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We heard from Mat when we were in the middle of a rest stop on the PA/Maryland state lines. The short break was sorely needed. Noah, who I adored, did not handle sugar well. He was a fluctuating ball of manic behavior, swinging wildly between being giddy and weeping in worry without the added rush of sugar.
I’d taken the remaining three cookies and threw them out the window an hour ago, making Noah angry then sad and then riddled with self-hatred for being weak and growing fat. After that small meltdown, he withdrew into himself, citing a need to stop talking before I threw him out the window. Assurances that I would never do that followed, and he dropped off to sleep, leaving me to drive in peace. Well, as much peace as my head could give me. There was this slowly building sense of a complete loss of control. There was no concrete sort of reason I was feeling this or where it would happen. Maybe around the next corner or within an hour. Maybe when we arrived in Chapel Hill, or I stood up to read my letter. It was there though, waiting to clamp down on my chest and squeeze the air out of me. An anaconda of anxiety tightening around me.
So yeah, the pit stop was badly needed. Noah got to use the bathroom, I got to walk around in a tight circle, breathing slowly, repeating some stupid childhood chant over and over.
“Sunshine makes a gray day gay, sunshine makes a gray day gay.”
I’d read that in some old kid’s book from a yard sale when I was young. I mean, the book was ancient old, but it was one of the few books Wade had approved for me. All reading material went through him, no matter if it was for me or his wife. Complete. Control. Probably if he’d read that old primer more closely, he’d have seen the word ‘gay’, shit his knickers, and set fire to that book. But, he’d missed it, and I’d adopted it as my mantra for when he was on a rampage. That it was back now? Not a good sign.
“Sander! Sander! Mat’s on the phone!” Noah burst out of the gas station, a half-gallon of chocolate milk in one hand and his phone waving madly over his head in the other.
I hustled over to him, standing on the curb a few feet from the gas pumps, my arm around him trying to see the phone. Sure enough, there was Mat looking fucking amazing in his uniform and his skin already a shade darker. Damp hair curled around the edges of his white cap. Fuck, the man was so sexy. I missed him on a million levels.
“Look at you all Mr. Baseball,” I said and got a beautiful white smile. It didn’t quite reach his deep brown eyes though. “Tell me things are okay in the desert.”
“Please tell us things are okay,” Noah parroted, leaning into me a bit more.
“Things are okay,” Mat replied then moved out of the sun into a shaded area. “Fucking sun is brutal today. Going to hide in the dugout. So yeah, things are fine here.” He sat down and pulled off his hat. His curls were flat and soaked with sweat. I ached for him. Like, literally, felt the yearning pain of desire and want in my breast. “Management is totally filled in and thanked me for bringing it to their attention before it turned into something bad. They’re going to handle it, press release, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” Noah nodded vigorously. “Did they bench you or anything?”
“Nope, no, they’re awkwardly supportive. I mean, they kind of know they can’t do anything outwardly to the gay player, so they’re working super hard to be seen as inclusionary and open-minded, but you should have seen the manager’s face when I first showed him the picture.”
“Shit, man, I am so sorry,” I sighed, turning my face into the warm—or what felt warm to me compared to the deep freeze of Cayuga—air.
“Not your fault, Sander,” I heard Mat say. “We’re all in this together, willingly and without reservation. So, there is no fault when someone learns the truth about us.”
“He’s right, Sander. We wanted you to become a part of us.” Noah pressed a kiss to my cheek and then started rambling to Mat about the presser, the cookies, his reaction to eating two dozen cookies, and how nice it was here in Maryland, but he wished he were home. They talked for a few minutes and then the phone was held out to me. “He wants to talk to you.”
Noah walked to the car and climbed inside. I slipped around the corner of the convenience store and placed the phone to my ear.
“Hey Mat, what’s up?” Some guy was putting air into his tire nearby. I turned my back to him and the loud hisses.
“Are you okay? And don’t feed me BS here. Noah said you’re looking and acting edgy, like another panic attack is nipping at your heels.”
Fuck. Just fuck Noah and his nosy face. “I’m okay, right? Just like you. We’re both okay and doing what we have to do to get from this day to the next.”
His exhalation was loud in my ear. “Sander, are you sure you’re going to be able to handle this parole hearing? You can still turn around. Send your letter to your lawyer to read. Have you talked to the team about therapy or meds for your anxiety?”
“I talked to the team about me being queer with two other guys. That was all they were worried about. As for this parole hearing? I’ve got this. I will do what needs done because no one else can.”
“Your sister could if you’d let her.”
“Fuck you, Mat; no, she cannot. She is never allowed to see him again. Ever. I’ll kill that motherfucker before he sets eyes on her or Charlie. Kill him as dead as her eyes used to be.”
