fic: Never Tell Anybody Anything (4/5)
step back
It's Jake who picks him up from the airport, their parents too busy with this or that and Jake counting down the seconds until he leaves for college. One of the best things about Jake sometimes is that he doesn't actually require the participation of others in conversation with him, perfectly happy to talk and talk and talk. Jake is good at filling up quiet spaces, and Porcello's head is full of those.
It's past midnight by the time they get home, and Porcello takes his bags to his room and falls asleep fully clothed, shoes still on, everything still in his pockets. When he wakes up, somebody has tossed a blanket over him and taken off his shoes, and it's past noon. There's a note stuck to his lampshade in Jake's handwriting:
mom says theres a rotisserie chx in fridge for when IF you get up but dont touch the drumsticks, or dad WILL beat you. & also your lame, bro. call me when your alive again JAKE
"My lame what?" he mumbles to himself, smiling tiredly at his own dumb joke. Then he peels down to the skin and takes a long shower.
He stands under the spray for a long time after he's rinsed off, leaning his head on his arms on the wall and letting the water beat down on his back. He palms his dick a few times, halfhearted and kind of sad because he can't even work up the desire to get hard. With that depressing thought, he turns the water off and presses his hands over his skull hard enough to force at least some of the water out.
He goes downstairs and turns on the TV, eating half the chicken while flipping channels. The shit that passes for kids' TV makes him glad he doesn't have kids, and ESPN's busy sucking the city of St. Louis's cock for having the "best fans in the world" because they wear red to the ballpark and some of them even know that the seventh inning stretch is a real thing. He sucks a piece of meat off a ligament on a wing bone, unimpressed, and changes the channel. ESPN2 is showing motocross, which is a lot more fun to watch.
Somehow he loses most of the afternoon that way, sucked into the television. FX is showing The Departed, sanitized hilariously beyond recognition. Jack Nicholson is coughing up blood and basically laughing in Matt Damon's face when the front door bangs open and Jake comes in with his arms full of Target bags.
"I bought a futon," he says, grinning. "Hello, brother."
They unload the car and engineer a way of getting Jake's new piece of furniture up the stairs and into his room, successful except for one casualty: one of Mom's Hummel figurines that was on a console table in the upstairs hallway. Jake attacks the massive cardboard box with a pair of kitchen shears, swearing at the laminated tape wrapped all around the box, and Porcello goes out into the hallway and picks up the pieces of ceramic that used to be a little boy in lederhosen walking with a little dog. The table where it had been is dusty, a blob of dark walnut where it used to sit, smearing to the edge where it was dragged through the dust.
He puts the pieces of the figurine on the counter next to the sink, because it looks fixable to him. The boy has lost his head and one of his arms busted off, but Dad is handy enough that Porcello is confident he'll be able to fix it. And if not, well. It was Jake's futon that broke it.
Jake comes downstairs looking for a screwdriver, but gets distracted by the refrigerator and showing off the new game he bought for his 360, so they eat grapes and play Fable II for a while.
Their parents get home within an hour of each other, Mom bearing pizza and tiramisu from that place near the public high school. She hugs him until he can't breathe, then kisses him on both cheeks and hugs him again. It's an oddly effusive greeting for her, but on the other hand, she hasn't seen him since April except on screens. Dad's a little more phlegmatic, hugging him once and wanting to know what time he's planning on leaving in the morning for his fishing trip.
They eat in the kitchen, everybody standing up around the island counter. Dad drinks Stella, Mom drinks iced tea, and the boys drink water. He feels about ten years old, except that Jake gets away with swearing and Mom doesn't look as harassed as she always did back then.
"It's good to have you home, Rick," Mom tells him before she goes up to bed.
He tries to go to bed after a few more hours of videogames with his brother, but his brain won't quite turn off. He goes and sits at his desk, wikisurfing and learning about Pat Tabler and stray capacitance and the island of Sulawesi with no idea how he gets from one to the other.
Around two-thirty or so, he slips out of the house and runs across three yards, crawls up a tree and curls up in the old Tucci treehouse. He no longer fits, too big to do more than crouch against the one side with his shoulders twisted to wedge between the window casement and the perpendicular wall. But the place has the same calming effect on him that it's always had, the feeling that nothing bad can ever happen there. He's had an untouchable year up in the treehouse, he's well-rested and never sore, and he hasn't made any unconscionably stupid decisions with his dick.
He must have dozed off or something, tracing over his brother's friends' names with his fingers and thinking about what Verlander said about it being like this for everyone, hoping that's true. He hears someone at the bottom of the tree, and then Jake's face appears in the trapdoor, lit with a small flashlight he's got clenched in his teeth.
"What the fuck?" Jake wants to know.
"I don't know," he tells him. "I sincerely do not know."
"Are you freaking out about something?"
"Maybe. Well, no. Not really." He shrugs and moves his legs so Jake can hoist himself up into the treehouse as well. "If this whole thing falls out of the tree because we're both up here, it's your fault."
Jake nods solemnly, settling back against the opposite wall. "I accept your premise." He stretches his legs out and braces his feet against the rim of the trapdoor, knees bent at ninety-degree angles. "You want to talk about it?"
"No." He looks out the window at the neighbor's swimming pool, which is pale blue and lit up. New people must have moved into that house, actually making use of the pool.
They sit there for a few moments before Jake raps his knuckles against the floor. "You're totally freaking out about something. What is it?"
"I'm okay," he insists.
"Lies. Come on, tell Jake what's wrong. I have been known to surprise with the depth of my insight into even the deepest, darkest mysteries. I have a keen mind." He pauses, turning the flashlight right in Porcello's face. "You miss Ryan, don't you?"
There's an uncomfortable question. He shakes his head. "I mean, yeah, but not in a pining, needy way. And I hope Mrs. Kadhim remembers the cat. Shit, I should call her tomorrow to remind her."
Jake makes a soft sound. "I have eyes, bro. You want to fuck him, like, a lot. Own that. It's cool. I have a mancrush on him, myself. I mean, I wouldn't take advantage of his unconscious body or anything, but he's awesome."
He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Jake, go away."
"I'm not leaving you up here to mope by yourself-"
"It's baseball, Jake," he snaps. "My roommate has nothing to do with it."
Jake scoots forward and dangles his feet through the trapdoor, reaching over and pinching Porcello really hard on the calf. "Hey. Don't be a dick about it," he said. Porcello kicks him and rolls his eyes and stares directly at one of the pool lights until his vision freckles pink and green.
"Look," says Jake, smacking the floor again to get his attention, "you. Just 'cause I don't know what it's like don't mean I can't help. I can't even imagine what it's like to be you, Rick. I'm probably never gonna see a Major League locker room with my name on one of the lockers, you and me both know it. And I can't imagine ever looking at another dude and thinking, 'I'd like to fuck him.' And somehow you gotta figure out how to make those two things work together? I wouldn't be you for all the signing bonuses and groupie pussy in the world."
Porcello snorts, can't help it. "Hey, now. Some of that groupie pussy is top of the line, I hear."
"And how would you fuckin' know? Anyway." Jake waved his hand. "So, like I said. You wanna talk about it?"
"I wish I could tell you how unbelievably hard it is sometimes, so that you could really know what I mean." He picks at his cuticles on his left hand. There's some pizza sauce on his ring finger. "Just the baseball part. These batters are the real thing. I faced the Yankees in April." He taps the old Yankees pennant still push-pinned to the wall, 1996 American League Champions.
Jake is quiet for a moment, looking right at him with his eyes narrowed, then he shakes his head. "The Yankees are not the reason you're hiding in a treehouse at three AM," he says finally.
Porcello tips his head back against the wall and blows out a long breath. "I had my first kiss up here, you know. In this treehouse."
"No shit? Was it that Emily girl who wanted on your nuts in, like, fourth grade? That girl was scary. By the way, I can tell that you prefer dudes. Your taste in girls leaves a lot to be desired."
He shakes his head, rolling the back of his skull smoothly on the wall, starting to laugh helplessly. "It was Max, actually."
"Max. Wait. Max Migliozzi? Who ate bugs and used to call me 'Plop.' Who is the biggest queen in the world now. Max." Jake bursts out with a terrible cackle. "This is perfect, thank you for being in my life. Me and Tim Dempsey, we were at that Chinese place, Golden Dragon Panda Garden or whatever. The one by Pets's house. And we ran into Max there, after you left for Spring Training this year. I was going to tell you, but then I thought, 'nah, he'll just freak out and then he'll suck and get knocked back to Low-A.' You can thank me for being in the Majors by buying me a real car, by the way. Max Migliozzi. He's all skinny and douchey and polo-shirted and so gay he fuckin' glows."
Porcello snorts. "Are you sure he's not just a Guido?"
"No, dude. He wasn't wearing makeup. Keep up, would you?" Jake grins. "But I am kind of in love with the idea that you're this big deal baseball player who's down-low into dudes and he's prancing all around northern Jersey with rainbows coming out of his ass, and that it's not coincidence; the two of you were up here in this treehouse kissing at, what, eight years old."
Jake keeps going, laughing about it and making hand-puppet versions of his major characters, reenacting imagined conversations and make-outs they must have had. Left-hand-Max and right-hand-Rick, with Jake setting the star-crossed scene in between. Porcello watches and smiles in spite of himself.
"And you were totally sitting right where we are now, except you were smaller then, so you both fit. And your eyes met in the twilight, energy crackling…"
He covers his face with both hands and draws his knees up to his chest, waiting for Jake to get bored and move on, tiny attention span and all. He can wait him out.
Finally, Jake makes a wheezing sound and shakes his head. "Max Migliozzi. Man, what other hook-ups of yours should I know about?"
The smile slides off Porcello's face and he looks away. He can just see Jake's eyebrows shoot up and then pull down, just at the edge of his peripheral vision. "I don't want to talk about that."
"This shit gets better and better," said Jake, leaning forward. Porcello hopes he overbalances and falls down the trapdoor. He wouldn't get hurt too badly; the tree isn't very tall, the ground only about eight feet down. He could touch the bottom of the treehouse flat-footed on the ground with his arms stretched over his head. "You cannot dissemble at all, so you might as well talk."
He shifts uncomfortably against the wall and says nothing, jaw clenched like the bases are loaded, nobody out, Joe Mauer at the plate with those sideburns and that absurd batting average.
"If I promise not to make fun of you, will you tell me?" Jake asks, smiling small and nonconfrontationally.
"Are we girls? Do you have an abiding need to braid my hair and paint my toenails? Christ, how can you want to gossip this much?"
"I'm hard up for friends," says Jake immediately. His eyes are glinting because he knows that he's going to get the story eventually, there's no resistance that works against him for long. "Now matters at hand. Your guts, spill 'em. I promise not to judge you too hard."
"I'm tired of telling this story," says Porcello instead.
Jake cocks his head. "Who else you telling? Ryan know about it? I could just call-"
"No!" Jake blinks and Porcello rubs his forehead. "It's just. I kind of, you know. Justin Verlander knows about the homo thing."
"Did you make a pass at him?" Jake grins, but he looks more shocked than gleeful.
"What? Oh, god. What even are you? Gross." He gives Jake a disgusted look. "I thought we already covered that it's just like how you're not into every girl who walks past."
"Okay, fine. You didn't come onto the ace of your rotation. That's good, probably. Keeps his head in the game, right?"
