freeway running through the yard
it's a longer discussion than i have time for tonight, this idea that mlb as a fandom is on the decline. everything seems to have slowed down. but, because i fear change:
Psychocircular
They moved in on a Tuesday. Danny had a big olive green duffel bag from the army supply store, and four stuffed backpacks. Noah had matched luggage. Danny gave it a skeptical look and Noah blushed, muttering something about his grandmother and a graduation present.
Their room was small, a bunk bed in the corner, a window with a screen that Danny immediately popped out and put in the closet. Noah smiled nervously at him, sitting on the bed putting his shirts on hangers. The expression looked kind of unnatural on his solemn face. They made halting, get-to-know-you type conversation, Ventura, West Covina, left-handed, right-handed, top bunk or bottom? Danny played third base too, but he kept that secret for some reason, hearing how Noah talked about pitching like it was better than walking on the moon.
That night, they went to get dinner and Danny noticed that Noah’s focus was complete, flickery dark eyes and five o’clock shadow coming in so quick Danny thought he could almost see it happening. Noah licked ketchup off his knuckles and told a long story about getting stranded in the mountains in the middle of winter.
They got back to their room after getting thrown out of two bars for trying to buy beer without ID. Noah mumbled, “We’ve just got to find the right place, not everywhere cards,” as he was pulling his shirt over his head and carefully folding it. Danny was bemused by the neat square of Noah’s shirt, the slim line of his chest.
Taking turns brushing their teeth at the little sink, Danny brushed up against Noah’s bare shoulder and made rabid-dog faces in the mirror, foam-mouthed with Noah snickering at his back.
It was their first night at college. They were immediately friends.
*
2005 will be the first full season for both of them, after Noah went in the first round and Danny in the second of the 2001 amateur draft. Noah calls Danny during spring training, have you thought about where you’re gonna live yet, dude? Noah is kinda sick with anticipation, nerves whipping like snapped power lines in his chest.
Danny tells him that some of the guys have offered him a room in the house they’re gonna get, but trails off, “I don’t know, man.”
Noah nods, watching the cars go by on the Phoenix highway three stories below him, slick and red like blood vessels.
“Come get a drink with me?” he asks, and the words are barely out before Danny’s agreeing, saying he’ll drive.
In the car, they talk about college, and Noah remembers how easy it has always been between them. Danny still doesn’t watch the road as much as he should, but Noah got over that a long time ago.
They pull into the parking lot and Noah says, “There’s this apartment complex I’m looking at in San Francisco.”
Danny hums to show that he’s listening, his hands curled on the wheel and his eyes tracking the people in and out of the bar. He’s chewing on the corner of his lip like he’s always done.
“It’s real nice, Danny. There’re still places available, if, you know. You wanted.” Noah looks down at his hands, fingers still taped up all white and brown.
“Maybe,” Danny says. “Also, don’t call me Danny anymore, okay?”
He smiles at Noah and gets out of the car. It’s a second or two before Noah follows, led astray again.
*
On weekdays, it became their habit to meet up after their last classes and play pinball in the student union until it got dark enough to go looking for trouble. They’d switch off, and Noah kept a running tally of their scores in a pocket notebook he carried around. Danny would shout in frustration and tilt the machine with his hands hooked on the underside, and Noah would cry foul and subtract ten thousand points.
Late afternoon light fell pink and gold through the huge windows. It was the second week of an Indian summer and Danny kept being surprised by it, his hair heavy with sweat. He idly kept watch on Noah’s hands on the flipper buttons, Noah glaring down like somewhere under the glass there was a perfect curveball.
“I’m failing chem,” he said conversationally. “Professor told me today.”
“Baby chem?” Noah asked without taking his eyes off the game. Danny wasn’t really trying to distract him, though it would be a nice benefit. “Dude.”
“It’s complicated. There’s all, like. Formulas and stuff.”
“Maybe you’re just dumb.”
Danny grinned sharply. “Maybe you can go to hell.” The back of Noah’s neck was sunburned, and Danny thought about sketching thin white lines there with his nails, out of the blue kind of thought that he didn’t usually pay much attention to.
Noah lost his last ball and slammed his hand on the side of the machine, branging metal sound and Danny jumped. “Damn. Hate this thing.”
Danny unfolded himself from the couch, and Noah glanced at him as he rose, looking pissed off the way he did when he remembered that Danny was taller than him. Danny put his hand on the back of Noah’s neck, not for any particular reason, and the skin there was hot and taut, and Noah’s mouth smalled in confusion, a black sheen in his eyes.
Danny couldn’t think of anything to say, so he cleared his throat and let Noah go. Noah stared at him for a second, his expression unreadable. Some kids over by the coffee bar were talking about abstract art, color and form, it’s really only the intention that matters, not the final result. Danny was standing too close, trying to remember the chemical formula for hydrochloric acid.