“Right, okay, calm down. Look, just...I don’t know, talk to Noah if you’re on the edge, okay? Pull over if you’re feeling jumpy while driving. Just make sure you take care of you and Noah. I love you guys. If something happened while I was out here...”
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, worked on breathing because my lungs were filling up with pudding, and let the balmy fifty-degree air blow away the edge. Warm was good.
“I’ve got this. Stop worrying about us and concentrate on making the team.”
“Sander, man, I love you. Please take care of yourself. Ask for help if you need it. Noah...well, I know he’s tender at times, but he’s an amazing ally to have at your side when things turn to shit. Just take care of you. Promise me that you’ll do that?”
For fuck sake. “I promise that I’ll take care of me. Now, go hit a home run and make us all proud. I’ll text when we’re in the hotel.”
His pause was laced with concern. “Okay, be strong, man. Together, we three can handle anything.”
“Yep, we sure can. Talk later. Love you.”
I ended the call, knowing deep down that he’d told us what we wanted to hear. Noah tooted the horn, eager to be off. Funny how one person could be enthusiastic to get moving and one person could be fucking terrified to leave this spot by the air machine.
“Sunshine makes a gray day gay,” I murmured then yanked my feet free and headed to the car.
* * *
The hotel we’d booked was in Butner, North Carolina, the federal penitentiary Wade was incarcerated in a mere four miles from the hotel. It was a cheap place but clean. Noah unpacked our clothes—just for something to do, I think—took a shower, and begged me to come to bed. I did, but I never really slept. Not really. I’d drop off and then wake up, startled and scared, unsure of my surroundings, my heart thundering in my chest.
But, I held him as he slept, his scratchy cheek on my pectoral, my fingers resting in his soft hair. He slept soundly, and I was a little envious. Maybe I should have taken a sleeping pill when he’d offered it to me, but I couldn’t be groggy or under the influence of any kind of drugs walking into that prison.
A wet dawn was just on the cusp of occurring when I slid out from under Noah, went into the bathroom, bent over the toilet, and threw up the little bit I’d put into me yesterday. Kneeling on that cold tile, head on the plastic toilet seat, the monster that was a major anxiety attack bit down hard. The walls zoomed in, my stomach rolled violently, and I fell to my ass, gasping and shaking. The bright light overhead made my eyes water. I crab-walked in reverse, my back hitting the tub. Into the bathtub I went, hyperventilating madly, and threw the shower curtain shut. The cool sides of the tub and the dimmer light eased the tightness around my chest. Breathing was hard yet...
I laid down, pulled the bathmat over my head, and willed the lightheadedness away. If I fainted, I’d lose control. Losing control terrified me, and my breathing quickened even more because I was afraid of losing control and passing out.
“Gray...” That was all I managed to recite before I fainted. Coming to just a few seconds later—or it felt like a few seconds—scared me to death. I whipped the bathmat aside, sure that was what was suffocating me, and rolled to my back, eyes wide, pulse high and blood pressure probably far too low.
The lights dimmed. The shower curtain opened, the metal rings clattering loudly on the metal pole.
“I’m going to sit down with you.” Noah’s voice was sweet and soft as a newborn bunny. I began crying uncontrollably, sick at myself for not being the strong one as Mat had asked me to be. “No tears, no tears. We’re going to do some 5-4-3-2-1 exercises, okay? They really helped me when I was scared and kind of out of control.”
I nodded and wheezed as he nudged and pulled at me until I was sitting. He was seated beside me in the tub, neither of us with a stitch on.
“Good, okay so tell me five things you see around us.” He wiggled close, his skin hot from being under the covers. He draped an arm around my shoulder. “Look around. Find five things.”
I lifted my eyes from his kneecap. “Shower curtain...soap... shampoo...a washcloth...the wall.”
“Excellent, really good. Okay, four things you can touch.”
“You...the tub...the shower curtain...my foot.”
“Awesome. Three things you hear.” And it went like that until we got to one, and I told him that I tasted puke. By then, I was mostly back in control. Noah helped me up, turned on the water, and we showered together, him talking about the hotel soap and how creamy it was on my skin or telling me about the dream he’d had last night. He made shit up I was sure, but by the time we were dried off and back in bed, I was able to promise him on the life of my niece that as soon as we got back home I would talk to the team or another player or someone about my issues.
“Good. Now, let’s get dressed and get some food, yeah?” He reached up to caress my cheek. His wet hair had left a damp spot on my chest, right above my now slowly beating heart.
“If I... you know, start to fall apart in the parole hearing, will you promise me that you’ll get me out of there, so he doesn’t see me being weak?”
“Mm-hmm, I promise. I won’t let him ever see you vulnerable.”
I felt myself falling even deeper in love with him that rainy morning.