let's make the best of the situation
The Four Rooms Suite (unrelated stories written at the same time)
1. The Offensive of Charm and Fire, Holmes/Watson, PG-13, 4092 words
2. How You Were Diverted, John/Paul, PG-13, 5076 words
3. The Mother Road, Sam/Dean, R, 3608 words
4. The Comeback Kid, Zito/Lincecum, R, 7195 words
The Comeback Kid
By Candle Beck
Miami, May 2010
The Giants lost the day game on Sunday, and then went straight to the airport, flew all the way across the country to South Florida.
It was very late by the time they got in, so late it was early, and exhaustion settled over the team like they'd played twenty innings. They dragged their bags coming off the plane, fell asleep against the bus windows, Miami's neon and palm trees flitting by darkly outside. By the time they got to the hotel, they were more a pack of refugees than a major league baseball team.
They huddled around the traveling secretary like he was a campfire, grabbing clumsily at their room keys, and then crammed into the elevators, shoulder to shoulder and breathing the ruined-night smell of cologne and stale sweat. Zito was bleary and discontent, his eyes feeling sandy and his legs made of weak stitched cotton. He was stuck in the corner of the elevator, dozing.
Vaguely he registered someone dipping a hand into his coat pocket, but he didn't think any more of it until twenty minutes later, when he was half-asleep in bed and his room door snicked and clicked and inched open. Zito rolled over towards the edge of the bed, curling a hand under his pillow. He was muddled for a second, forgetting the year and which league he played for and the name of his intruder, but that passed. Bare footsteps padded across the carpet, and then a sneaky breeze as the covers were lifted and a second body slid into the bed.
"Hi," Tim Lincecum whispered. "I stole your second key."
Zito mumbled, "Shuddup," and pushed a pillow at him. He heard Lincecum sigh low and tired and happy, and then he was asleep for real.
He awoke with the kid all over him. Lincecum was terrible that way, all arms and legs and damp breathing mouth, and Zito had stopped bothering with shoving him away because it was no use at all--half an hour later Lincecum would be plastered right back against his side again.
So he shifted only a bit, just enough to get Tim's hair out of his mouth, and turned his head to squint at his travel alarm clock with its glowing green face like a tiny alien landed on the table to observe the human at rest. It was five in the morning, still dark outside, and an off-day. Zito could sleep for as long as he wanted.
Lincecum's hand scratched on Zito's chest, and Zito figured the kid was probably dreaming about pitching. Already drifting back towards unconsciousness, Zito followed an odd fantastical train of thought about how his heart was three inches under Lincecum's hand and just about the same size as a baseball. The image was unavoidable: Lincecum in his home whites hurling an amputated heart the sixty feet and six, his blessed right hand and arm streaked with blood and flinging fans of it with every delivery. Zito shivered faintly, a horror movie kind of chill going through him.
Stirring, Lincecum mumbled against Zito's throat, "Kokomo."
Zito said, "Sure, man," and moved his hand to Lincecum's back, finding the long muscles through his T-shirt. Lincecum exhaled, pushed his nose at Zito in that blind heat-seeking way he had when he was asleep.
Tim muttered some more nonsense, not even whole words but instead fractured bits like a phonics lesson gone horribly wrong, and Zito was used to this by now too. It occurred to him, as it usually did when he woke up in the middle of the night to find the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner wrapped around him like a spider monkey and talking in his sleep, that Tim Lincecum was more annoying to share a bed with than anyone else he'd ever known. It had almost been a deal-breaker at first, because Zito needed a good eight hours or he was for shit the next day, but then Tim got crazy good at giving head, so. It all evened out.
Zito yawned, the stretch of his jaw brushing his chin against Lincecum's hair. He replayed yesterday's game in his head until he slipped laterally into greener fields, deeper sleep.
The next time he woke up, someone was banging on the door.
It was jarring beyond belief, yanked out of some heated blurry dream and into the reality of a dim and anonymous room. The pounding was loud and frightening, Nazis at the door, and Zito's mind was moving as if through molasses, slow and sticky.
"Z, wake the fuck up, you lazy bastard," someone was shouting.
Zito was too groggy to place the voice. He was aware of Lincecum's smothering thin-shouldered weight across his chest, the too-hot places where they were skin to skin, and he called out in a croak, "What?"
"Breakfast, motherfucker," and that was Brian Wilson, heavy closer fist thudding the door in punctuation. "We're getting tacos and going to the beach."
"Fuck," Zito said, and shoved Lincecum off him, taking a deep head-clearing breath. Lincecum blinked awake, dumb and stoned-looking, and Zito put a hand over his mouth before he could say anything and blow their ridiculously flimsy cover.
"I'm not done sleeping," Zito called through the door, looking down at Lincecum's bleary trusting eyes, his hair wrecked everywhere. "I'll call you later."
"Fuckin' lame, man," Wilson said, but he was already fading, distracted and laughing with someone who sounded like Pablo Sandoval. They receded down the hallway, and that particular muffled hotel silence descended once again.
Zito took his hand away from Lincecum's mouth, and gave him a half-smile.
"Morning."
Tim smiled back at him, unfettered. "Hi."
"Happy off-day."
"Yeah." Lincecum inched closer to Zito, making like he was just stretching the night stiffness away. Zito allowed it, kinda bemused and charmed at the same time, a not-unfamiliar feeling. "This is, what--Miami?"
"The Magic City," Zito confirmed.
"Dude, you know like every city's nickname. Totally dorkstyle."
Zito elbowed him in the ribs, but not in any kind of serious way, and Lincecum caught his arm, held it in place against his chest. Zito gave him a look, twisted his fingers in the collar of Lincecum's shirt, and the kid grinned, his face slightly flushed because they both knew where this was going.
"Watch that mouth, boy," Zito told him, leaned closer to set his lips on the curve of Lincecum's throat. A kiss with teeth and then a quick soothing swipe of tongue, and Tim shuddered and sighed, his hand rising fast to the back of Zito's neck.
Lincecum was warm and bony beneath him, his knees clocking Zito's as they shifted and tangled. Zito's hand looked oversized against Lincecum's hip, thumb pushing down his shorts and stroking into the hollow. Zito sat back on his knees and stripped off his shirt, drew Lincecum up by the wrists and pulled off his too, and then they lay back down, hissing softly in unison.
All this time later, and it still happened so quick for the both of them, that was the incredible thing. Zito licked under Lincecum's jaw, smoothed his hair back with the side of his hand. Lincecum was breathing through his mouth, already starting to draw ragged, and Zito hadn't even really done anything yet. He tugged their shorts down far enough and locked their hips, grinding together in that old rhythm. Lincecum gazed up at him with a mindless smile, that faint disbelief that even two years later still invaded his eyes every time Zito touched him.
Zito brought a hand down between them, wedged between their bodies with not enough space to get a proper grip, but Lincecum didn't seem to care, arching and breathing out, "Oh my god."
Zito smiled, sharp and knowing, and stroked them both together until Tim was moaning, pushing his head back into the pillow. Zito watched his face, his bitten lip. Lincecum's eyes were closed, his face screwed up and gasping. His right hand was tight around Zito's biceps, gripping him like a change-up.
"That's it," Zito said, because Lincecum liked his voice, liked being told. "That's good, dude, just like that."
"Fuck, fuck," Lincecum mumbled. A flush rose up his chest; he was close, lost to it.
Lowering his head, Zito brushed his nose down Tim's cheek, tucked his face into his shoulder. Zito was breathing hard himself, each pull of his hand sparking pleasure, making his muscles shake. Lincecum, unshowered, just woken up, smelled like nothing but himself.
