Page 7 of All Bats are Off (Rose City Roasters)

Tucker

Division Series: Roasters 2–0

I t was official, this would go down in history as the longest travel day of my career. When some unsuspecting baseball scholar sat down to write my biography, which would, eventually, be turned into a musical or made for television movie; either was fine by me—they would ask me about this day, and I would tell them it smelled like sweaty ass.

More so than usual, too.

It made no difference that all of us had showered before we’d left Austin. A last-minute gate change had led to us sprinting through the airport to make our flight. As if that wasn’t bad enough, we had been rerouted to Vegas for a four fucking hour layover that then took us to Seattle rather than Portland.

We were finally on the last leg of our trip, a chartered coach back that would drop us off outside the Roasters’ facilities. Rose City was still a good twenty minutes away, but I could practically taste the late-night nachos calling my name.

I rested my forehead against the cool glass and let my thoughts drift—not to our back-to-back wins or the fact that we were one game away from advancing to the next round of the playoffs—but to the man who was, hopefully, waiting for me when I got home. The one I had fallen head over ass for.

And Brock gave good ass and head.

Something had shifted in our (gulp) relationship the day he’d told me about his dad, almost as if it were the final piece of the puzzle that was Brock Heller. That had been the day I’d seen the real him, all of him—raw, hurting, brave. Ever since, I’d been thinking less about sneaking around and more about what it would feel like to hold his hand in public.

To claim his as mine.

And then somewhere between Vegas and Seattle, I’d decided that tonight was the night—it was time for me to lay all my cards on the table and tell Brock how I really felt.

A low snore came from the seat behind me. Roman. He was the only person I knew who could sleep anywhere, anytime, and still look like he’d walked out of a GQ spread when he woke up.

I reached across the aisle and nudged his side with the back of my hand.

“Sleeping Beauty,” I whispered. “You awake?”

He cracked one eye open. “I am now, asshole.”

“We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

He yawned, stretched, then turned in his seat to face me. “Do you still want to crash at Sinclair’s?”

“Actually, there’s something I should tell you.”

Roman raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want to crash at Sinclair’s?”

I rolled my eyes. It was a wonder that the two of us were such good friends. We were constantly volleying to out smartass the other.

“No. Not that. It’s, um—” I paused, searching for my words. “I’ve kind of been seeing somebody.”

I braced myself, half-expecting teasing or a dramatic gasp, some kind of reaction. But all he did was nod, like he’d just solved a math problem.

“Fucking finally.” He grinned like an idiot. “Does that mean you’re ready to talk about how you’ve fallen for the enemy?”

I blinked. “What?”

“I’m not an idiot,” he said, smirking. “You’ve been smiling at your phone like a teenager with a crush for weeks, not to mention spending almost every free night in Kenton.”

“How did you—”

“We share a Life360 account, dude. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together once Bennett and Diaz mentioned a certain reporter who lived around the corner from them.”

I ran a hand through my hair, suddenly shy. “It’s Brock Heller.”

Roman let out a low whistle then grinned. “Yeah, I got that.”

Fuck, he made me feel like an embarrassed teenager. Like the time my mom had caught me sneaking in past curfew and decided the punishment would be public humiliation. Instead of grounding me like normal parents, they’d made me wear a custom shirt to school that said: “I should have listened to my mother—now I’m grounded.” My mom had even added glitter to the letters, just to make sure it caught the light and the attention of literally everyone, including the girl I had snuck out to meet that night.

To this day, glitter still gave me PTSD.

I groaned and dropped my face into my hands. “Am I that obvious?”

“To me, yeah.” Roman lowered his voice, careful to make sure this conversation was just between the two of us. “But I’m your best friend. I know when you're into someone.”

“Are you pissed?”

He snorted. “Of course not. I’m happy for you, man.”

I exhaled, something loosening in my chest.

He leaned in with a sly grin before adding, “But just so we’re clear, I don’t care if he’s the best lay of your life; he’s still the enemy.”

I laughed with him, but inside, my pulse was still uneven. It felt good—relieving, even—to say it out loud. But that didn’t stop me from feeling like I’d just opened a door that could never be shut again.

Roman clapped a hand on my shoulder. “And don’t go telling him about my bad elbow. That’s classified team information.”

Up ahead, Rose City’s lights flickered through the tinted bus windows like little promises. I let myself imagine walking into Brock’s place tonight, maybe cooking something shitty together, finally saying the words out loud that I had been thinking about for weeks.

I want this. I want you.

All thoughts of a quiet evening together fell to the wayside, however, when the bus pulled to a stop outside the stadium. I grabbed my bag from the overhead, cheered with the others when Pink got off the bus, walking into the arms of the bombshell he had been pining over for months now, and then, finally, exited the bus myself.

