6. Elliot
6
ELLIOT
It’s weird being at a game in the capacity of an athletic trainer but not for the entire team. I’m here specifically for Grady, but he’s not playing, so I have nothing to do. I end up sitting in the bullpen since there isn’t any reason for me to be in the dugout with Grady and the rest of the team.
The game hasn’t started yet, and Hoax is throwing pitches to Shelby, one of the backup catchers. Even with my limited knowledge about pitching mechanics, I can tell it’s not going well. Hoax can’t seem to get his head right with the catcher. After the third pitch Shelby has to stop a millisecond before it hits him in the face, the catcher asks for a break. Hoax agrees but doesn’t follow the other man when he walks away.
“Hey,” I call toward Hoax, who still hasn’t moved from his spot in the middle of the pitching stretch. “What’s going on, man?”
“Nothing,” Hoax sighs, running a hand across his face. “Have you seen Mills?”
I haven’t, but I don’t think that information will ease the pitcher’s mind. “I’m sure he’ll be out here in a second.”
“Yeah,” Hoax nods at the ground, tossing a ball into his glove. He fishes it out just to repeat the movement again.
“You’re comfortable with Miller, aren’t you?”
Hoax frowns at me, dark eyebrows casting shadows over honey-colored eyes. “Of course I am.”
“Do you think that makes it easier for you to pitch to him?”
I see the dots connect in Hoax’s eyes, but it doesn’t appear to be a new revelation for him. “You’re not hinting at anything the pitching staff haven’t told me a thousand times.”
“I know,” I agree, having already made that assumption myself. If I’ve noticed the change in his stats, the pitching staff certainly have. “But I’m not telling you to change anything. I’m asking why you’re so much more comfortable with Mills.”
Hoax takes a moment to think about it, the jittery quality of his movements getting worse the longer we stand there talking. It never occurred to me that Hoax and I might have this in common, but now that I’m looking at him, I can see all the signs.
Restlessness, discordant breathing, the frantic way his eyes keep swinging around the bullpen—Hoax is having a panic attack.
“Hey, look at me,” I step in front of him so he doesn’t have to turn toward the guys standing along the wall behind us. “Can you take a deep breath?”
“No.”
His answer is immediate, and I can see the shallow give and take of his chest as he tries to suck in a breath. “That’s okay,” I soothe, unsure if I should try to touch him. Some people find it grounding, but others prefer not to have the additional stimulation. “Can you toss me that?”
I nod to the ball he’s been repeatedly moving from his glove to his hand, and he looks surprised to see he’s holding it. Hoax slowly stops the repetitive motion, and I see his ungloved hand is shaking.
“Don’t throw it too hard,” I tease, holding up my bare hands. “I didn’t come prepared.”
Hoax gently tosses the ball in my direction, and I catch it with my left hand. Flipping it to my right, I feign a casual tone, asking, “Can you tell me three things you see right now?”
“What?”
I lob the ball back to him, smiling when he catches it easily in his glove. “Just three random things you see.”
“Uh,” he moves the ball to his empty hand, absentmindedly rolling it in his palm. “There’s the fence.”
He tosses the ball back to me, and I snatch it out of the air before prompting him to continue. “Two more.”
“You’re wearing a Cougar’s hat.”
“I am,” I agree, taking a small step backward as I toss the ball back to him. “What else?”
“There’s a wild advertisement for a law firm behind you.”
“Wild how?”
I don’t turn around to look at it, waiting patiently for him to explain as he underhands the ball back to me. “The guy looks like that one dude. The ‘aliens’ guy.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Hoax huffs out a deep breath, and I feel myself matching his inhale. “And the colors are terrible. It’s bright orange and a really hideous bronze.”
“Sounds awful,” I snort, tossing the ball back to him. “Do you smell anything?”
“Smell?”
“Yeah, man,” I try not to laugh at how confused he sounds. “This is a ballpark. It’s full of smells. Can you name two things you smell right now?”
He considers the question, taking a deep breath through his nose. “Grass.”