Lincecum said his name, "Barry oh my god," and then he came all over Zito's hand and his own stomach, his back forming a momentary bow. Zito worked him through it and stared, watching Lincecum's face go from taut to rapturous to slack, his body losing all its tension.
"There we go," Zito whispered. Lincecum's legs were shaking against his own, and Zito touched his face, the edge of his open mouth.
A long recovering moment passed, the frantic heat sinking out of Lincecum and clarity returning to his gaze. He met Zito's eyes and smiled, that simple unadulterated smile that used to seem so suspicious to Zito, a taunt or a mean little joke (because no one just smiled at him anymore, no one looked happier just because Zito walked into the room), but it was only Tim, only how Tim looked when he was looking at Zito. Zito had had almost three years to get used to it now, but still, there was that curling pleased feeling in his stomach, that askew baffled sense of being wholly adored.
"Holy shit," Lincecum said once he'd recovered the power of speech. "Dude."
Zito rolled off him, lying flat on his back with one hand wrapped around his cock. Lincecum pushed up on his elbow, licking his lips with his eyes thin and lit up.
"Come on," Zito said, thick weighted heat in his stomach and this pressure in his chest squeezing the air out of his lungs.
Lincecum didn't make him wait, scooted down the bed and sucked Zito's cock into his mouth without any preamble. Zito arched, his mouth opening soundlessly. His hand slipped into Lincecum's hair, cupping the back of his skull, and he lifted his head to watch the slick press in, the slow draw out.
Impossibly good, every time just obliteratively good, and Zito's mind careened, flickered and flew. He was panting, thinking helplessly of other mouths, other teammates in this long major league life of his, and then he briefly wondered about the existence of UFOs, and if there were a specific God for every planet, a specific heaven, and then Lincecum swallowed him down and it was just Tim, and Tim, and Tim.
Zito finished groaning, turning his head to the side. Lincecum licked him until he was clean and oversensitive, and then slid up Zito's body to settle at his side again. Lincecum's arm rested heavily on Zito's stomach, and Zito allowed it for several minutes as he caught his breath and came slowly down. Then he pushed Lincecum off him, both of them sweat-sticky and too hot for such proximity. Lincecum huffed, rolled onto his back beside Zito, stretching his arms up over his head.
"That was awesome," Lincecum said. He was still kind of breathless. "That was better than striking out the side."
Zito smiled at the ceiling. "You think?"
"No question, man." Lincecum put his hand on Zito's wrist, coarse fingertips playing against the veins there. "Better than any strikeout ever."
That probably didn't mean as much as it sounded like, Zito considered. No pitcher struck out more people than Tim Lincecum, not for the past two years. He got pissy if he notched fewer than ten in a game. Zito had gone half a decade pathetically grateful for every K he'd managed to bluff and feint and eke out of the ball, and he thought that Lincecum didn't really know what he was talking about.
"You hungry?" Zito said.
"In a little bit," Lincecum answered, and closed his eyes. "Just a little bit."
Zito wasn't going to be able to fall back asleep. He watched Lincecum's face become unlined and open, the relaxed fall of his eyebrows, his lips parted. Everyone was always making fun of Lincecum for looking like one of the bat boys, but Zito had never thought that about him. It wasn't youth that made Lincecum look like that; it was all the stuff that hadn't happened to him yet. And then Zito wondered if it wasn't the same thing, anyway.
Pulling his hand carefully from under Lincecum's limp one, Zito slid out of bed, fished his shorts off his ankle and put them back on. He got a bottle of water out of the minibar and drank it in one long pull, his head back and his throat feeling flooded and frozen.
He drew back the curtain a foot or so to get a look at the day. A diffuse bar of light fell into the room, and downtown Miami spread out before him, buildings like silver needles and exploding palm trees, the ocean bluer than the sky over Kansas City. Zito squinted, looking for Cuba.
Zito had always liked this town. He hadn't pitched here before leaving the A's, but he was unbeaten by the Marlins so far as a Giant. Something about the humidity, maybe, the cushion of damp air through which his curveball fell, his fingertips tacky with sweat and a little bit of dirt off the mound, creating perfect gritty pitch grips, eviscerating sliders.
Leaving the gap in the curtains, Zito called room service to get some coffee sent up because he couldn't abide the freeze-dried shit that came in the minibar, and ordered some fruit and granola too, his empty stomach starting to make itself known.
Then he brushed his teeth and took a shower, eradicated the traces that Lincecum had left on him. A thrumming low ache implanted itself in his left shoulder, the ghost of the eight innings he had thrown on Friday night. Breakfast was at the door when he came out of the bathroom, and he ate at the little table, eschewed the complimentary USA Today in favor of fiddling around on his iPhone.
He had two new voice messages, his father and Eric Chavez. His dad was trying to get everybody's schedules to align for a proposed family reunion during the All-Star break. He joked, "Maybe we'll all have to come up to Anaheim to see you, huh?" and for some reason it made Zito wince like the depths of teenage hell when every sentence out of his father's mouth was utterly mortifying.
The family had been talking about this reunion since Christmas, and Zito had never liked the way they had all just assumed he'd be available. It may have been three years since Zito's last trip to the Classic, but still. They were supposed to have faith. And anyway, it was his one four-day stretch of vacation in six months, and no one actually asked him if he wanted to spend it making awkward small talk with aunts and cousins he never even thought about otherwise.
This, though, his dad making jokes about Anaheim and this beautiful start Zito had had, it was worse somehow. It was bad luck.
Chavez's message was brief and unadorned, "Hey, I'm in Oakland. Call me back."
Zito factored in the time change and decided it wasn't too early in California, and called him right then. Listening to it ring, Zito warmed his free hand on the side of the coffee mug and glanced over at Lincecum in the bed, still dead to the world. Lincecum could sleep through almost anything, insensible on the plane with his eye-mask on, conked out in one of the armchairs in the clubhouse as booming rap and pre-game mania raged all around him. It was one of several things that Zito envied about him.
Chavez picked up on the second ring. "Hey man what's up."
"Not much, how you been?"
"Lousy," Chavez reported. There was a television talking behind his voice, the rhythmic chant of the local news. "Fuckin' terrible road trip we just got back from."
"Yeah, saw that. Sucks, dude. Your back still holding up?"
"Like a motherfucker," Chavez sighed. "And they cut me back on infield practice again, you believe that shit?"
Zito hummed in a dimly sympathetic way. Chavez wasn't adjusting to life as a designated hitter very well, but that was no more than anyone should have expected.
"I mean," Chavez continued, "I think it actually helps my back, taking infield practice. Keeps me loose, you know. But no, it's all about taking hacks and watching tape and shit. They just put me in the cage for two hours, and then of course my back is hurting, and they put me back on the table, and it's like, let's fix the root problem, you know?" Chavez sighed. "But it's okay."
Zito rolled his eyes. That might as well have been the motto of Chavez's entire existence: but it's okay. No matter what happened, no matter how bad it got, he always said it as easy as breathing.
"How're your boys?" he asked, and that lightened Chavez's voice for a minute or two, rambling on about preschool and the new variations on the alphabet song that had been developed, and the Amazing Baby Who Never Cried, and Zito made the appropriate sounds, halfway tuned out.