“Later, dude,” Roman said, slapping my back.

“You sure you don’t want a ride home?”

“Nah.” His eyes drifted to something—or someone—behind me. “Something tells me you might have other plans.”

My chest tightened.

When I turned around, I saw Brock right away—standing alone under one of the parking lot lights, hands in his pockets, looking like a scene from one of the rom-com movies he refused to admit he loved. He was wearing my shirt, the one I had picked up at a brewery last month in Milwaukee and then left at Brock’s apartment.

“Hey,” I said, jogging over, away from the chatter and jostling of my teammates. “Fancy meeting you here.”

He gave me a small smile, one I couldn’t quite read. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come meet you.”

“Did you miss me?” I asked, stepping close enough to finger his belt loop.

He hesitated, eyes darting briefly toward the bus behind me then back. “Listen, I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you something for a while now, and frankly, it’s been eating me alive, so I’m just going to say it.”

The words flowed out of him like lava. Something about his tone made my stomach twist. It also didn’t escape me that he hadn’t answered my question either.

“Okay.”

“I was offered a job,” he said. “A big one.”

I racked my brain. “The sports editor gig, right? You mentioned that a few weeks ago.”

“Right, but what I didn’t mention is that it’s with the Miami Herald. ”

I blinked. “Miami. As in—”

“Florida.”

His delivery landed in my chest like a line drive straight to the dick. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something more, but I was already reeling.

I should have seen this coming. Brock had always been bigger than Rose City and the Portlandia Press , bigger than sharing kisses in the shadows with me. Here I was thinking that there might be something more between us—something I had only ever read about in romance novels—but no. I was just the guy between bylines, a secret Brock kept safe while waiting for his next chapter to start. And now it had.

In fucking Florida, of all places.

Sticky air, mosquitoes the size of golf balls, the kind of heat that felt like you were being strangled by a damp, musty towel. I had played a year in Double-A down there and swore I would never go back unless I had to. Everything smelled like sunscreen and regret.

But this wasn’t about the weather. Not really.

This was about him being there and me still being here . And the space between those two things suddenly felt so much bigger than geography.

I searched his face. “So, what does that mean for us?”

He looked up at me then, eyes soft but distant. “I don’t know yet.”

Wrong answer. Brock must’ve seen something shift in my face because he stepped in closer, voice softer. “Tuck, I didn’t expect this. Us. Not like this.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes flicking away for a second. “When we started this, I thought maybe it’d be fun, or light, or . . . I don’t know. I was thinking about myself for once and what I wanted. You .”

His voice cracked a little on the last part, and I hated that it made something ache behind my ribs.

“And then you were so much more. I haven’t said anything because I’ve been scared to make it real.” He paused to catch his breath before adding, “And now this offer shows up, because of course it does. Right when things are starting to matter.”

There were a thousand things I could have said.

Tell me we’ll figure it out. Say this isn’t the end. Pick us over the job.

But none of them felt right. None of them felt fair.

Instead, I fell back on my usual pattern and did what I did best when I was hurting: I lashed out.

“So . . . I guess that’s that, huh?”

My voice came out harsher than I meant it to.

“What? No, that’s not—”

“Hey, I get it.” I stepped back, forcing a shrug. It was better he thought I was unaffected by his words, when really I was dying inside. “You’d be crazy not to take the job; it sounds like a great opportunity.”

“Johnny, wait—”

“It’s fine,” I lied, pulling my duffel strap tighter over my shoulder. “Really. I’m happy for you.”

I didn’t let him finish. I couldn’t. Because if I stood there another second, I knew I’d ask him to stay or, worse, beg him—and I wasn’t sure I could handle hearing him say no.

So, I turned away from him.

“Good luck in Florida, Heller,” I called back over my shoulder.

I walked back toward the bus—toward the noise, the distraction, the safety of being just another one of the guys—before he could say something kind that would crack me open.

There were no footsteps behind me, just silence.

And that was worse.

I wanted to hear him call my name. I wanted him to grab my arm and tell me not to go, to say that his new job wouldn’t change anything. That we were still us , whatever that meant.

Instead, all I heard was the soft rumble of an engine and the buzz of tired voices drifting from just beyond the bus.

I didn’t look back.

Didn’t trust myself to.

I veered toward the far side of the lot, past the team and the bus, needing distance to think, or maybe to not think at all. I kept walking, past the shadows of the loading bay, past the players’ entrance to the stadium, toward nothing in particular. Just moving.

Standing still felt too much like waiting, and waiting felt too much like hope.

And right now, I couldn’t afford to do either.