Prologue #2
“It was two inches outside.” Evan shrugged unapologetically. “I don’t chase junk. I wait for something worth it. Now go away so I can finish my breakfast with someone who doesn’t piss me off.”
CJ gave a short nod to both guys as they grabbed their trays and headed toward the exit. Evan kicked out the chair across from him with his foot, and CJ dropped into it.
“You look like you didn’t sleep at all,” Evan said. There were two mugs of coffee in front of him. One had been doctored with so much creamer it was almost white, and one was black and untouched, and that’s the one he slid toward CJ.
“I slept.” He wrapped both hands around the cup and let the warmth seep into his hands.
Evan raised one eyebrow and rolled his eyes, then launched into a story about his communications professor before CJ could respond. CJ fought to focus, but his laugh came a second too late, and he kept his gaze on Evan’s hands because he couldn’t look him in the eyes.
“Oh shit.” Evan looked alarmed. “I forgot I have a philosophy test this afternoon.”
CJ blinked. “You forgot.”
“I forgot,” Evan repeated, already half laughing at himself. He reached across the table without looking and grabbed the wrong cup, grimacing after he took a sip. “That’s yours.” He slid the cup across the table. “Why do you drink it this bitter? Are you punishing yourself?”
“It builds character,” CJ muttered.
“It builds ulcers,” Evan countered.
Around them, the dining hall churned with the noise of scraping chairs and bursts of laughter. CJ’s shoulders went rigid every time someone walked past, and he flinched when Evan laughed again. Evan’s smile faltered.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “You good?”
“Yeah.” CJ exhaled slowly. “I’m fine.”
When they walked toward their classes, CJ kept a careful distance between them. At the corner where they usually split, Evan stopped to look at him, and CJ stared off at the path he needed to take.
“You didn’t text me last night.”
CJ’s mouth went dry. “I fell asleep.”
Evan stared at him. “Did you?”
CJ forced himself to meet Evan’s eyes. “Yeah.” The lie came too easily after years of practice, and CJ hated how good he’d become at something he’d never wanted to learn.
Evan’s mouth tightened. “Okay.”
CJ turned and walked away before Evan could say anything else, before Evan’s eyes could ask a question CJ didn’t know how to answer.
By day three, CJ stopped pretending he didn’t know what he was going to do.
They hadn’t had practice the day before, so he’d managed to avoid Evan entirely by skipping breakfast and altering his usual paths.
But he couldn’t avoid him forever. The baseball season wasn’t over.
They still had practices and games, and they had to share a dugout.
And they had to perform. Draft boards didn’t pause because your personal life imploded.
He was going to have to figure out what he was going to say, and he was going to have to look Evan in the eye. Sooner or later. Somehow, he hadn’t expected Evan to show up at his door, and his stomach dropped before he even met Evan’s eyes.
“You’re ignoring me.” Evan brushed past CJ into his room, and when he spoke again, his voice was steady, but his eyes weren’t. “Tell me the truth.”
CJ’s pulse throbbed in his neck. “About what?”
“Seriously?” Evan stared at him incredulously. “About why you’re avoiding me.”
“We got caught. What am I supposed to be doing?” CJ swallowed hard. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop seeing Matt at the edge of the field, and I can’t stop thinking about all the ways this could fuck everything up.”
“So, you’re just letting fear run your life?” Evan’s voice was tight as he stared at him, eyes flashing.
CJ swallowed hard. “You ever walk into a room and know you’re being watched and not know why?”
Evan’s voice was careful. “Yeah.”
“Now imagine you do know why. And you can’t do anything about it because the moment you react, the second you flinch, you confirm it.
” CJ shoved his hands into his pockets. “So yeah. Matt saw us. And maybe he won’t say anything.
Maybe he’ll keep it to himself. But it doesn’t matter because now I know it can happen. Now I know we’re not invisible.”
Evan stared at him for a long moment. “Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s say you’re right. You get drafted and you make the majors. Then what?”
“I play baseball.”
“For ten years? Fifteen?”
CJ shrugged. “As long as I can.”
“And during all that time, what’s the plan?” Evan asked. “You’re just going to, what? Stay celibate so no one knows you’re gay?” There was silence, and Evan’s jaw dropped when CJ looked away. “Oh my God. I’m right, aren’t I? That’s actually your plan.”
“It wouldn’t be forever.”
Evan shook his head in disbelief. “Forever meaning what? Until you retire?” CJ didn’t answer. “Twenty years? Thirty?”
“I don’t know,” CJ said quietly.
“Okay, and then what?” Evan spread his hands. “You magically start living?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“No, you won’t.” There wasn’t any anger left in his voice. “You’ll keep moving the goalposts. First, it’s getting drafted, then making the roster, then the next contract.” Evan shook his head. “Or what? You get a girlfriend?”
“If I have to.” CJ crossed his arms and glared at him, but Evan just looked sad now.
“Oh man,” Evan sounded sadder than he looked. “You really mean that.”
CJ’s throat tightened. “It would be easier.”
“For who?”
CJ couldn’t answer, and Evan laughed softly, but there was no humor in it.
“It’s a copout. That’s what this is.” Evan’s voice cracked. “You’d rather spend the next however many years pretending to be someone you aren’t than risk somebody knowing who you really are.”
CJ let out a short, humorless laugh. “And what’s your plan? You get drafted and just what? Show up holding a boyfriend’s hand?”
Evan’s jaw tightened.
CJ pressed on before he could stop himself. “You’re acting like there’s some third option here. Like we can just be ourselves and everybody’s going to clap and tell us how brave we are.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Then what are you saying?” CJ shot back. “You think you’re going to be out? Publicly?”
Evan opened his mouth, but CJ shook his head and barreled on
“No, come on. Be serious.” The words came out sharper than he intended, and he threw Evan’s questions back at him. “You get drafted, you make the majors, and suddenly you’re what? The first openly gay player in the league? That’s your brilliant plan?”
The hurt that crossed Evan’s face was immediate.
“I don’t know,” Evan said quietly.
“Exactly.”
When Evan spoke again, CJ had to strain to hear him. “I wasn’t asking for a plan. I wasn’t asking you to come out or make a statement. I wasn’t asking you to be some kind of pioneer.”
The sadness in Evan’s voice was worse than yelling, and CJ’s chest tightened.
“I was asking you to let yourself have something.” Evan shook his head slowly. “And the worst part is that you don’t even know how impossible you make it sound. You really think those are the only options: hide forever or lose everything.”
There was nothing CJ could say to that because, as far as he could tell, those were the options.
The silence stretched between them until Evan finally spoke again.
“So that’s it then.” Evan’s voice was low. “You’re breaking up with me.” It wasn’t a question.
CJ swallowed hard and his chest hurt like he’d taken a fastball straight to the sternum. “Yes.”
Evan stared at him for a long beat, then he nodded once, sharp. “Okay.”
“Evan—”
Evan held up a hand, palm out in the universal sign for stop.
His voice was deadly calm and quiet. “Don’t.
” He opened the door and paused, hand on the knob.
Without turning around, he spoke again. “One day, you’re gonna wake up and realize that you’re alone because you were trying too hard to control things. That’s not living. It’s hiding.”
The door clicked shut behind him, and CJ sat on the edge of his bed, palm pressed to his chest like he could hold his heart together from the outside. He’d chosen the only thing that had always been the same. Ninety feet, three outs, and rules that didn’t change.
It would have to be enough.