He hadn't known Eric Chavez his entire life, it just read like that on paper. They had played against each other in Little League back in San Diego, Zito striking kids out with exactly the same curveball he threw now. Chavez's lifelong best friend had been Zito's catcher at USC, those hazy red-cupped college parties that Zito barely remembered, Chavez lurking somewhere in the mass of faces. Chavez had come up to shake his hand on Zito's first day with the A's, and said, "What's up, man, long time," and Zito had recognized him immediately as a built-in ally.
Now they were former teammates, present friends. Chavez had suffered a decline as steep as Zito's had been, but at least he had the excuse of his faltering body and the five surgeries it had endured over the past decade. Physical deterioration was so much easier to explain than whatever the fuck had happened to Zito.
"Oh, and hey, you know who we're facing tonight?" Chavez said, drawing Zito's attention fully back.
"Uh, no."
"It's young Rich Harden's triumphant return," Chavez told him, and Zito's spine went stiff, goosebumps breaking out on his arms. He glanced at Lincecum, and bit his tongue.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, me and Mark are going to In-N-Out with him for lunch in a little bit. It was funny, I was like, let's go out to dinner, lemme buy you a steak, and kid comes back, buy me a Double-Double instead."
"That is funny," Zito said. He felt like his brain was moving at half-speed. "Well. Tell him I said what's up."
"Surely will."
There was a pause, and it was probably only in Zito's head that it hung so heavily in the cellular air. He didn't think much about Rich Harden, these days, and his skills of obfuscation were rusty.
"Oh, and also," Chavez said, changing the subject in his typical unsubtle way. "What the hell are they putting in your Wheaties over there? Team of freakin' Bob Gibsons all of a sudden."
Zito rubbed at his eyes, wishing he'd gotten more sleep. "Yeah, it's been going pretty good."
"Better than good, man, I've seen your numbers."
Here was another thing Zito didn't know how to talk about. He'd spent too many years on the defensive, making excuses, that dumb line of self-deprecating humor he was obliged to trot out after every loss. He had gotten very good at it--it had been a critical survival skill once he'd signed with the Giants and had the weight of $126 million dollars on his back--and it was difficult to remember how he was supposed to act now that God liked him again.
"The curveball came back," Zito said, and then felt stupid, childish and superstitious.
Chavez hesitated, said with nothing but general affection in his tone, "It's a beautiful thing, man."
"Yeah."
Zito's eyes traveled back to Lincecum of their own volition, the wild dark sprawl of his hair on the pillow and his famous right hand curled near his mouth. There was a flash, a moment of Rich Harden in that same position, in some identical hotel room a thousand miles away, but Zito shoved that out of his mind because it did him no good; the past had never done him any good. He reminded himself: you have Tim now.
"Anyway, I was just checking in," Chavez told him. "I gotta walk the dog and do some other stuff before I meet up with those guys."
"Okay." Zito scratched at his coffee mug. "Give your wife a kiss for me."
"Um, no." Chavez was kinda laughing, and Zito missed him more than he wanted to think about. "Dude, you remember that time you said that to Huddy and he just straight up bitch-slapped you?"
Zito smiled, his head bowed. "Yeah, I remember."
They said their goodbyes and then it was quiet again. Zito finished what was left of his soggy granola, drank the carafe of coffee to its dregs because Lincecum almost never drank it, more a Gatorade and energy drink kind of guy. These kids today, Zito thought only half-ironically.
He started the crossword puzzle in the newspaper, but it was depressingly easy, and his mind wandered. He caught himself fidgeting and playing with his phone, flicking through the pages of apps without looking for anything in particular. Zito cursed himself for indecisiveness, and opened a new text message.
Several minutes passed with him staring at the blank screen. Finally he typed, Heard you were in Cali. No strawberry shakes, and then set the phone down without hitting send.
Zito stared out the window for awhile, weighing his options. Five years ago, Rich Harden had called him from the highway and asked if he wanted anything from In-N-Out, and Zito had requested some fries and a strawberry shake, but Harden refused him the latter on the grounds that ordering a strawberry shake was totally gay. Considering that they'd been having sex with each other five or six times a week at that point, Zito had been compelled to point out the most glaring of the many flaws in his logic, and since then it had been a catchphrase, an in-joke. Zito would fuss with his hair for too long, and Harden would ask him if he wanted a strawberry shake. Harden's voice would go all high-pitched and hysterical when he was losing at videogames, and it would be Zito's turn to offer the queerest of frozen treats. Zito couldn't have even really said why it was funny. It was just one of those things, something only they knew.
He hadn't heard from Harden in two months, not since spring training, not by text or email or Facebook or anything. He saw Harden on Baseball Tonight sometimes, still throwing that shaming wisecrack of a breaking pitch, still holding his shoulders like a hockey player as he went into his wind-up. It made Zito feel hot under his skin, uncomfortable. He and Harden hadn't left things in a bad way, just kind of abrupt and awkward, unfinished. They had lost the pennant to the Detroit Tigers in 2006 and then said goodbye to each other in an airport, vague plans to meet up over the winter that were never realized, and then free agency and then the contract and everything that came with it, and then Rich Harden had been the very least of Zito's concerns.
A snuffle brought Zito's gaze back to the bed as the backlight faded on the unsent text message. Lincecum was stirring, pawing at his own face, shifting his legs under the covers. Zito saw awareness sharpening his lines, tightening his shoulders, saw Lincecum's head come up and look around for him. Their eyes met across the room, and Lincecum smiled, just that regular worshipful smile that had been Zito's alone since a week into their acquaintance.
"Come back, dude," Lincecum said.
Lincecum, Zito knew, would have no trouble at all ordering a strawberry milkshake. The kid had no use for artifice as a general rule; he didn't care if he appeared overly attached to Zito because he was overly attached to Zito. Denying the obvious was never a good idea, Tim had once explained to him, well-fucked and pretty drunk. And anyway, Lincecum had gone on, "You're awesome and you like me too, so there," like they were eight and he'd just delivered an unbeatable argument. Zito could barely even understand him sometimes.
"It's like, almost noon now," Zito said. "Are you planning to get up ever?"
Yawning, Lincecum pushed into a sitting position, the covers at his waist and one bare foot sticking out from under. "I was hoping to get laid one more time, but whatever."
Zito smirked at him, looked down to find his fingers playing along the edges of his phone. Doubt crawled all through him, Zito's least favorite feeling in the whole world, and he quickly flicked his phone awake and defiantly hit send on the text message.
He wasn't sure if it would still be funny, all this time later. He hoped Richie would still get the joke.
"What was that?" Lincecum asked, as open in his nosy-as-fuck tendencies as he was in everything else.
"Text message to Rich Harden. He's pitching in Oakland again for the first time tonight."
"Crazy," Lincecum said, but he wasn't really very interested. Zito had omitted certain elements of his experience with the A's when he and Lincecum had traded histories at the beginning, which he felt had been in everyone's best interest.
Lincecum located his shorts in the tangled mess of sheets and pulled them on, got up scratching his chest and pressing the heel of his hand against his shoulder.
"Feelin' all right?" Zito asked automatically.
"Oh sure," Lincecum said with a quick grin. "Fit as a fiddle and ready for love, as my dad likes to say."
"Dude, my dad says that too. Wild."
"It's like the old guy version of 'chillin' like a villain.'"
Zito gave him a look. "Except only you say that, because you're lame and badly out of date."
"Harsh, man. Seriously."
But Tim wasn't serious, not remotely, coming to Zito in the chair by the window and weaving a hand through his hair, pulling his head back and kissing him on the mouth. Zito kissed him back, stale breath and all, feeling guilty and happy and forgetful again.
Lincecum let him go, a dazed gleam in his eyes, and said with a stupid grin, "Shower," before suiting action to word and going into the bathroom. He left the door open a crack, so Zito could make fun of his singing later on.
