Home Field Advantage

by Shae Connor

  “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,” 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, 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.”

  Caleb gave Toby a look. “Except for the part where there still aren’t any out major league players.” He 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 to dump a player who’d just been outed—not to mention one who’d just taken a baseball to the face. 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 team offices 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 team’s 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 ol’ 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 phone, and Toby r
ealized 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 own 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.”

  Ray’s scowl deepened. “I’m glad your father isn’t here to see this.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” Toby leaned forward, hands on the desk. “I’d hate to see him figure out exactly how much of a bigot his father is.”

  Ray jumped to his feet. “Now you listen here,” he growled. “I set up a press conference tomorrow at one. You will give a prepared statement denying everything you’ve been accused of, and then you’ll sign a nondisclosure agreement about all of this. If you don’t, I’ll write you out of my will. I will get your trust fund overturned. I already have my lawyers working on it. I swear, you will never own a single piece of this ball club if I have anything to say about it.”

  Toby leaned back, stunned that his own grandfather would seriously try to cut him out so completely. His father had brought him up with baseball, had woven the ball club so completely into his genes that Toby wasn’t at all sure he’d know what to do with himself without it. He didn’t have a clue if Ray could actually do anything about the portion of the team he was slated to own in a few more days, but the idea that his grandfather could be so vindictive as to take that away from him? A baseball to the head might have been less painful.

  “Some grandfather you are,” he spat. “Hating your own grandson so much that you’d take away the one thing that’s always been a part of his life. Well, good luck with that.” He nodded and rapped his knuckles on the gleaming wood surface between them. “I’m sure this desk will take care of you when you’re too old to do it for yourself.”

  He spun on his heel, ignoring his grandfather’s attempts to call him back. Let him think what he wanted. Toby had plans of his own.

  The pressroom hummed with conversation, but Toby tried to ignore the noise. Dexter, the team’s PR director, stood next to him behind the curtain that hung at the back of the podium where players and coaches sat for organized press conferences. Toby’d never had a turn there, but he was about to find out how it felt.

  Toby hadn’t slept much more the night before than he had Sunday night. After his disastrous meeting with his grandfather, he’d visited Caleb, who’d gotten the full story out of him and then urged him to go see his own lawyer, who’d been managing his parents’ estate and his trust for nearly ten years, before he did anything rash. Toby had managed to get an appointment early that morning, and between that and the hours of conversation with Caleb the day before, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

  Steeling himself, Toby nodded when Dexter’s assistant asked if they were ready, and he followed Dexter out to the table. He sat down behind the microphone and looked up, finding his grandfather where he sat on the front row, looking dire. Just behind him sat Matt Sussman, though, and he gave Toby a smile.

  “Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen,” Dexter began. “Toby Macmillan is here to read a statement.”

  It wasn’t precisely true, and Toby had warned Dexter of that, though he hadn’t given him details. When Dexter turned his head toward Toby, Toby took a deep breath and started.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “I have a prepared statement here—that I’m not going to read.”

  Ray Macmillan’s eyes widened, but before he could react further, Toby went on. “My name is Toby Macmillan, and I am a gay man.”

  The murmurs he expected started among the crowd, but he ignored them, continuing to stare down his grandfather. “I’m making this announcement not because I think it matters, but because it shouldn’t. My private life should stay private, but it doesn’t always work that way. Coming out is a personal, private decision, but making an announcement in public like this isn’t something you do for yourself. It’s something you do for others.”

  He finally broke eye contact with his grandfather and looked around at the other faces in the room. “I want to be clear. This changes nothing about me or who I am. I’ve been working with this team since I was fifteen, and the only thing different now is that I’m almost twenty-one.”

  He saw Barry then, standing near the back wall, his face reddening, though Toby had no idea if he was embarrassed, angry, or what. He also didn’t care. “It’s important to note,” Toby said, holding Barry’s gaze, “that Major League Baseball, and this team specifically, have explicit policies against discrimination on any basis, including sexual orientation. These policies apply not only to the front office but on every level of the organization, top to bottom. And that includes the ballplayers.”

  Toby looked down at his hands and unfolded the piece of paper he still held. “On that note, I do have a prepared statement to read. This is on behalf of Caleb Browning.”

  He knew what the statement said, but he kept his eyes on the paper as he read it anyway. “Caleb says: ‘In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League. I know I’m not the first gay man to play in the majors, and I certainly have no illusions that I am, or ever could be, a fraction of the player that Robinson was. But if by breaking this barrier, if by coming out openly, I can help other players like me even a fraction as much as he did, then it’s worth whatever consequences I might face.’”

  Toby paused for a long moment and then looked up at the crowd in front of him. “Caleb Browning has spent his entire professional baseball career with the Atlanta ball club. He was thrilled to finally make it to The Show at the All-Star break. A few days ago, he suffered what could easily have been a career-ending injury on the field. It would be shameful for his career to suffer because of his choice to be honest about his sexuality.”

  Toby leaned forward, speaking directly into the microphone. “In closing, let me be very clear. If I have anything to say about it, this team will not tolerate discrimination of any kind. Any employee who has a problem with that is free to seek employment elsewhere.” He met his grandfather’s gaze and, to his surprise, saw a glimmer of respect there, among the expected shock and anger.

  Toby looked around the room again. “I will not be taking questions at this
time. Assistant team trainer Marty Boynton will be available shortly for questions about Caleb’s injuries and projected recovery. Thank you for your attention.”

  Toby pushed to his feet, ignored the shouted questions, and walked away from the table and out the door, for once in his life feeling completely at ease in his skin.

  No matter what happened next, he knew he’d done the right thing.

  Toby knocked on the side door to the hospital Otis had tipped him off about and smiled at Otis when he opened it a few second later. “Thanks, man.”

  Otis grinned and held up one fist for Toby to bump. “No prob. Saw the press thing. You did good.”

  Toby shrugged and bumped Otis’s fist. “Did what I needed to do.”

  Otis nodded. “Now go see about your boy.”

  Caleb was dressed and ready to go when Toby gave a knock out of deference and pushed into his room. “Oh, thank God,” Caleb said the second he saw Toby. “Come over here and let me give you the biggest hug and kiss ever, and then get me the hell out of here!”

  Toby had to laugh even as he obeyed. Caleb pulled him in tight, cupping the back of his neck with one hand and sliding the other around his waist, and kissed him, his mouth minty fresh. Caleb smelled clean and right, even through the antiseptic scent that lingered after any hospital stay, and Toby would have been content to stay right there.

  But Caleb was finally going home, and the sooner Toby could get him there, the better.

  Full of reluctance, Toby drew away. “Are you all checked out?”

  “Yep.” Caleb pushed to his feet, and Toby reached for his hand without even thinking about it. Caleb meshed his long fingers with Toby’s immediately, as if they’d been holding hands for years instead of for the first time, and that little something in Toby’s chest turned over again.