I asked, “So how has your winter been, Antonio? How’s Lex?”
A huge grin filled Antonio’s face. His husband Lex was as straight-laced as Antonio was flamboyant. They were a walking dictionary definition of “opposites attract,” and I wasn’t sure I’d ever known a couple more madly in love.
Antonio said, “He’s as adorable as ever, and we took a trip out to Los Angeles to see our buddies Greg and Daniel. They introduced us to their music friends. It was so exciting. We didn’t really meet anybody that famous, but we were so close!” He held up a finger and thumb with perhaps an inch of airspace between. He said, “I even got to sing a few notes in a real life recording studio.”
Antonio added, “Lex still misses his mom. She was the rock in his family, but they are keeping things together. I’m so proud of him and his sister.”
Suddenly, Antonio paused in throwing the ball back to me. He held on to it and looked back toward the infield. I followed his gaze as he asked, “Who’s the new hottie? Wow, I thought Blake looked good last year. Give me a spoon, Lowell. He looks good enough to eat.”
It was no mystery who Antonio was talking about. A tall, blonde, blue-eyed guy wearing a T-Shirt stretched tight across his muscular pecs was standing at home plate talking to Reggie. I said, “He looks vaguely familiar. Maybe he hangs out at the Toolbox. That might be where I’ve seen him.”
Antonio said, “Yum. I hope he plays in the outfield. If he’s at first base, I don’t know if I can concentrate on the game.”
I adopted a fake grumble and said, “Shame on you, Antonio. You’re a married man.”
Antonio held a gloved hand across his chest and said, “Lex does not mind if I appreciate the finer elements of masculine refinement.” Then he leaned forward and said, “And there are some things there that are mighty fine.”
I jogged over to Antonio and winced slightly when I felt a twinge in the leg. I gave him a quick swat on the ass with my glove and asked, “Should we take a closer look? Reggie can tell us what’s up.”
He grinned. “I’m proud of you, Lowell. You’re on the prowl already.”
We jogged side by side toward home plate and then stopped short of the pair. Reggie was one of two de facto managers for the team. The other was his best friend Ian. Just as Reggie and the stranger turned toward Antonio and me, Ian joined us.
Reggie smiled and said, “Antonio, Lowell, maybe you can help introduce Sven around to the other players. He’s new to the team.”
Antonio held his glove to his face to hide a giggle. I guessed that he was thinking the same thing that I was. If we looked up Norwegian in the encyclopedia, there would be a picture of Sven there smiling out at us. I wanted to confirm that he was from Minnesota, too, but I held my tongue.
Sven said, “Just don’t expect perfection.”
He had a deep voice, but it did have that Minnesota dialect. He did look like a Norwegian, and he was shockingly handsome. Like Antonio said, good enough to eat. Then something struck me. He was familiar beyond just the Toolbox, but I couldn’t place it at all.
There is that gut feeling you have when you meet someone that you know you met in some other context, but you can’t place it. It was like you had the memory filed away in the file cabinets in the back of your mind, but the drawer was sticking. You couldn’t quite get it open to pull out the old papers and figure out where you met the first time.
I held out a hand to shake and said, “It’s great to have you on the team, Sven.”
His blue eyes sparkled in the sun when he took my hand with a firm grip and asked, “What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t, but Reggie did. It’s Lowell.” I gestured toward Antonio who was silent but busy making an obvious visual inspection of Sven’s body. I said, “And this is Antonio. Ignore his roaming eyes. He’s married.”
There was a slight uneasiness in Sven’s laugh in response that was adorable. Then I saw something in his eyes that indicated I had just registered for him, too. We had something between us that neither of us could quite figure out. It was going to be an interesting summer.
I turned toward Reggie and asked, “So what are our chances this year, Coach?”
Reggie curled the fingers of his left hand into a fist and pressed it into the softball glove on his right. He said, “Well, Blake said he has some ideas to make us even better and more competitive this year. I’m excited. But first, no more collisions with Antonio on the field, okay?”