Zito exhaled, and checked his phone for a message that wasn't there. Harden probably wasn't awake yet; it was only nine o'clock in California. That tic, checking his phone three times a minute, that tingly has-he-called-yet feeling in the base of his spine, it bothered him a lot. He and Harden had never been that serious, and Zito didn't miss him much anymore, not since he'd had Tim.
He pushed his phone to the other side of the table to take the temptation away. Leaning his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, Zito gazed out the window, thinking about how much Tim Lincecum liked him.
His phone buzzed. Zito picked it up and swiped it unlocked, peering into its small window.
Harden had responded: Saving them all 4 U. Awesome game on friday btw.
A balloon burst inside of Zito. A fall of air escaped him like wind leaving sails but it wasn't empty and limp like that, more of the cleansing kind. He clutched his phone, and didn't let himself think about it too much, tapping Harden's name and seeing his number pop up and the call going through.
Harden picked up immediately. "Hey man."
"Hey. How's it going?"
"Good, pretty good. How're you?"
"I'm-" and Zito stopped, stymied by the language for a second, the intense nostalgia of Harden's questioning Canadian accent in his ear once more.
"I'm perfect," Zito decided on, his mind connecting it obscurely with something about the devotion in Tim Lincecum's eyes, something about the revelatory fall of his best pitch.
Harden made a small laughing sound. "And so humble."
"It ain't braggin'-"
"-if it's true, yes," Harden finished for him. "Keep telling yourself that."
"So you're, you're pitching at the Coliseum tonight," Zito said clumsily, trying to figure out why he'd called.
"That's the plan."
"You psyched, or what?"
"What," Harden answered, deadpan.
"Come on, you'll be fine."
"Oh yeah, you're one to talk. What're those boys hitting off you, 'bout .600 or so?"
Zito took that with good grace. Some of the worst games of his life had been pitched against the Oakland Athletics. Like Tim said, no sense denying the obvious.
Harden coming back to Oakland was different from when Zito had, of course. Being traded out of town was the exact opposite of signing the most ludicrously overpriced contract in history with the cross-bay rivals. And Harden hadn't been a bewildering disappointment before he left, either. Harden was like Chavez; he only ever broke down in ways that showed up on an MRI.
"Well. Luck with that, anyway," Zito told him, and there was a silence. Zito listened to Lincecum mangling a Lady Gaga song in the shower, listened to Harden breathing.
"So," Richie said eventually, rolling it over in his mouth. "Anything else going on with you?"
Don't think, Zito thought, and he said, "Tim Lincecum. Ah. He's something else that's going on with me."
Another pause, broken by a clicking sound that was either the phone being tapped or Harden swallowing. Zito was somewhat aghast at himself, but also thrilled, exhilarated--he'd said it out loud.
"Dude, are you serious?" Harden asked, wary of being pranked.
Zito coughed out a laugh, and bent over the table, his forehead coming to rest on the laminated wood and his breath fogging under his mouth.
"I am so serious I can't even tell you," Zito said, kind of amazed.
"And he's, is he-"
"Crazy about me," Zito said too fast, the words spilling out of him. "Like, holy fuck. Like nobody's ever been this into me before, it's fucking ridiculous."
"Whoa," Harden said, and he was laughing again, bubbling tone underlying his voice. "Was he dropped on his head as a child or something?"
"Oh you can go to hell," and adrenaline was pulling through Zito, rocketing and expanding like fireworks in his chest. "He, he's so goddamn good, Richie, every time he picks up a baseball it's like my heart is gonna stop."
"Wait a minute, are you fucking him or his change-up?"
Zito laughed out loud, slapped a hand over his mouth though the shower was still going, Lincecum still butchering every lyric.
"I can't get over it, man," Zito told Harden. "Best pitcher in the game, right? One of the best I've ever seen, I mean like no joke, but then he--you should see the way he looks at me."
"Well, you're pretty good in bed, that might have something to do with it."
"It's different than that."
"Yeah." Harden paused, breathed out. "It doesn't matter if he's a better pitcher than you, you know. And he's not, anyway. Not this year."
"Not this year," Zito echoed in a whisper, and he closed his eyes for a prayerful moment.
Harden cleared his throat, vaguely discomfited. He'd never been much for the involved strains of emotion that infected Zito from time to time, preferring to get off and fall asleep as soon as possible thereafter. Zito hadn't minded; he hadn't expected any more than that.
"Anyway," Harden said. "How rude are you, calling me up to brag about your new boyfriend? That's some kind of party foul, I'm pretty sure."
Zito smiled, pressed his fist against his mouth. The shower shut off, and he shifted in the chair so he could watch Tim getting out through the cracked-open door.
"You'll get over it," Zito said into the phone. "Thanks, Richie."
"What? What'd I do?"
It was too complicated to explain. Zito didn't even really have it right in his own head. He told Harden, "Just generally thanks. I gotta go. Shut 'em down tonight."
"Piece of cake. What the fuck has Oakland ever done, right?"
And Zito laughed, said goodbye.
As he hung up the phone, Lincecum emerged in a towel and damp skin and nothing else, his hair soaked black and slicked back on his head. He got a pair of shorts out of Zito's bag and Zito felt like he should protest that but it seemed illogical. Lincecum climbed back onto the bed, humming under his breath, and Zito got up in a vague trance, drawn by the specific kind of peace on Tim's face, the looseness in his body.
Zito crawled over him, took a wet strand of hair between his fingers and made it squeak. "Squeaky clean."
Lincecum beamed up at him, happier than could be right, or sustainable. Lincecum had told him once, I have everything in the world I could possibly want except a ring, and it had honestly scared Zito. Zito knew every feasible ending for this story, and almost none of them were good. He hadn't said anything, though. That look on Lincecum's face--everything Zito did these days was an effort to keep it in place.
"So what're we doing today?" Lincecum asked, his hands on Zito's sides, working his shirt up.
Zito bent his head to lick a stray drop of water off Lincecum's neck. "You, man," Zito said against his skin. "First we're doing you."
Tim laughed, bent his head back to give Zito better access. The pillow was dampening, the flush rising on Lincecum's throat, and Zito wanted to put his mouth all over him.
"And then what?" Lincecum's voice burred under Zito's lips, and Zito let his eyes drift shut, constructing in his mind a picture of the perfect day.
"Gonna meet up with the boys at the beach and have lunch at a taco truck. We'll get drunk at one of those horrible tourist cantinas and everybody's gonna be trying to pick up the college girls and it's gonna be hilarious. Go somewhere awesome for dinner, like Brazilian barbecue or something, something with meat on giant skewers or, like, martial arts cooking. Then you and me, we're gonna come back here and I'm gonna show you how to get onto the roof of the hotel and we're gonna smoke a jay up there and talk about the stars and shit. We'll make out for awhile and you'll probably end up getting fucked again. And then we'll go to sleep. And tomorrow we'll go to the ballpark."
Lincecum linked his hands behind Zito's neck, and he was kinda shaking, kinda glowing. "Hell yeah."
Zito smiled, not the same smile that Lincecum gave him but it was getting closer every day, and kissed him quick, fitting his body on top of Linecum's, between his legs. This was what he wanted, Zito thought; this was the thing that had gone missing. The moment overtook him and Zito crossed his fingers on Lincecum's cheek, wishing that he might be allowed to stay here forever.
THE END
Endnotes: I am rusty at this like whoa. An unacceptable state of affairs!
