Chapter 6: Game Day Jitters
The cicadas were a living curtain of sound, pressing down on the municipal field. Heat shimmered above the cracked dirt of the infield. Drake stood in the shade of the dugout, the faded red bench warm against the backs of his legs. He could smell it all—the oiled leather of new gloves, the sour tang of adolescent sweat, the distant, ghostly popcorn from the concession stand that hadn’t been open in a decade.
His kids—his team, a concept that still felt borrowed—were a puddle of nervous energy. Tyler was re-tying his cleats for the third time. One of the smaller boys, Ben, looked like he might be sick behind the water cooler.
“Breathe,” Drake said, his voice cutting through the chatter. He didn’t raise it. “It’s a game. You know the rules. The only thing different is the uniform.” He gestured vaguely at the other dugout, where the Cardinals, in suspiciously matching red shirts, were taking loud practice swings. “They put their pants on one leg at a time, same as you.”
“My dad puts his pants on sitting down,” Leo offered, not looking up from where he was methodically smacking his warped glove. The pocket was starting to look less like a twisted prune and more like a functional mitt.
A faint, real smile touched Drake’s mouth. “Point stands.”
He leaned against the chain-link fence, the metal biting into his palms. The deep ache in his core was a constant, low-grade hum now, a part of his atmosphere. He’d taken the pills. They didn’t erase it; they just turned the volume down from a scream to a muttered argument. He scanned his ragged line of players. They were looking at him. For the first time, he saw it not as a burden, but as a simple fact. They needed him to be unmoved.
A small tug on the sleeve of his windbreaker.
He looked down. Leo was beside him, his glasses slightly fogged at the edges. He wasn’t looking at Drake. He was looking up into the empty bleachers, his brow furrowed.
“She’s here,” Leo said, his voice quiet.
Drake followed his gaze. The home bleachers were a skeletal structure of aluminum and peeling green paint, largely vacant except for a handful of parents already fanning themselves with scorecards.
Then he saw her.
She was halfway up, sitting perfectly still, her hands clasped in her lap. Mandy. She wore a simple blue dress, her hair pulled back. She wasn’t scanning the field, wasn’t looking for anyone. She was just watching, a solitary, focused silhouette against the bright sky. As if she’d been carved there.
An electric current, familiar and utterly alien, went through him. It bypassed the pain, bypassed the careful control he’d built all afternoon. It was just a raw signal, old and powerful.
“Oh,” he said, the word leaving him like a soft punch of air.
“Is she a scout?” Leo asked, serious.
Drake almost laughed. “No. She’s not a scout.” He forced his eyes away, back to the dirty floor of the dugout. A discarded water bottle. A wad of gum. Reality. “She’s just… someone.”
The umpire, a paunchy man in shorts and a chest protector, bellowed, “Coaches! Home plate!”
The spell broke. Drake pushed off the fence. “Okay, listen up,” he said, his voice regaining its flat, steady timber. “Batting order’s on the clip. Tyler, you’re lead-off. See pitches. Your job is to get on, not to knock it to the next county. Ben, on deck. Gloves on, heads in the game.”
They shuffled out, a little parade of anxiety. Drake grabbed the clipboard and walked out into the blinding sun. The heat was a physical weight. He could feel every one of the ninety feet between the dugout and home plate.
He nodded at the Cardinals’ coach, a guy with a goatee and a Bluetooth headset. They shook hands perfunctorily.
“Good luck,” Goatee said, his eyes already assessing Drake’s team with a dismissive flicker.
“You too,” Drake replied, his tone neutral.
He turned to head back. His path took him along the first base line, directly parallel to the bleachers. He didn’t look up. He could feel the specific gravity of her presence, a subtle bend in the space around him. The dust kicked up by his sneakers seemed to hang in the air.
He made it to the dugout. The game began.
It was not a beautiful display of baseball. It was a slow-motion train wreck punctuated by moments of pure, accidental grace. Tyler struck out on three pitches, the last one so far outside he spun himself into the ground. Ben, trembling, managed a slow roller to the pitcher, who bobbled it long enough for Ben to reach. A minor miracle.
Through it all, Drake was a statue of forced calm. He called out steady, simple reminders. “Good eye, good eye.” “Run it out, always run it out.” His hands were shoved deep in his jacket pockets to hide their clenching.
In the bottom of the second, with two boys on base, Leo came to the plate. The warped glove now dangled from the fence. In his hands was a bat that seemed too long for him. He took a practice swing, fierce and off-balance.
The Cardinals’ pitcher, a boy with a mean fastball, smirked.
Drake stepped out of the dugout, right up to the fence. “Leo,” he called.
Leo looked over, his face a mask of terrified determination.
“Just meet it,” Drake said, his voice carrying on the still, hot air. “You don’t have to kill it. Just meet it square.”
The first pitch was inside, jerking Leo back. The second was a wild pitch that sent the runners scrambling. The count was 2-0.
Drake didn’t blink. “Good. You’re ahead. He has to come to you now. See it deep.”
The pitcher wound up. It was a fastball, straight down the middle, the kind of gift rarely given at this level.