Antonio pointed at Sven and said, “Aw, Reggie, why bring up us at our worst in front of the new guy?”
Reggie was referencing the way our season ended two years ago. Antonio was playing second base, and I was in center field. The other team hit a high fly ball, and I rushed in to catch it. I tried to call Antonio off, and he did the same. Then we collided.
Antonio’s hand hit my nose, and his head hit my shoulder. We both hit the deck, and he was out could for a few seconds. Meanwhile, the other team scored two runs and we lost the last game of the season.
Sven asked, “What happened?”
Antonio stepped up and threw an arm around Sven’s broad shoulders. He said, “That’s a story to share over a drink. Now let’s go meet the rest of the team.”
I really wished it was my arm around those shoulders, but I let it go. Antonio was our self-appointed one-man welcoming committee, and he was very good at it. As they headed back out to the field, I dug into a canvas bag to pull out another softball, and, in a quiet voice I asked, “Hey, Reggie, is he any good?”
Reggie shrugged. He said, “I don’t really know. Sven’s worried that he’s not, but isn’t that the skill level of most of us? We can’t all be Blake or Billy Alvey.”
I nodded, “That’s for sure.” Blake was a minor league baseball player in the past, and Billy Alvey was the one straight guy on the team. They both played at a level that was a few notches above the rest of us.
Reggie added, “He does look good, though, don’t you think?”
I smirked. “So good it almost hurts my eyes.” Then I broke into a jog back out toward the outfield. The leg still gave me some pain, but I could feel it loosening up. My doctor was right. I would be able to do anything with it that I wanted to.
I gave Marshall a wave and then shouted, “Hey, Blake! You didn’t give up on us!” as I jogged past him. It felt good to be back on the softball field. We were such a motley group, you couldn’t predict for sure what would happen from one game to the next. It was just like life in general.
3
Sven
I’m not normally nervous in new and even challenging situations, but this was somehow different. I think it was because I liked everyone that I met. I didn’t want to let them down, and I wanted to feel like I was legitimately part of the group.
I partnered up with Ian tossing the ball back and forth in the outfield, and that all worked fine. I missed a couple of tosses and a few of my throws were a little off mark, but in general I was okay.
Then Ian split us into two groups to have a mock game against each other. I was disappointed that Lowell was on the opposite team from me. I was still getting those prickly feelings of familiarity on my forearms each time I looked at him, and I wanted to find out more.
When it was my turn to bat, my palms were sweaty before I even reached home plate. Lowell was positioned at second base. Before I grabbed the bat, Antonio whispered in my ear, “Hit it on the ground to second base. He’s an outfielder. They don’t know how to stop ground balls.”
Ian was the pitcher for everyone, and Reggie took up the catcher’s position. The players in the field shouted compliments about my looks.
As the first pitch was delivered, I swung way too early. It was easy to do. Slow-pitch softball can feel achingly slow when you’re standing at home plate with a bat in hand.
For the second pitch, I waited a little longer before swinging. I connected with the ball, but I fouled it off. Anxiety gripped me again when I realized I had two strikes, and I was on
the verge of striking out for my first time at bat in front of the entire team.
The third pitch seemed to head toward me in slow motion. I waited patiently, wiggled my back foot in the batter’s box, and then I swung. I connected with the ball, and I could feel that it was solid hit.
Antonio was right. It was a hard hit ground ball just to the right of Lowell at second base, and he fumbled an attempt to stop it. The ball rolled into the outfield while I rounded first base.
Marshall charged in toward the ball and grabbed it off the ground on the run. He flipped the ball toward Lowell just as I was nearing second base.
Somehow, instinct took over. I didn’t even realize that I knew how to slide into a base. Later, I speculated that I learned how sometime in junior high or high school. As I saw Marshall toss the ball, instinct took over, and I dropped down to slide feet first into second base.