Also: Lincecum! THAT'S GODDAMN RIGHT.
1. The Offensive of Charm and Fire, Holmes/Watson, PG-13, 4092 words
2. How You Were Diverted, John/Paul, PG-13, 5076 words
3. The Mother Road, Sam/Dean, R, 3608 words
4. The Comeback Kid, Zito/Lincecum, R, 7195 words
The Comeback Kid
By Candle Beck
Miami, May 2010
The Giants lost the day game on Sunday, and then went straight to the airport, flew all the way across the country to South Florida.
It was very late by the time they got in, so late it was early, and exhaustion settled over the team like they'd played twenty innings. They dragged their bags coming off the plane, fell asleep against the bus windows, Miami's neon and palm trees flitting by darkly outside. By the time they got to the hotel, they were more a pack of refugees than a major league baseball team.
They huddled around the traveling secretary like he was a campfire, grabbing clumsily at their room keys, and then crammed into the elevators, shoulder to shoulder and breathing the ruined-night smell of cologne and stale sweat. Zito was bleary and discontent, his eyes feeling sandy and his legs made of weak stitched cotton. He was stuck in the corner of the elevator, dozing.
Vaguely he registered someone dipping a hand into his coat pocket, but he didn't think any more of it until twenty minutes later, when he was half-asleep in bed and his room door snicked and clicked and inched open. Zito rolled over towards the edge of the bed, curling a hand under his pillow. He was muddled for a second, forgetting the year and which league he played for and the name of his intruder, but that passed. Bare footsteps padded across the carpet, and then a sneaky breeze as the covers were lifted and a second body slid into the bed.
"Hi," Tim Lincecum whispered. "I stole your second key."
Zito mumbled, "Shuddup," and pushed a pillow at him. He heard Lincecum sigh low and tired and happy, and then he was asleep for real.
He awoke with the kid all over him. Lincecum was terrible that way, all arms and legs and damp breathing mouth, and Zito had stopped bothering with shoving him away because it was no use at all--half an hour later Lincecum would be plastered right back against his side again.
So he shifted only a bit, just enough to get Tim's hair out of his mouth, and turned his head to squint at his travel alarm clock with its glowing green face like a tiny alien landed on the table to observe the human at rest. It was five in the morning, still dark outside, and an off-day. Zito could sleep for as long as he wanted.
Lincecum's hand scratched on Zito's chest, and Zito figured the kid was probably dreaming about pitching. Already drifting back towards unconsciousness, Zito followed an odd fantastical train of thought about how his heart was three inches under Lincecum's hand and just about the same size as a baseball. The image was unavoidable: Lincecum in his home whites hurling an amputated heart the sixty feet and six, his blessed right hand and arm streaked with blood and flinging fans of it with every delivery. Zito shivered faintly, a horror movie kind of chill going through him.
Stirring, Lincecum mumbled against Zito's throat, "Kokomo."
Zito said, "Sure, man," and moved his hand to Lincecum's back, finding the long muscles through his T-shirt. Lincecum exhaled, pushed his nose at Zito in that blind heat-seeking way he had when he was asleep.
Tim muttered some more nonsense, not even whole words but instead fractured bits like a phonics lesson gone horribly wrong, and Zito was used to this by now too. It occurred to him, as it usually did when he woke up in the middle of the night to find the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner wrapped around him like a spider monkey and talking in his sleep, that Tim Lincecum was more annoying to share a bed with than anyone else he'd ever known. It had almost been a deal-breaker at first, because Zito needed a good eight hours or he was for shit the next day, but then Tim got crazy good at giving head, so. It all evened out.
Zito yawned, the stretch of his jaw brushing his chin against Lincecum's hair. He replayed yesterday's game in his head until he slipped laterally into greener fields, deeper sleep.
The next time he woke up, someone was banging on the door.
It was jarring beyond belief, yanked out of some heated blurry dream and into the reality of a dim and anonymous room. The pounding was loud and frightening, Nazis at the door, and Zito's mind was moving as if through molasses, slow and sticky.
"Z, wake the fuck up, you lazy bastard," someone was shouting.
Zito was too groggy to place the voice. He was aware of Lincecum's smothering thin-shouldered weight across his chest, the too-hot places where they were skin to skin, and he called out in a croak, "What?"
"Breakfast, motherfucker," and that was Brian Wilson, heavy closer fist thudding the door in punctuation. "We're getting tacos and going to the beach."
"Fuck," Zito said, and shoved Lincecum off him, taking a deep head-clearing breath. Lincecum blinked awake, dumb and stoned-looking, and Zito put a hand over his mouth before he could say anything and blow their ridiculously flimsy cover.
"I'm not done sleeping," Zito called through the door, looking down at Lincecum's bleary trusting eyes, his hair wrecked everywhere. "I'll call you later."
"Fuckin' lame, man," Wilson said, but he was already fading, distracted and laughing with someone who sounded like Pablo Sandoval. They receded down the hallway, and that particular muffled hotel silence descended once again.
Zito took his hand away from Lincecum's mouth, and gave him a half-smile.
"Morning."
Tim smiled back at him, unfettered. "Hi."
"Happy off-day."
"Yeah." Lincecum inched closer to Zito, making like he was just stretching the night stiffness away. Zito allowed it, kinda bemused and charmed at the same time, a not-unfamiliar feeling. "This is, what--Miami?"
"The Magic City," Zito confirmed.
"Dude, you know like every city's nickname. Totally dorkstyle."
Zito elbowed him in the ribs, but not in any kind of serious way, and Lincecum caught his arm, held it in place against his chest. Zito gave him a look, twisted his fingers in the collar of Lincecum's shirt, and the kid grinned, his face slightly flushed because they both knew where this was going.
"Watch that mouth, boy," Zito told him, leaned closer to set his lips on the curve of Lincecum's throat. A kiss with teeth and then a quick soothing swipe of tongue, and Tim shuddered and sighed, his hand rising fast to the back of Zito's neck.
Lincecum was warm and bony beneath him, his knees clocking Zito's as they shifted and tangled. Zito's hand looked oversized against Lincecum's hip, thumb pushing down his shorts and stroking into the hollow. Zito sat back on his knees and stripped off his shirt, drew Lincecum up by the wrists and pulled off his too, and then they lay back down, hissing softly in unison.
All this time later, and it still happened so quick for the both of them, that was the incredible thing. Zito licked under Lincecum's jaw, smoothed his hair back with the side of his hand. Lincecum was breathing through his mouth, already starting to draw ragged, and Zito hadn't even really done anything yet. He tugged their shorts down far enough and locked their hips, grinding together in that old rhythm. Lincecum gazed up at him with a mindless smile, that faint disbelief that even two years later still invaded his eyes every time Zito touched him.
Zito brought a hand down between them, wedged between their bodies with not enough space to get a proper grip, but Lincecum didn't seem to care, arching and breathing out, "Oh my god."
Zito smiled, sharp and knowing, and stroked them both together until Tim was moaning, pushing his head back into the pillow. Zito watched his face, his bitten lip. Lincecum's eyes were closed, his face screwed up and gasping. His right hand was tight around Zito's biceps, gripping him like a change-up.
"That's it," Zito said, because Lincecum liked his voice, liked being told. "That's good, dude, just like that."
"Fuck, fuck," Lincecum mumbled. A flush rose up his chest; he was close, lost to it.
Lowering his head, Zito brushed his nose down Tim's cheek, tucked his face into his shoulder. Zito was breathing hard himself, each pull of his hand sparking pleasure, making his muscles shake. Lincecum, unshowered, just woken up, smelled like nothing but himself.
