Playing Ball

by Kerry Freeman

  Toby lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “We kind of hit it off, you could say. And I kind of freaked out about it.” He returned his attention to his plate, though he’d lost interest in eating. “Not just because of the gay thing. It’s, well….” He laid down his fork and sat back, meeting Marty’s steady gaze. “I’m almost his boss, you know? And even if I wasn’t, we work in the same place, and that’s never a good idea.”

  Marty nodded. “It can be a problem, yeah. But it doesn’t have to be. I mean, maybe it’s too much when you put it all together like that. The gay thing, the boss thing, the work thing. Three strikes?” He copied Toby’s one-sided shrug. “Maybe. Maybe not. That’s up to you to decide.”

  Marty reached for his tea glass and drained it. After setting it down, he pushed back his chair. “Now. We have food in our bellies and a patient to see about. All the rest can wait.”

  Toby couldn’t agree more. He followed Marty’s lead again, thankful Marty didn’t mention his still half-full plate as they dropped off their trays and headed back down the hall.

  “OW.”

  It wasn’t exactly what Toby expected would be the first thing out of Caleb’s mouth, but he’d take it. He laughed, knowing the sound had an edge of hysteria to it.

  “Yeah, pain kind of comes with the territory when you take a fastball to the face.” Marty’s voice might have been dry, but Toby could see the relief in his eyes.

  They stood on either side of Caleb’s bed in the ER, where he’d just been wheeled back from X-ray. Caleb had an IV line in the back of one hand, his eyes were taped shut, and the left side of his face looked like someone had injected grape juice just underneath the skin. The color was particularly vivid considering that the rest of his skin was several shades paler than his usual light tan.

  “You’re gonna have quite a shiner, son.” Marty reached out to tap two long fingers on Caleb’s forearm. “Gotta learn to duck faster.”

  Caleb’s face moved in what probably started out to be a smile but ended up in a wince. “You should see the other guy,” he murmured.

  Toby snorted. “The other guy is a five-ounce ball made of cork, yarn, and leather.”

  “Yeah, and he was speeding.” Caleb turned his head in Toby’s direction. His lips quirked, like he’d thought of trying to smile again but reconsidered. “Hope you saved it. Need that one for the trophy case. Maybe a T-shirt. ‘I Survived A Beanball.’”

  He reached out a hand, and Toby took it, lacing their fingers together. Caleb relaxed for a moment but then jerked, tugging a little. “Is Marty still—?”

  “Right here, Caleb,” Marty cut in. “Not a problem. Already had a little talk with Toby.”

  Caleb didn’t relax, though. “It’s just….”

  Toby stepped forward and wrapped his free hand around both of theirs. “Caleb. Shut up. It’s fine, okay?”

  Toby swore Caleb rolled his eyes behind his closed eyelids. “‘Shut up’? Really? This is how you treat a man who’s been hit in the head with a fastball and lived to tell the tale?”

  “So far, he has,” Marty intoned. “Watch yourself, or we might start thinking of ways to change that.”

  The clips holding the curtain behind Marty to the ceiling squeaked, and Toby released Caleb’s hand instinctively. The cloth moved to admit a tiny young woman who didn’t look a day over fifteen but wore a white coat with a badge proclaiming her to be Madeline Grace, MD. “All right, Mr. Browning,” she said, stepping adroitly around Marty to stand next to the bed. “The X-ray showed only a hairline fracture, so surgery won’t be needed. We’ll be admitting you overnight to monitor the swelling in your brain—”

  “Hold up a second,” Caleb cut in, lifting one hand. “Can you back that up and slow it down a little? I just woke up, and…. Did you say swelling in my brain?”

  Dr. Grace glanced at Toby and Marty, who’d moved to the far side of the bed. “You’re the family?”

  “Marty Boynton, assistant team trainer.” He tilted his head to the side. “Toby Macmillan, grandson of team owner. This is official business, of a sort.”

  Dr. Grace narrowed her eyes for a second but then turned her attention back to Caleb. “Mr. Browning, is it acceptable to you for me to discuss the details of your condition in front of Mr. Boynton and Mr. Macmillan?”