"He has a fiancée," says Porcello, half petulant, but as soon as it hits the air he realizes that doesn't really count for so much in baseball. He's seen Verlander with a groupie a few times; he's seen guys who are way more married and devoted to their wives with groupies.
Jake rolls his eyes. "Anyway. So I take it he didn't kick your homo ass."
"I'm not gay."
"So we're not labeling. Whatever. You like dick; we're calling 'em as we sees 'em. Therefore, I get to say 'your homo ass.' Anyway. So Verlander's not an insecure fuckhead homophobe. Good. I hope he wins the Cy Young, swear to God." Jake is flustered. It's pretty funny, or at least it would be if the whole thing weren't so uncomfortable. Porcello mostly just wants to go hide under his parents' bed for about a month. Mom keeps pretzels stashed under there for midnight snacks, so he won't even starve.
"I. Joel Zumaya saw me leave a club with. With a guy. And he's been pretty fucking weird about it, avoiding me and stuff."
"So Zumaya is an insecure fuckhead homophobe." Jake looks disappointed.
"Well, he never came and kicked my ass, so. Maybe not? I don't know." He shakes his head and smirks. "Hey, maybe I'm special enough that he keeps his shit to himself. He was being weird and I made Justin go find out why. And that's why. So I had to tell somebody."
"Huh." Jake leans against the tree trunk and makes a contemplative face. "That didn't really answer my question, just that I'm not the only one asking. You hook up with anybody interesting? And I don't mean, like, the sons of minor Detroit politicians. Or even other Tigers. Tell you the truth, I don't really want to know. But you're being… squirrelly about it."
"I am not squirrelly," he says, kind of insulted.
"No, you're definitely being squirrelly. You practically have buckteeth and a bushy tail and the nervous twitch. And I'd threaten to call Ryan again-but I won't. Relax, would you? The squirrelly thing makes me think either he doesn't know or he was drunk and doesn't remem-"
"Rich Harden."
Jake sits there looking confused for a moment, silent for once. Porcello covers his face again and actually sighs. Funny how this became the lesser of two evils, and Jake was edging way too close to the truth there.
"Like. The pitcher?" Jake asks finally.
Porcello peeks through his fingers and Jake still looks bewildered. "Yes, the pitcher."
There is another long pause, Jake's mouth working as he tries to pull all the facts into some kind of order. "How?"
"The, uh. The usual way?" Porcello gives him a funny look and decides he's going to be cool about this. He's tired of not being cool about it, anyway.
Jake makes a frustrated sound. "No, I know how gay hookups work. Like, I'm sure you didn't mean for it to be anybody in particular. But, no, I mean-how did you not, like, break him? He was on the DL this year, right? Like, his regularly scheduled injury and all."
Porcello shrugs. He honestly doesn't know. "I didn't break him. He was hurt before me if he was hurt."
"Huh. So." Jake has somehow gone from mocking to oddly serious, and he still looks confused. "When?"
"When they were in Detroit." He explains a little more, about the shots with Verlander and Zumaya, and the redhead he was dancing with. "She was kind of scary, too. Threesome with two strange guys? What kind of girl does that?"
"You have shit taste in girls, bro, I just said that," Jake says. He rubs his knuckles over his mouth and frowns. "So you're fucked up because you fucked Rich Harden. Huh. That's. I don't even know what to say about that. Which is a first, by the way."
"And then he went and gossiped to his friends about it," Porcello blurts out. "I got scolded by Bobby Crosby when we went to Oakland, who was all, 'He's more fucked up than you,' like that's an excuse. How is that an excuse for picking up some scared-looking kid in a strange bar in Detroit, and then realizing it's not just any scared kid but somebody who is actually trying to do what you do? Trying to pitch, I mean."
Jake cracks a grin. "You're a catcher and you know it."
"Okay, that is a conversation we are not having. I have lines."
"I bet you're a bossy bottom, too. 'Harder, harder!'" Jake makes his voice all shrill, does a couple obscene motions with his hips, bracing himself with a fist on the floor behind him. "Harder-Harden!" He starts to laugh in earnest. "Man, I wonder how many times he's heard that one in his life. And the jokes I could be making right now… if you weren't my brother, I would. But I have family loyalty or something. Also, you'd probably go cry to Mom, and she's scary."
Porcello crosses his arms and scowls.
"What?" Jake looks affronted. "Dude, I know you take it. I talk to Ryan. I know he walked in on it-"
"Jake."
He practically growls it and Jake finally takes note, backing down. They sit there, awkward and both of them breathing kind of hard. Porcello's got his hands clamped around his knees so that they don't shake. Jake cracks first.
"You're looking at this all wrong, bro," he says. "This Harden thing, I mean. It should make you feel better."
Near whiplash. "What."
Jake nods. "I mean, it just goes to show you're not alone in your. Your angsty fucked-up-ness thing. Like Bobby Crosby said. In fact, you should probably get Harden's number and, like, commiserate on being gay and in baseball. He has to see Carlos Zambrano naked sometimes, man. His life sucks way more than yours. That would be like me having to see-who's a really ugly chick? Like, Wanda Sykes. She's fuckin' funny, but I don't want to see her naked. Ever. That's Carlos Zambrano. I bet Harden's balls crawl up there and never want to come out sometimes."
"Look, I'm just saying," says Jake, sitting up straight. That's how you make a good argument. "You're fucked up in Detroit. He's fucked up in Chicago. I bet there's somebody in, what, Tampa Bay and Atlanta and Seattle and… probably there's two on the Yankees. Now you know you're not alone in it, and since you know there's at least one other, you gotta figure there's more. Think about that."
And strangely, that stops Porcello dead. Because it's pretty much perfect logic, however unlikely the source.
"Don't get bogged down in stuff, Ricky. Just play baseball. That's what's important. It's gonna be okay." He crouches and starts heading down the ladder. "Come on. Let's go home."
Jake whines that's it's cold, which is kind of true, even in the middle of July, and jogs ahead, disappearing through the back door of their house. Porcello is slower, taking his time across the three yards between.
He decides he's going to be okay.
--
Rick lost his first start. It was in Toronto, and his parents were there, and the roof thing kind of spooked him. He'd never been to a game in a domed stadium, and he didn't think he liked it much. Plus there was the whole Canadian thing, the fans screaming in Canadian accents, with maple leaves everywhere. He'd never thought of Canada as anything more than America Lite, the place where "due South" was made, but he found the place really was foreign. The clubbies in the visitor's clubhouse seemed to think watching the American players' responses to plum sauce on the spread was hilarious; Rick would've figured that would get old after twenty years, but apparently not.
"I find this condiment incomprehensible," he told Perry, pointing at the little puddle of it with a French fry after the second game of the series.
Perry shrugged, chewing. "It's pretty good, I think. Kind of sour, kind of sweet."
All he could think about on the plane back to Detroit was how he forgot to oil his old glove before the game, so of course he lost. He had never forgotten to do that before, not in important games as a kid, not before his debut in Lakeland or any start after that, but somehow ritual just got squeezed out up there in Canada.
He sat for a long time after he came out of the game, on the stool in front of his locker with the old glove in his hands and his head throbbing dully. The room was full of reporters sniffing around after the game, because it was his debut and Ricky Romero's, the first time two first-round picks had made their Major League debuts against one another.
He didn't want to parrot the clichés or even listen to questions. What he really wanted to do was pout and throw shit (maybe at the bullpen for hemorrhaging runs and putting the game out of reach). He was keyed up and jittery, but he was usually at least a little bit twitchy. It was the paranoid rookie thing, always expecting some shit. He worked very hard in spring training to establish that he wouldn't be very much fun to prank if they tried it, but he was still the baby of the team by quite a lot and they weren't going to let him forget that any time soon.
"It feels exactly like you think it would," he told the reporters, trying very hard not to be surly with them, even though what he really wanted was for them to just go away and bother some guy who wasn't him. He didn't want to talk about that hanging curve to Adam Lind in the sixth or how it felt to be a big leaguer; he wanted to go sulk in the video room and watch exactly how well he'd done, maybe with Ryan Perry by his side and cookie. He really wanted a cookie.
What he wanted to say was, "What are you looking at?" but the didn't. He talked about not being as nervous as he thought he would be (which was complete bullshit) and settling in real well (which wasn't bullshit so much as just saggy-shouldered relief, I do belong here, I do, I do).
He could see Perry a few lockers over, twitchy too, still in his bloomy, put-me-in-every-game blush after yesterday, visibly annoyed he didn't get a crack at this one.
"When we get home, we're celebrating," Perry yelled over, catching him looking. They grinned; the reporters lapped it up. They drank beer out of team logo coffee mugs on the plane home, then stayed up most of the night mixing purple Gatorade and apple juice with a bottle of cheap vodka Rick's older brother gave him as congratulations for making the team out of Spring Training.
"Not springing for the good stuff 'til you win a game," Zach had said. "You'll drink your Kamchatka and you'll like it."
He didn't like it so much in the morning, but it was definitely an effective way to forget about losing his first big league start.
On Friday, back in Detroit, they beat the Rangers spectacularly, almost as many runs in one game as they scored total in four games in Toronto. Galarraga looked almost spooked by the offensive explosion, joking with Cabrera and laughing kind of nervously. Verlander wouldn't even look at him, left the ballpark without speaking to anyone, and Jackson was bitching to himself about something or other (not that that was unusual).
Zumaya, on the other hand, was loudly pleased with everyone and declared that there was a lot of alcohol in their futures on his tab. Porcello tried to get out of it, unspeakably tired all of a sudden, but Perry was having none of that.
Galarraga wasn't a huge fan of the club scene, didn't even like to drink much, but Zumaya overruled his choice of a low-key bar in favor of some dank, overcrowded club downtown.
"This is an important event in your life, Armando," Zumaya slurred, halfway through the night, an arm hung around Galarraga's shoulders. The group of them was packed into a booth like shirts in a closet, Perry's thigh hot against Rick's as he tried to cling to the edge of the bench. People kept tripping over the foot he stuck out to brace himself, girls spiking him pretty hard with their heels and guys stumbling dumbly.
"Is it?" Galarraga asked, raising his eyebrows. He wasn't drunk, still nursing the same bottle of Budweiser he'd had all night. He always drank American beer.
"Very important," Zumaya assured him. "It's an important event in all of our lives."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Galarraga told him, patting him on the chest, "but I like how you think."
Zumaya turned to Rick and Perry. "And don't you two think you're getting out of shit. First appearances 'n all. Waitress!"
"There aren't any waitresses here, Zoom," said Inge. He was on the other end of the booth, but it looked like he had a lot more room. Rick shoved against Perry a little, trying to not fall of the edge. Perry elbowed him pretty hard in the ribs.
Some time later, it was just Rick and Perry in the booth, giggling over a field of shot glasses and throwing chewed up citrus slices at each other, both of them three rum and cokes deep, beer bottles scattered around that didn't all belong to them. Inge kept walking past, giving them knowing looks, look at the rookies being cute and rookie-like.
"You gotta forget about your last outing, man. You pitched good," said Perry for about the three millionth time. He wasn't a mean drunk or a messy one, just a dumb, repetitive one. It was only annoying when he would get it in his head that he'd wronged someone, when the track stuck on repeat would be gradually more grandiose and hysterical apologies for being a douchebag and will you ever forgive me, say you'll forgive me, man.
"I know," Rick agreed. "Just the one pitch I want back. One pitch."