I cut Lowell’s feet out from under him, and demolished his sense of balance. He caught the ball with his right hand, but his left arm flailed helplessly in the air until Lowell landed splayed out like a scarecrow on top of my body. We both were knocked breathless and ended up staring at each other face to face.
That’s when the memory was jogged. Instead of causing amnesia like in so many TV shows and movies, the impact of our crash jogged my memory.
I barely heard the sounds of our teammates running toward us with questions like, “Are you guys okay,” and comments like, “Damn, they hit hard.” Instead I blinked my eyes and stared into Lowell’s dark brown eyes.
He said it first. Lowell’s voice was hoarse. I knew I nearly knocked the wind out of him. He grunted, “College…freshman year.”
I exclaimed, “That’s it!” I wrapped my arms around Lowell, and I gently rolled him off to the side asking, “Are you okay?”
He climbed to his feet, and I followed suit. The rest of the team was gathered in a tight circle around us. As I watched Lowell brush off his jeans, I said, “I think we’re okay.”
Antonio pushed to the front of the group and said, “Just be careful. We don’t want any broken bones on the team.” He stepped up close to me and stared into my eyes before holding up three fingers. I batted his hand away, and he just laughed saying, “This one’s fine.”
Then he approached Lowell who said, “Antonio, if something was wrong, I would let you know.”
Ian started gesturing to break up the crowd. He said, “Okay, everybody, back to your positions. I suggest being a little less aggressive with the base running. This is just practice. Save that energy for a real game.” Then he turned and winked toward me.
As we switched positions, and I jogged to the outfield, Lowell passed by me and asked, “The date?”
I nodded and said, “That’s it. It feels like a long time ago.” I watched him nod, and then I continued toward the outfield.
With a limited number of players for fielding two practice teams, Billy Alvey and I covered the outfield on our own. I tried hard to not stare at his long black hair that grew down to the middle of his back and the piercings that sparkled in the early evening sunlight.
He shouted to me, “That was an awesome slide, Sven. I second saving it for real games, but we need more risk takers like you.”
I pounded my fist into my glove, crouched down and turned my attention toward home plate and the next batter. I heard Billy’s comment in my head one more time and laughed to myself. If there was one thing that I wasn’t, it was a risk-taker. Anyone who knew me well could tell you that. I was a person who always regressed toward the mean. Experience told me the most widely accepted path earned the title because, in the end, it brought the most success.
Blake stepped up to the plate. He looked like a baseball player as he crouched down waiting for the pitch. Every move he made was graceful. It was an awesome experience to watch him play. He hit the first ball to the outfield. In fact, he almost hit it straight to me. I took one step to the right and then waited for the ball to come down and gently nestle in my glove. I started to think I might really have some skills to offer to my new team.
As the practice wrapped up, Reggie encouraged all of us to join him down at the Toolbox for after-practice drinks. He said that he might even offer to buy the first round to kick off a new season. That line drew a round of applause.
I wiped sweat from my brow and stepped up to Lowell asking if he was planning to go.
He asked, “Are you?”
I said, “Yeah, I’d like to catch up a little if you are up for that.”
The reality was that I had hopes developing in the back of my head that we could do more than catch up. I already knew that a second reason I found it hard to look away from Lowell, outside of the memories that were beginning to re-materialize, was the fact that I was finding him attractive.
I liked the bulky body, and he had a sweet, open, non-judgmental gaze when he looked me in the eye. He seemed to have a comfortable relationship with everyone on the team, and it was clear that Antonio adored him as a friend. Antonio nagged him throughout the evening about taking care of the healing leg and making sure that he was okay after our collision.
I had two more solid hits in practice. One of them went over Marshall’s head in the outfield, and the other was another hard-hit grounder. This time it was planted between second and third base skirting past Blake’s outstretched arm.