  Caleb nodded. “Yeah. Saves me from having to tell them later. Not sure I could do that all that clearly with this headache.”

  Dr. Grace nodded. “Mr. Browning, you’ve suffered a rather serious blow to the head that’s caused some degree of swelling and at least a mild concussion. As I said, the X-ray showed only a hairline fracture of your cheekbone, so you will not need reparative surgery. You have extensive bruising and some swelling around the impact point, as well as the blurry vision you described earlier. None of this is particularly serious, but we do need to monitor you in case you develop bleeding in or around your brain. A subdural hematoma is always a risk after an injury such as yours.”

  Toby couldn’t be sure how much of that Caleb got, all things considered. “So he’ll be here overnight, and if everything looks okay tomorrow, he’ll be able to go home?”

  “Or the day after.” Dr. Grace turned to the computer sitting in the corner of the cubicle and signed in, then pulled up a screen with row after row of data, none of which Toby could read from where he was. Dr. Grace clicked and typed for a couple of minutes, pulled up another screen showing an image that had to be Caleb’s X-ray, and then typed a few more notes before clicking out and, apparently, logging off.

  She turned to face Toby and Marty. “He’ll need to be monitored pretty closely even after he goes home,” she told them. “Head injuries can be tricky.”

  Names flashed through Toby’s head, players who’d lost seasons, careers, even their lives to nasty beanballs. He shuddered and resisted, barely, reaching out to take Caleb’s hand again.

  “We’ve been through this a time or two,” Marty said. “We’ll have the team doctor in to check him out while he’s here, too. He’ll be the one handling the follow-up.”

  “Good.” Dr. Grace held out a hand, and Marty and Toby each took a turn shaking it. She turned back to the bed. “We’ll get you in a room and settled soon, Mr. Browning.”

  “Thanks.” Caleb almost got a real smile out this time, though he favored the injured left side. Dr. Grace stepped back out and pulled the curtain back into place, and Toby let himself grab Caleb’s hand again once she was gone.

  Marty cleared his throat. “Look, guys, I need to head back to the ballpark, let everyone know what’s up. The guys’ll be asking. I doubt any of them will try to come up tonight, but you might get some company tomorrow.”

  Toby heard the unspoken warning: play it safe if you don’t want the world to know about this. He gave Marty a half smile. “Thanks,” he said. “For, well, everything.”

  Marty clapped a hand on his shoulder and gave it a shake. “No problem, kiddo.”

  He stepped around the curtain, and Toby heard his footfalls fading as he walked away. He moved closer to the bed and lifted his free hand to brush Caleb’s uninjured cheek.

  “You’re gonna be just fine,” he murmured, and Caleb turned his head into the gentle touch.

  “Stay?” Caleb’s voice was low, like he was a step away from sleep, and Toby couldn’t have denied him even if he’d wanted to.

  “Not going anywhere,” he promised.

  “JESUS CHRIST, this headache won’t quit.”

  Caleb had been griping most of the day, first about how he couldn’t get a decent night’s sleep with nurses waking him up every couple of hours to check on him, and then how they gave him bland food because he kept having bouts of nausea from the concussion. Toby had let him rant, knowing he was in pain and feeling rotten, but now the pain itself had become the focus of Caleb’s dissatisfaction.

  “Jesus Christ, Caleb.” Toby gave up standing next to Caleb’s bed, trying to soothe him, and threw himself down into the relatively comfortable recliner he’
d mostly not slept in the night before. “You got hit in the head with a goddamn baseball. Of course you have a fucking headache!”

  The glare Caleb gave him would have been more effective had the left side of his face not been swollen and spattered with a rainbow of colors. At least his eyes were open, which was an improvement, and he’d shown no signs of bleeding on his brain. But his vision was still blurry, especially in his left eye, so he was scheduled for another scan to make sure nothing major was going on, and he’d be stuck in the hospital another night or two.

  Toby glared right back. “Look, I know you’re in pain and frustrated and all that. I get it. But could you ease up a little on the throttle? You’re giving me a headache, and that won’t help anyone.”