“Love that smell,” I nod, taking a breath of my own. Grass is certainly the main thing you can smell over here, but there’s also an undercurrent of?—
“Popcorn?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I smile, catching the ball as it sails right toward my shoulder. I see Miller entering the bullpen behind Hoax, and I breathe a sigh of relief. “And that is probably the last throw I can catch with my bare hands.”
Hoax shoots me an apologetic look, but it’s quickly replaced by something else. “Thank you, Elliot.”
“It’s nothing, man.” I shrug, lobbing the ball high in the air between us. Hoax catches it easily, and I pat him on the shoulder. “Thanks for keeping me company.”
Miller appears at Hoax’s side as I say the words, and he shoots a brilliant smile in my direction. “I found the best sliders.”
“You’ve been eating?” Hoax gives him a disapproving look, but Mills simply shrugs.
“Gotta keep my energy up somehow. Now,” he winks before moving around me in a gentle jog toward the far end of the bullpen. “Let’s play ball, Hoaxley!”
The Cougars win nine to seven. It’s a hard-fought game, but that makes the win all the more satisfying. Steal uses that as his opening line to the reporters after the game. He made a fantastic play at the top of the eighth, which I’m sure will be the talk of the highlight reels for the rest of the week.
We’re all crowded in the hall, waiting to lend him support after he makes his statement. Miller tried convincing Nell to let him sit at the table with Steal, but she shut him down completely. It looked like Grady might have had her considering letting him stand to the side of the stage area, but she eventually shut him down, too.
“Wait in the hall. All of you,” she snapped, pointing at the wall opposite the door. That’s how we found ourselves standing in a line, watching Steal give his statement alone in the room full of reporters.
My eyes cut to the TV as Steal finishes his prepared statement. The questions are brutal, but he takes them in stride. Steal’s honest but not unkind. He claims they had different needs in life and admits they should have spoken about it before they married, but it was love .
Steal gets the room laughing when he asks who hasn’t made questionable decisions for love. My eyes find Grady at the other end of our line, and I can’t help but agree with Steal on this one. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do if Grady asked it of me, and that’s unrequited love. I can’t imagine how different it would be if he loved me in return.
When bright blue eyes meet my gaze, I turn quickly back to the TV, catching the end of Steal’s post-game interview. Thankfully, they aren’t overlooking his spectacular performance tonight, and there’s a round of applause from the entire room when he walks off stage.
The moment Steal is through the door, we’re off the wall and surrounding him in a dogpile of support. He’s smiling, even though there’s a tightness around his eyes. He puts up with all of us loving on him until Miller comments about Steal being “the second-best legs on the team”.
Our loving dogpile turns into a wrestling match, and I use the moment of chaos to slip out of the hall unnoticed. The next day is much the same. I spend most of my time reading alone in my room until Hoax asks me to have lunch with him. I’m expecting all the guys, but it’s just the two of us and a massive pizza box from a place near the stadium.
“You like Hawaiian, right?”
“I am pro-pineapple on pizza, yes,” I agree, flopping onto the end of his bed. Mills isn’t here, and I point questioningly toward his bed.
Hoax laughs, pulling a piece of pizza from the box. “One sure-fire way to get rid of Mills is a pineapple pizza.”
“Were you trying to get rid of him?”
I look around their room, noticing it’s much the same as mine, except there’s twice as much stuff here. Colton, the other athletic trainer that I share a room with, is the kind of guy who spends most nights “out” when we’re on the road.
I’m not judging. Colton’s a single man and can do whatever he wants so long as his partners are consenting adults. And I get a whole room to myself more often than not, which is always a plus.
“I was,” Hoax pulls my attention back to where he’s leaning against the headboard. His hair is damp from a recent shower, and he’s wearing a Marx Tattoo t-shirt that I’m certain originally belonged to Scott. “I wanted to talk to you without Mills interrupting us every five seconds.”
“Fair enough,” I give him an encouraging smile around a bite of pizza. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to thank you for yesterday.”
“It was no big deal, man.”
“No, it was.” The sincerity in his voice makes it hard for me to swallow.
