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THE PHONE WAS RINGING.
Why was the phone ringing?
It was ringing a lot. Like someone was really desperate to get ahold of me.
I let it ring without opening my eyes. If it was important, they would call bac...
They called back.
Immediately.
Dammit.
I opened my eyes and was confused for just a moment when I didn’t see my apartment. Then it hit me in a rush, and adrenaline got dumped directly into my heart.
I shot up, snatching at the phone and rubbing my eyes as I put the receiver end to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Gavin, where the fuck are you, bud?”
It was Kevin. Of course it was Kevin. He would be the one to check on me before anyone else. As much as I hated to admit it, I was a star. If I felt like skipping a practice, no one else on the team would have the balls to say anything about it other than Kevin. And he would give me shit about it unless I had a good reason.
“Shit,” I said. “Shit, what time is it?”
“Dude, it’s like nine,” Kevin said. “We’ve been on the field for a half hour now. I thought you were just doing a protein shake breakfast and some crunches or something. Were you still in bed?”
“Sort of,” I said, tossing the sheet off of me and realizing I was still naked. And the reason why I was still naked.
“Did you go out last night?” Kevin asked. “I only ask because one of the guys swears he saw you, but I thought you were going to go check up on Lila and then hit the hay early.”
“I did. Kind of,” I said. “It’s a whole story.”
“Yeah, he said you saw Star,” Kevin said, letting the words sit heavily in the silence.
“I did?” I said. “I don’t remember saying that.”
“Right, right,” Kevin said. “’Cuz she’s not in town. So you couldn’t have seen her. But he said you looked right drunk, so...”
“I’ll tell you, Kev, I’m a little shaky on the details of last night.”
Technically, that was the truth. I was a little shaky on the details. But they just weren’t the kinds of details he was thinking they were.
I hated deceiving Kevin. I was probably going to tell him the whole story once I got him alone, but for now, I knew everything I was saying was getting back to Coach and the boys. For some reason, I had a feeling me going out and drinking like the rest of them would go over better than me staying in one of the girls’ rooms all night.
“Well, Coach said if you need the morning off to take it. But the rest of the boys are here, and every last damn one of them have hangovers. Raul puked at second base. Asian Dan is asleep on the bench. Even Coach looks a bit out of it, to be fair.”
“I don’t need the morning off,” I said. “I’ll get a shake in and head down in a few minutes.”
“Cool. See you then,” he said.
As the phone clicked, I tossed it beside me on the bed and put my head in my hands. At least my tiredness would apparently fit in with the rest of the boys’ hangovers. I might even be able to pull the story off.
I made my shake and guzzled it down as I got my uniform on, then drank a bottle of water to chase it. Usually, I would have a coffee too, but I didn’t have the time this morning. With my uniform on, I grabbed my phone and my bat bag and headed out of the door. I was tempted to drop by Lila’s room and see if she was all right, but then I would have to address how everything went last night. I wasn’t quite ready for that.
When I was ready, I still didn’t know what I would say. ‘Hey, sorry I fell asleep in your bed and then left in the middle of the night because I already have a girlfriend, your roommate’? That didn’t exactly slide off the tongue, and no matter how I framed it, it still sounded kind of accusatory and rude.
I had to shake it off and get to playing baseball. That was what I was good at. A bit of toss and some batting practice should take my mind off Lila. And Star. But mostly Lila.
As I reached the field, just down the street from the hotel, I could see what Kevin had been talking about.
Kevin was a huge fire hydrant, dressed in the red uniform of our away clothes and standing amidst the rest of the team. They weren’t in position, just casually tossing, which meant either they hadn’t really started all that long ago, or Coach had given up on anything much more complex than that given the state of the players.
I caught Kevin’s attention as I got into the cage where our bench was and he jogged over. He had a ball in one hand and a grin on his face.
“Ready?” he asked, his deep, tree-trunk voice still sounding much like the little kid I’d gotten to know when we met.
“Guess so,” I said, flipping my hat back around the right way.
“No shades?” he asked.
“What?” I asked.
It was a gray morning, clouds covering most of the sky and a little bit of darkness threatening off in the horizon. Whether that was real or just the weather anomaly of being near the ocean and having ever-changing patterns I didn’t know. But despite the dimness of the light, as I looked around, I could see that virtually every member of the team besides Kevin was wearing sunglasses.
They were also moving like their bodies were trapped in molasses and throwing like their arms were made of gelatin.
“Shades,” Kevin said. “You must not have gotten as fucked up as everyone else. Good for you. Not quite as good as my ten p.m. special, but I’m sure you had fun.”