Lincecum said his name, "Barry oh my god," and then he came all over Zito's hand and his own stomach, his back forming a momentary bow. Zito worked him through it and stared, watching Lincecum's face go from taut to rapturous to slack, his body losing all its tension.
"There we go," Zito whispered. Lincecum's legs were shaking against his own, and Zito touched his face, the edge of his open mouth.
A long recovering moment passed, the frantic heat sinking out of Lincecum and clarity returning to his gaze. He met Zito's eyes and smiled, that simple unadulterated smile that used to seem so suspicious to Zito, a taunt or a mean little joke (because no one just smiled at him anymore, no one looked happier just because Zito walked into the room), but it was only Tim, only how Tim looked when he was looking at Zito. Zito had had almost three years to get used to it now, but still, there was that curling pleased feeling in his stomach, that askew baffled sense of being wholly adored.
"Holy shit," Lincecum said once he'd recovered the power of speech. "Dude."
Zito rolled off him, lying flat on his back with one hand wrapped around his cock. Lincecum pushed up on his elbow, licking his lips with his eyes thin and lit up.
"Come on," Zito said, thick weighted heat in his stomach and this pressure in his chest squeezing the air out of his lungs.
Lincecum didn't make him wait, scooted down the bed and sucked Zito's cock into his mouth without any preamble. Zito arched, his mouth opening soundlessly. His hand slipped into Lincecum's hair, cupping the back of his skull, and he lifted his head to watch the slick press in, the slow draw out.
Impossibly good, every time just obliteratively good, and Zito's mind careened, flickered and flew. He was panting, thinking helplessly of other mouths, other teammates in this long major league life of his, and then he briefly wondered about the existence of UFOs, and if there were a specific God for every planet, a specific heaven, and then Lincecum swallowed him down and it was just Tim, and Tim, and Tim.
Zito finished groaning, turning his head to the side. Lincecum licked him until he was clean and oversensitive, and then slid up Zito's body to settle at his side again. Lincecum's arm rested heavily on Zito's stomach, and Zito allowed it for several minutes as he caught his breath and came slowly down. Then he pushed Lincecum off him, both of them sweat-sticky and too hot for such proximity. Lincecum huffed, rolled onto his back beside Zito, stretching his arms up over his head.
"That was awesome," Lincecum said. He was still kind of breathless. "That was better than striking out the side."
Zito smiled at the ceiling. "You think?"
"No question, man." Lincecum put his hand on Zito's wrist, coarse fingertips playing against the veins there. "Better than any strikeout ever."
That probably didn't mean as much as it sounded like, Zito considered. No pitcher struck out more people than Tim Lincecum, not for the past two years. He got pissy if he notched fewer than ten in a game. Zito had gone half a decade pathetically grateful for every K he'd managed to bluff and feint and eke out of the ball, and he thought that Lincecum didn't really know what he was talking about.
"You hungry?" Zito said.
"In a little bit," Lincecum answered, and closed his eyes. "Just a little bit."
Zito wasn't going to be able to fall back asleep. He watched Lincecum's face become unlined and open, the relaxed fall of his eyebrows, his lips parted. Everyone was always making fun of Lincecum for looking like one of the bat boys, but Zito had never thought that about him. It wasn't youth that made Lincecum look like that; it was all the stuff that hadn't happened to him yet. And then Zito wondered if it wasn't the same thing, anyway.
Pulling his hand carefully from under Lincecum's limp one, Zito slid out of bed, fished his shorts off his ankle and put them back on. He got a bottle of water out of the minibar and drank it in one long pull, his head back and his throat feeling flooded and frozen.
He drew back the curtain a foot or so to get a look at the day. A diffuse bar of light fell into the room, and downtown Miami spread out before him, buildings like silver needles and exploding palm trees, the ocean bluer than the sky over Kansas City. Zito squinted, looking for Cuba.
Zito had always liked this town. He hadn't pitched here before leaving the A's, but he was unbeaten by the Marlins so far as a Giant. Something about the humidity, maybe, the cushion of damp air through which his curveball fell, his fingertips tacky with sweat and a little bit of dirt off the mound, creating perfect gritty pitch grips, eviscerating sliders.
Leaving the gap in the curtains, Zito called room service to get some coffee sent up because he couldn't abide the freeze-dried shit that came in the minibar, and ordered some fruit and granola too, his empty stomach starting to make itself known.
Then he brushed his teeth and took a shower, eradicated the traces that Lincecum had left on him. A thrumming low ache implanted itself in his left shoulder, the ghost of the eight innings he had thrown on Friday night. Breakfast was at the door when he came out of the bathroom, and he ate at the little table, eschewed the complimentary USA Today in favor of fiddling around on his iPhone.
He had two new voice messages, his father and Eric Chavez. His dad was trying to get everybody's schedules to align for a proposed family reunion during the All-Star break. He joked, "Maybe we'll all have to come up to Anaheim to see you, huh?" and for some reason it made Zito wince like the depths of teenage hell when every sentence out of his father's mouth was utterly mortifying.
The family had been talking about this reunion since Christmas, and Zito had never liked the way they had all just assumed he'd be available. It may have been three years since Zito's last trip to the Classic, but still. They were supposed to have faith. And anyway, it was his one four-day stretch of vacation in six months, and no one actually asked him if he wanted to spend it making awkward small talk with aunts and cousins he never even thought about otherwise.
This, though, his dad making jokes about Anaheim and this beautiful start Zito had had, it was worse somehow. It was bad luck.
Chavez's message was brief and unadorned, "Hey, I'm in Oakland. Call me back."
Zito factored in the time change and decided it wasn't too early in California, and called him right then. Listening to it ring, Zito warmed his free hand on the side of the coffee mug and glanced over at Lincecum in the bed, still dead to the world. Lincecum could sleep through almost anything, insensible on the plane with his eye-mask on, conked out in one of the armchairs in the clubhouse as booming rap and pre-game mania raged all around him. It was one of several things that Zito envied about him.
Chavez picked up on the second ring. "Hey man what's up."
"Not much, how you been?"
"Lousy," Chavez reported. There was a television talking behind his voice, the rhythmic chant of the local news. "Fuckin' terrible road trip we just got back from."
"Yeah, saw that. Sucks, dude. Your back still holding up?"
"Like a motherfucker," Chavez sighed. "And they cut me back on infield practice again, you believe that shit?"
Zito hummed in a dimly sympathetic way. Chavez wasn't adjusting to life as a designated hitter very well, but that was no more than anyone should have expected.
"I mean," Chavez continued, "I think it actually helps my back, taking infield practice. Keeps me loose, you know. But no, it's all about taking hacks and watching tape and shit. They just put me in the cage for two hours, and then of course my back is hurting, and they put me back on the table, and it's like, let's fix the root problem, you know?" Chavez sighed. "But it's okay."
Zito rolled his eyes. That might as well have been the motto of Chavez's entire existence: but it's okay. No matter what happened, no matter how bad it got, he always said it as easy as breathing.
"How're your boys?" he asked, and that lightened Chavez's voice for a minute or two, rambling on about preschool and the new variations on the alphabet song that had been developed, and the Amazing Baby Who Never Cried, and Zito made the appropriate sounds, halfway tuned out.
He hadn't known Eric Chavez his entire life, it just read like that on paper. They had played against each other in Little League back in San Diego, Zito striking kids out with exactly the same curveball he threw now. Chavez's lifelong best friend had been Zito's catcher at USC, those hazy red-cupped college parties that Zito barely remembered, Chavez lurking somewhere in the mass of faces. Chavez had come up to shake his hand on Zito's first day with the A's, and said, "What's up, man, long time," and Zito had recognized him immediately as a built-in ally.