"Funny how a whole game can get decided with one pitch," said Perry. "Like tonight. Benson don't make that one shitty pitch to Miggy, maybe he gets out of the inning with just the one run. You know? You throw a hundred pitches in a game, maybe more, maybe less, maybe other guys throw thirty more. That's a lotta pitches. But in the end maybe five of 'em actually matter, you know? A couple pitches deciding a whole ballgame. Crazy shit."
"But we already knew that, Ryan. Might be rookies but we're not. Not amateurs. Well, I'm not, don't know about you."
"Fuck you. Not an amateur. But, I mean. Holy shit, Ricky. What are we even doing here? We're kids. Kids. And we're playing in the major leagues. Like, the actual Major Leagues. With, like, actual major leaguers. We faced Roy Halladay a couple days ago. Roy Halladay. Think about that for a second. Roy motherfucking Halladay. He was winning the Cy Young when you were in middle school."
Drunken spin took over after that. Inge made them come dance for a while, and Perry found a tall brunette to make out with against the wall. Rick ignored that, danced with anybody who came close enough (including, hilariously, Zumaya, who was so drunk he was barely vertical and sweaty enough to bottle, slurring, "Rookie, we're never speaking of this again," before stumbling off; Inge took pictures with his phone).
Rick went to the bar to get a drink of water, which the amused bartender served him in a tall glass coffee mug with a bendy straw and a maraschino cherry. "Um. Thank you?" he said, staring at it.
"Good game last night, kid," said the bartender, winking. Rick bit his lip and covered his face with his hand.
Perry bumped into him from behind, slinging an arm around his neck. "Dude. You need to be where I can find you," he said, swampy breath against Rick's neck.
"Looks like you found me."
"And it took so long. Unacceptable," Perry told him. "And what is this? If you're going for pussy drinks, at least own that shit and order a Shirley Temple." He stole the cherry and chomped it off its stem, chewing in one cheek like a hamster.
"Can I help you with something, Ryan?"
Usually Perry passed through several distinct stages of drunkenness. The first and second were laughing at everything and then telling the same story fifteen times and never getting tired of it. The third stage was a desperate urge to cling to anyone he'd ever met, like a vine plant creeping up the side of a building. Not that Rick didn't, you know, kind of enjoy it, but on the other hand, the fourth stage was usually finding a dark corner and systematically losing control over all bodily functions, and that was absolutely not something Rick was down with, ever.
"Oh. Well, no," said Perry, blinking at him. He shoved the stem in his mouth and stared at the ceiling, concentrating very hard on tying the stem in a knot.
"You know, one day you'll do that correctly," Rick commented, sipping his water and feeling so perfectly content in the moment that he had sick clench in his stomach.
"Fuck you, I can unwrap a Starburst with my tongue. I'm goddamn good at oral. I'm going to fucking tie this stem in a knot. Watch." Rick raised his eyebrows and tried to worm away from Perry and his body heat and his mouth moving like that. It was not helping the stupid crush at all. Perry, however, was having none of that, clamping his hand around Rick's neck hard enough that it would leave finger marks to find tomorrow. Rick watched, feeling kind of ill, helpless in a way he hated.
"Where'd that girl get to?" he asked.
Perry spat out the stem and scowled. "Boyfriend. Or something. I don't know." He didn't sound concerned. He waved the bartender over, got a 'just a minute' finger in response. "Hey! We made our Big League debuts, Ricky, and we haven't drank to that yet, just you and me."
"We haven't drunk to that yet," Rick corrected.
"What?" Perry blinked.
Rick shook his head. "Nevermind. Grammar. Um. I am not drinking anything with Jagermeister," he warned.
"Good, have standards. But no, like. We'll get something good. Something that's going to hurt," Perry said. Rick shifted uncomfortably and thought that he had a pretty good idea about that kind of thing.
Perry ordered shots of something Rick didn't catch the name of, lined them up on the bartop, and counted down. "Now come on," he said, hooting as Rick coughed when the shots were down. "Let's go find somebody to blow you. I am god's gift to wingmen, you know. Let's find you a. Well, wait. What's on your menu tonight, boys or girls?"
Rick wanted to smack him. "Oh, god," he said.
"Um, might have some trouble with that one," Perry said, knocking him with his hip, "but that girl over there is definitely looking at you. She doesn't look crazy. Well, much." Rick chanced a look over his shoulder, where a small blonde girl with too much eye makeup and skinny jeans was watching them over her sparkly red drink. She looked like she probably majored in photography and smoked cloves.
"Um," Rick said. The girl smirked at him, took a sip of her drink.
"And if that's not your speed, we'll find you something else," Perry continued, spinning them both around about ninety degrees and surveying the crowd. "Now, I don't really know what your type is, but-"
"Ryan. Please stop."
Perry nodded. "So the girl, then?" Rick shrugged, not interested. He was happy where he was, under Perry's arm, warm and drunk and, holy shit, a Major League ballplayer. He didn't need a skinny girl to press herself against him to feel better about himself.
But apparently none of that was communicated to Perry. The girl drained her drink and abandoned the glass on a table as she approached, pink ice glimmering in the lights over the bar. As she got closer, it became apparent that her eye makeup was dark purple. She was beautiful, with a tight, gold-colored top that showed off pale, bony shoulders and cleavage.
"Hi," she said to Perry, looking up at them through thick lashes, still smirking.
"Well, hello," Perry replied, grinning back like she was the best thing he'd seen all night.
Perry kicked him. "Oh, uh. Hey," Rick said, feeling lame even before the words came out.
The girl turned an indulgent little smile his way, said, "Well, aren't you cute?"
Perry snorted. "Ain't he?"
"I'm Taylor," she said. She tucked a chunk of hair behind her ear and leaned catlike with her elbows against the table behind her, forearms parallel with the ground. Perry rushed through some introductions, Rick shifting uncomfortably as he watched the girl and imagined how this would end, him in his room later with his headphones on so he doesn't have to listen while Perry fucks her.
There was no recognition in her eyes at their names, but that wasn't anything special. They weren't famous yet, not even Rick.
"So can I buy you a round?" she asked, waving her hand at the bar.
"Not PBR," Rick blurted, thinking about this horrible girl Jake had dated once, with flat-ironed cherry red hair and disdainful snorting anytime Jake said anything. That girl always wanted PBR when Zach offered to provide alcohol for their silly high school parties.
This girl, though, this girl just laughed. "Do I look like I drink PBR? Oh, fuck that shit. You're getting a girl drink for that, freckles." She pushed off the table and sidled up to the bar, swinging her hips to duck around them.
Perry was delighted, parroting the nickname until Rick squirreled away from him to the other side of the table, muttering, "They're moles," and feeling like a surly kid again.
The girl came back with her hands full of pretty colored drinks, something tall and orange for Perry, a bright blue thing in a martini glass for herself, and a squat pink one with an umbrella pushed in front of Rick. "Bottoms up, boys," she said.
Rick chewed on his straw and watched the crowd, letting Perry work the girl over. She was pretty obviously a sure thing, but Perry liked to play the game. Inge texted to let them know he was taking Zumaya home before he passed out, and Galarraga was long gone by then. b good, Inge advised them. but not to good k. Inge didn't believe in punctuation.
"Oh, so you're roommates, huh?" the girl asked, sounding pleased. Rick looked up from his phone to find them both looking at him, the girl pressed against Perry like a window cling. "That’s wonderful. I'm going to find my coat," she added.
"What?" Rick looked at Perry for guidance, but Perry widened his eyes and shook his head. Don't worry about it, everything's okay.
"You're invited, too," she said to Rick, smirking. She disentangled herself from Perry and slipped through the crowd.
"What?" Rick repeated, a little more forcefully this time.
"Just go with it, okay?" Perry snapped, watching her over his shoulder.
"What am I invited to?"
Perry shot him a glare that made him feel like a heel. "What the fuck do you think? She's going to let us fuck her. At the same time."
Rick stared at him, agape. "I. What?"
"You got something else to say? 'Cause that one's getting old fast, I think."
The girl reappeared then, shrugged into a black leather jacket. "You in?" she asked.
Perry bulged his eyes again, meaningfully, don't you dare fuck this up for me, so Rick shrugged. He still felt like he was half a step behind, had a feeling that it showed on his face. Perry came around the table and tossed an arm around his neck again, saying something rapid and smooth to the girl. Rick squeezed his eyes closed and told himself, be cool.
The girl had a car and she wasn't drunk, not really. Rick sat in the backseat by himself and felt stupidly young and not at all qualified for any of what was about to happen. He flicked through the girl's iPod, pleased with her music choices, while Perry talked about college and gave her directions to their place. She was a Wolverine and a French major. She liked golf.
She stuck herself to Perry like a squirrel on a tree trunk right there in the driveway, fingers hooked in his front pockets and her tongue in his mouth, crab-walking him backward up the path to their building. Rick fucked around with his keys, unlocked the door, tried not to look at them.
They stumbled inside, and Perry tripped over the doormat. He caromed sideways, breaking free of the girl, hitting the wall next to the door with a thump. The girl scraped her hair out of her face and turned to Rick, grinned sharply, and kissed him hard enough he was worried she split his lip.
"Savvy now?" she asked, tugging him toward her with a hand wrapped up in the front of his shirt, scratching his stomach with her nails.
"Oh," he said, putting one hand on her back. She was small enough that he could actually cradle the back of her ribcage in his spread hand, which blew him away almost as much as the hot, dark-eyed look on Perry's face over her shoulder.
Perry stripped off his shirt, kicked off his shoes, not once looking away from Rick. The girl glanced over her shoulder and frowned. "What are you doing all the way over there?" She clawed her fingers around his belt, dragging him up against her back so tight his abdominal muscles brushed Rick's knuckles. Both of them jerked, Rick flexing his fingers against the girl's back so hard she flinched and bit his neck.
Perry had his hands on the girl's hips, pulling her ass snug against him, then he wrapped one hand up in her hair and tugged her head back. She gasped and twisted around to face him, one hand up on his face and the other still caught up in Rick's shirt.
"Come on," she breathed against his mouth. "Got a whole house here, don't need to do this right by the front door."
Rick stepped back, wiped his palms on his jeans and kicked the door shut. Perry led the way back to his bedroom, pausing to shove the girl against the wall every so often and kiss her open and wet. Rick helped with the shedding of clothes as they went, but it was the girl who unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his jeans, despite having her tongue in Perry's mouth as she did it. Perry put a hand on Rick's hip and dug his fingers in, probably just to keep his balance, head tipped back far enough that his Adam's apple stood out just asking to be bitten.
The girl sank to her knees, hands on Perry's belt as soon as she hit the floor. Rick watched with his mouth open as she yanked the buckle open and then shoved Perry's pants down, and she glanced up at him with a somewhat terrible, knowing look in her eye before opening her mouth. Perry groaned like it hurt, scrabbling his hands on anything in reach, the girl's hair and Rick's side, jerking him closer.
The girl had some impressive technique, Rick thought, but he had a feeling he could do better, and then he pressed his face against Perry's neck, bracing his hand on Perry's chest with his fingers slotted between ribs. Perry let out a long string of curses, a couple different gods' names taken in vain, and then he kissed Rick hard on the mouth, full tongue, and that short-circuited every nerve Rick had.
