Page 22 of The Way We Swing Back

“Shut up,” Gavin responded.

“Dork,” Jake said, jumping off the floor and lightly punching Gavin on the thigh.

“Chill out before you knock over the board or break your other wrist,” Tanner said. He sat on the floor opposite us with Calvin to his right.

“Gavin, do you need me to team up with you?” Calvin said. “We can block everyone else’s routes together if you want.”

“Sure,” Gavin giggled.

What dumbasses. That was not how this game worked; you couldn’t randomly team up to block routes when you didn’t know what anyone had. I stared at Tanner; we made eye contact, shaking our heads in disgust at what those two were scheming.

Calvin stood, the ceiling light reflecting off his glasses. “Does anyone need a refill before game two?”

“I’ll take one,” Zach said. He lay on the carpet, scrolling on his phone. He refused to play board games—some story about Tanner throwing the board across the room when he was ten. The most shocking part of that story was that it’d only happened once.

“I’ll help, Cal,” Gavin said, springing off the couch and grabbing Jake’s mug along with his own.

Calvin stared me down, his sky-blue eyes locking onto mine like he knew me. Which he didn’t. “Ready for more, Easton?”

“Sure. Thank you, Calvin,” I said. I handed him my cup before scratching at an itch somewhere so deep and hidden beneath my right ear I couldn’t get to it. Gavin and Calvin walked out of the room, likely conspiring about playing board games the wrong way.

“Wanna open your gift from me?” Tanner asked, a smile spreading. He wore a Mizzou T-shirt, not at all matching everyone else’s red and green.

“You got me a present?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“I didn’t grab you anything, dude, sorry,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter. Follow me.” He jumped up and headed toward the kitchen, the bottoms of his pajama pants dragging on the carpet.

I stood and followed, knowing I didn’t have much of a choice. The lights were brighter when we got into the kitchen, with specks of white flashing in my eyes as they took a second to adjust.

“Where are you guys going?” Calvin said. His shoulders tensed as he looked at Tanner’s back; Tanner had already flown by Calvin and Gavin.

“Giving Easton his gift,” Tanner said, not bothering to turn toward his boyfriend.

Calvin looked at me, his face scrunched. I shrugged my shoulders and followed Tanner up the stairs, my right hand sliding up the railing, smooth and cold.

We entered Tanner’s room; it was the first time the two of us had been alone in here in... a long time. Tanner opened his desk drawer and pulled out a box wrapped in Cardinals wrapping paper with a green bow on top.

“Open it!” he said, shoving the box into my chest.

I ripped free a piece of tape that wasn’t pushed down hard enough. I hated the sound of paper wrinkling, so I tore it as quickly as possible before tossing it on the floor.

Inside was a sliding mitt with the face of the Grinch on the cover. I was the only person on the baseball team without a sliding mitt, a fact I’d never said out loud, but clearly Tanner had picked up on it.

How did he always notice the little things? Maybe because there were no little things for Tanner—just things that mattered and things that didn’t. Me not having a sliding mitt mattered to him, so he’d taken care of it.

Nobody ever noticed me like this. Not anymore. My grandparents tried, but it was tough to see when you had no idea what you were looking for. But Tanner noticed. He always did.

Something warm pushed at my ribs before I could decide whether to let it—the same thing that ambushed me all of last year.

“Dude,” I said, looking up at him.

He smiled wider than he had since he’d finished up his semester at school and come back home. It hit me like the half-second after I pick up a pitch and already know I’m going to plaster it.

For a second, I just looked at him, his eyes lit up like the tree downstairs. The way he watched my reaction as if it was the gift itself. I could’ve stayed in that second the rest of the night. There were about a hundred things I wanted to say.