Now they were former teammates, present friends. Chavez had suffered a decline as steep as Zito's had been, but at least he had the excuse of his faltering body and the five surgeries it had endured over the past decade. Physical deterioration was so much easier to explain than whatever the fuck had happened to Zito.
"Oh, and hey, you know who we're facing tonight?" Chavez said, drawing Zito's attention fully back.
"Uh, no."
"It's young Rich Harden's triumphant return," Chavez told him, and Zito's spine went stiff, goosebumps breaking out on his arms. He glanced at Lincecum, and bit his tongue.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, me and Mark are going to In-N-Out with him for lunch in a little bit. It was funny, I was like, let's go out to dinner, lemme buy you a steak, and kid comes back, buy me a Double-Double instead."
"That is funny," Zito said. He felt like his brain was moving at half-speed. "Well. Tell him I said what's up."
"Surely will."
There was a pause, and it was probably only in Zito's head that it hung so heavily in the cellular air. He didn't think much about Rich Harden, these days, and his skills of obfuscation were rusty.
"Oh, and also," Chavez said, changing the subject in his typical unsubtle way. "What the hell are they putting in your Wheaties over there? Team of freakin' Bob Gibsons all of a sudden."
Zito rubbed at his eyes, wishing he'd gotten more sleep. "Yeah, it's been going pretty good."
"Better than good, man, I've seen your numbers."
Here was another thing Zito didn't know how to talk about. He'd spent too many years on the defensive, making excuses, that dumb line of self-deprecating humor he was obliged to trot out after every loss. He had gotten very good at it--it had been a critical survival skill once he'd signed with the Giants and had the weight of $126 million dollars on his back--and it was difficult to remember how he was supposed to act now that God liked him again.
"The curveball came back," Zito said, and then felt stupid, childish and superstitious.
Chavez hesitated, said with nothing but general affection in his tone, "It's a beautiful thing, man."
"Yeah."
Zito's eyes traveled back to Lincecum of their own volition, the wild dark sprawl of his hair on the pillow and his famous right hand curled near his mouth. There was a flash, a moment of Rich Harden in that same position, in some identical hotel room a thousand miles away, but Zito shoved that out of his mind because it did him no good; the past had never done him any good. He reminded himself: you have Tim now.
"Anyway, I was just checking in," Chavez told him. "I gotta walk the dog and do some other stuff before I meet up with those guys."
"Okay." Zito scratched at his coffee mug. "Give your wife a kiss for me."
"Um, no." Chavez was kinda laughing, and Zito missed him more than he wanted to think about. "Dude, you remember that time you said that to Huddy and he just straight up bitch-slapped you?"
Zito smiled, his head bowed. "Yeah, I remember."
They said their goodbyes and then it was quiet again. Zito finished what was left of his soggy granola, drank the carafe of coffee to its dregs because Lincecum almost never drank it, more a Gatorade and energy drink kind of guy. These kids today, Zito thought only half-ironically.
He started the crossword puzzle in the newspaper, but it was depressingly easy, and his mind wandered. He caught himself fidgeting and playing with his phone, flicking through the pages of apps without looking for anything in particular. Zito cursed himself for indecisiveness, and opened a new text message.
Several minutes passed with him staring at the blank screen. Finally he typed, Heard you were in Cali. No strawberry shakes, and then set the phone down without hitting send.
Zito stared out the window for awhile, weighing his options. Five years ago, Rich Harden had called him from the highway and asked if he wanted anything from In-N-Out, and Zito had requested some fries and a strawberry shake, but Harden refused him the latter on the grounds that ordering a strawberry shake was totally gay. Considering that they'd been having sex with each other five or six times a week at that point, Zito had been compelled to point out the most glaring of the many flaws in his logic, and since then it had been a catchphrase, an in-joke. Zito would fuss with his hair for too long, and Harden would ask him if he wanted a strawberry shake. Harden's voice would go all high-pitched and hysterical when he was losing at videogames, and it would be Zito's turn to offer the queerest of frozen treats. Zito couldn't have even really said why it was funny. It was just one of those things, something only they knew.
He hadn't heard from Harden in two months, not since spring training, not by text or email or Facebook or anything. He saw Harden on Baseball Tonight sometimes, still throwing that shaming wisecrack of a breaking pitch, still holding his shoulders like a hockey player as he went into his wind-up. It made Zito feel hot under his skin, uncomfortable. He and Harden hadn't left things in a bad way, just kind of abrupt and awkward, unfinished. They had lost the pennant to the Detroit Tigers in 2006 and then said goodbye to each other in an airport, vague plans to meet up over the winter that were never realized, and then free agency and then the contract and everything that came with it, and then Rich Harden had been the very least of Zito's concerns.
A snuffle brought Zito's gaze back to the bed as the backlight faded on the unsent text message. Lincecum was stirring, pawing at his own face, shifting his legs under the covers. Zito saw awareness sharpening his lines, tightening his shoulders, saw Lincecum's head come up and look around for him. Their eyes met across the room, and Lincecum smiled, just that regular worshipful smile that had been Zito's alone since a week into their acquaintance.
"Come back, dude," Lincecum said.
Lincecum, Zito knew, would have no trouble at all ordering a strawberry milkshake. The kid had no use for artifice as a general rule; he didn't care if he appeared overly attached to Zito because he was overly attached to Zito. Denying the obvious was never a good idea, Tim had once explained to him, well-fucked and pretty drunk. And anyway, Lincecum had gone on, "You're awesome and you like me too, so there," like they were eight and he'd just delivered an unbeatable argument. Zito could barely even understand him sometimes.
"It's like, almost noon now," Zito said. "Are you planning to get up ever?"
Yawning, Lincecum pushed into a sitting position, the covers at his waist and one bare foot sticking out from under. "I was hoping to get laid one more time, but whatever."
Zito smirked at him, looked down to find his fingers playing along the edges of his phone. Doubt crawled all through him, Zito's least favorite feeling in the whole world, and he quickly flicked his phone awake and defiantly hit send on the text message.
He wasn't sure if it would still be funny, all this time later. He hoped Richie would still get the joke.
"What was that?" Lincecum asked, as open in his nosy-as-fuck tendencies as he was in everything else.
"Text message to Rich Harden. He's pitching in Oakland again for the first time tonight."
"Crazy," Lincecum said, but he wasn't really very interested. Zito had omitted certain elements of his experience with the A's when he and Lincecum had traded histories at the beginning, which he felt had been in everyone's best interest.
Lincecum located his shorts in the tangled mess of sheets and pulled them on, got up scratching his chest and pressing the heel of his hand against his shoulder.
"Feelin' all right?" Zito asked automatically.
"Oh sure," Lincecum said with a quick grin. "Fit as a fiddle and ready for love, as my dad likes to say."
"Dude, my dad says that too. Wild."
"It's like the old guy version of 'chillin' like a villain.'"
Zito gave him a look. "Except only you say that, because you're lame and badly out of date."
"Harsh, man. Seriously."
But Tim wasn't serious, not remotely, coming to Zito in the chair by the window and weaving a hand through his hair, pulling his head back and kissing him on the mouth. Zito kissed him back, stale breath and all, feeling guilty and happy and forgetful again.
Lincecum let him go, a dazed gleam in his eyes, and said with a stupid grin, "Shower," before suiting action to word and going into the bathroom. He left the door open a crack, so Zito could make fun of his singing later on.
