So we play. Or try to. Because neither of us actually knows the rules. The croupier, whose name tag reads “Deb,” attempts the impossible task of explaining things to half-listening, half-drunk ballplayers, who might play a sport with a lot of intricacies but who aren’t necessarily great at absorbing those rules.

  Like, er, me.

  Deb explains how craps works. Twice. But something—the champagne, the press of guys in a relatively small space, how Derek’s shoulder brushes against mine—prevents me from listening to what she’s saying.

  “It’d probably be easier to just play,” Derek says, though he sounds more amused than irritated. Or it’s possible he’s laughing at the carpeted table surface that says “Come” in large letters.

  I wave to him, unwilling to admit I don’t know what I’m doing. “You first.”

  He plunks down a few chips, a wad of bright pink Bark Buck bills, then takes the dice Deb gives him. He holds them out, displaying them like he’s expecting me to do something. Is craps the one where people blow on the dice? It must be, because he nods like he’s daring me to do it.

  Instead I tap my hand against his, then knock back a gulp of champagne. Even though it’s warmed, it tastes pretty good. That fizzing feeling lasts through Derek casting his dice then looking to Deb for confirmation.

  “Did I do that right?” he asks.

  She gives him a warm smile. “You did.”

  “Thought you knew how to play,” I say. It comes out flirtatious. Possibly because I’m flirting with him. The harmless kind that won’t go anywhere. He might not even pick up on it.

  But he arches a challenging eyebrow. “You wanna show me how it’s done?”

  Or maybe he will pick up on it.

  I know nothing about craps. But flirting is all instinct and the next words out of my mouth are, “If you ask nicely.”

  Derek’s lips curve. “Maybe that’s not my style,” he says.

  What is your style? I’d like to ask. Instead, I keep it subtle. “So you’re not nice?” I ask.

  Derek blinks. I’ve surprised him. Hell, I’ve surprised myself.

  Even though the table has mostly cleared out, we’re still standing close. I should move, interject some space between us, for about a hundred reasons.

  Starting with we’re both ballplayers. On opposing teams. Well, they would be opposing if my team was any good, which is another issue.

  Another issue is—I’m supposed to be upstanding. Nice. Or so my parents keep reminding me. But maybe I’m not so nice, since I get a few flashes of what Derek might look like sprawled out on the plain white sheets of my beige little rental house bed.

  He rolls.

  A three and a one.

  I picture his lips parted as I move down his chest.

  A four and a six.

  I hear the sounds he makes as I travel closer.

  A two and a three.

  I feel the urgency in his body.

  Oh, that’s five, and Derek practically crows the way he might after hitting a home run, arms psyched with victory. At some point, he takes off his suit jacket; the fabric of his shirt is thin. My reminder to myself not to check him out diminishes like a glass of champagne.

  He gathers the dice, slapping them into my hand. “Your turn, Chason.” A smirk. “Unless you want me to blow on them.”

  “Yes, Miller, please blow on them,” I counter, getting into this rhythm faster than I expected. I hold out my hand, dice displayed for his approval, and receive a puff of air across my palm. It shouldn’t—shouldn’t being the operative word—do it for me. But, fuck, it does.

  “There,” he says.” That’s your luck.”

  Luck. I like the sound of that. “Let’s see if I’m lucky.” I throw, squinting to see what numbers are displayed. A combination adding up to six. “Is that good or bad?”

  With that, Derek laughs. “You tell me.”

  3

  Derek

  * * *

  After one glass of champagne, Adam Chason is handsome, put together, and apparently kind of shy. Adam. He feels like an Adam now to me. Attraction will do that to a guy. After a few more glasses, Adam loosens the top button of his collar, rolls his shirt up his forearms, and laughs, big, easy, like all that shyness got shed with his suit jacket.

  If that’s what taking the jacket off does, what about the rest of his clothes? I admit, I’m curious. I could use a helluva distraction for one night, especially considering the shitty start to spring training so far. Yeah, it’s spring training but I don’t like to underperform ever, and the last few days haven’t been my best. Blowing off steam is always good for a reset on the diamond. I didn’t have Flirt with the league’s golden boy on my bingo card for the evening—and I definitely didn’t have him flirting right back.