He tasted drunk and a little desperate, holding Rick's jaw too tight in one hand, but Rick was all over that shit. The girl made a choking noise and the sound of cocksucking stopped for a moment, a fainter sound like her swallowing her spit. Perry whined into Rick's mouth and twisted toward him, fingers tight on his face and his side.
Rick broke away for breath, abruptly scared of everything including his shadow and Ryan Perry's hand on his face. Perry's eyes were closed, his mouth open and wet. Perry dropped the hand that had been on Rick's side down to the girl's hair, and she went back down, but she was looking right at Rick, eyes dark and round. He stumbled back, suddenly feeling like he'd swallowed lead, heavy metal stomach sick.
"I'm sorry," he gasped, then he fled, slamming his door behind him and collapsing against it. He sank to the floor and tried to catch his breath, which took the better part of ten minutes. Then he crawled into bed and didn't sleep. He lay there miserably and stared at his ceiling with his earbuds jammed into his ears so hard it hurt, blasting all the noisy metal he had on his iPod. After a few hours, he gave up and headed into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. He drained several cups of coffee and watched most of a Sham-Wow infomercial, kind of badly wanting to order one but pretty sure Perry would mock him for it.
The shower came on around five, while Rick was halfway through a Bump-It infomercial he couldn't remember starting to watch, only that it had completely trapped him. Not like it was something he needed, but he caught himself staring at the TV slack-jawed anyway.
Shaking himself, he changed the channel to something that was on commercial and went into the kitchen for more coffee. The shower stopped, pipes on the other side of the kitchen wall creaking like they were trying to beat their way through the sheetrock.
He heard footsteps behind him in the kitchen doorway and turned around to find the girl standing there, looking spooked with her wet hair scraped back from her face and all the makeup scrubbed away. She was pretty and very small, well over a foot shorter than Rick in her bare feet. She was wearing a Tigers jersey that hung down to her knees.
"Oh," she said, seeing him leaning against the counter next to the fridge. "Um, morning."
"Morning," he said, nodding.
She took a few faltering steps then cocked her head like he was whispering and she couldn't quite hear. "Yeah, so I have no idea what your name is, I'm sorry." She raised one shoulder and the opposite corner of her mouth, revealing a deep dimple. "I'm going through this big ol' slut phase."
He nodded. "Yeah. I didn't catch your name either," he said, making his voice all gruff for some reason.
"Taylor," she said. "Like Liz."
"Taylor. Huh. I went to prom with a girl named Taylor."
She grinned and came closer, hopping up on the counter with her bare feet dangling. "God, how old are you?" He felt his face get hot and looked away. "Oh, I didn't mean it like that. God, you're cute." She laughed quietly and he rolled his eyes. "So what's your name, freckles?"
"Freckles? Really?" He shook his head again and set his mug on the counter behind him. "Um, I'm Rick."
"Really?"
He made a face. "Yes?"
"No, I mean. That's cool," she said, holding out a hand like an apology. "It's just, like, that's kind of an old man's name, right? Like, Rick's your dad and you should be Richie or something. Rich. Whatever."
"Um, well, my name isn't Richard, so. Rich wouldn't work."
"Oh, well, that makes sense," she nodded. Her bangs flopped down in her eyes. "Sorry. I didn't mean to, like, insult you or anything."
He laughed without humor, uncrossing his arms and standing there awkwardly for a second. Then he re-crossed them, looking away. "It's, what? Five-thirty in the morning? I'm interrupting your walk of shame. Insult away."
"Is it really a walk of shame if I'm not feeling any shame?" Taylor asked, flashing the dimple again.
Rick opened and closed his mouth a few times, wishing she would go away already. "I don't really have a lot of experience with this, so I don't know," he said finally.
Her smile ticked up a few notches in brightness. "Boys never do."
"Sure," he said, rolling his shoulders and thinking, you'd probably know.
An uncomfortable silence settled, the girl picking at her nails while Rick looked everywhere but directly at her. Her shoulders were bent and twisted enough that he could tell the jersey she was apparently stealing was his and not Perry's.
She slapped the counter next to her thigh, startling him. "So, okay. Your roommate is disgusting, by the way. I think I used your bathroom. There was, like, stuff growing in his."
Rick snorted. "Nobody uses his bathroom. He doesn't even use it." He grabbed his coffee mug and tried to take a drink, dismayed a second later to find that the cup was empty. He pushed off the counter and went over to the coffee machine. "Coffee?" he asked her.
"Sure, why not," she said, smiling. "But not in a mug. I hate drinking out of those things, the ceramic's so thick and I always spill on my clothes."
He looked meaningfully at the D on her chest, then away. "We don't actually have, like, real cups. Mostly we drink out of the bottles stuff comes in, or coffee cups."
"Oh, whatever, give me a coffee cup," she said, unconcerned. She hopped down from the counter and started nosing around in the cupboards, rearranging cans in the one above where the toaster oven was. "So, hey. Something else. About the other thing-the what happened last night before you freaked thing. Uh."
He jerked, splashing coffee on the heel of his hand, and hissed through his teeth. "Oh, god," he said.
"Sorry!" she said, coming close and peering at his hand. She pulled him toward the sink by the elbow. "Here, put that under cold water. But no, like, nothing bad, I swear."
The faucet spray was strong, stinging sharper on the burn than he liked, and she was holding his arm a little harder than he thought was necessary. "Fine, what?"
She smiled up at him, a friendly kind of smile that made him uneasy. "It's just, well. I just got the impression last night that if you were to, you know, try that again and not freak out, well, he would probably be down with that."
He choked and pulled his arm out of her grasp, backing up a few feet. "I. What?"
"I'm just throwing it out there," she said, turning off the water and crossing her arms, frowning at him.
"Thanks," he muttered, turning away and rubbing his thumb over the bright red spot on his hand, where the skin was hot. His cheeks were probably hotter, he thought idly.
"Okay, look, Rick. I'm sorry. I forget that normal people don't, like, talk about this kind of shit, 'specially with people they just met. But hey, I've had my tongue in your mouth, that makes us old friends." She scratched her head and grinned winningly.
He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and stared at the side of the fridge. "Look, even if that was what I wanted, whatever. There are, what, extenuating circumstances." Like baseball, he wanted to say. Like my whole life.
"Extenuating circumstances," she repeated, nose wrinkled. "Buddy, nobody's thinking less of you here 'cause you're into boys."
"That's not what I mean," he snapped.
She poured some coffee into the same mug he'd been drinking from and took a long pull, glaring at him over the top rim. "Does it matter, then?" she asked, thumping the mug down. "Look, I'm sorry. All I'm saying is that it just seemed to me like he might be into it. I mean, he kissed you, didn't he?"
"Somebody was sucking his dick right then," said Rick very slowly. "He would've kissed Leyland if he'd been there." He shuddered, slamming his whole weight down against that mental image before it could properly render in his head. "Okay, maybe not, actually. Ew."
She blinked. "Um, Leyland? You know what? Nevermind. I don't care, that sounds way more like an old man name than Rick."
"Super," he muttered, scowling, and then he wanted to smack himself with the fridge door. He sucked his teeth and looked over at Taylor, whose dimple was twitching even though she wasn't really smiling. "That was the gayest thing I've said in a while. Okay, new rule. I did not just say that."
"Deal." She nodded. "Um, okay, then, Rick. Coffee has been drunk, so I'm going to head out now. I'm not usually so good at the talking to the guy I slept with the night before. Or his sexually confused roommate. Uh. Oh, I'm taking this shirt, by the way. Found it in the bathroom. I'm doing this thing where I steal clothes from all my hookups, so when I get over the slut phase thing I can look back and either feel all guilty or feel empowered and shit."
"That's actually my shirt. Er, jersey," he said, gesturing. "Would you like me to sign it or something?" Which he regretted saying as soon as he asked, but cats and bags, whatever.
"Sign it?" she repeated, tipping her head to the side.
"Well, it's my jersey. Porcello. Um. That's me."
She craned her neck around, looking over her shoulder to try to read the name across the back. "Oh," she said. Then she looked back at him, wide-eyed. "Wait, for real?"
He picked up a baseball that was sitting next to the sink and held it up for her. "Yes?"
"Huh," she said, looking at the ball then his face. "Well, shit, kid, why didn't I sleep with you instead?" She grinned. "Got a sharpie around here somewhere?"
She drank another cup of coffee before she left, and she kissed him on the cheek in the driveway, because he was well-trained and he walked her to her car. "Remember what I said, though. About your man in there."
"Nobody in there is my man," he said.
The kid who always delivered a paper to them even though neither he nor Perry paid for a subscription was coming closer, pedaling hard with his big yellow bag weighing him down on the one side.
"Hey, now," she said, poking him hard in the right arm. "Chin up, mister. You're a baseball player."
Rick got back inside just as Perry came shambling out of his room with his eyes still sealed shut with sleep. Perry moaned some kind of greeting and headed after the smell of coffee. Rick followed him into the kitchen just in time to watch him drink from the same cup both Rick and the girl had used. Perry was wearing white underwear that didn't quite fit, too tight at the waistband, and one sock that was only just holding on.
"I'm not up yet," Perry warned.
"Of course not," Rick agreed, folding his thumbs into his fists hard enough to make the tendons pop out against his knuckles.
"Fuck, what did we do last night, anyway?" Perry whined, sinking down to the floor and pressing his shoulders back against the cupboards. "I feel like I fell down some steps and landed on my face. Like, at least twice."
Inge bought us shots. Lots of shots," said Rick, not looking at him. He grabbed a bowl from the dish drying rack and poured himself some of the nearest cereal, which turned out to be Perry's Cocoa Pebbles.
"I hate him," Perry groaned, putting a hand over his eyes.
"You don't hate your alcohol provider," said Rick, quoting Perry's old rule from Florida.
"If I could smile without passing out from pain, I would," said Perry, opening one eye halfway and peering over his fingers. "And you got us backwards, Ricky. I can buy my own liquor, remember?"
Rick huffed out a laugh. "Oh, that's right."
"Here, come sit. Tell me about what happened." He patted the floor next to him. Rick stared for a second, milk carton still in hand, then it occurred to him that last night had somehow just been rubbed away, Perry didn't remember any of it.
"Well," he said, "we picked up a girl."
"Wait, 'we' as in 'you and me' picked up a girl?" Perry boggled at him.
Rick sat down next to him, legs folded up Indian-style. "She kinda picked us up, I guess. I don't know. I pussed out on the whole thing, so yeah."
Perry snorted and punched his upper arm, "That's my boy, leaving the girls to the real men." He flopped back against the cupboard door and sighed. "Was she hot?"
"You made me take pictures back at the bar, just in case. Here, hold this." He held out his cereal bowl and got up, hobbling on slightly sore knees to grab his phone where he usually left it on the table just inside his bedroom door. When he got back, Perry was crunching his cereal, playing with the spoon.
He flicked through the pictures, then handed the phone down to Perry, who whistled. "Lies, Ricky. I would remember if I'd fucked that, I think."
"Her name's Taylor. She just wore one of my jerseys home, by the way. So you get to explain that one." Rick sat back down, stretching his legs out in front of him this time. Perry tocked his ankle against Rick's, smiling just enough that it didn't take too many facial muscles and hurt.
"Well, shit, son," Perry said a moment later. "We're legit major leaguers now, aren't we? Groupie fucking all the way." He gave a half-hearted fist pump.
"Something like that," Rick said. "Legit major leaguers. Huh."
not done yet!
