19. CHAPTER 19
Iran until my lungs burned, my legs felt like Jell-O, and my head cleared.
Somewhere between the miles, I realized I no longer feared the truth.
Not really. I didn’t have many doubts that Easton would talk to Gavin, but I did wonder if today would be the day I came out to the team.
The idea bothered me less than ever. It may have been the adrenaline coursing through me or, selfishly, the knowledge that revealing the truth would expose Easton as well, making all of this easier to handle.
I got back to the seniors’ hotel room and jumped in the shower, letting the warm water massage the back of my neck.
After I finished showering, I killed fifteen minutes listening to Ricky talk about how on-base percentage was the most important thing in baseball and that I should try to draw more walks this year.
About two hours after I had left Easton, I walked to the room I was sharing with Zach and Gavin, used my key card, and entered.
Zach sat on their bed, and he smiled when he saw me. “Whatever you said to Easton…it worked.”
“What do you mean?”
Zach led me outside the hotel, where we sat at a table in front of the entrance. Beside us, flowers bloomed, something we hadn’t seen yet back in Missouri. Around the corner, I heard the crisp pop of a ball in a glove—then I saw them. Easton tossed pop flies while Gavin scrambled to catch them.
I grinned, looking on with excitement. “What happened?”
“I was going to ask you that,” said Zach.
“Easton came to the room and said he needed to talk to Gavin, so I gave them the room. They talked for a half hour, and then Gavin came and asked if I wanted to play catch with Easton. I told him Easton was all his, and they’ve been out here for the last hour.
Oh, and Easton said he’s buying me dinner tonight, just the two of us. ”
A grin stuck to my face as I looked into the distance.
I watched Easton throw the ball a hundred feet in the air.
Gavin was too busy tracking the ball to notice Easton.
He snuck up on Gavin, and before Gavin realized what was going on, Easton wrapped him up and tackled him to the ground.
Gavin tried to fight Easton off, but Easton pinned him down, laughing at Gavin’s futile efforts.
“Gavin missed him a lot. Easton’s really good with him,” Zach said.
“I know. That’s a big reason I fell for the dude.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I left it at that for a minute, watching as the two boys continued to wrestle as I grappled with the potential negative outcomes of what I had said. I'd weighed the pros and cons on my run, and I decided I had the odds to finally say it.
I sat nearly motionless—not out of nerves, just calm.
“Zach, I’m gay,” I said. It was the first time I had said those words out loud. Even when I’d talked to Gavin, I’d avoided saying them.
“Tanner, I think I like Nicole.”
“Huh?”
“I thought we were saying things that were painfully obvious.”
I hated him.
“How could you know?”
“Do you want me to list all the reasons?”
“Jackass.”
Without thinking, I asked the second question that came to mind. “Did you also know that Easton and I had been hooking up?”
Zach laughed. “Why do you think I would always go to bed earlier than you two when he would spend the night?”
“You shithead. You should have said something!”
“Wasn’t my place to say. Plus, I wasn’t positive. I didn’t know for sure until Easton stopped talking to all three of us at the same time. You might piss him off, sure, but I knew we all didn’t,” he said. “I knew you’d tell me at some point.”
“Are you okay with all of this?”
“What would I have to be not okay with?”
It was the same thing Gavin had said. I punched his shoulder, grinning at him.
“Can I ask a question?” Zach said.
“Sure.”
“What happened with you two?”
I had known the question was coming, but I wasn’t sure if I could answer it. I doubted that even if Easton and I were alone together and we were being perfectly honest with each other that we could get it right. At this point, though, Zach deserved the best answer I could give.
“The only way I tell you is if you promise not to mention anything. No one else on the team can know.”
“I’ve known since the first day he came over and haven’t said a word. You should be able to trust me to keep this secret.”
So, I started from the beginning. I told him about the first time I kissed Easton on Gavin’s trip, about our talks, and even how I knew I loved him when he consoled Gavin after his loss. I started to tell him about the first time I saw Easton naked—until Zach waved me off.
Then I had to tell him about Gavin walking in on us and about how he’d acted on New Year’s Eve. I told him about everything that I wished I had been able to tell him for the last four months, things I hadn’t realized had been hurting me so much to hold inside.
I felt a sense of relief that I had longed for. Not only that, but I felt like I had my brother back. The glass closet that I had built for so long had come crashing down, and so far, I’d avoided getting cut.
Zach’s phone kept buzzing, but he didn’t interrupt, didn’t drift, didn’t even blink at the sound of cars rushing past.
When I finally stopped talking, Zach looked at me and said, “I’ve got a very serious question for you. I hope you’ll answer truthfully because I couldn’t tell from your story there. Are you one hundred percent positive you’re gay?”
I laughed until I couldn’t breathe anymore. The joke hadn’t even been that funny, but it was good to be able to show some emotion around Zach again.
“But why do you think he stopped talking to all of us?” Zach asked.
A small breeze brushed by as I thought about how best to answer his question. I tapped my knuckles on the picnic table, careful not to pick up a splinter from the peeling wood.
“That’s the part I can’t really pinpoint. I wish I knew. He’s really embarrassed about it. He refuses to talk about it. But that’s not your fault or Gavin’s. Or, for that matter, mine.”
“Should I ask him?”
“Only if you want him to stop talking to you guys again.”
“How are you dealing with all of this?”
