12 of The Way We Swing

Gavin took an awkward, batless cut.

“How’d that feel?”

“Weird.”

“I’m sure,” Easton said. “You’ve taken thousands of swings right-handed. Swinging left-handed is new. Let’s hit a few.”

I walked into the shed and brought out the batting tee for Gavin. He whiffed the first two swings, but after a couple dozen, he started connecting.

“Let’s see what this actually looks like,” I said. I walked behind the L screen, and Gavin went to the plate. I took a little something off of the first three balls I threw, but Gavin still swung over all of them.

“Damn,” he said. He had just started swearing in front of me. Totally unrelated, of course, to the fact that this had started when Easton began hanging out.

“Chill out,” Easton said. “You just have to get your timing down.”

Gavin tapped his bat against the ground twice and got back into his stance.

“A bit more weight on your front foot,” Easton said softly.

Gavin did as he was told, and I threw another pitch. This time, bat hit ball. It didn’t go very far, barely hoppingto the screen.

Easton lifted the mesh netting over his body and tackled Gavin to the ground as if he had just gotten the game-winning hit in the World Series. Both boys were laughing when they got up, and I couldn’t keep the grin off my face.

We kept at it for an hour, and by the time we finished hitting, not only was Gavin making good contact, but my arm was dead.

“I want to be a switch-hitter by the time I get to college,” he said. His voice still hadn’t changed, so it was hard to consider him anything but a little kid.

“You aren’t even in high school yet,” I said. “Why are you worried about college?”

“I want to travel the country and play,” he said simply. We sat down in our chairs and kept talking about baseball. Easton already knew the language of my family, so he fit in seamlessly. He could talk to Gavin as easily as my dad.

That scared me the most about him.

In the few times when I allowed myself to think about being gay, one of the biggest things I worried about was bringing someone home to meet my family. I didn’t want to be with someone who’d rather talk about shoes than baseball. If they didn’t understand my family, they couldn’t possibly understand me.

I ended up falling asleep on the deck with these thoughts swirling in my head. The crack of bat meeting ball woke me. I opened my eyes and looked up—the sky was filled with gray clouds, and the sun was nowhere to be seen. I walked over to the edge of the deck and sat down on the top step.

Easton was throwing more batting practice to Gavin, who was back in the left-handed box. Every time Gavin would make good contact, Easton would shout words of encouragement.

I sat on the porch for twenty minutes, not wanting to disturb their session. Easton never asked to switch spots, and Gavin clearly enjoyed the attention.

Why did he have to be so great with Gavin? Couldn’t he just be an asshole? Couldn’t he give me a reason to hate him, a reason to tell him to never come back to my house?

Finally, the skies opened up, and rain pounded us as we jogged inside.

Gavin stripped off his clothes the second we were inside and ran for his room in his underwear, the white of them a stark contrast to the summer tan that covered the rest of his body. He had no shame unless Mom was home.

“I’m not stripping,” Easton said, as he slipped off his shoes.

“Neither am I,” I said. I walked to the hallway closet, trying not to leave puddles behind me. I grabbed towels for both of us and walked back.

“Looks like no practice tonight,” Easton said. “What is there to do on a Friday night around here?”

“I’m sure there’s a party somewhere. They’re not for me, though, especially with a double-header tomorrow. I played hungover once, and it was the worst experience of my life.”

“It’s not that bad,” Easton said. “I’ll probably head home for the night. I think my grandparents are going out, so I’ll have the place to myself.”

“Why don’t you stay here, then?”