  But this twist works for me.

  Except the evening is wrapping up, the bar subtly then not so subtly turning up its lights to encourage us all to split. Spring training mornings start early. I should go home and get some sleep. Adam isn’t leaving either, casually leaning against the high lip of the table, displaying the toned muscles of his forearms. Maybe he’s lingering because, like me, he’s got nothing at home but an empty bed.

  Maybe he’ll take me up on an offer to fill it.

  The lights come up, the bar switching from subtle to GTFO, players giving each other thumped-hug goodbyes. Some are sauntering over to the main area, now filling with patrons, to continue the party, seemingly unbothered by the fact that this is a gay bar. I could stay, flirt, pick up, find someone who’s obvious in his interests. Whose flicked looks over at me might be a little more calculated than Adam’s.

  Or I could stay right here. I’ve always loved a challenge. Especially when I need one. And I definitely need one.

  It’d be easier if Adam wasn’t getting his jacket, rolling down his sleeves, literally buttoning his wholesome self back up. “You heading home?” he asks.

  “Depends, I guess.”

  He raises a dark eyebrow. “On?”

  “On if the party’s staying here too.” I might overemphasize party, but subtlety sometimes doesn’t get you laid.

  But Adam’s quiet, looking almost spooked. Ah, fuck. Don’t need to be coming on too strong. Or, honestly, at all. I’ve never hooked up with a ballplayer before. But it’s not like I have a great track record with non-ballplayers either. “I shouldn’t…” he trails off.

  An unfinished statement laced with none of his previous flirtation.

  Un-subtlety doesn’t get me laid either. I swallow my disappointment with a gulp of champagne, then toss a goodbye at the room as I walk out to call myself an Uber.

  Or would. A hundred other guys all have the same idea, and the app flashes a message: Looking for a driver in your area. Great. Thanks, app.

  I slouch—it’s not sulking if I do it on purpose—against the stuccoed exterior wall of the bar, refresh my app, and wait. And wait. And…

  An Uber pings. Uber Pool. Normally I’m okay with it. There are worse things than riding in awkward silence with a few strangers. Though maybe not with Adam’s rejection still stinging.

  But fine, if that’s my only option, I’ll take it. I hit accept and am granted a magical two-minute wait time. An Uber pulls up, a compact sedan with a bunch of boxes piled up in the front seat. I guess I’m squeezing in the back. This night keeps getting better.

  Especially after I confirm my name with the driver as yes, that Derek M.

  “Cool. I’ve got another pickup right here,” he says.

  Who climbs in a second later, apologizing for having made the driver wait all of three minutes, but Adam fucking Chason?

  “Oh, hey,” he says awkwardly.

  “Hey,” I mutter, but I hope that’s the last of it. The driver doesn’t move for a second. Is there going to be a third big leaguer squeezed in with us in this tiny backseat? But then he puts the car in gear, pulling out into the Phoenix night. The car seems even smaller with us in motion, Adam’s knee occasionally brushing mine.

  “Sorry,” Adam says, like he has somewhere else to put his knees, or like I’m going to be mad for him getting cooties on me. I’m mostly mad he isn’t getting cooties on me. I deliberately brush my knee against his to evoke another half-whispered sorry from him.

  It’s possible I do it again after that. Adam’s hands tense on his knees, a tension that matches the one in the car. I shift my legs, again, enjoying the brush of fabric, and the slight color in his cheeks visible in the dimmed backseat lighting. After a second, he shifts too, not like he’s uncomfortable with the whole situation but like his pants are suddenly tighter for some reason.

  “So, that was…fun,” Adam says.

  His hesitation is intriguing. Hell, a lot about him is intriguing, a puzzle that doesn't quite fit the image he projects. “Yeah, it wasn’t too bad,” I say, checking the street signs to see how far away we are.

  While I’m looking out the window, there’s another swoosh of fabric. This time, he initiated it. Huh. What’s his deal? It’s not like Mister Shy engineered an Uber pool, but it sure seems like he’s trying to engineer something else.