Zito exhaled, and checked his phone for a message that wasn't there. Harden probably wasn't awake yet; it was only nine o'clock in California. That tic, checking his phone three times a minute, that tingly has-he-called-yet feeling in the base of his spine, it bothered him a lot. He and Harden had never been that serious, and Zito didn't miss him much anymore, not since he'd had Tim.
He pushed his phone to the other side of the table to take the temptation away. Leaning his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, Zito gazed out the window, thinking about how much Tim Lincecum liked him.
His phone buzzed. Zito picked it up and swiped it unlocked, peering into its small window.
Harden had responded: Saving them all 4 U. Awesome game on friday btw.
A balloon burst inside of Zito. A fall of air escaped him like wind leaving sails but it wasn't empty and limp like that, more of the cleansing kind. He clutched his phone, and didn't let himself think about it too much, tapping Harden's name and seeing his number pop up and the call going through.
Harden picked up immediately. "Hey man."
"Hey. How's it going?"
"Good, pretty good. How're you?"
"I'm-" and Zito stopped, stymied by the language for a second, the intense nostalgia of Harden's questioning Canadian accent in his ear once more.
"I'm perfect," Zito decided on, his mind connecting it obscurely with something about the devotion in Tim Lincecum's eyes, something about the revelatory fall of his best pitch.
Harden made a small laughing sound. "And so humble."
"It ain't braggin'-"
"-if it's true, yes," Harden finished for him. "Keep telling yourself that."
"So you're, you're pitching at the Coliseum tonight," Zito said clumsily, trying to figure out why he'd called.
"That's the plan."
"You psyched, or what?"
"What," Harden answered, deadpan.
"Come on, you'll be fine."
"Oh yeah, you're one to talk. What're those boys hitting off you, 'bout .600 or so?"
Zito took that with good grace. Some of the worst games of his life had been pitched against the Oakland Athletics. Like Tim said, no sense denying the obvious.
Harden coming back to Oakland was different from when Zito had, of course. Being traded out of town was the exact opposite of signing the most ludicrously overpriced contract in history with the cross-bay rivals. And Harden hadn't been a bewildering disappointment before he left, either. Harden was like Chavez; he only ever broke down in ways that showed up on an MRI.
"Well. Luck with that, anyway," Zito told him, and there was a silence. Zito listened to Lincecum mangling a Lady Gaga song in the shower, listened to Harden breathing.
"So," Richie said eventually, rolling it over in his mouth. "Anything else going on with you?"
Don't think, Zito thought, and he said, "Tim Lincecum. Ah. He's something else that's going on with me."
Another pause, broken by a clicking sound that was either the phone being tapped or Harden swallowing. Zito was somewhat aghast at himself, but also thrilled, exhilarated--he'd said it out loud.
"Dude, are you serious?" Harden asked, wary of being pranked.
Zito coughed out a laugh, and bent over the table, his forehead coming to rest on the laminated wood and his breath fogging under his mouth.
"I am so serious I can't even tell you," Zito said, kind of amazed.
"And he's, is he-"
"Crazy about me," Zito said too fast, the words spilling out of him. "Like, holy fuck. Like nobody's ever been this into me before, it's fucking ridiculous."
"Whoa," Harden said, and he was laughing again, bubbling tone underlying his voice. "Was he dropped on his head as a child or something?"
"Oh you can go to hell," and adrenaline was pulling through Zito, rocketing and expanding like fireworks in his chest. "He, he's so goddamn good, Richie, every time he picks up a baseball it's like my heart is gonna stop."
"Wait a minute, are you fucking him or his change-up?"
Zito laughed out loud, slapped a hand over his mouth though the shower was still going, Lincecum still butchering every lyric.
"I can't get over it, man," Zito told Harden. "Best pitcher in the game, right? One of the best I've ever seen, I mean like no joke, but then he--you should see the way he looks at me."
"Well, you're pretty good in bed, that might have something to do with it."
"It's different than that."
"Yeah." Harden paused, breathed out. "It doesn't matter if he's a better pitcher than you, you know. And he's not, anyway. Not this year."
"Not this year," Zito echoed in a whisper, and he closed his eyes for a prayerful moment.
Harden cleared his throat, vaguely discomfited. He'd never been much for the involved strains of emotion that infected Zito from time to time, preferring to get off and fall asleep as soon as possible thereafter. Zito hadn't minded; he hadn't expected any more than that.
"Anyway," Harden said. "How rude are you, calling me up to brag about your new boyfriend? That's some kind of party foul, I'm pretty sure."
Zito smiled, pressed his fist against his mouth. The shower shut off, and he shifted in the chair so he could watch Tim getting out through the cracked-open door.
"You'll get over it," Zito said into the phone. "Thanks, Richie."
"What? What'd I do?"
It was too complicated to explain. Zito didn't even really have it right in his own head. He told Harden, "Just generally thanks. I gotta go. Shut 'em down tonight."
"Piece of cake. What the fuck has Oakland ever done, right?"
And Zito laughed, said goodbye.
As he hung up the phone, Lincecum emerged in a towel and damp skin and nothing else, his hair soaked black and slicked back on his head. He got a pair of shorts out of Zito's bag and Zito felt like he should protest that but it seemed illogical. Lincecum climbed back onto the bed, humming under his breath, and Zito got up in a vague trance, drawn by the specific kind of peace on Tim's face, the looseness in his body.
Zito crawled over him, took a wet strand of hair between his fingers and made it squeak. "Squeaky clean."
Lincecum beamed up at him, happier than could be right, or sustainable. Lincecum had told him once, I have everything in the world I could possibly want except a ring, and it had honestly scared Zito. Zito knew every feasible ending for this story, and almost none of them were good. He hadn't said anything, though. That look on Lincecum's face--everything Zito did these days was an effort to keep it in place.
"So what're we doing today?" Lincecum asked, his hands on Zito's sides, working his shirt up.
Zito bent his head to lick a stray drop of water off Lincecum's neck. "You, man," Zito said against his skin. "First we're doing you."
Tim laughed, bent his head back to give Zito better access. The pillow was dampening, the flush rising on Lincecum's throat, and Zito wanted to put his mouth all over him.
"And then what?" Lincecum's voice burred under Zito's lips, and Zito let his eyes drift shut, constructing in his mind a picture of the perfect day.
"Gonna meet up with the boys at the beach and have lunch at a taco truck. We'll get drunk at one of those horrible tourist cantinas and everybody's gonna be trying to pick up the college girls and it's gonna be hilarious. Go somewhere awesome for dinner, like Brazilian barbecue or something, something with meat on giant skewers or, like, martial arts cooking. Then you and me, we're gonna come back here and I'm gonna show you how to get onto the roof of the hotel and we're gonna smoke a jay up there and talk about the stars and shit. We'll make out for awhile and you'll probably end up getting fucked again. And then we'll go to sleep. And tomorrow we'll go to the ballpark."
Lincecum linked his hands behind Zito's neck, and he was kinda shaking, kinda glowing. "Hell yeah."
Zito smiled, not the same smile that Lincecum gave him but it was getting closer every day, and kissed him quick, fitting his body on top of Linecum's, between his legs. This was what he wanted, Zito thought; this was the thing that had gone missing. The moment overtook him and Zito crossed his fingers on Lincecum's cheek, wishing that he might be allowed to stay here forever.
THE END
Endnotes: I am rusty at this like whoa. An unacceptable state of affairs!
Also: Lincecum! THAT'S GODDAMN RIGHT.