“Not great. I’ve never felt like this with anyone before. Or, I used to feel like that. I still do, but it’s weird. I’m so mad at him right now. How could he do this to me? How could he do this to Gavin?”
“Or me. I don’t know, man, this shit makes dealing with Nicole look easy. But look at them,” he said, pointing across the field, “he’s starting to make up for it. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Yes. But kind of no. I’ve gone all my life being able to avoid falling for someone I played baseball with, and now I’ve got it in the back of my head every time I’m on the field. I need to just get over it and focus on baseball for three months. After that, I can worry about Easton again.”
“You don’t choose who you love, Tanner. It just happens. It isn’t selfish to care about something other than the pursuit of a state title occasionally.”
“That’s all that matters right now,” I said.
“If that was all that mattered, you wouldn’t have yelled at Easton.”
I slapped his shoulder. “When did you get so smart?”
“I’ve always been smart.”
“I remember you strapping on Gavin’s gear and taking an eighty-mile-an-hour fastball to the chest.”
“Hey, that was fun,” he joked.
I turned to the field again and saw Gavin leading Easton toward us. Gavin was still smiling, something I doubted he’d stopped doing for the last two hours.
Gavin reached us about fifteen feet ahead of Easton and sat down next to me. He tossed his Mizuno glove on the table and said, “Easton says he’s going to throw me BP after your guy’s game tomorrow.”
“I’m sure he did,” I laughed.
“Thanks,” he whispered, wrapping his left arm around my back in a mini hug.
I smiled at him and looked up as Easton reached the table. He walked to Zach and kept his body positioned away from me. His shoulders were stiff. “You still want to go to dinner? I was going to tell Coach we were leaving.”
“Sure. Now?”
“Yeah. Meet me in the lobby in five, and we’ll figure out where we’re going.” He walked into the hotel, his head forward the entire time. He may not have been looking at me, but I certainly looked at him.
“You should probably stop looking at his ass,” Zach laughed, drawing my guilty eyes away from Easton’s body.
“You told Zach?” Gavin said.
“I didn’t really have to,” I said.
“Not sure they could have made it any more obvious,” Zach said.
“Pretty sure I was the only one who didn’t figure it out,” Gavin said.
“Sounds like you got an eyeful, though,” Zach laughed.
“How about you go have dinner with Easton and both of you stop talking about us?” I said, only slightly annoyed.
Zach heeded my advice and walked away. I knew they were laughing more with me than at me. Maybe I should have been upset about it, but I was just happy that Zach and I were talking about stuff again.
“What did you say to Easton?” Gavin asked.
“I told him if he didn’t make up with you that I’d tell the team about us,” I said.
“Really? You would have done that?” Gavin asked.
“Probably. I wasn’t thinking straight—I was just angry. I didn’t want to out him, but I didn’t know what else would make him listen.”
“Thanks,” Gavin said. “But you told me that outing somebody is a dick move. I’m glad you didn’t.”
I felt a tinge of regret at the reminder, knowing I’d put Easton in an impossible position. “I was out of options. He couldn’t keep being an ass.”
“I’d rather have him not talking to me than you out both of you guys just for me.”
“Well, thankfully, it didn’t come to that. What did he say when he sent Zach away?”
“He was really awkward at first. I’ve never seen him like that.
He couldn’t look at me and kept pacing around the room.
He said he thought everyone was asleep and that he didn’t know why he did it.
Then he thanked me for not saying anything and apologized about fifty times, calling himself a prick. ”
“Good. Did he say anything about me?”
“No. I asked him if you guys would be friends again, but he didn’t say. But he will,” Gavin said with all the confidence of someone who didn’t know any better.
I bit my lower lip.
There was a part of me that had hoped things would turn out better. The smarter part of me, though, was starting to realize I was worth more than the way he had been treating me. I was sick of being this dirty little secret, unable to live my own life.
I walked to Coach’s room and knocked on the door. There was another conversation that I had been dreading, but I knew it had to happen. If I could say I was gay, I could do this.
“Tanner,” Coach said as he answered the door. “What’s up?”
“Do you have a couple of minutes?” I asked, glancing behind him. No one else was in the room, so this would be easier than I’d thought.
“Sure,” he said, walking to the bed at the far end of the room. “Take a seat.”
I walked over and sat on the edge of the other bed. A single lamp barely gave light to the room. I folded my hands with my elbows on my knees. I stared at the floor, my eyes following the green and purple patterns on the carpet.
“Speak, Tanner.”
I stood up and paced the room. I turned to Coach and blurted, “Move me to second.”
Coach smiled. “Why would I do that?”
“Easton has more range than me and already has a stronger arm. We’re a good middle infield as is, but we’d be great with him at short and me at second base.”
“I figured that’s what this might be about.”
“You did?”
“I’ve been considering it for a while. It was close enough that I didn’t want to rock the boat—you’re the leader with this group and have been for a long time. It’s a lot easier of a change to make when I know you’re on board, though.”
“I need to put the team first.”
“You’ve been pushing this team forward for four years, Tanner.” Coach smiled at me again, and I couldn’t help but let relief engulf me.
“Everything else okay?” Coach asked.
I thought about telling him, right then, about everything that had gone on with Easton and my brothers. I wanted to just get it out in the open and be done with it. But that wasn’t his cross to bear.
“Things are good, Coach. Thanks.”
“No, thank you, Tanner.”
I walked out of the room, frustrated I was no longer the starting shortstop but elated we were now in a better position to win some baseball games.