Leo’s swing was an awkward, lunging thing. But he followed the one piece of advice. He didn’t try to obliterate the ball. The aluminum made a ponk sound, unsatisfying and clean. The ball shot on a hard line over the shortstop’s head, a legitimate, bouncing single into left field.
One run scored. Then two.
The dugout erupted in a chaos of screaming and bat-banging. Leo stood on first base, his entire body rigid with shock. He looked over at Drake.
Drake didn’t cheer. He just gave a single, sharp nod. Yes. That is what it feels like.
As the next batter stepped in, Drake risked a glance at the bleachers. Mandy had leaned forward. Her hands were no longer clasped; one was covering her mouth. He couldn’t see her eyes from this distance, but her posture was one of absorbed intensity. She was watching the field. She was watching him.
The game ground on. The Cardinals clawed back. Errors piled up—a dropped pop fly, a wild throw past first. Drake’s voice remained steady, a drumbeat of simple instruction. “Next pitch.” “Get the next one.” “Heads up!”
In the fifth inning, with the score tied and the heat becoming brutal, Drake called time. He walked out to the mound, where his pitcher, a kid named Miguel, was on the verge of tears after walking two batters.
The infield gathered around. They smelled of dirt and panic.
Drake crouched down, his knees protesting, putting his eyes level with Miguel’s. The boy wouldn’t look at him. “Miguel,” Drake said, quiet enough so only the circle could hear. “What’s your job right now?”
“T-to get an out,” Miguel stammered.
“No,” Drake said. “Your job is to throw one strike. Just one. You don’t have to win the game. You just have to throw one good pitch. Can you do that?”
Miguel swallowed, finally meeting his eyes. He gave a tiny nod.
“Alright.” Drake stood, the movement stiff. He looked at the others—at Leo at second, at Tyler at short. “Everything else is just reaction. See the ball, help your friend. That’s all.”
He walked back to the dugout. His shirt was plastered to his back with sweat. He grabbed the water bottle, took a long pull, and let his eyes find the bleachers again.
She was gone.
The space where she had been was just empty aluminum, shining in the sun. A hollow feeling, distinct from the physical pain, opened up in his chest. Of course she was gone. It was too much, or it wasn’t enough, or it was just a pity stop on her way to somewhere else.
He turned his attention back to the field, forcing the feeling down into the same locked box as the ache.
Miguel, trembling, went into his windup. The pitch was a lollipop, arcing slowly toward the plate. The Cardinals batter, over-eager, swung a fraction too early. The ball connected with a weak tink and rolled gently back toward the mound.
For a second, no one moved. Then Miguel sprang forward, an instinctual animal, scooped the ball, and underhanded it to first. The out was seamless.
The side was retired.
As the team jogged in, slapping Miguel on the back, Drake allowed himself one more scan of the bleachers. Still empty. He focused on the clipboard, on the next inning’s batting order.
Then a shadow fell across the dugout entrance.
He looked up.
Mandy stood there, holding two condensation-slick paper cups. The sun was behind her, haloing her hair. She offered a small, tentative smile.
“I figured you could use this,” she said, her voice almost lost in the buzz of the dugout. She stepped forward and held out one of the cups. “Lemonade. They finally opened the stand.”
He stared at the cup, then at her. The noise of the kids faded to a muffled roar. He took it. Their fingers didn’t touch.
“Thanks,” he said.
She took a sip from her own cup, her eyes on the field. “Leo’s hit was really good.”
“It was.” Drake leaned against the fence, mimicking her posture. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He held the cold cup against his sternum. “You didn’t have to stay.”
“I wanted to see how it ended.”
They stood in silence for a moment, watching the Cardinals take the field.
“Ethan doesn’t know I’m here,” she said, the words quick and quiet, as if confessing a minor crime.
Drake absorbed that. The mention of the name was a sudden, chilling draft. “Okay.”
“I just… I needed to see you do something normal.” She turned her head to look at him directly. Her eyes searched his face, taking in the fatigue, the new lines of tension. “Are you okay? Really?”
He thought of the fossil, hidden in his desk drawer upstairs. A bone turned to stone. Heavy. Real.
“I’m coaching a little league game,” he said, avoiding the question and answering it all at once. “It’s about as normal as it gets.”
She held his gaze for a beat longer, then nodded, accepting the deflection. She looked back at the field, where Leo was crouched, ready at third base, his whole
body humming with concentration. The simple honesty of that focus, that pure need to be exactly where he was, tightened something in Drake’s throat.
He took a swallow of the lemonade. It was too sweet and painfully cold. “He’s a good kid.”
“He trusts you,” Mandy said.
Before Drake could form a response, a shadow longer and sharper than Mandy’s fell across them both. The temperature in the dugout’s entryway seemed to drop several degrees. Drake knew, even before he turned.
Ethan stood on the gravel path, his polished loafers dusted with fine, yellow clay from the field. He wore khakis and a pale blue polo, the picture of casual weekend ease. His sunglasses were mirrored aviators, reflecting the distorted, miniature scene of the dugout back at them.
