Don’t You Dare

Opening Day for the MLB every spring has always been one of my absolute favorite days of the year, and this season, the anticipation whirling through my body is nearly doubled. Actually, it might be somewhere near quadrupled, because today is entirely different from any other Opening Day I’ve attended over the past twenty-four years.

Because…it’s finally my turn to be the one on the field.

The anticipation mixes with anxiety, and even a little fear, as the announcer starts calling off the names of the starting line-up for the Sacramento Storm.

“Starting on the mound for the Storm is number twenty-three, right-hander, Beckett Hurst. And behind the plate, number twenty-eight and rookie, Keene Waters.”

My stomach churns to hear the crowd’s wave of applause echo throughout the stadium, filling me to the brim with even more anxious energy. As if that’s even possible.

It’s surreal, hearing my name announced in a major league stadium, let alone one I’ve sat in as a kid with wide eyes and big dreams. To make them all come true…nothing compares.

Just like nothing compares to having my best friend by my side through it all.

My attention flicks to the stands momentarily, finding Aspen right behind the home team dugout. Exactly where I want him. Exactly where he’s been for a majority of the games here in Sacramento this season, now that I’ve officially been called up from the minors to take the starting catching position.

He’s been offered a spot with the wives and girlfriends of my teammates plenty of times before, but I think he prefers his solidarity from the WAGs on game days.

Probably because he doesn’t classify himself as a wife or girlfriend—which, to be fair, he isn’t. Then again, even years after we’ve become an official couple, Aspen’s distaste for labels still stands. About…pretty much everything.

He still hasn’t put one on his sexuality, but I don’t see the need for it if he doesn’t.

I know who he is, just like he knows who I am. As long as we’re both happy and comfortable in our own skin, I can’t ask for more than that.

Though, I’m eternally grateful that he doesn’t cringe at the term boyfriend or partner now. Truthfully, that’s the one label he wears with pride, no matter where we are or who is watching.

To me, that’s all that really matters.

I smile at him—the love of my life—while he’s texting on his phone. Probably emailing someone from the office, the damn workaholic he is ever since he started his job with a local architecture firm here a few months ago.

I use his distraction as an opportunity to take him in without his knowledge. It’s only fair, seeing as he gets to stare at my ass for the next however many hours while I’m trying to focus on doing my own job—while simultaneously trying to battle vomit-inducing nerves. Knowing he’s here helps the latter, though. And damn if he doesn’t look sexy as hell with a backwards cap covering his hair and in a gray and teal jersey, embossed with my number and name on the back. Something I can’t wait to strip him out of after the game. Or maybe I’ll fuck him wearing that, and only that.

After all, I’m in the big leagues now. Who says I can’t have my boyfriend be my own personal cleat chaser?

He must feel my attention on him, because only a few seconds after I look at him, his gaze lifts to meet mine. Those cobalt blue eyes ensnare me, just like they do each time I catch him looking my way.

They never fail to speed up my pulse like a love-struck teenager all over again.

A small grin forms on his lips, and he mouths three words to me.

Kick some ass.

Not exactly the three I was thinking he’d say, but hell, I’ll take it. I’ll take any and all support he throws my way, which is never in short supply. Honestly, it’s all because of him that I even survived the past three years in the minors.

I know paying my dues is part of being a pro athlete. I’ve been preparing for it ever since I was a kid. But hell, no amount of mental preparation was enough to get me through weeks on end without being able to physically touch Pen.

It made my time in the minors my own personal hell.

No one was at fault for the situation either. He was still up at Foltyn working on his graduate degree, meanwhile, once I was drafted to the Storm after senior year, I was sent to their double A team over in Kansas. Fucking Kansas. Literally the worst flyover state imaginable, not to mention two time zones away from where Pen was in Oregon.

But we made it work. For two miserable years, we did the long-distance thing.

Thankfully, after he graduated, he decided to take a bit of time away from searching for a big kid architecture job—his idea, surprisingly—so he could do a bit of traveling with me during the second half of our season. He still worked some, bringing his camera with him to whatever city our series was in and shooting urban scenes and even some games.

He even captured a photo of me behind the plate that ended up in an issue of a nationwide sports magazine called The Field, which paid for his travel for the rest of that season.

Though I’d have loved him to follow his passion for photography—especially if it meant freeing up his schedule to travel with me as much as possible—he’s still the Aspen I fell in love with all that time ago. Ever the realist, always a planner. And if his job at this new firm allots him the sense of security that comes with following that plan, I’d never dare to ask him to give it up. Just like he’d never dream of asking me to leave the game I’ve dedicated my life to.

It just means we have to get a bit…creative when it comes to long stretches of away games.

Needless to say, I rarely ever shower without him there with me on FaceTime.

Even all that time apart doesn’t take away from the spark between us. We’re as insatiable for each other as ever, not only when it comes to sex, but also just in the general sense of the word. Maybe it’s the unhealthy level of codependency our moms love to tease us about, but regardless, I don’t care.

There’s not a single thing about him or us or our life together that I’d change. Not when it allows me to fall more in love with him—my best friend—every single day.

