My gut tightened, but I tried to make light of it. “Of big, snuggly shortstops?”
She narrowed her eyes in warning. “You know what I mean.”
Oh, I knew all too well. But Bret and Donovan were completely different personalities. Bret was all serious and broody and, I’d thought, sensitive underneath—mistakenly, as it turned out. Brady was goofy and sweet, and definitely straight, right? I’d thought the same about Bret once, until he said all those wonderful things to make me think he was interested, then dropped me like a hot potato. I was only his science experiment.
Regardless, I’d grown since then and developed a thicker skin. I enjoyed sex and hooking up with all sorts of different guys. Didn’t mean I wanted to marry them or even date them. And it would be the same with someone like Brady Donovan.
9
Brady
At Coach’s whistle, the practice ended and we jogged off the field, while Kellan got started on stacking the equipment and dragging it back to its proper place in the clubhouse. If I went out there to help him, he’d ream me a new one, but that didn’t deter the urge. Not that he wasn’t capable—we all knew he was—but more to give myself an excuse to talk to him about anything mundane, to get rid of this awkwardness we had going on face-to-face.
Since that night at the hotel, I’d been out of sorts. Maybe it was because I’d come in my underwear just from a guy rubbing up against me in his sleep, and that had clued me in more than ever before that I was really into guys—okay, really into Kellan. And I needed a moment—several moments—to come to terms with it. So, I wasn’t my usual obnoxious, jokey self with him this week, and it was obvious he’d noticed the difference, given the way he’d studied my face when he didn’t think I was looking. I needed to snap out of it, and I would, soon.
After retrieving my bag from my locker, I sat down on a bench near Girard and Maclain, wiped off my face with my jersey, and waited for Coach. I avoided watching Kellan as he came inside with a bag of bats he’d collected from the dugout. Right then, he lifted his head and met my eyes, and we just stared for one long moment, more serious with each other than ever before, and I didn’t know what to do about it. So I stuck out my tongue like some ten-year-old, and that got a smile out of him as he moved toward the equipment room.
“You threw some nice pitches out there,” Girard said before gulping from his water bottle.
“Thanks,” Maclain sputtered out, as surprised as the rest of us that Girard was extending an olive branch, because we all knew how hard that was for either of them.
Though I couldn’t help grinning when Girard poked fun. “I’ll have some nice fucking bruises to show for it.”
He’d admitted once, at the bar after a stressful game, how many knots he had in his shins and thighs from stray pitches. Some of them hurt like hell for days.
Maclain pulled his hat lower on his head. “Screw you.”
Girard pushed his hand through the sweaty mess on the top of his head. “Hey, just taking one for the team.”
“Maybe you should learn to catch better,” Maclain grumbled as he stood and stretched.
Girard rose too, and tossed his empty bottle in the recycle bin across the way. “Maybe you should aim better.”
It went so quiet, you could hear a pin drop, as if the whole locker room was waiting for another scuffle. When one didn’t come, Hollister was the first to bark out a laugh, and it was infectious.
“Fuckers,” Maclain muttered, though he had a slight grin on his face. Their banter was mostly humorous, and I’d admit, I let it go on sometimes because it helped blow off some steam. In a constructive way, at least.
The laughter died down the second Coach entered the locker room from his office, and the players straightened their posture, their eyes trained on him. You didn’t mess around where he was concerned, so it was understandable why Kellan toed the line as well. He’d bench your ass quicker than Maclain’s hardest fast pitch.
“We’re already in May, and I want us to finish strong. The Spartans will be hard to beat, but we can do it,” Coach said, pacing up and down the locker room, hands on his hips, meeting each player’s eyes. “I better not hear about too many late nights out. You treat this like your job. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” we said in unison. The energy in the room intensified as we all put our hands in the center, yelled our regular cheer, and were on our way. I lingered as long as I could, to see if I could try to break the ice even more between Kellan and me, but he was deep in a discussion with the assistant coach about something that sounded like cleats, and it was best to just head out.