  Maybe his I shouldn’t was supposed to end with I shouldn’t, but… Because you don’t get to be where we are as players without going after what we want. Still, I have questions: If he’s not straight and just a little less vocal about it than I am. If this is his first time with another player. He certainly doesn’t hesitate in how he drags his knee across mine, even as he’s studying the passing houses through the car window.

  Maybe his I shouldn’t was supposed to end with I shouldn’t ask myself over, but I’m going to anyway.

  Do I want to try again with him? Maybe I pegged him all wrong. Maybe he’s not the boy next door after all. Before I decide, the driver announces our first destination: my boring rental house that looks like all the others around it. At least I opted to spend spring training alone. If nothing comes of this thing with Adam, I won’t have any witnesses to my eventual slightly sad face-plant onto the couch—unlike the regular season where I live in a Seattle high-rise. Down the hall from Travis. Who invites himself over. A lot. I don’t mind that much, until he has to witness my inevitable relationship disappointments.

  I get out of the car. To my surprise, Adam follows. “My place is a few blocks away. Seemed silly to have him make two stops.” He shrugs, like it’s obvious, even if most big leaguers generally treat drivers like an automated part of the car. “Which house is yours?”

  I have to squint for a second to make out the numbers: a line of them, identical as if they came off a manufacturing line, with identical SUVs out front. “I think it’s that one.”

  “My first night here, I tried my key in the wrong house,” Adam says, a little sheepishly.

  “No one there to let you in?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope.” He swallows, meets my gaze straight on. Then, like it takes some serious guts to say this, he adds, “There’s no one.”

  With that, I’m suddenly a whole lot more intrigued.

  It seems like he wants to say more—his hands are balled in his pockets, his shoulders curled in slightly. Different from the guy who just nudged my leg in the car. “I just got out of a long-term relationship.” Though it sounds more like, I just got my heart broken. “She and I were pretty serious…” He digs a toe into the concrete of the sidewalk.

  Which might mean he’s down to experiment—I don’t mind, exactly, but I need to know what I’m working with here. “Have all your exes been women?” I ask. There. Blunt, even if he doesn’t look surprised.

  He shakes his head again. “No.” A slight smile with that. “I’ve got a few ex-boyfriends who’d probably also agree that I, quote, let baseball run my life too much.”

  Something I’ve heard from everyone I’ve ever dated—that baseball was my spouse and they were just my hookups. Because it’s hard to understand the demands of the season, or that when I say I’ll be on the road for half of it, I mean it. With that, the accusation I’m screwing around behind their backs, even though in recent years it’s been the opposite. Better to go into this with clear expectations. “Yeah, I feel that.”

  A broader smile, one subtly different from the familiar Adam Chason commercial-and-endorsements grin, like it’s meant just for me, even if I’m offering myself up as a rebound. No fuss, no emotions, just two guys getting what they want and moving on. I ignore the voice in the back of my head that sounds strangely like What if it could be more than that? and say, “You wanna come in for a drink?”

  “I probably shouldn’t drink. Early morning.” Though he doesn’t start walking in whatever direction his rental house is either.

  “The drink was a euphemism, Chason.”

  “I—Oh.” He looks surprised. A touch excited too. “Are you sure?”

  “Do you think I don’t know what a euphemism is?”

  He laughs. “Maybe I don’t know what it means.”

  An invitation, one I take, stepping toward him. Maybe he needs someone to take the lead. Fine by me. He looks even better up close, the Phoenix night darkening his dark hair and eyes. We probably shouldn’t kiss, standing on the narrow sidewalk, in full view of other major leaguers likely snooping from the windows of their rental houses. But probably shouldn’t doesn’t mean much given how he’s looking at me and wetting his lips with his tongue.

  “So about that drink,” I say.

  “Yeah”—his voice is gratifyingly hoarse—“let’s go.”

  4

  Adam

  * * *

  We might as well teleport up the walkway from the sidewalk to the porch. The next thing I know, we’re shoving each other into his front hallway. Derek’s jacket lands…somewhere, followed by my own. He kisses me—hard, hands at my face, stubble catching the edge of my lips. Whatever euphemism there was is lost in the thrust of his tongue in my mouth.

