“Hey, I get it.” I stepped back, forcing a shrug. It was better he thought I was unaffected by his words, when really I was dying inside. “You’d be crazy not to take the job; it sounds like a great opportunity.”
“Johnny, wait—”
“It’s fine,” I lied, pulling my duffel strap tighter over my shoulder. “Really. I’m happy for you.”
I didn’t let him finish. I couldn’t. Because if I stood there another second, I knew I’d ask him to stay or, worse,beghim—and I wasn’t sure I could handle hearing him say no.
So, I turned away from him.
“Good luck in Florida, Heller,” I called back over my shoulder.
I walked back toward the bus—toward the noise, the distraction, the safety of being just another one of the guys—before he could say something kind that would crack me open.
There were no footsteps behind me, just silence.
And that was worse.
I wanted to hear him call my name. I wanted him to grab my arm and tell me not to go, to say that his new job wouldn’t change anything. That we were stillus, whatever that meant.
Instead, all I heard was the soft rumble of an engine and the buzz of tired voices drifting from just beyond the bus.
I didn’t look back.
Didn’t trust myself to.
I veered toward the far side of the lot, past the team and the bus, needing distance to think, or maybe to not think at all. I kept walking, past the shadows of the loading bay, past the players’ entrance to the stadium, toward nothing in particular. Just moving.
Standing still felt too much like waiting, and waiting felt too much like hope.
And right now, I couldn’t afford to do either.
Brock
Championship Series
Howmanymojitosdoesit take to confess your feelings?
It sounded like a bad riddle, one that I would, hopefully, have an answer to before the evening ended. Or before the rum ran out—whichever came first.
The Buns of Steel bachelor auction was in full swing—live music, glittery auction paddles, a farm-to-table dinner experience—but all I could focus on was the rapidpom-pom-pomof my heart. The kind of pulse that came from waiting for something you weren’t sure you deserved.
Fuck, maybe this was a mistake.
I was already on my second mojito of the night, nursing it like it owed me rent. The whole room thrummed with charged, unfiltered joy—the kind that only happened when a city’s team punched their ticket to the World Series for the first time in, well,ever.
People were lit up, buzzed not just from booze, but from the kind of hope that made strangers high-five in line for the bathroom and dance to ‘90s pop music like it was the national anthem. Roasters jerseys and playoff merch were everywhere—some crisp and new, others soft with wear and superstition.
The entire scene was loud, bright, and a little chaotic—in the best way possible. But underneath it all was that collective hum ofwe’ve got this,that rare, beautiful moment when an entire city—no matter how small it was—let itself believe in something.
It wasn’t unusual for me to cover baseball-adjacent events like this—especially since Melody was a sucker for “celebrities in the wild” kind of content—but for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t holding a press badge, but rather my breath.
It had been two weeks since Tucker and I had spoken, and not for lack of trying, at least on my behalf. I’d texted, called, and even dropped by his apartment unexpected like a fucking creep.
Radiohead had nothing on me.
At one point, I’d even typed out a long, messy email that I’d (thankfully) deleted before sending—something about how I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew I didn’t want to do it without him.
Nonetheless, all my efforts had gone unanswered.