It's Jake who picks him up from the airport, their parents too busy with this or that and Jake counting down the seconds until he leaves for college. One of the best things about Jake sometimes is that he doesn't actually require the participation of others in conversation with him, perfectly happy to talk and talk and talk. Jake is good at filling up quiet spaces, and Porcello's head is full of those.
It's past midnight by the time they get home, and Porcello takes his bags to his room and falls asleep fully clothed, shoes still on, everything still in his pockets. When he wakes up, somebody has tossed a blanket over him and taken off his shoes, and it's past noon. There's a note stuck to his lampshade in Jake's handwriting:
mom says theres a rotisserie chx in fridge for when IF you get up but dont touch the drumsticks, or dad WILL beat you. & also your lame, bro. call me when your alive again JAKE
"My lame what?" he mumbles to himself, smiling tiredly at his own dumb joke. Then he peels down to the skin and takes a long shower.
He stands under the spray for a long time after he's rinsed off, leaning his head on his arms on the wall and letting the water beat down on his back. He palms his dick a few times, halfhearted and kind of sad because he can't even work up the desire to get hard. With that depressing thought, he turns the water off and presses his hands over his skull hard enough to force at least some of the water out.
He goes downstairs and turns on the TV, eating half the chicken while flipping channels. The shit that passes for kids' TV makes him glad he doesn't have kids, and ESPN's busy sucking the city of St. Louis's cock for having the "best fans in the world" because they wear red to the ballpark and some of them even know that the seventh inning stretch is a real thing. He sucks a piece of meat off a ligament on a wing bone, unimpressed, and changes the channel. ESPN2 is showing motocross, which is a lot more fun to watch.
Somehow he loses most of the afternoon that way, sucked into the television. FX is showing The Departed, sanitized hilariously beyond recognition. Jack Nicholson is coughing up blood and basically laughing in Matt Damon's face when the front door bangs open and Jake comes in with his arms full of Target bags.
"I bought a futon," he says, grinning. "Hello, brother."
They unload the car and engineer a way of getting Jake's new piece of furniture up the stairs and into his room, successful except for one casualty: one of Mom's Hummel figurines that was on a console table in the upstairs hallway. Jake attacks the massive cardboard box with a pair of kitchen shears, swearing at the laminated tape wrapped all around the box, and Porcello goes out into the hallway and picks up the pieces of ceramic that used to be a little boy in lederhosen walking with a little dog. The table where it had been is dusty, a blob of dark walnut where it used to sit, smearing to the edge where it was dragged through the dust.
He puts the pieces of the figurine on the counter next to the sink, because it looks fixable to him. The boy has lost his head and one of his arms busted off, but Dad is handy enough that Porcello is confident he'll be able to fix it. And if not, well. It was Jake's futon that broke it.
Jake comes downstairs looking for a screwdriver, but gets distracted by the refrigerator and showing off the new game he bought for his 360, so they eat grapes and play Fable II for a while.
Their parents get home within an hour of each other, Mom bearing pizza and tiramisu from that place near the public high school. She hugs him until he can't breathe, then kisses him on both cheeks and hugs him again. It's an oddly effusive greeting for her, but on the other hand, she hasn't seen him since April except on screens. Dad's a little more phlegmatic, hugging him once and wanting to know what time he's planning on leaving in the morning for his fishing trip.
They eat in the kitchen, everybody standing up around the island counter. Dad drinks Stella, Mom drinks iced tea, and the boys drink water. He feels about ten years old, except that Jake gets away with swearing and Mom doesn't look as harassed as she always did back then.
"It's good to have you home, Rick," Mom tells him before she goes up to bed.
He tries to go to bed after a few more hours of videogames with his brother, but his brain won't quite turn off. He goes and sits at his desk, wikisurfing and learning about Pat Tabler and stray capacitance and the island of Sulawesi with no idea how he gets from one to the other.
Around two-thirty or so, he slips out of the house and runs across three yards, crawls up a tree and curls up in the old Tucci treehouse. He no longer fits, too big to do more than crouch against the one side with his shoulders twisted to wedge between the window casement and the perpendicular wall. But the place has the same calming effect on him that it's always had, the feeling that nothing bad can ever happen there. He's had an untouchable year up in the treehouse, he's well-rested and never sore, and he hasn't made any unconscionably stupid decisions with his dick.
He must have dozed off or something, tracing over his brother's friends' names with his fingers and thinking about what Verlander said about it being like this for everyone, hoping that's true. He hears someone at the bottom of the tree, and then Jake's face appears in the trapdoor, lit with a small flashlight he's got clenched in his teeth.
"What the fuck?" Jake wants to know.
"I don't know," he tells him. "I sincerely do not know."
"Are you freaking out about something?"
"Maybe. Well, no. Not really." He shrugs and moves his legs so Jake can hoist himself up into the treehouse as well. "If this whole thing falls out of the tree because we're both up here, it's your fault."
Jake nods solemnly, settling back against the opposite wall. "I accept your premise." He stretches his legs out and braces his feet against the rim of the trapdoor, knees bent at ninety-degree angles. "You want to talk about it?"
"No." He looks out the window at the neighbor's swimming pool, which is pale blue and lit up. New people must have moved into that house, actually making use of the pool.
They sit there for a few moments before Jake raps his knuckles against the floor. "You're totally freaking out about something. What is it?"
"I'm okay," he insists.
"Lies. Come on, tell Jake what's wrong. I have been known to surprise with the depth of my insight into even the deepest, darkest mysteries. I have a keen mind." He pauses, turning the flashlight right in Porcello's face. "You miss Ryan, don't you?"
There's an uncomfortable question. He shakes his head. "I mean, yeah, but not in a pining, needy way. And I hope Mrs. Kadhim remembers the cat. Shit, I should call her tomorrow to remind her."
Jake makes a soft sound. "I have eyes, bro. You want to fuck him, like, a lot. Own that. It's cool. I have a mancrush on him, myself. I mean, I wouldn't take advantage of his unconscious body or anything, but he's awesome."
He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Jake, go away."
"I'm not leaving you up here to mope by yourself-"
"It's baseball, Jake," he snaps. "My roommate has nothing to do with it."
Jake scoots forward and dangles his feet through the trapdoor, reaching over and pinching Porcello really hard on the calf. "Hey. Don't be a dick about it," he said. Porcello kicks him and rolls his eyes and stares directly at one of the pool lights until his vision freckles pink and green.
"Look," says Jake, smacking the floor again to get his attention, "you. Just 'cause I don't know what it's like don't mean I can't help. I can't even imagine what it's like to be you, Rick. I'm probably never gonna see a Major League locker room with my name on one of the lockers, you and me both know it. And I can't imagine ever looking at another dude and thinking, 'I'd like to fuck him.' And somehow you gotta figure out how to make those two things work together? I wouldn't be you for all the signing bonuses and groupie pussy in the world."
Porcello snorts, can't help it. "Hey, now. Some of that groupie pussy is top of the line, I hear."
"And how would you fuckin' know? Anyway." Jake waved his hand. "So, like I said. You wanna talk about it?"
"I wish I could tell you how unbelievably hard it is sometimes, so that you could really know what I mean." He picks at his cuticles on his left hand. There's some pizza sauce on his ring finger. "Just the baseball part. These batters are the real thing. I faced the Yankees in April." He taps the old Yankees pennant still push-pinned to the wall, 1996 American League Champions.
Jake is quiet for a moment, looking right at him with his eyes narrowed, then he shakes his head. "The Yankees are not the reason you're hiding in a treehouse at three AM," he says finally.
Porcello tips his head back against the wall and blows out a long breath. "I had my first kiss up here, you know. In this treehouse."
"No shit? Was it that Emily girl who wanted on your nuts in, like, fourth grade? That girl was scary. By the way, I can tell that you prefer dudes. Your taste in girls leaves a lot to be desired."
He shakes his head, rolling the back of his skull smoothly on the wall, starting to laugh helplessly. "It was Max, actually."
"Max. Wait. Max Migliozzi? Who ate bugs and used to call me 'Plop.' Who is the biggest queen in the world now. Max." Jake bursts out with a terrible cackle. "This is perfect, thank you for being in my life. Me and Tim Dempsey, we were at that Chinese place, Golden Dragon Panda Garden or whatever. The one by Pets's house. And we ran into Max there, after you left for Spring Training this year. I was going to tell you, but then I thought, 'nah, he'll just freak out and then he'll suck and get knocked back to Low-A.' You can thank me for being in the Majors by buying me a real car, by the way. Max Migliozzi. He's all skinny and douchey and polo-shirted and so gay he fuckin' glows."
Porcello snorts. "Are you sure he's not just a Guido?"
"No, dude. He wasn't wearing makeup. Keep up, would you?" Jake grins. "But I am kind of in love with the idea that you're this big deal baseball player who's down-low into dudes and he's prancing all around northern Jersey with rainbows coming out of his ass, and that it's not coincidence; the two of you were up here in this treehouse kissing at, what, eight years old."
Jake keeps going, laughing about it and making hand-puppet versions of his major characters, reenacting imagined conversations and make-outs they must have had. Left-hand-Max and right-hand-Rick, with Jake setting the star-crossed scene in between. Porcello watches and smiles in spite of himself.
"And you were totally sitting right where we are now, except you were smaller then, so you both fit. And your eyes met in the twilight, energy crackling…"
He covers his face with both hands and draws his knees up to his chest, waiting for Jake to get bored and move on, tiny attention span and all. He can wait him out.
Finally, Jake makes a wheezing sound and shakes his head. "Max Migliozzi. Man, what other hook-ups of yours should I know about?"
The smile slides off Porcello's face and he looks away. He can just see Jake's eyebrows shoot up and then pull down, just at the edge of his peripheral vision. "I don't want to talk about that."
"This shit gets better and better," said Jake, leaning forward. Porcello hopes he overbalances and falls down the trapdoor. He wouldn't get hurt too badly; the tree isn't very tall, the ground only about eight feet down. He could touch the bottom of the treehouse flat-footed on the ground with his arms stretched over his head. "You cannot dissemble at all, so you might as well talk."
He shifts uncomfortably against the wall and says nothing, jaw clenched like the bases are loaded, nobody out, Joe Mauer at the plate with those sideburns and that absurd batting average.
"If I promise not to make fun of you, will you tell me?" Jake asks, smiling small and nonconfrontationally.
"Are we girls? Do you have an abiding need to braid my hair and paint my toenails? Christ, how can you want to gossip this much?"
"I'm hard up for friends," says Jake immediately. His eyes are glinting because he knows that he's going to get the story eventually, there's no resistance that works against him for long. "Now matters at hand. Your guts, spill 'em. I promise not to judge you too hard."
"I'm tired of telling this story," says Porcello instead.
Jake cocks his head. "Who else you telling? Ryan know about it? I could just call-"
"No!" Jake blinks and Porcello rubs his forehead. "It's just. I kind of, you know. Justin Verlander knows about the homo thing."
"Did you make a pass at him?" Jake grins, but he looks more shocked than gleeful.
"What? Oh, god. What even are you? Gross." He gives Jake a disgusted look. "I thought we already covered that it's just like how you're not into every girl who walks past."
"Okay, fine. You didn't come onto the ace of your rotation. That's good, probably. Keeps his head in the game, right?"
