Page 51 of The Way We Swing

“I do know, though, that you’ll handle it today. Because there’s no one you love more than Gavin, including me. Or Easton. It’d be a good idea to remember that.”

He was right, as much as I wished he wasn’t. His words hit me like a runner sliding cleat high into second base. I had allowed this to stretch too far.

I looked at Zach and realized how much he had grown up in the last year. He now stood less than a quarter of an inch shorter than me, and he had muscles starting to bulge all over his body. But even more, we wouldn’t have been able to have this conversation six months ago.

If he could step up his brother game, it was about time I stepped up mine.

“Go tell Gavin I’m handling it. I’ll talk to both of you later.”

I stood up and strode out the door without looking back at Zach. Anger had burned inside of me for three months, and Zach had just added gas. I took the stairs two at a time, feeling the cold of the steps on my bare feet and inhaling the staircase’s nasty smell. I nearly sprinted to Easton’sroom. My knuckles pounded on the door a dozen times before it opened.

“Settle the hell down, Tanner,” said Joe, our right fielder. “What’s the emergency?”

“Is Easton here? We need to have a conversation,” I said. I tried to keep my voice steady, but I was doing an awful job of it.

“Yeah,” he said, shifting his body and exposing the room. Easton lazily watched TV on the bed, either ignoring or not hearing my voice.

“Can you give us the room?” I said.

“No way in hell I’m staying for this,” Joe said, closing the door behind him. I latched the bolt to make sure nobody could walk in; I learned from my mistakes.

I turned toward Easton, who sat up and had his feet dangling over the bed. He twisted his head to the side, his eyes open in wonderment. We hadn’t been alone in a room together since Gavin had caught us in the basement—Easton had made sure of that.

I started on him right away, no longer controlling my voice. “What the hell did you say to Gavin?”

“What do you mean?”

“You heard me. At some point earlier today, you saw Gavin. What did you say?”

“I don’t know why you’re so upset. He just came up to me and asked if I wanted to play catch, and I told him I couldn’t. Settle down.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Easton? You couldn’t just play catch with him?”

“Why? He’s your brother. You play catch with him.”

“Get your damn head out of your ass, Easton. Six months ago, you told him you looked at him like a brother. You would have been the one asking him to play catch! Do you know what he’s doing right now? He’s in his room crying because you haven’t talked to him in three months. He fucking idolizes you, and you won’t even talk to him because he walked in on us. That’s not his fault! He’s thirteen, for Christ's sake!”

I paced the room, spinning around every ten feet, my words bouncing off of the walls. I smelled citrus but ignored it.

“Even though you’ve been awful to him, he still hasn’t told anybody. Zach asked him what was wrong, and he refused to say a word because he knows you don’t want anyone to know, so he bottles up what he needs to say to his actual brother!”

During my speech, I had walked to the point where I was almost standing on top of him.

He finally looked up at me, and I could see tears welling up in his eyes. “I’ve wanted to talk to him. I miss him so much. But he saw us, and he knows. I just can’t be gay, Tanner,” he said.

I backed off and sat on the edge of the other bed. After a few seconds, I spoke again, trying to keep the rage I was feeling below a ten. “I don’t care what you are. You can be straight, gay, a goddamn tiger if you want. I don’t want to have that discussion right now, and I don’t think you do either.

“This is on us. Not Gavin. I’ve been mad as hell at you, and I didn’t stop to think about how this was affecting my brothers. As Zach just reminded me, there’s no one, including you, that I love more than Gavin. It took me too long to remember that. It’s time I put Gavin first. I’m leaving. You’ve got two hours to make this right with Gavin.”

I locked into those hazel eyes. I hated what I was about to say—but I knew I had to. He left me no choice.

“Because if you don’t, everyone finds out what we did.”

Easton's shoulders shook, barely, like he was trying to stay still and failing. “You wouldn’t.”

“I don’t think I’ll have to,” I sighed. “Can you grow a sack and talk to Zach, too? He won’t admit it, but he misses you as much as the rest of us. I don’t care if you’re so embarrassed about everything that this is the last time we talk off the field, but those guys are still your friends. I’ll stay away when you’re around them so you can act like nothing happened. You don’t have to worry, I’ll never touch you again.”

I didn’t wait for a response. If I did, I’d say something selfish, or hurtful, or that I’d regret, and deep down, I still cared about Easton too much for that. I walked to my room, threw on my Nikes, and started my run in the middle of the hotel.