“You ready for this shit?” Beckett, my pitcher, asks when I reach him on the mound. He’s one of the only other LGBT players in the league, and I’m fortunate as hell to have him to hang out with. Someone who not only understands the lifestyle of living half our lives from hotel rooms all over the country, but also gets what it means to be a queer professional athlete.

It helps that he’s just a year older than me too, though he was pulled up from the farm team in Kansas after only one season rather than my three. He’s just that fucking good.

He’s also become the closest thing I have to a best friend…though the true owner of that spot will never be anyone other than Pen.

Blowing out a deep breath, I give Beck the most honest nod I can muster. Which…must not be a whole damn lot, considering he laughs and smacks me on the arm with his glove.

“Aw, c’mon now. You’ve got bigger shit to deal with today than playing a measly ‘ole game of baseball.”

He’s right, I do. Then again, him mentioning that only really serves to make my anxiety worse instead of better.

But then his eyes flick over to the dugout, and my attention follows on instinct.

I’m prepared to find Pen sitting there in his seat, looking as intoxicating as he did a few minutes ago when he caught me checking him out. But I have to do a triple take, not quite believing my eyes…because the four seats next to Aspen are occupied by our mothers and my sister.

My heart catches in my throat when the three most important women in my life start waving and cheering like their lives depend on it.

All three of them had told me a few weeks ago that they wouldn’t be able to make it today for my first game. Both my and Aspen’s moms said they had to work, even though they tried their best to get out of it to fly down from Portland. And Lexi…well, shit. She’s been off living her best life at Leighton University in Chicago, so I thought there’d be no way she would be able to get here in the middle of the semester.

Yet, somehow, all three of them are right there next to Pen.

“What the…” I glance back to Beckett and narrow my gaze on him. “Did you know about this?”

He just grins and gives me a shrug. “Seems like you’re not the only one with tricks up your sleeve, Waters. That boyfriend of yours is a sneaky one.”

“He sure is,” I murmur, more to myself than anyone else. Then I turn back to my pitcher. “Payback is a bitch if I find out you had anything to do with this, Hurst.”

Beck knocks me on the shoulder again. “Totally worth it to see the look on your face. Now, let’s get this show on the road, man. We’ve got a game to win before you can get the hard part of your day over.”

I nod and he gives me a wink, knocking my catcher’s mitt into his glove before I jog back to my place behind the plate.

On the way, I watch as the four people I love most in the world all clap and cheer…just for me jogging.

Jesus, they’re crazy.

But I’m also crazy lucky to have them. Because, just like that? All my nerves have completely dissipated. Having my family here on what might be the most important day of my life…it grounds me. Not to mention, it means the damn world to me.

And he made it all possible without me even knowing.

“I love you,” I mouth to him, a stupid grin plastered on my face. He mouths the words back to me, just in time for the umpire to call up the first batter.

Pulling my mask down, I slip into the headspace where nothing outside the diamond exists. It’s just me, my pitcher, and the batter in the box.

The good thing about playing at this level, though? My pitchers make my life a fuckton easier than I had it in college, or even the minors. And I can tell Beck is planning to bring the heat today, striking out two of the three outs in the first inning alone.

“Damn, you’re on fire,” I muse as we make our way back to the dugout to take our turn at the plate.

He smirks at me, all devious and calculating. “You think you’re the only one with someone to impress in the stands, Waters? Think again.”

A grin tugs at my lips, and like it’s the most natural thing in the world, my gaze finds Aspen again. He’s already staring at me, a smirk just big enough for his dimple to appear sitting on his lips.

“God,” Beck mutters from beside me, his attention flicking between me and my boyfriend. “You two are like…disgustingly sweet.”

I can’t help the laugh that slips out. “That tends to happen when you fall in love, Hurst.”

“Yeah, well, keep that shit to yourself, will ya? Some of us wanna play the game without going into diabetic shock.”

I shake my head. This guy. He talks up some mad shit, but I know he’s just fucking around with us. After all, he’s one of my only teammates I’ve trusted with the whole saga about me and Pen. Not just the part that went viral on YouTube during that godforsaken Family Night game at Foltyn College.

I’m talking all the way back to high school. To that game of Don’t You Dare, where I ended up kissing my best friend.

It’s hard not to laugh, looking back at how this all started between us.

It was never meant to be more than a dare. A kiss between two best friends, and nothing more. Yet that stupid little dare ended up giving me the kind of love I could only dream about, and a life together that we never imagined.

And what Pen and I have now? I’ve realized it’s only just the beginning.

I slide out of my catcher’s gear in trade of my helmet, ready to head out to the on-deck circle.

My eyes meet Pen’s again the second I step out of the dugout, and from his expression alone, I know what he’s thinking. He wants to know if I’ll make good on the dare he gave me during our car ride to the stadium earlier. And while I can’t really guarantee my success with doubling on my first major league at-bat, I sure as hell plan to try.

But he’s not the only one who’ll be tossing out dares today.

Little does he know, I have the biggest dare of all to ask him later tonight.

To let me love him, for the rest of our lives.

Good thing, when it comes to dares, he always—always—says yes.