"He has a fiancée," says Porcello, half petulant, but as soon as it hits the air he realizes that doesn't really count for so much in baseball. He's seen Verlander with a groupie a few times; he's seen guys who are way more married and devoted to their wives with groupies.
Jake rolls his eyes. "Anyway. So I take it he didn't kick your homo ass."
"I'm not gay."
"So we're not labeling. Whatever. You like dick; we're calling 'em as we sees 'em. Therefore, I get to say 'your homo ass.' Anyway. So Verlander's not an insecure fuckhead homophobe. Good. I hope he wins the Cy Young, swear to God." Jake is flustered. It's pretty funny, or at least it would be if the whole thing weren't so uncomfortable. Porcello mostly just wants to go hide under his parents' bed for about a month. Mom keeps pretzels stashed under there for midnight snacks, so he won't even starve.
"I. Joel Zumaya saw me leave a club with. With a guy. And he's been pretty fucking weird about it, avoiding me and stuff."
"So Zumaya is an insecure fuckhead homophobe." Jake looks disappointed.
"Well, he never came and kicked my ass, so. Maybe not? I don't know." He shakes his head and smirks. "Hey, maybe I'm special enough that he keeps his shit to himself. He was being weird and I made Justin go find out why. And that's why. So I had to tell somebody."
"Huh." Jake leans against the tree trunk and makes a contemplative face. "That didn't really answer my question, just that I'm not the only one asking. You hook up with anybody interesting? And I don't mean, like, the sons of minor Detroit politicians. Or even other Tigers. Tell you the truth, I don't really want to know. But you're being… squirrelly about it."
"I am not squirrelly," he says, kind of insulted.
"No, you're definitely being squirrelly. You practically have buckteeth and a bushy tail and the nervous twitch. And I'd threaten to call Ryan again-but I won't. Relax, would you? The squirrelly thing makes me think either he doesn't know or he was drunk and doesn't remem-"
"Rich Harden."
Jake sits there looking confused for a moment, silent for once. Porcello covers his face again and actually sighs. Funny how this became the lesser of two evils, and Jake was edging way too close to the truth there.
"Like. The pitcher?" Jake asks finally.
Porcello peeks through his fingers and Jake still looks bewildered. "Yes, the pitcher."
There is another long pause, Jake's mouth working as he tries to pull all the facts into some kind of order. "How?"
"The, uh. The usual way?" Porcello gives him a funny look and decides he's going to be cool about this. He's tired of not being cool about it, anyway.
Jake makes a frustrated sound. "No, I know how gay hookups work. Like, I'm sure you didn't mean for it to be anybody in particular. But, no, I mean-how did you not, like, break him? He was on the DL this year, right? Like, his regularly scheduled injury and all."
Porcello shrugs. He honestly doesn't know. "I didn't break him. He was hurt before me if he was hurt."
"Huh. So." Jake has somehow gone from mocking to oddly serious, and he still looks confused. "When?"
"When they were in Detroit." He explains a little more, about the shots with Verlander and Zumaya, and the redhead he was dancing with. "She was kind of scary, too. Threesome with two strange guys? What kind of girl does that?"
"You have shit taste in girls, bro, I just said that," Jake says. He rubs his knuckles over his mouth and frowns. "So you're fucked up because you fucked Rich Harden. Huh. That's. I don't even know what to say about that. Which is a first, by the way."
"And then he went and gossiped to his friends about it," Porcello blurts out. "I got scolded by Bobby Crosby when we went to Oakland, who was all, 'He's more fucked up than you,' like that's an excuse. How is that an excuse for picking up some scared-looking kid in a strange bar in Detroit, and then realizing it's not just any scared kid but somebody who is actually trying to do what you do? Trying to pitch, I mean."
Jake cracks a grin. "You're a catcher and you know it."
"Okay, that is a conversation we are not having. I have lines."
"I bet you're a bossy bottom, too. 'Harder, harder!'" Jake makes his voice all shrill, does a couple obscene motions with his hips, bracing himself with a fist on the floor behind him. "Harder-Harden!" He starts to laugh in earnest. "Man, I wonder how many times he's heard that one in his life. And the jokes I could be making right now… if you weren't my brother, I would. But I have family loyalty or something. Also, you'd probably go cry to Mom, and she's scary."
Porcello crosses his arms and scowls.
"What?" Jake looks affronted. "Dude, I know you take it. I talk to Ryan. I know he walked in on it-"
"Jake."
He practically growls it and Jake finally takes note, backing down. They sit there, awkward and both of them breathing kind of hard. Porcello's got his hands clamped around his knees so that they don't shake. Jake cracks first.
"You're looking at this all wrong, bro," he says. "This Harden thing, I mean. It should make you feel better."
Near whiplash. "What."
Jake nods. "I mean, it just goes to show you're not alone in your. Your angsty fucked-up-ness thing. Like Bobby Crosby said. In fact, you should probably get Harden's number and, like, commiserate on being gay and in baseball. He has to see Carlos Zambrano naked sometimes, man. His life sucks way more than yours. That would be like me having to see-who's a really ugly chick? Like, Wanda Sykes. She's fuckin' funny, but I don't want to see her naked. Ever. That's Carlos Zambrano. I bet Harden's balls crawl up there and never want to come out sometimes."
"Look, I'm just saying," says Jake, sitting up straight. That's how you make a good argument. "You're fucked up in Detroit. He's fucked up in Chicago. I bet there's somebody in, what, Tampa Bay and Atlanta and Seattle and… probably there's two on the Yankees. Now you know you're not alone in it, and since you know there's at least one other, you gotta figure there's more. Think about that."
And strangely, that stops Porcello dead. Because it's pretty much perfect logic, however unlikely the source.
"Don't get bogged down in stuff, Ricky. Just play baseball. That's what's important. It's gonna be okay." He crouches and starts heading down the ladder. "Come on. Let's go home."
Jake whines that's it's cold, which is kind of true, even in the middle of July, and jogs ahead, disappearing through the back door of their house. Porcello is slower, taking his time across the three yards between.
He decides he's going to be okay.
--
Rick lost his first start. It was in Toronto, and his parents were there, and the roof thing kind of spooked him. He'd never been to a game in a domed stadium, and he didn't think he liked it much. Plus there was the whole Canadian thing, the fans screaming in Canadian accents, with maple leaves everywhere. He'd never thought of Canada as anything more than America Lite, the place where "due South" was made, but he found the place really was foreign. The clubbies in the visitor's clubhouse seemed to think watching the American players' responses to plum sauce on the spread was hilarious; Rick would've figured that would get old after twenty years, but apparently not.
"I find this condiment incomprehensible," he told Perry, pointing at the little puddle of it with a French fry after the second game of the series.
Perry shrugged, chewing. "It's pretty good, I think. Kind of sour, kind of sweet."
All he could think about on the plane back to Detroit was how he forgot to oil his old glove before the game, so of course he lost. He had never forgotten to do that before, not in important games as a kid, not before his debut in Lakeland or any start after that, but somehow ritual just got squeezed out up there in Canada.
He sat for a long time after he came out of the game, on the stool in front of his locker with the old glove in his hands and his head throbbing dully. The room was full of reporters sniffing around after the game, because it was his debut and Ricky Romero's, the first time two first-round picks had made their Major League debuts against one another.
He didn't want to parrot the clichés or even listen to questions. What he really wanted to do was pout and throw shit (maybe at the bullpen for hemorrhaging runs and putting the game out of reach). He was keyed up and jittery, but he was usually at least a little bit twitchy. It was the paranoid rookie thing, always expecting some shit. He worked very hard in spring training to establish that he wouldn't be very much fun to prank if they tried it, but he was still the baby of the team by quite a lot and they weren't going to let him forget that any time soon.
"It feels exactly like you think it would," he told the reporters, trying very hard not to be surly with them, even though what he really wanted was for them to just go away and bother some guy who wasn't him. He didn't want to talk about that hanging curve to Adam Lind in the sixth or how it felt to be a big leaguer; he wanted to go sulk in the video room and watch exactly how well he'd done, maybe with Ryan Perry by his side and cookie. He really wanted a cookie.
What he wanted to say was, "What are you looking at?" but the didn't. He talked about not being as nervous as he thought he would be (which was complete bullshit) and settling in real well (which wasn't bullshit so much as just saggy-shouldered relief, I do belong here, I do, I do).
He could see Perry a few lockers over, twitchy too, still in his bloomy, put-me-in-every-game blush after yesterday, visibly annoyed he didn't get a crack at this one.
"When we get home, we're celebrating," Perry yelled over, catching him looking. They grinned; the reporters lapped it up. They drank beer out of team logo coffee mugs on the plane home, then stayed up most of the night mixing purple Gatorade and apple juice with a bottle of cheap vodka Rick's older brother gave him as congratulations for making the team out of Spring Training.
"Not springing for the good stuff 'til you win a game," Zach had said. "You'll drink your Kamchatka and you'll like it."
He didn't like it so much in the morning, but it was definitely an effective way to forget about losing his first big league start.
On Friday, back in Detroit, they beat the Rangers spectacularly, almost as many runs in one game as they scored total in four games in Toronto. Galarraga looked almost spooked by the offensive explosion, joking with Cabrera and laughing kind of nervously. Verlander wouldn't even look at him, left the ballpark without speaking to anyone, and Jackson was bitching to himself about something or other (not that that was unusual).
Zumaya, on the other hand, was loudly pleased with everyone and declared that there was a lot of alcohol in their futures on his tab. Porcello tried to get out of it, unspeakably tired all of a sudden, but Perry was having none of that.
Galarraga wasn't a huge fan of the club scene, didn't even like to drink much, but Zumaya overruled his choice of a low-key bar in favor of some dank, overcrowded club downtown.
"This is an important event in your life, Armando," Zumaya slurred, halfway through the night, an arm hung around Galarraga's shoulders. The group of them was packed into a booth like shirts in a closet, Perry's thigh hot against Rick's as he tried to cling to the edge of the bench. People kept tripping over the foot he stuck out to brace himself, girls spiking him pretty hard with their heels and guys stumbling dumbly.
"Is it?" Galarraga asked, raising his eyebrows. He wasn't drunk, still nursing the same bottle of Budweiser he'd had all night. He always drank American beer.
"Very important," Zumaya assured him. "It's an important event in all of our lives."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Galarraga told him, patting him on the chest, "but I like how you think."
Zumaya turned to Rick and Perry. "And don't you two think you're getting out of shit. First appearances 'n all. Waitress!"
"There aren't any waitresses here, Zoom," said Inge. He was on the other end of the booth, but it looked like he had a lot more room. Rick shoved against Perry a little, trying to not fall of the edge. Perry elbowed him pretty hard in the ribs.
Some time later, it was just Rick and Perry in the booth, giggling over a field of shot glasses and throwing chewed up citrus slices at each other, both of them three rum and cokes deep, beer bottles scattered around that didn't all belong to them. Inge kept walking past, giving them knowing looks, look at the rookies being cute and rookie-like.
"You gotta forget about your last outing, man. You pitched good," said Perry for about the three millionth time. He wasn't a mean drunk or a messy one, just a dumb, repetitive one. It was only annoying when he would get it in his head that he'd wronged someone, when the track stuck on repeat would be gradually more grandiose and hysterical apologies for being a douchebag and will you ever forgive me, say you'll forgive me, man.
"I know," Rick agreed. "Just the one pitch I want back. One pitch."
