by me
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Mine.
Summary: Oh, geez, I have no idea how to summarize this.
Author's Notes: ::cringes and hides::
POV – Damien
We got home and in the house and Ryan brought up his feelings again again. “I still think it’s weird.”
“I don’t. I mean, if I had gone to like, a World Series game when I was eight, I probably wouldn’t have mentioned you, either.”
“That’s a good point,” he muttered, sighing.
But I thought about it. If I went to a game with people I didn’t know, I can imagine what I would say. ‘My favorite team is the A’s. That’s my Dad’s favorite, too.’ Or ‘You can hear the fastball pop all the way up here. Ryan taught me to throw a fastball two years ago and a change-up, too.’ They were all things I would’ve told friends at a game. So maybe it was slightly abnormal that Liz didn’t mention hers. “Actually, maybe I do think it’s a little strange.”
“They just set off a sense, I think.”
“A doctor-sense or a parent-sense?”
“A little of both. I’m probably just imagining things. Night, Dame.”
“Good night,” I called, starting down the hall to my room. Tomorrow was Saturday. Sleep in, and then I needed to work out some. Maybe Kyle’d come with me.
POV – Coach Riley Titon
It was the morning of our first game, and I was nervous. I was at school an hour before my first Algebra I class, and I spent the time at my desk, writing my lineup card. I could do it in my sleep. It was almost the same team, with one exception. A scrappy, scrawny freshman with a rocket arm and quick bat had won the catcher’s job away from the junior who’d expected to have it. Luckily for me, the upperclassman’s a good-natured kid and was perfectly willing to be my number 1 pinch hitter.
My pencil hesitated for a moment over the pitcher’s spot. Kyle Wilbourn was last year’s ace, the guys knew him and trusted him. So did the conference. Better to come out strong and show them last year was no fluke. I penciled in “Damien Radack” in the nine spot. We’ve got two aces this year, and our next few guys aren’t bad, either. If those two can start us off, we have people to finish. Our bats are solid, as usual. Looking over the lineup, I don’t see a hole.
The conference is ours.
Game time rolled around a bit more quickly than I would have expected. Then again, the three weeks before this day have pretty much flown, too. I leaned against the fence right beside the dugout and watched my boys toss around and loosen up. They were a good team, a tight team. Fun to coach. Most of them listened well and learned quickly. We didn’t have any problems with grades, not on my team. I scanned the small gathering of people, looking for scouts. Sure enough, I found a couple of them, with clipboards and sunglasses and stopwatches. Here to watch Damien and the other team’s left-fielder, probably. “Coach Titon?”
I looked back in front of me, and it took me a second to speak. “You can, uh, call me Riley,” I managed, blinking.
Shaking my hand firmly was one of the more striking individuals I had ever met. He was about my height and about my build, muscular and strong. His light green eyes were hypnotic and his hair looked to be dark red in direct sunlight. And he held my hand probably a little longer than was necessary. “I’m Ryan Connolly, Damien’s…father.”
That startled me out of my stupor. “Oh, right, well it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Connolly.”
“It’s Dr. Connolly, actually. But Ryan’s fine.”
“Well, Ryan, it is nice to meet you. Your son is very talented.” And your eyes are beautiful, I refrained from adding.
“Yes,” he said softly, smiling. “He is. Anyway, I’m glad to meet you, finally, Dame talks about you a lot.”
I laughed a little and he returned to the stands and I turned around and focused my attention back on the field, breathing deeply. What the hell was that? Since when did I become a hormone-crazed teenager when I saw an attractive man? I’m 38, for chrissake!
Never, that’s when. I spent 4 years of my life as a college baseball player. I spent 5 more years as a professional baseball player. I’ve spent very nearly every year since then as a baseball coach in the South. I’m pretty damn good at not reacting.
So why did the father of a player set me off? God knows. Luckily, it was time to exchange lineup cards, so I could forget about it for now.
Damien Radack took my mind off his father. I knew he was good, he’s been throwing in practice, obviously. But that didn’t prepare me for how well he set up hitters, how well he changed speeds, and how well he used that devastating, knee-buckling curveball. It was pretty to watch. He gave us 8 innings, 9 strikeouts, scattered 6 hits, and walked 3. We won 6-2. It was a great start to the season.
In more ways than one.
POV – Damien
We didn’t have to be at the field until 5:30, so Kyle walked home with me before the game. We’d had a lunch meeting to discuss the lineup, so I knew I was pitching today. It had set off butterflies then, and I still had them. More excitement than nervousness. Sure, I wanted to impress my team, but I had enough confidence in my abilities to know that I would be able to do that. I hope.
