Even if it meant seeing Cam from a distance.
Whatever was going on in my head, I didn’t have time for it because now that we’d done the tour, we were heading straight into practice.
I was slotted again with Becks and Mules. Same line, same expectations. Becks barked a quick call as we lined up for drills.Mules was already bouncing on his toes, eager to hit something. We ran breakout reps, repeatedly—wall pass, middle support, net drive. Simple stuff. The kind that only worked if everyone trusted everyone else to be exactly where they were supposed to be.
I focused on that. On timing. On not forcing the play. It didn't always click, but I stayed out after we were done, taking out my irritation on pucks to the back of an empty net before finally getting off the ice and stopping outside the locker room to brace myself. The place was mostly empty, and I showered and headed to my cubby, knowing instinctively that two of the team in the corner were discussing me. I heard my name, which made me stop and backtrack around the corner.
They weren't even trying to be quiet, even if it was apparent to anyone who looked that I wasn't gone yet, given my bag was in the cubby.
“—just saying, his dad was a disaster,” one of them said.
“Yeah,” the other answered. “Guy like that, you gotta watch him. Blood doesn’t just… change.”
My stomach tightened.
“What ya talking about?”
Oh god, I recognized that voice dripping with anger. Fuck. Noah was getting involved. I didn’t want to hear him agree with whatever the other two were saying, and I should go out and face this—Noah had every right to be furious with me, wary of me… I couldn't move.
But then his voice cut clean through the noise. Calm, but flat in a way that made people pay attention, it seemed that he was defending me.
“… give the guy a chance.”
“How can you be so chill about it?” one of the other two shot back, defensive now. “After what his dad did to Ten?”
Noah didn’t raise his voice. “MyUncleTen isn’t writing off the son because the father was an asshole,” he said. “Neither am I, and neither should you.”
The other guy scoffed. “Still. Jari’s not all that.”
Noah's response was slow and deliberate. “He’s fast. He’s got potential. And maybe—just maybe—you let him show us before you decide who he is.”
The silence that followed felt heavier than any hit. I didn't expect that from Noah, not from someone who called Tennant Rowe uncle. Had Ten actually said that about me? I flushed warm, but it didn't last long, lost in the twist in my chest. I hid back there until I was sure everyone was gone.
The tension didn't leave me when I was in the cab, being stared at in the mirror by the driver who wore a Railers shirt and sported an angry expression. It didn't leave me when the hotel door shut behind me.
I'm not sure the stress will ever ease. So now what?
Call it boredom,or because I was, or fuck knows what—but with a ballcap pulled low and not one stitch of Railers merch on the outside, and with my team ID in my pocket, I found myself at the ball game.
Railers credentials got me closer than most—down near the dugout, low enough to hear the crack of the bat and the clipped calls between infielders. Close enough to really see Cam. The way his shoulders set before a pitch. The flex in his forearms as he came forward, then the reset—calm, deliberate, as though the rest of the stadium faded away when he focused.
When he and the team walked out, the crowd whooped and yelled, a wall of sound that hit him like a hug. Watching that from a few rows up did something strange to my chest. Not jealousy. Not really. More like recognition that he'd donenothing for anyone to hate. He belonged here without having to prove who he was shift by shift, night after night. That was the part that unsettled me. Attraction, I could compartmentalize. Acceptance by the fans was harder to look at. I'd had three different teams I'd played for to get used to being booed, and I should imagine our first time in the Railers barn would be the same—the media had gotten wind of me making the pre-season team, and boy, people didn't hold back.
I made the mistake of checking my phone once the lineup news broke.
Three comments were enough.
Seen this movie before. His dad was a locker-room cancer. Keep an eye on this one.
Railers really traded for THAT name? Hard pass. Bad blood doesn’t disappear just because the jersey changes.
If he’s anything like his father, this is going to end badly. Should never have made that deal.
Now my phone was on silent, and I'd deleted all the apps I'd been following. People could hate me. Whatever. I was used to it. I rubbed my aching chest and swallowed to ease the tension in my throat.Fucking concentrate.
I forced myself to watch the field the way I watched hockey, losing myself in the rhythm of it all. Patterns first. Pitch sequences. Defensive shifts. The quiet, precise rituals players used to steady themselves. Different sport, same language. Pressure. Failure. Reset. But mostly I watched Cam, who looked good out there. Not flashy. Efficient. Locked in. And my brain, traitor that it was, noticed exactly how his pants fit—tight in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with baseball mechanics. I told myself firmly to knock it off and then ignored the thought as if it hadn’t just happened.
When the hotdog vendor came past, I barely glanced up. I dug into my backpack instead, pulling out a protein bar, abanana, and a small bag of salty almonds. Fuel, not comfort. I ate slowly, methodically, brushing salt from my fingers onto my jeans without taking my eyes off the field.