As Reggie was packing up bats and balls, I said to him, “Hey, I just wanted to thank you for leaning so hard on me to come to practice. This has really been great, and I even surprised myself.”
He clapped me on the shoulder saying, “We’re the lucky ones to have you, Sven. You can both field and hit. We really don’t have any weak links anymore. Every guy can carry his weight. That makes a team a winner.”
I grinned and said, “I’m looking forward to the first game.” Then I turned and watched my teammates slowly file off the field.
Reggie looked up at me for a moment and asked, “I don’t really know if I should ask this, but I’m going to anyway, because I let my curiosity get the best of me. Is there something between you and Lowell? You guys looked a little chummy out there, and not just because of the thing at second base.”
I dug my hands into the pockets of my jeans and said, “I don’t really want to talk about details right now, but we’ve met before. I think we both just figured out where and how. I’ll probably know a lot more after tonight comes to an end.”
Reggie reached out for my shoulder and pulled me closer. He said, “Lowell has a few quirks, and the occasional grey mood, but I think he’s a good guy. I’ve known him for three years now, and he’s always at practice or a game unless he’s given advance notice. I think that only happened one time. You can depend on Lowell.”
I smiled back at him and said, “Hey, thanks. Say hi to Connor for me, and, like I said, after tonight, I’ll know a lot more.”
True to his earlier word, when I walked through the door at the Toolbox, I found out that Reggie was paying for the entire team’s first round of drinks. Lowell was on his own leaning up against the wall opposite the bar. He nodded when he saw me, and I joined him asking, “Can I pick up a drink for you? Beer? Something more stiff?”
He said, “A beer is great, and I’m not picky. Just bring me what you’re having.” Then he asked, “Would you like to sit at a table in the back? It’s quieter back there, and we can talk without needing to shout at each other.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I joined Marshall and Ian at the bar and waited for the bartender Claw to draw the two beers.
Just as I picked up the two beers and turned to look for Lowell, Marshall whispered in my ear, “If the two of you aren’t a couple yet, you should go on a date and explore the idea. I’ve got a gut feeling.”
I grinned and sipped at the beer while I made my way to a small table in the rear of the Toolbox. While I was seating myself, Lowell said, “It’s been awhile since that date, hasn’t it?”
I said, “Almost ten years. I’m sorry I didn’t
figure it out right away, though. I don’t usually forget things like that.”
Lowell shrugged. “Nothing came of it. I forgive you for trying to block it out. I’m just glad I’ve finally gotten to see you again.”
I took another sip of the beer and said, “Likewise. So, I know it’s a cliche to ask, but how are you? You can answer that in so many ways, but it feels like the right thing to ask.”
Lowell set the beer down and said, “Some think I’m a jaded, skeptical bastard. How’s that for how I am? I tend to prefer realist with an adventurous streak.”
“Well, I’m all for creating our own self-definitions. You’ll just have to explain it to me.”
Lowell shrugged again. He said, “It’s just that I don’t think things happen for any particular rhyme or reason. They just sort of happen. I’m sure we can nudge it a bit, but a lot of the time it’s just sort of random. This is a perfect example. Who would have guessed I was going to run into you again on a softball team in Milwuakee?”
I didn’t agree with his assessment of life, but I didn’t want to drive him off when we were just starting to talk after so many years. Instead, I simply nodded and continued to listen.
4
Lowell
I wanted to kick myself for giving Sven such a negative picture of me. It might be true, but it’s not the way to attract a guy that looked like Sven. He was even better looking now than in college, and I could see in his eyes a spark of interest in me. I’m just shameless enough to admit that I was dying to see what was underneath the clothes.
As we settled in the back of the Toolbox on opposite sides of one of the little round tables, I asked, “And you? How are things in Sven’s world? Did you pursue that job in finance?”
Sven held up a hand and said, “Wait a second. You asked a lot all at once. Let me see if I can unpack it a little.”
Always Waiting: The League, Book 3 Page 2