“Ready, Rad?” he asked me, as we sat down at my kitchen table, presumably to do some homework. I doubt either of us will be able to concentrate on schoolwork today.
“Yes, WIL,” I sighed. The guys had started calling me Rad a week or so into practice, and Kyle was doing it too.
“Ah, come on, Dame, it’s not that bad. They could call you something stupid like they do Drew.” Drew, our catcher, was dubbed ‘Peanut’ because he was little and a freshman. The fact that there was rarely a ball that got by him behind the plate and he had the best arm of any catcher I’d ever had didn’t factor into the nickname process.
“It isn’t my name.”
“It kind of is,” he smiled, tilting his head to look at me. I rolled my eyes at him. “There will be scouts there, you know.”
“I know. I’ve met plenty of them.”
“California scouts. Not North Carolina scouts.”
“Oh, come on, they’re all the same.”
He sighed. “It’s easier for you. You’re left handed and you throw hard. That’s what they want to see. I’m just a shitty righty junkballer.”
I frowned. That was unlike him, to be so self-deprecating. For the hundredth time I wondered if THAT was what Coach was referring to me when he talked to me at the very beginning. “You aren’t ‘just a junkballer’. You throw more than junk. You’re a smart pitcher.”
He just sighed. I knocked his cap onto the floor. “Hey! I’m not kidding! Knock it off, you’re damn good.”
“I don’t know why I bother sometimes.”
“It’s BASEBALL, do you need a reason?” I joked and he smiled at me and seemed to return to normal. But honestly, I wasn’t sure that statement was referring to the game at all.
Kyle’s POV
Damien had me speechless. I wasn’t going to tease him about the scouts anymore. He deserved every accolade he received. He was great. Overpowering. At one point I caught Riley’s – I mean, Coach Titon’s – eye, and he just shook his head in disbelief. It was pretty incredible on Dame’s part. We won easily and just like that our path towards the State Championship was forged.
After the game, Riley asked me if I wanted to talk to him, but I really would rather go with the team tonight. So most of us went for pizza, and Dr. Connolly – which I still call him no matter how many times he insists that Ryan’s fine – went too so Riley didn’t have to be the lone responsible adult. And so it was pretty late when I stood in front of the door of the house.
Dame told me today that I was a smart pitcher, not just a junkballer. I know he’s right. I know that I have a courage on the mound that leads me through most every obstacle. It’s how I pitch. My hand was on the doorknob when I looked up and down the street. It’d be so easy to just not go home, to go anywhere but home. But my sister is here, and I can’t let her down. Right now, it takes all the courage I have to stay.
But I wonder if I’ll ever get the courage to leave.
3rd Person POV
“So...you’re Damien’s father?” Riley actually managed coherent small talk as Ryan Connolly sat across from him, several tables away from the team.
“Stepfather, really.”
“So what brought you to Durham?”
“My job. Though why it’s me and Dame is a pretty long story, one he wouldn’t appreciate me telling, I’m sure,” Ryan laughed.
“Well we’re glad to have you,” Riley smiled, then quickly amended it to, “both of you,” and laughed nervously, something that the doctor didn’t miss.
“How long have you been coaching here?” Ryan asked, looking at his son’s coach with a new and slightly difference interest.
“This is my tenth year. I love it, for the most part. The area’s nice and the team’s been improving every year I’ve been here.”
“What position did you play, before you started coaching?”
“Short in college, they converted me to a second baseman when I was drafted. But I only played pro for five seasons.”
“More than most,” Ryan smiled. “I caught in college.”
“Really? Where’d you go?”
“Stanford. You?”
“South Carolina. I never get very far from home, I guess.”
“Nothing wrong with that...hell, I’ve lived in the Bay Area my entire life, until now.”
“Must be a big change.”
“It was...is. But Dame and I both needed it, I think.”
“We both needed what?” Damien asked, approaching them.
“A change. What’s up?”
“Are you ready to go?”
“Yep. Are we taking Kyle?”
“I’ll get him,” Dame said turning back towards the group of players.
“It was nice to talk to you, Riley.”
The coach colored a bit and averted his eyes towards the table. “Yeah...do you think we could this again? Get together, I mean. Talk baseball.”
Ryan figured that his son’s coach asking him out was about as weird as it got. But he wasn’t going to complain. “I’m off Friday at 6.”
“Meet you at 7, then? There’s a place just down the street from here called George’s Garage that has good food.”
“Sounds good.” Ryan smiled and caught up with Damien. Who was giving him an awfully strange look.
TBC...maybe...I hope...::glares ferociously at musi::