"Funny how a whole game can get decided with one pitch," said Perry. "Like tonight. Benson don't make that one shitty pitch to Miggy, maybe he gets out of the inning with just the one run. You know? You throw a hundred pitches in a game, maybe more, maybe less, maybe other guys throw thirty more. That's a lotta pitches. But in the end maybe five of 'em actually matter, you know? A couple pitches deciding a whole ballgame. Crazy shit."
"But we already knew that, Ryan. Might be rookies but we're not. Not amateurs. Well, I'm not, don't know about you."
"Fuck you. Not an amateur. But, I mean. Holy shit, Ricky. What are we even doing here? We're kids. Kids. And we're playing in the major leagues. Like, the actual Major Leagues. With, like, actual major leaguers. We faced Roy Halladay a couple days ago. Roy Halladay. Think about that for a second. Roy motherfucking Halladay. He was winning the Cy Young when you were in middle school."
Drunken spin took over after that. Inge made them come dance for a while, and Perry found a tall brunette to make out with against the wall. Rick ignored that, danced with anybody who came close enough (including, hilariously, Zumaya, who was so drunk he was barely vertical and sweaty enough to bottle, slurring, "Rookie, we're never speaking of this again," before stumbling off; Inge took pictures with his phone).
Rick went to the bar to get a drink of water, which the amused bartender served him in a tall glass coffee mug with a bendy straw and a maraschino cherry. "Um. Thank you?" he said, staring at it.
"Good game last night, kid," said the bartender, winking. Rick bit his lip and covered his face with his hand.
Perry bumped into him from behind, slinging an arm around his neck. "Dude. You need to be where I can find you," he said, swampy breath against Rick's neck.
"Looks like you found me."
"And it took so long. Unacceptable," Perry told him. "And what is this? If you're going for pussy drinks, at least own that shit and order a Shirley Temple." He stole the cherry and chomped it off its stem, chewing in one cheek like a hamster.
"Can I help you with something, Ryan?"
Usually Perry passed through several distinct stages of drunkenness. The first and second were laughing at everything and then telling the same story fifteen times and never getting tired of it. The third stage was a desperate urge to cling to anyone he'd ever met, like a vine plant creeping up the side of a building. Not that Rick didn't, you know, kind of enjoy it, but on the other hand, the fourth stage was usually finding a dark corner and systematically losing control over all bodily functions, and that was absolutely not something Rick was down with, ever.
"Oh. Well, no," said Perry, blinking at him. He shoved the stem in his mouth and stared at the ceiling, concentrating very hard on tying the stem in a knot.
"You know, one day you'll do that correctly," Rick commented, sipping his water and feeling so perfectly content in the moment that he had sick clench in his stomach.
"Fuck you, I can unwrap a Starburst with my tongue. I'm goddamn good at oral. I'm going to fucking tie this stem in a knot. Watch." Rick raised his eyebrows and tried to worm away from Perry and his body heat and his mouth moving like that. It was not helping the stupid crush at all. Perry, however, was having none of that, clamping his hand around Rick's neck hard enough that it would leave finger marks to find tomorrow. Rick watched, feeling kind of ill, helpless in a way he hated.
"Where'd that girl get to?" he asked.
Perry spat out the stem and scowled. "Boyfriend. Or something. I don't know." He didn't sound concerned. He waved the bartender over, got a 'just a minute' finger in response. "Hey! We made our Big League debuts, Ricky, and we haven't drank to that yet, just you and me."
"We haven't drunk to that yet," Rick corrected.
"What?" Perry blinked.
Rick shook his head. "Nevermind. Grammar. Um. I am not drinking anything with Jagermeister," he warned.
"Good, have standards. But no, like. We'll get something good. Something that's going to hurt," Perry said. Rick shifted uncomfortably and thought that he had a pretty good idea about that kind of thing.
Perry ordered shots of something Rick didn't catch the name of, lined them up on the bartop, and counted down. "Now come on," he said, hooting as Rick coughed when the shots were down. "Let's go find somebody to blow you. I am god's gift to wingmen, you know. Let's find you a. Well, wait. What's on your menu tonight, boys or girls?"
Rick wanted to smack him. "Oh, god," he said.
"Um, might have some trouble with that one," Perry said, knocking him with his hip, "but that girl over there is definitely looking at you. She doesn't look crazy. Well, much." Rick chanced a look over his shoulder, where a small blonde girl with too much eye makeup and skinny jeans was watching them over her sparkly red drink. She looked like she probably majored in photography and smoked cloves.
"Um," Rick said. The girl smirked at him, took a sip of her drink.
"And if that's not your speed, we'll find you something else," Perry continued, spinning them both around about ninety degrees and surveying the crowd. "Now, I don't really know what your type is, but-"
"Ryan. Please stop."
Perry nodded. "So the girl, then?" Rick shrugged, not interested. He was happy where he was, under Perry's arm, warm and drunk and, holy shit, a Major League ballplayer. He didn't need a skinny girl to press herself against him to feel better about himself.
But apparently none of that was communicated to Perry. The girl drained her drink and abandoned the glass on a table as she approached, pink ice glimmering in the lights over the bar. As she got closer, it became apparent that her eye makeup was dark purple. She was beautiful, with a tight, gold-colored top that showed off pale, bony shoulders and cleavage.
"Hi," she said to Perry, looking up at them through thick lashes, still smirking.
"Well, hello," Perry replied, grinning back like she was the best thing he'd seen all night.
Perry kicked him. "Oh, uh. Hey," Rick said, feeling lame even before the words came out.
The girl turned an indulgent little smile his way, said, "Well, aren't you cute?"
Perry snorted. "Ain't he?"
"I'm Taylor," she said. She tucked a chunk of hair behind her ear and leaned catlike with her elbows against the table behind her, forearms parallel with the ground. Perry rushed through some introductions, Rick shifting uncomfortably as he watched the girl and imagined how this would end, him in his room later with his headphones on so he doesn't have to listen while Perry fucks her.
There was no recognition in her eyes at their names, but that wasn't anything special. They weren't famous yet, not even Rick.
"So can I buy you a round?" she asked, waving her hand at the bar.
"Not PBR," Rick blurted, thinking about this horrible girl Jake had dated once, with flat-ironed cherry red hair and disdainful snorting anytime Jake said anything. That girl always wanted PBR when Zach offered to provide alcohol for their silly high school parties.
This girl, though, this girl just laughed. "Do I look like I drink PBR? Oh, fuck that shit. You're getting a girl drink for that, freckles." She pushed off the table and sidled up to the bar, swinging her hips to duck around them.
Perry was delighted, parroting the nickname until Rick squirreled away from him to the other side of the table, muttering, "They're moles," and feeling like a surly kid again.
The girl came back with her hands full of pretty colored drinks, something tall and orange for Perry, a bright blue thing in a martini glass for herself, and a squat pink one with an umbrella pushed in front of Rick. "Bottoms up, boys," she said.
Rick chewed on his straw and watched the crowd, letting Perry work the girl over. She was pretty obviously a sure thing, but Perry liked to play the game. Inge texted to let them know he was taking Zumaya home before he passed out, and Galarraga was long gone by then. b good, Inge advised them. but not to good k. Inge didn't believe in punctuation.
"Oh, so you're roommates, huh?" the girl asked, sounding pleased. Rick looked up from his phone to find them both looking at him, the girl pressed against Perry like a window cling. "That’s wonderful. I'm going to find my coat," she added.
"What?" Rick looked at Perry for guidance, but Perry widened his eyes and shook his head. Don't worry about it, everything's okay.
"You're invited, too," she said to Rick, smirking. She disentangled herself from Perry and slipped through the crowd.
"What?" Rick repeated, a little more forcefully this time.
"Just go with it, okay?" Perry snapped, watching her over his shoulder.
"What am I invited to?"
Perry shot him a glare that made him feel like a heel. "What the fuck do you think? She's going to let us fuck her. At the same time."
Rick stared at him, agape. "I. What?"
"You got something else to say? 'Cause that one's getting old fast, I think."
The girl reappeared then, shrugged into a black leather jacket. "You in?" she asked.
Perry bulged his eyes again, meaningfully, don't you dare fuck this up for me, so Rick shrugged. He still felt like he was half a step behind, had a feeling that it showed on his face. Perry came around the table and tossed an arm around his neck again, saying something rapid and smooth to the girl. Rick squeezed his eyes closed and told himself, be cool.
The girl had a car and she wasn't drunk, not really. Rick sat in the backseat by himself and felt stupidly young and not at all qualified for any of what was about to happen. He flicked through the girl's iPod, pleased with her music choices, while Perry talked about college and gave her directions to their place. She was a Wolverine and a French major. She liked golf.
She stuck herself to Perry like a squirrel on a tree trunk right there in the driveway, fingers hooked in his front pockets and her tongue in his mouth, crab-walking him backward up the path to their building. Rick fucked around with his keys, unlocked the door, tried not to look at them.
They stumbled inside, and Perry tripped over the doormat. He caromed sideways, breaking free of the girl, hitting the wall next to the door with a thump. The girl scraped her hair out of her face and turned to Rick, grinned sharply, and kissed him hard enough he was worried she split his lip.
"Savvy now?" she asked, tugging him toward her with a hand wrapped up in the front of his shirt, scratching his stomach with her nails.
"Oh," he said, putting one hand on her back. She was small enough that he could actually cradle the back of her ribcage in his spread hand, which blew him away almost as much as the hot, dark-eyed look on Perry's face over her shoulder.
Perry stripped off his shirt, kicked off his shoes, not once looking away from Rick. The girl glanced over her shoulder and frowned. "What are you doing all the way over there?" She clawed her fingers around his belt, dragging him up against her back so tight his abdominal muscles brushed Rick's knuckles. Both of them jerked, Rick flexing his fingers against the girl's back so hard she flinched and bit his neck.
Perry had his hands on the girl's hips, pulling her ass snug against him, then he wrapped one hand up in her hair and tugged her head back. She gasped and twisted around to face him, one hand up on his face and the other still caught up in Rick's shirt.
"Come on," she breathed against his mouth. "Got a whole house here, don't need to do this right by the front door."
Rick stepped back, wiped his palms on his jeans and kicked the door shut. Perry led the way back to his bedroom, pausing to shove the girl against the wall every so often and kiss her open and wet. Rick helped with the shedding of clothes as they went, but it was the girl who unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his jeans, despite having her tongue in Perry's mouth as she did it. Perry put a hand on Rick's hip and dug his fingers in, probably just to keep his balance, head tipped back far enough that his Adam's apple stood out just asking to be bitten.
The girl sank to her knees, hands on Perry's belt as soon as she hit the floor. Rick watched with his mouth open as she yanked the buckle open and then shoved Perry's pants down, and she glanced up at him with a somewhat terrible, knowing look in her eye before opening her mouth. Perry groaned like it hurt, scrabbling his hands on anything in reach, the girl's hair and Rick's side, jerking him closer.
The girl had some impressive technique, Rick thought, but he had a feeling he could do better, and then he pressed his face against Perry's neck, bracing his hand on Perry's chest with his fingers slotted between ribs. Perry let out a long string of curses, a couple different gods' names taken in vain, and then he kissed Rick hard on the mouth, full tongue, and that short-circuited every nerve Rick had.
