2. JACKSON
TWO
JACKSON
I think Nebiolo’s brother is the prettiest man I’ve ever seen.
I have never been flustered by a man. I struggled for a while when I was younger. I wasn’t as skilled at hiding when I crushed on a guy, but I’ve grown past that. I’m completely in control of myself now. I’m locked up tight.
This fortress is impenetrable.
But Nebs’s brother? I could barely string two words together.
Fortunately, Dev read that as discomfort.
It wasn’t. The way my gut erupted in uncomfortable flutters brought me back to when I was a freshman in high school playing varsity ball.
I’d been the youngest member on the team and earned the attention of Trevor Lafeyette—the team captain.
A very attractive, very talented captain.
It wasn’t a revelation. I’d always noticed boys. Never girls. But that was the first time I’d been infatuated, can’t get him out of my head about a guy. Every time he smiled at me, my insides froze, and I forgot how to breathe.
I learned how to stifle that side of me. You do what you have to to survive. You can’t be gay in my town. In my family.
And you definitely can’t be gay in professional sports.
Very few male professional athletes have come out, and most waited until retirement.
You think that’s a coincidence? It’s not.
It’s not safe for us. The autobiography by one of my idols is burned into my memory.
It’s still beneath the floorboard in my bedroom back home.
Out at Home by Glenn Burke. A center fielder like me.
Gay like me. Was blackballed out of baseball because of it.
I grew up in a family of jocks. My father played college football, my brother followed in his footsteps and is now an assistant coach, and then there’s me in baseball. I’ve known from day one that this is a part of me that won’t get to see the light of day until my baseball career’s over.
And until then, I’ve figured out how to stay safe. Burke spoke about how he lived a double life. He was a macho man who would never be confused as a gay man, sneaking into gay clubs and meeting his partners in secret. The world still found out.
So, I don’t live a double life.
I live a half-life.
The gay part of me doesn’t exist; it won’t until my days playing ball are done.
“Well, now you’ve met Nebiolo’s fairy of a brother,” Dev mutters to me.
I grimace. Fortunately, Dev’s going to read that as a reaction to Nebiolo’s brother and not his statement. That was tame for Dev, too. He uses other words of the “f” variety often. He’s a clone of my father. Sexist, homophobic, pretty sure racist too.
The perfect shield.
No one sees the gay man standing by his side.
Some days it feels like it might destroy me.
The pain of pretending. The bigot I’ve become laughs down at me, his prisoner, bound and tied up until he decides I can be free.
That bigot gets stronger and stronger every day.
The fear I live with festers, the paranoia propagates and breeds, weaving in and out of my organs, embedding itself, sucking the life from me.
Demanding I hide more, bury who I really am even deeper.
I glance sideways at Nebs. He’s deep in conversation with Araujo, so I catch Dev’s eye again and drop my voice. “What the fuck is Nebs doing bringing him around here?”
I mean it, just not like Dev will interpret. Isn’t he nervous? Bringing a gay man to a bar with your teammates seems pretty fucking stupid to me, especially a man like his brother.
Frankie.
Frankie clearly doesn’t hide. He flirted openly with everyone at this table, dropping sweethearts and blowing kisses, and, fuck, when he rubbed his thumb over his bottom lip from across the room, something inside me shifted.
His deep umber eyes were lined with black eyeliner, bordered by the longest lashes I’d ever seen.
They were nearly impossible to look away from.
Want.
I’ve never felt want like that.
My attention creeps back over to him at the bar. He tilts his head back and laughs at something the man next to him says. His hand comes down to rest on the man’s chest, and my gut tightens.
But it’s not a simple want. It’s not just the urges I’ve learned to shove down. It’s envy.
Envy of the ability to exist.
I look away. Existing isn’t for me.
It’s not a good idea to bring a man like that around a crowd of Devereuxs.
In my town, being open like Frankie would have been a sentence of torment and bullying—or worse.
And by the very people I was surrounded with.
It’s not just Dev either. Guys get comfortable when they hear others spew hate.
Think it’s an invitation to express their views when they might have otherwise stayed quiet.
Another benefit to my shield. I know exactly who the enemy is.
Friends close. Enemies closer.
“I don’t know, man. We don’t need a—” He glances toward Nebs, then lowers his voice and drops the slur I knew was coming. “—coming around here and perving on us.”
I swallow down the bile rising in my throat and lift my fist for Dev to dab. “Amen, brother.”
My heart cracks.
Only around fifteen more years of this—if I’m lucky. Once my baseball career is over, that part of my life can begin. Until then…
This is my cage.