“There you are,” Ethan said, his voice a smooth baritone woven with amusement. He wasn’t looking at Drake. His entire attention was a laser pointed at Mandy. “I called the school. They said you’d left early.”
Mandy’s posture went rigid. Her fingers tightened around her paper cup, denting the side. “I texted you. I said I had an errand.”
“An errand.” Ethan smiled, a slow, private curve of his lips. He finally slid his gaze toward Drake, the smile not fading but changing, becoming a display of flawless, expensive dental work. “Out here watching the future hall-of-famers, I see. How’s the… coaching career, Drake?”
The word ‘coaching’ was dipped in a subtle venom, diminished to the realm of hobby, of consolation prize. Drake felt the old, familiar surge—the one that used to fuel a 98-mile-an-hour fastball right under a batter’s chin. He forced it down, locked it in the box with everything else.
“It’s a game,” Drake said, his voice neutral. He took another deliberate sip of lemonade.
“Right.” Ethan’s eyes performed a slow, dismissive scan of the dugout: the chipped benches, the scattered equipment, the boys with their streaked, dirty uniforms. His gaze lingered on Leo’s warped glove hanging on the fence like a bizarre trophy. “Looks thrilling.”
“Ethan,” Mandy said, a low warning in her voice.
“What?” He held his hands up, innocence perfected. “I’m observing. Supporting the community. It’s important.” He took a step closer, invading the entrance fully. The clean, citrus-and-sandalwood scent of his cologne clashed violently with the smells of sweat and earth. “Mandy, we’re going to be late. The restaurant holds the reservation for fifteen minutes, you know how they are.”
Mandy didn’t move. She looked from Ethan’s placid, expectant face to Drake’s carefully arranged blankness. The electric current Drake had felt earlier was gone, replaced by a low, warning hum of something dangerous and stagnant.
“You go ahead,” she said, her voice quiet but clear. “I’ll meet you there.”
Ethan’s smile froze. The pleasant mask didn’t slip, but it hardened, like clay setting in the sun. The mirrored lenses turned back to Drake. “Is that right.” It wasn’t a question.
The pressure in the air became physical. Drake could feel the confused attention of the boys in the dugout, their game-focused buzz sputtering out under the weight of this adult stillness.
Drake set his lemonade cup on the bench. The movement pulled at the buried injury, a hot needle of reminder. He straightened, meeting the distortion of his own reflection in Ethan’s glasses.
“The game’s not over,” Drake said, simply.
For a long, suspended second, no one breathed. A shout from the field, the ponk of a bat, were muffled and far away.
Then Ethan chuckled, a dry, soundless thing. He reached out and gently, possessively, brushed a non-existent piece of lint from Mandy’s shoulder. “Of course. Don’t want to miss the thrilling conclusion.” He leaned in, his voice dropping to a murmur meant only for her, but pitched perfectly for Drake to catch every syllable. “Take your time. I’ll have them bring the champagne when you arrive.”
He turned and walked away, his steps crunching assuredly on the gravel. He didn’t look back.
The sun felt suddenly too hot, too bright. Mandy’s face was pale. She looked at the crushed cup in her hand, the lemonade leaking over her fingers.
“I should go,” she whispered.
Drake wanted to say something. Anything. But the words were fossils in his chest, too heavy to dig up. He just gave a single, stiff nod.
She ducked out of the dugout, not looking at him, and walked quickly toward the parking lot, away from the path Ethan had taken. Drake watched her go, the blue dress a retreating splash of color against the dull field.
In the top of the sixth, the final inning, the Cardinals scored two runs on a throwing error into the dugout. Tyler threw his glove. Leo’s shoulders slumped. Drake called time, gathered them in, and told them none of it mattered except the next batter. His voice sounded automated, even to himself.
They lost, 7-5.
The handshake line was a blur of mumbled “good games.” Drake stood by the dugout as parents collected their disappointed sons. The field emptied. The cicadas reclaimed their dominion.
Leo was the last one, slowly packing his bag, the warped glove on top.
“We’ll get ‘em next time,” Drake said, the coaching cliché ash in his mouth.
Leo zipped his bag and looked up, his glasses magnifying the serious clarity in his eyes. “That man was mean,” he said.
Drake had no answer for that. He just put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, a brief weight, and then let him go.
He cleaned up alone, gathering forgotten water bottles, straightening benches. The ibuprofen had fully worn off. Every movement was a precise negotiation with pain. He dumped the trash in the corroded barrel and stood for a moment in the silent, late-afternoon glare.
The empty lemonade cup sat where he’d left it, a wilted paper monument. He picked it up, crushed it in his fist, and tossed it in with the rest. The gesture was futile and satisfying.
He drove home through the fading light. The image played on a loop behind his eyes: Mandy’s trapped expression, Ethan’s polished smile, his own reflection tiny and warped in those mirrored lenses. It wasn’t about a stolen glove or a mud-soaked suit anymore.
It was a claim. A territory marked.
He pulled into his driveway and killed the engine. He sat there, the truck ticking as it cooled. The fossil in his desk drawer upstairs seemed to pulse with a gravitational pull, a heavy, undeniable truth waiting in the dark.