  It doesn’t feel particularly nice. Rough in a way that’s better for it. A bad idea all around—a one-night stand with a fellow ballplayer, even if we’re unlikely to see each other in the regular season—but fuck it. Fuck it. Or well, maybe not it.

  Derek kisses me against the sparsely decorated wall next to his front door. Again in the living room. Again in the short hallway leading back to his bedroom. He makes casual work of my shirt, buttons impatiently undone then one or two sent skidding. I feel similarly unloosed. My belt comes unbuckled, my pants kicked off. Derek squeezes my ass appreciatively, before performing a close and thorough inspection of my chest and stomach, then pressing a slightly nicer kiss than I’m expecting at my waistband, followed by the scrape of teeth.

  “Let me blow you,” Derek says, like that’s some kind of hardship.

  I nod, maybe a little frantically, and Derek sinks to his knees then takes me in his mouth, fast, messy, distinctly un-nice. I thread my hand in his hair. The strands are tacky from product and residual humidity from being in a crowded bar. I pull his hair and get an affirmative grunt from his busy mouth. He strokes himself through his opened suit pants with a similar impatience, like he’s too turned on to wait.

  “I can do that for you,” I offer, panting, because he’s clearly as desperate as I am. Since he keeps palming himself as he sucks me.

  My hips move on their own. I’m forming an apology for thrusting too deep when he pulls off to mutter, “Do that again.” His voice already sounds ragged, hot, the way he’s hot on his knees, lips red, hair a mess, looking at me like he’s been thinking about this all night. Simple, in a way things haven’t been in a long time.

  Eventually, he pulls off, a flourish and a pop, a wipe of his hand across his mouth. His shirt’s still on, more or less, open to reveal the top of his chest, the artwork of his tattoos. Somehow that’s sexier than if he was completely naked. I grab myself, a move he eyes with some amusement, then rocks back on his heels. “Impatient?” he asks.

  It’d be rude to tell him to get back to it, even if it seems like he wants me to. Possibly for me to beg. “You’re good at that,” I say.

  I’m rewarded with the slow spread of his smile. But no other reaction.

  “Could you…?” I ask.

  Another smirk. “Could I what?” His question is too innocent. He wants me to ask for it.

  I can feel myself flush, which is stupid. I’ve spent most of my adult life in clubhouses, for fuck’s sake. I’ve heard a lot worse. Hell, in the right mood, I’ve said a lot worse. But he seems very into getting to debauch Adam Chason, certified nice guy, so if that’s what he’s after, I can at least provide that. “Um”—I put a little uncertainty in my voice—“get back to it?”

  “Just wanted to hear you say suck me off,” Derek says then laughs at me, not entirely nicely.

  Fine. I’ll play his game. I want the same thing. “Suck me off,” I whisper, sounding needy, feeling needier.

  “Ah, I knew nice wasn’t your style,” he says with an appreciative groan. Then takes me back in his mouth. This time, there’s no messing around. My cock nudges the back of his throat. He swallows convulsively, enough for me to feel it, and that’s it, I’m tipping over the edge, hand in his hair to keep him still as I come.

  After, he coughs a few times. “You could warn a guy, Chason.”

  “It’s, uh, Chason.” I pronounce it phonetically. “You kinda have to say the h in your throat.”

  “Oh, sorry. I had something else in my throat.”

  “Which you already swallowed,” I say drily.

  His blue eyes say well played. “You sure got a lot of opinions about my throat.”

  “It’s a good throat,” I say, and he laughs.

  Derek is still on his knees. I offer him a hand up. For a second, we stand there, Derek’s mouth a tempting red. I want to kiss him, so I do, a slower kiss than the ones that led us in here, a kiss that doesn’t feel like a one-night stand even if that’s all this is. Because he’s clearly not looking for anything serious. Even if he was, I’m not ready for it. But I’m not going to admit that to a dude I hung out with for the first time tonight, even one whose mouth I just came in.

 

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