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He shifted on his feet as the next batter stepped into the box. Terrance Glover, one of the best hitters on the Gators. He gave Javier a friendly nod. Terrance was a good guy.
The sweat ran in rivulets down Javier’s face behind his mask. He was going to wilt like a lily before he got his first at-bat in the next inning. They’d gone down one, two, three in the two before, and he wasn’t flattering himself that he’d be doing any better. He wasn’t a terrible hitter, but he wasn’t as good as some of the other guys.
He signaled to the mound, suggesting a changeup. When the pitcher, Derek Sands, shook it off, Javier was surprised. They’d been mostly in sync all day. He signaled a fastball, and Sands nodded, raising his glove to nudge the bill of his cap before rearing back into his throw. Javier braced himself and kept an eye on Derek’s arm to catch the release. It was easier for Javier to anticipate the trajectory of a small object hurtling towards him at upwards of ninety miles an hour than it was to try and track it with his eyes. The ball hit his mitt with a muffled thwomp, and the force rocked him back on his heels a little. A clean strike, the ball was in his hand before Glover could check his swing.
Javier and Derek agreed on the next signal, a split-seam fastball. Slower, but a lot clumsier for the hitter. Another strike. On the next pitch, Sands tried for a cutter and added a ball to the count.
Come on, man, Javier willed silently. Let’s get this over with so I can stretch my legs.
The next pitch was a good old fashioned two-seam fastball, and Glover swung for it, harder than a batter should swing for a pitch like that. Maybe he was as frustrated with the heat as Javier was, and just wanted to get it over with.
Walking into the dugout, Javier grinned at the sight of Zach’s pristine uniform. “Haven’t gotten on the ground much yet, huh?”
“Most boring fucking game in the history of boring fucking games,” Zach mumbled, shielding his mouth with one hand so a camera couldn’t pick up his words.
It was nice to sit with him in the dugout, even if it wasn’t exactly like old times.
“Okay, guys, let’s get back in this,” Holmes said, pacing up and down the bench. He wasn’t committed to a rousing, Braveheart-style speech this early in the game, but he was starting to look a little annoyed.
“You’re on deck,” he said, motioning to Javier.
“Wish me luck,” he said as he got to his feet. Zach nodded, and then he smiled. His perfect, heart-stopping, down-home smile.
Javier almost tripped over his own feet going up the steps to the warning track. He picked up his bat and reminded himself that the butterflies in his stomach were uncharacteristic at-bat nerves, not anything to do with Zach. And men didn’t get butterflies, anyway. They got…wasps. Or something else badass.
Baird smacked a clean hit into centerfield, but it sailed over the head of the CFer and dropped like a stone just before the wall. Baird was off like a shot. For a chubby guy, he could really move, at least, ninety feet at a time. Javier grinned as he watched his teammate hustle up to first base and halt.
With a man on, stepping up to the plate usually upped the pressure to get a hit. The heat, the distraction of having Zach watching him from the dugout, and the non-butterflies all conspired in Javier, to the point that when he got into a comfortable stance and saw the pitcher let go of the ball, he’d already resigned himself to a strikeout.
When his bat connected, it surprised him so much, he didn’t think to actually run for about a heartbeat. That was a heartbeat too long, and he took off then, watching the ball warily as it cleared the top of the wall and bounced into the stands.
Holy shit, it’s no foul.
He slowed up, just a little, and slapped hands with the first base coach as he jogged past and headed to second. A two-run homer was a good day at-bat for, well, anybody. But it was phenomenal for him.
He didn’t want to give himself too much credit, but after his home run, the game really turned around. Even though he didn’t get a hit for the rest of the innings, he couldn’t help but feel proud when they ended the ninth ahead by two runs.
On his way to the locker room, Zach slapped him on the back. “Good game.”
It shouldn’t have meant more to him than the ones coming from his other teammates, but damn Zach, it did.
* * * *
They weren’t lodging in the best hotel in Miami, but it certainly wasn’t the worst. Javier looked down from the twelfth floor at the glittering aquamarine pool, and for the first time in a long time, he seriously contemplated leaving his room on a road trip.