  Caleb rolled his good eye. “Oh, poor you, stuck here babysitting instead of out having a high old time. Why don’t you—”

  That was it. Toby jumped to his feet, took the two steps to the side of the bed, and leaned over to kiss Caleb, hard. He didn’t even care if it hurt. Maybe that would snap Caleb out of his little self-pity party.

  Caleb made a muffled sound, but after a moment, he kissed Toby back, bringing up one hand to slide into Toby’s hair. Toby held the kiss and then broke away to catch Caleb’s gaze.

  “I’m here because I want to be, idiot,” Toby said. “And because I know you want me here. So save the drama for yo’ mama. Got it?”

  Caleb stared at him for a long moment before giving a slow, lopsided smile. Toby met it with one of his own before leaning in to kiss him again.

  The kiss was slow, deepening gradually until their tongues twined together and Toby’s pulse pounded and his cock got really, really interested in where things were going. He’d just realized they were in a hospital and he should probably ease up on the guy with the concussion when a noise at the door made them pull apart. Toby turned to see two people standing in the doorway, both of them wide-eyed. One was a nurse, and through the sudden panic, Toby was pretty sure she’d keep her mouth shut, or risk losing her job.

  The man standing next to her was a bigger problem: Barry Knight.

  Oh, fuck, Toby thought. No way in hell Barry wouldn’t go public with what he’d just seen. Toby wouldn’t have been surprised to see him pull out his phone and put it out on Twitter before he even left the room.

  The nurse had slipped away by the time Toby managed to say anything. “Barry, I don’t know what—”

  Barry waved a hand. “Do you have an official comment?” He flicked his gaze over to Caleb. “Either of you?”

  Caleb sat up straighter. “Don’t do this, man,” he warned, though all three of them knew it was an empty threat. Random, stupid, blind luck—good for him, bad for them—and Barry was about to write his ticket as a sports reporter.

  Barry nodded. “No comment. Got it. See you guys in the papers.”

  He was gone before Toby or Caleb could say another word.

  “I HADN’T planned for it to come out like this.”

  Caleb’s voice was flat. After Barry’s visit, all the fight had gone out of him. As much as Toby had wanted him to be calmer, this wasn’t what he’d had in mind.

  “I told my parents senior year of high school.” Caleb fiddled with a loose thread on the blanket that covered him from the waist down. “They were pretty upset, but the main thing Dad said was that if I wanted to play baseball, I had to keep it quiet.” Caleb shrugged. “He was right.”

  Toby had pulled his chair close to the side of the bed, and at that, he reached out to cover Caleb’s restless hand with his own. “He might have been right back then,” he said. “But things change. Times change. Coming out isn’t as big a deal now. Look at Jason Collins. Basketball seems to be surviving that.”

  Caleb gave Toby a look. “Except that he still hasn’t signed on with a team for this season.”

  “He’s also thirty-four years old and was never a superstar,” Toby replied. “He might not have been signed anyway.”

  Caleb let his head fall back against the pillows. “And I’m barely even a major leaguer,” he muttered. “No way I’m gonna stick after this.”

  Toby wished he could reassure Caleb, but anything he said would be false hope, and they both knew it. The chances of the team doing anything immediately were slim, simply because it would be a public relations nightmare in the current climate to dump a player who’d just come out. But the long run was another story. And even with a voice that counted, which Toby would officially have in another few days, he couldn’t guarantee anything.

  A knock sounded at the door, and an older black man stuck his head in. Toby recognized him after a moment as the orderly who’d brought Caleb’s bed upstairs the night before. “Hey, guys,” the man said. “Mandy sent me down to see if everything’s okay. Said some guy might’ve been giving you trouble?”

  He flicked his gaze down to the bed, and Toby realized then that he still had his hand over Caleb’s. He didn’t guess it mattered all that much anymore.

  “Just some asshole looking to write his ticket.” Caleb leaned forward. “You got anything you’d like to add?”

  The man stepped fully into the room and shut the door behind him. He leaned against it, crossing his arms behind his back and one ankle over the other. “My youngest brother got kicked out when he was sixteen.” His tone was as casual as his stance. “Our mama found out he was kissin’ on the boy across the way. He was on the street for a year before I found him and took him home with me. Took almost another year before he trusted I wasn’t gonna yank the rug back out from under him.” He let his gaze flick between them. “You got nothin’ to worry about from me.”