“I did,” I said, leaving it at that.
“Well, come on, let’s go warm up, and you can regale me with tales of bikini-clad girls and copious amounts of alcohol.”
“It really wasn’t like th—” I began.
“Regale me,” Kevin said, already walking off toward right field.
Shrugging, I jogged after him, but slowly to continue the illusion of a hangover.
Kevin, as usual, stopped at the foul line, meaning I was the one expected to take the jog closer to center field. Kevin was wildly athletic despite his size and could easily roam around the outfield, but he was keenly aware of his knees. Being a catcher, he didn’t particularly like running much outside of his workouts designed to strengthen the muscles around his knees. If he was going to make it long as a catcher, he needed to preserve them as much as possible.
I jogged out a bit and turned to see a ball already leaving his hand. Kevin also had a rocket for an arm, though his accuracy was a little suspect sometimes. If he was firing from the plate to second base, he was like a laser. But without the specific layout of the infield, sometimes his tosses sliced a bit one direction or the other. I chased down the first throw a few steps away to my right and tossed it back mid-stride.
We warmed up for a while, slowly losing other members of the team as they headed back toward the bench and started working out batting practice order. When it was just the two of us, Kevin looked back toward the bench and then back to me before tossing a throw.
“So you fixin’ to tell me what happened last night?”
“I told you, it’s shaky,” I began.
“Bullshit. I know fake drunk when I see it,” he said. “I do enough of it myself just to keep people from continuing to challenge me at shots.”
I nodded. Kevin’s alcohol consumption ability was legendary, as was his apparent dislike of proving it. He would party occasionally, but often preferred a glass of wine and an early night instead. I had witnessed him winking at me, completely sober, before donning a very convincing act as a drunken giant. I would help him away from whatever crowd we were with, and he would revert back to soberness as soon as we were out of their vision and drive us back home.
“I went and made sure Lila was good, and then I spent the rest of the night doing what I wanted,” I said. “Where’s the crime?”
Kevin smirked. “No crime, per se,” he said. “I just doubt you got hammered and fucked around behind Star’s back.”
“All right, you got me,” I said, feeling warmth crawl up my neck. I wasn’t entirely sure I could deny fucking around on Star behind her back. I didn’t do anything with Lila. But what we had done was probably not okay, and I certainly went a few extra steps in my fantasy a little later, for which I felt terribly guilty.
“Spill it, boss,” Kevin said.
“I didn’t get drunk, and I didn’t find a girl at the beach, all right? I just kind of spent some time out of my room, watched a bunch of shows on my phone, and fell asleep. When I got back in, everyone was drunk and just assumed I was too, so I went with it. It was easier and less embarrassing than the truth.”
“Fair,” Kevin said. “Though, you should know, you could probably get away with that without hazing while the rest of us couldn’t. Hell, it might even make Coach like you more that you didn’t get drunk and took a nap instead.”
I shrugged.
“So, wait, how did you end up sleeping in?” he asked.
“Forgot to charge my phone,” I said. “No alarm this morning.”
It was a complete lie, but Kevin bought it. I hated myself for lying to him, but it was the only thing I could do that didn’t expose Lila. Until I knew how she felt about last night, I didn’t want anyone else knowing about it.
“Well, looks like we’re going to do a bit of batting practice,” Kevin said. “You down for that?”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Seemingly satisfied for now, but with the faintest hint of suspicion in his eyes, Kevin nodded, and we jogged back to the bench to put away our gloves and grab a bat.
A few hours later, practice ended early, and Kevin went back to the room before I did. He was planning on ordering room service and watching a movie and had invited me to join him if I wanted. A couple of the other guys were going to come over, and the only rule was no alcohol. It was a sodas and water only event.
I headed back at my own pace, slowing as I passed the field where the girls were still practicing. Noticeably fewer of them had sunglasses on and the tell-tale lethargic shuffle of a hangover. Yet, among them, I didn’t see Lila. I wondered if I should drop by her room again and decided I would at least go back to my room and get cleaned up before I did, if I did at all.
As I crested the last of the steps to my floor, I felt a tingling sensation in the back of my head. It was one of those weird things that happen when you’re sure someone is talking about you. I wondered if Lila was telling someone about last night. If she was, I could come clean to Kevin too. But that would most certainly mean talking to Star.
Mulling that over in my mind, I made my way to my room and stopped a few feet away from it.
There was a note on the door. A yellow sticky note with dark writing.
At first, my heart clenched in a strange way at the thought it could be Lila. But as I got closer, I recognized the handwriting. It wasn’t Lila’s. It wasn’t Star’s either.
It was Mom’s.