He tasted drunk and a little desperate, holding Rick's jaw too tight in one hand, but Rick was all over that shit. The girl made a choking noise and the sound of cocksucking stopped for a moment, a fainter sound like her swallowing her spit. Perry whined into Rick's mouth and twisted toward him, fingers tight on his face and his side.
Rick broke away for breath, abruptly scared of everything including his shadow and Ryan Perry's hand on his face. Perry's eyes were closed, his mouth open and wet. Perry dropped the hand that had been on Rick's side down to the girl's hair, and she went back down, but she was looking right at Rick, eyes dark and round. He stumbled back, suddenly feeling like he'd swallowed lead, heavy metal stomach sick.
"I'm sorry," he gasped, then he fled, slamming his door behind him and collapsing against it. He sank to the floor and tried to catch his breath, which took the better part of ten minutes. Then he crawled into bed and didn't sleep. He lay there miserably and stared at his ceiling with his earbuds jammed into his ears so hard it hurt, blasting all the noisy metal he had on his iPod. After a few hours, he gave up and headed into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. He drained several cups of coffee and watched most of a Sham-Wow infomercial, kind of badly wanting to order one but pretty sure Perry would mock him for it.
The shower came on around five, while Rick was halfway through a Bump-It infomercial he couldn't remember starting to watch, only that it had completely trapped him. Not like it was something he needed, but he caught himself staring at the TV slack-jawed anyway.
Shaking himself, he changed the channel to something that was on commercial and went into the kitchen for more coffee. The shower stopped, pipes on the other side of the kitchen wall creaking like they were trying to beat their way through the sheetrock.
He heard footsteps behind him in the kitchen doorway and turned around to find the girl standing there, looking spooked with her wet hair scraped back from her face and all the makeup scrubbed away. She was pretty and very small, well over a foot shorter than Rick in her bare feet. She was wearing a Tigers jersey that hung down to her knees.
"Oh," she said, seeing him leaning against the counter next to the fridge. "Um, morning."
"Morning," he said, nodding.
She took a few faltering steps then cocked her head like he was whispering and she couldn't quite hear. "Yeah, so I have no idea what your name is, I'm sorry." She raised one shoulder and the opposite corner of her mouth, revealing a deep dimple. "I'm going through this big ol' slut phase."
He nodded. "Yeah. I didn't catch your name either," he said, making his voice all gruff for some reason.
"Taylor," she said. "Like Liz."
"Taylor. Huh. I went to prom with a girl named Taylor."
She grinned and came closer, hopping up on the counter with her bare feet dangling. "God, how old are you?" He felt his face get hot and looked away. "Oh, I didn't mean it like that. God, you're cute." She laughed quietly and he rolled his eyes. "So what's your name, freckles?"
"Freckles? Really?" He shook his head again and set his mug on the counter behind him. "Um, I'm Rick."
"Really?"
He made a face. "Yes?"
"No, I mean. That's cool," she said, holding out a hand like an apology. "It's just, like, that's kind of an old man's name, right? Like, Rick's your dad and you should be Richie or something. Rich. Whatever."
"Um, well, my name isn't Richard, so. Rich wouldn't work."
"Oh, well, that makes sense," she nodded. Her bangs flopped down in her eyes. "Sorry. I didn't mean to, like, insult you or anything."
He laughed without humor, uncrossing his arms and standing there awkwardly for a second. Then he re-crossed them, looking away. "It's, what? Five-thirty in the morning? I'm interrupting your walk of shame. Insult away."
"Is it really a walk of shame if I'm not feeling any shame?" Taylor asked, flashing the dimple again.
Rick opened and closed his mouth a few times, wishing she would go away already. "I don't really have a lot of experience with this, so I don't know," he said finally.
Her smile ticked up a few notches in brightness. "Boys never do."
"Sure," he said, rolling his shoulders and thinking, you'd probably know.
An uncomfortable silence settled, the girl picking at her nails while Rick looked everywhere but directly at her. Her shoulders were bent and twisted enough that he could tell the jersey she was apparently stealing was his and not Perry's.
She slapped the counter next to her thigh, startling him. "So, okay. Your roommate is disgusting, by the way. I think I used your bathroom. There was, like, stuff growing in his."
Rick snorted. "Nobody uses his bathroom. He doesn't even use it." He grabbed his coffee mug and tried to take a drink, dismayed a second later to find that the cup was empty. He pushed off the counter and went over to the coffee machine. "Coffee?" he asked her.
"Sure, why not," she said, smiling. "But not in a mug. I hate drinking out of those things, the ceramic's so thick and I always spill on my clothes."
He looked meaningfully at the D on her chest, then away. "We don't actually have, like, real cups. Mostly we drink out of the bottles stuff comes in, or coffee cups."
"Oh, whatever, give me a coffee cup," she said, unconcerned. She hopped down from the counter and started nosing around in the cupboards, rearranging cans in the one above where the toaster oven was. "So, hey. Something else. About the other thing-the what happened last night before you freaked thing. Uh."
He jerked, splashing coffee on the heel of his hand, and hissed through his teeth. "Oh, god," he said.
"Sorry!" she said, coming close and peering at his hand. She pulled him toward the sink by the elbow. "Here, put that under cold water. But no, like, nothing bad, I swear."
The faucet spray was strong, stinging sharper on the burn than he liked, and she was holding his arm a little harder than he thought was necessary. "Fine, what?"
She smiled up at him, a friendly kind of smile that made him uneasy. "It's just, well. I just got the impression last night that if you were to, you know, try that again and not freak out, well, he would probably be down with that."
He choked and pulled his arm out of her grasp, backing up a few feet. "I. What?"
"I'm just throwing it out there," she said, turning off the water and crossing her arms, frowning at him.
"Thanks," he muttered, turning away and rubbing his thumb over the bright red spot on his hand, where the skin was hot. His cheeks were probably hotter, he thought idly.
"Okay, look, Rick. I'm sorry. I forget that normal people don't, like, talk about this kind of shit, 'specially with people they just met. But hey, I've had my tongue in your mouth, that makes us old friends." She scratched her head and grinned winningly.
He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and stared at the side of the fridge. "Look, even if that was what I wanted, whatever. There are, what, extenuating circumstances." Like baseball, he wanted to say. Like my whole life.
"Extenuating circumstances," she repeated, nose wrinkled. "Buddy, nobody's thinking less of you here 'cause you're into boys."
"That's not what I mean," he snapped.
She poured some coffee into the same mug he'd been drinking from and took a long pull, glaring at him over the top rim. "Does it matter, then?" she asked, thumping the mug down. "Look, I'm sorry. All I'm saying is that it just seemed to me like he might be into it. I mean, he kissed you, didn't he?"
"Somebody was sucking his dick right then," said Rick very slowly. "He would've kissed Leyland if he'd been there." He shuddered, slamming his whole weight down against that mental image before it could properly render in his head. "Okay, maybe not, actually. Ew."
She blinked. "Um, Leyland? You know what? Nevermind. I don't care, that sounds way more like an old man name than Rick."
"Super," he muttered, scowling, and then he wanted to smack himself with the fridge door. He sucked his teeth and looked over at Taylor, whose dimple was twitching even though she wasn't really smiling. "That was the gayest thing I've said in a while. Okay, new rule. I did not just say that."
"Deal." She nodded. "Um, okay, then, Rick. Coffee has been drunk, so I'm going to head out now. I'm not usually so good at the talking to the guy I slept with the night before. Or his sexually confused roommate. Uh. Oh, I'm taking this shirt, by the way. Found it in the bathroom. I'm doing this thing where I steal clothes from all my hookups, so when I get over the slut phase thing I can look back and either feel all guilty or feel empowered and shit."
"That's actually my shirt. Er, jersey," he said, gesturing. "Would you like me to sign it or something?" Which he regretted saying as soon as he asked, but cats and bags, whatever.
"Sign it?" she repeated, tipping her head to the side.
"Well, it's my jersey. Porcello. Um. That's me."
She craned her neck around, looking over her shoulder to try to read the name across the back. "Oh," she said. Then she looked back at him, wide-eyed. "Wait, for real?"
He picked up a baseball that was sitting next to the sink and held it up for her. "Yes?"
"Huh," she said, looking at the ball then his face. "Well, shit, kid, why didn't I sleep with you instead?" She grinned. "Got a sharpie around here somewhere?"
She drank another cup of coffee before she left, and she kissed him on the cheek in the driveway, because he was well-trained and he walked her to her car. "Remember what I said, though. About your man in there."
"Nobody in there is my man," he said.
The kid who always delivered a paper to them even though neither he nor Perry paid for a subscription was coming closer, pedaling hard with his big yellow bag weighing him down on the one side.
"Hey, now," she said, poking him hard in the right arm. "Chin up, mister. You're a baseball player."
Rick got back inside just as Perry came shambling out of his room with his eyes still sealed shut with sleep. Perry moaned some kind of greeting and headed after the smell of coffee. Rick followed him into the kitchen just in time to watch him drink from the same cup both Rick and the girl had used. Perry was wearing white underwear that didn't quite fit, too tight at the waistband, and one sock that was only just holding on.
"I'm not up yet," Perry warned.
"Of course not," Rick agreed, folding his thumbs into his fists hard enough to make the tendons pop out against his knuckles.
"Fuck, what did we do last night, anyway?" Perry whined, sinking down to the floor and pressing his shoulders back against the cupboards. "I feel like I fell down some steps and landed on my face. Like, at least twice."
Inge bought us shots. Lots of shots," said Rick, not looking at him. He grabbed a bowl from the dish drying rack and poured himself some of the nearest cereal, which turned out to be Perry's Cocoa Pebbles.
"I hate him," Perry groaned, putting a hand over his eyes.
"You don't hate your alcohol provider," said Rick, quoting Perry's old rule from Florida.
"If I could smile without passing out from pain, I would," said Perry, opening one eye halfway and peering over his fingers. "And you got us backwards, Ricky. I can buy my own liquor, remember?"
Rick huffed out a laugh. "Oh, that's right."
"Here, come sit. Tell me about what happened." He patted the floor next to him. Rick stared for a second, milk carton still in hand, then it occurred to him that last night had somehow just been rubbed away, Perry didn't remember any of it.
"Well," he said, "we picked up a girl."
"Wait, 'we' as in 'you and me' picked up a girl?" Perry boggled at him.
Rick sat down next to him, legs folded up Indian-style. "She kinda picked us up, I guess. I don't know. I pussed out on the whole thing, so yeah."
Perry snorted and punched his upper arm, "That's my boy, leaving the girls to the real men." He flopped back against the cupboard door and sighed. "Was she hot?"
"You made me take pictures back at the bar, just in case. Here, hold this." He held out his cereal bowl and got up, hobbling on slightly sore knees to grab his phone where he usually left it on the table just inside his bedroom door. When he got back, Perry was crunching his cereal, playing with the spoon.
He flicked through the pictures, then handed the phone down to Perry, who whistled. "Lies, Ricky. I would remember if I'd fucked that, I think."
"Her name's Taylor. She just wore one of my jerseys home, by the way. So you get to explain that one." Rick sat back down, stretching his legs out in front of him this time. Perry tocked his ankle against Rick's, smiling just enough that it didn't take too many facial muscles and hurt.
"Well, shit, son," Perry said a moment later. "We're legit major leaguers now, aren't we? Groupie fucking all the way." He gave a half-hearted fist pump.
"Something like that," Rick said. "Legit major leaguers. Huh."
not done yet!