  Tension drained out of Toby, and he gave the man a smile. “I’m Toby Macmillan, and this is Caleb Browning,” he said, tilting his head in Caleb’s direction. “If you ever need anything for you or your brother, you just call the Braves’ office and ask for me. I’ll do what I can.”

  The man smiled. “Otis Washington,” he said. “And if you boys need any help around here, keepin’ the sleazeballs away or whatever, you just let me know.”

  “We will.” Caleb squeezed Toby’s hand, and Otis flashed them a quick, bright grin before he slipped back into the hall.

  TOBY got the phone call just after midnight, not twenty minutes after he’d gotten home from the hospital. Caleb had finally convinced him to go get some decent sleep so one of them would be rested when Caleb got released, which looked like it would be Tuesday. Toby had stripped to his boxers and flopped down on the bed when his cell phone rang, and he picked it up to see the Braves’ main switchboard number on the caller ID.

  “Fuck.” He blew out a breath, debated ignoring it, then decided he might as well get it over with.

  “Hello?”

  “Please hold for Mr. Macmillan.” Toby didn’t recognize the voice, but he supposed it was one of the backup admins, since his grandfather’s executive assistant worked a normal weekday schedule. While he waited—once again considering hanging up and trying to ignore it all—he tried to figure out what Ray’s reaction would be. Breaking a story like this at midseason broke all the rules, and leaving the public relations department out of it only made things worse. It wouldn’t matter much that they hadn’t been given a choice about it. The team was still going to have to deal with a mess.

  “Toby!” his grandfather practically bellowed into Toby’s ear, and Toby jerked the phone back instinctively. “What in the goddamn hell are you playin’ at, boy?”

  The good old boy in Ray Macmillan rarely made an appearance anymore, unless he was playing up to the public. But apparently anger brought it out in him.

  “I’m not playing at anything, Granddad.” Toby fought to keep his voice steady. “I didn’t plan for this to happen.”

  “And you’re gonna goddamn fix it,” Ray growled. “You be in my office at nine o’clock in the morning, you hear me?”

  Toby’s headache was starting to rival Caleb’s. “What for?”

  A sharp noise rang through the phon
e, and Toby realized Ray must’ve slammed a fist down on his desk. “You just do what you’re told and get your ass down here. And you damn well better not be late.”

  Another noise, and the line went dead. Ray had hung up on him. Toby couldn’t bring himself to be surprised, or to care all that much about what might happen in less than nine hours. The only thing he wanted to know was that Caleb would be fine, and they’d be together.

  Rolling to the side, Toby crawled under the covers. He paused to set his alarm for way too early, to give himself time to call and check up on Caleb before heading to the ballpark, then curled a pillow close to his chest to try to sleep.

  “THIS ends right here. Right now.”

  Ray Macmillan glared at Toby across the expanse of his shining mahogany desk. Impressively large even in the expansive office, the desk was older than Toby. He remembered crawling under it when he was a toddler and sticking his head out the opening in the front, just like the famous picture of JFK Jr. under his father’s Oval Office desk.

  Toby had sat in the chair across this desk from his grandfather more times than he could count, even sometimes for a dressing-down. But never had his grandfather looked at him with this kind of venom in his eyes.

  “What ends?” Toby knew the answers. He just wanted to force Ray to say them.

  “This whole… thing with you.”

  Toby’s laugh was hollow. “You mean the thing where I’m gay? Or the thing where I’m falling for one of the ballplayers?”

  “All of it!” Ray roared, his face going even redder, so much so that Toby almost feared for his heart. “You are not some sick, perverted—”

  “I’m gay, Granddad.” Toby was on his feet by then. His sleep had been fitful, and he’d had no breakfast and only half a cup of coffee. But he felt more energized in that moment than he had in days. “I’ve always been gay. I’ll always be gay. You can be upset about me dating a ballplayer. I can accept that. But you do not get to sit there and call me names for being who I am.”