I wonder how long he’s been dealing with panic attacks, and I suddenly realize that’s something I can ask him because we’re friends. I think. “How long have you been having panic attacks?”
“Is that what that was?”
I’m not sure how to respond to that. He looks genuinely curious, and I remind myself that Hoax is a twenty-two-year-old kid drafted from the middle-of-nowhere. He called his college town “the big city” before he moved to Cadence. Hoax might not have had the resources to understand what was happening to him, especially if it didn’t happen often.
“I believe it is, yeah.” I try to think of the best way to confirm that. “How do you feel when it’s happening?”
“Bad,” he shrugs, crossing one arm over his stomach and examining the slice of pizza in his other hand. “Like my heart is going to beat so hard it explodes.”
“Do you get that heavy feeling in your gut?”
“Yeah,” he nods, picking a pineapple off the pizza with his teeth. “Feels like something bad is about to happen, and it’s all my fault.”
I nod, dropping my pizza crust into the box. “That sounds like a panic attack. How long do you think you’ve been having them?”
“A few years. They don’t happen all the time, but it’s almost always before a game. I just want to know why I get them.”
I understand that feeling of not knowing all too well. “I started having mine when I was seventeen. They came out of nowhere, and I had no idea what was going on. My mom took me to the hospital because I had convinced her I was having a heart attack. The doctors explained it to me, and I got on some medication for a while, but…” I trail off, realizing that’s not a conversation I want to have right now. “I’m off it now, and I’m doing well.”
“Do I need meds?”
I don’t blame him for not sounding interested in that idea. “I’m not a doctor so I can’t tell you that for sure, but I think we can try some other things if you want.”
The relief is palpable on his face, and I pat his shin reassuringly. Something is eating at the back of my mind, and I’m halfway through my third slice of pizza before it clicks. “Miller.”
Hoax makes a face, his eyes darting to the door before landing back on me. “What about him?”
“He makes you comfortable, right? In the same way Scott does when you’re feeling anxious.”
“Do not let Scott hear you say that.” Hoax raises his eyebrows meaningfully, and I nearly laugh at how right he is. Scott would not enjoy the idea of Hoax being with anyone, but especially not Miller. The two of them have a love/hate relationship that works for now but is not stable enough for jokes like that. “But yeah, I’m comfortable with Mills. He is a surprisingly calming presence.”
“He definitely isn’t,” I joke, throwing my crust next to the others in the box. “Do you think that’s because you know him better than anyone else?”
Hoax doesn’t answer that, but I can see he’s thinking about it. It’s a big question and not something he’s likely to have considered. I try to phrase it in another way, in case that helps him. “Do you think Grady, Steal, or King would have the same effect on you that Miller does when you’re panicking?”
“Yes.”
It’s an immediate answer, and I can’t help the satisfied sound that comes out of me when I realize we have a solution to his game-day jitters, at the very least. “I think you’re comforted by things you know. New situations likely trigger your anxiety, and since we can’t avoid that on the road,” I give him a sympathetic look when his shoulders sag. “We need to find more things that comfort you. I think you need to start practicing with the other catchers and talking to the rest of the team. I know,” I add, holding both hands up when he gives me a panicked look. “I don’t like talking to people either, but these are your teammates. You won’t be bothering them by saying hi every now and then.”
Hoax doesn’t look convinced, but the sound of the door opening cuts off whatever he’s about to say. Miller comes stomping into the room, one hand thrown dramatically over his eyes as he feels his way down the hall.
“Is that abomination parading as a pizza still in the room?”
“Nope.” Hoax sounds so innocent, and my eyes cut from the half-eaten pizza to his face in question. He winks before adding, “We finished it.”
“We?” Mills drops his hand, a bright smile crossing his face when he sees me on the bed. His joy is short-lived because the next moment, he’s slapping his hand over his eyes again. “You liar!”
Hoax’s giggles set me off, and we dissolve into laughter as Mills tries to leave the room again. Hoax nudges my thigh with his toes, and I tear my attention away from Miller’s botched escape.
“Thank you, Elliot.”
“Any time, man.”