*
Noah is the first guest Danny has over to his brand-new, big-league, San Francisco apartment, which is to be expected. It’s a short trip, one flight down from Noah’s apartment, Noah tumbling down the stairs barefoot and the soft thwap of his feet fills up his head.
Opening Day is in two days; Danny will fly to Baltimore tomorrow. He talks all night about how strange it is, the thick air in the Oakland clubhouse, the spaces between them, how he’s replaced someone he’s never even met and half the team seems reluctant to forgive him.
Noah keeps quiet, though he’s heard stories about the Oakland A’s and not all of them have to do with what goes on between the lines. Danny’s got gray dust on his hands from moving in, everything haphazard and still in boxes.
They drink beers on the mattress that’s the only furniture Danny has so far, wide pale square interrupting the honey-wood floor. They’re leaning against the wall and the pressure causes the mattress to inch away, forming a gap. If Noah leans to the left a little bit, he can see the half-bitten moon, through the window and over Danny’s shoulder.
There’s a familiar raw drag in his stomach, when he sees the tough bones of Danny’s wrist, hears the rustle of his legs on the mattress, and he drinks more to cover it. Danny’s head is back on the wall, his eyes closed, keeping up a steady stream of stories that Noah’s heard six hundred times, a few new ones from spring training.
“So you like the place?” Noah asks. He’s looking at the white walls and thinking of Danny’s racecar and half-naked girl posters from Pepperdine. He wonders if he should lend Danny some Sticky-Tac.
“Sure. Very cool. I like that the bathtub has feet.” Danny waves his bottle around without a clear purpose.
Noah grins. Yesterday, there was an exhibition game in Oakland and they pitched against each other for the first time ever. They both did okay, but Danny did better, all split split slider two-seam, impossible to figure out. Noah’s trying to make up for it, bringing the beers for tonight, offering to help Danny set up his furniture when he finally gets some, because maybe there were a couple of minutes in the fourth inning when Noah kinda hated him.
He can tell that Danny’s arm hurts in the way Danny is leaning back on his left shoulder, the way his pitching hand rests limp between them. Noah didn’t make it through the fifth inning, yesterday, and his arm is just buzzing warmly.
“I think this’ll be good,” Danny says out of nowhere. Noah murmurs to show that he’s still paying attention. “This is just like how we got started.”
Noah goes still, his spine gouging into the wall. Danny lifts his beer and his bent arm shows a blue triangle of the city through the window. Noah is prepared for a lot of things, but not for his life to regress, and he thinks that Danny must be drunk, must have forgotten that they don’t play on the same team anymore.
*
In the spring, Noah’s allergies got very bad, and all he wanted to do was lie around in his bunk with a box of Kleenex and the window sealed shut, downing prescription medication until his fingers shook. Danny was going almost crazy with cabin fever, Noah’s eyes red and wet.
“Can’t we go outside for just a little while?”
Noah shrugged, blew his nose. “You can.”
Danny glared at him. Noah knew he wouldn’t leave. Danny couldn’t stand to see anyone abandoned. He thought idly that if the baseball thing didn’t work out, he could join the Marines and that would be okay.
But instead he had his whole life to kill in their little dorm room, climbing up onto his top bunk only to paratroop-jump down, rattling through channels on the television. He messed up the geometric stack of Noah’s textbooks, and Noah watched him passively, hardly moving. Danny knew he was still alive because he could see Noah’s heartbeat clattering, his chest going like a piston.
“How long does this usually last? I mean. All spring? Because I’ll probably end up killing you out of boredom.”
Noah rolled his head, long stretch of neck. “It’s just ‘cause it’s a new place. I’ll get used to it.”
Ventura was only forty miles up the PCH from Pepperdine, but Danny understood that there might be something unexpected in the grass here.
It got dark enough that he didn’t feel bad about breaking out the liquor, and the room was lit only by the TV, flashes of color on Danny’s hands and catching up on the black screens of Noah’s eyes. Noah was congested enough that he couldn’t taste the liquor, said the burn helped his sinuses, and happily drank half the bottle. Soon he was talking in bad rhyme, smiling without style, and palming Danny’s knee.
Danny looked in confusion at Noah’s hand on his leg, tight grip and the perpendicular lines made by Noah’s fingers and the seam of his jeans. He could feel the heat of it like a dime left too close to the stove. He wasn’t as drunk as Noah, not yet close to reciting anything, but he wasn’t steady either, listed and wove in his chair, the room taking on weird oceanic qualities.
The way Noah was breathing, too, sounded kind of like drowning. The whole metaphor was making Danny’s head hurt, and he had a terrible feeling that they didn’t really know each other that well, after all. Noah’s hand was moving up, his dumb drunk smile gone, replaced by an expression of intent concentration.
“What,” Danny started to say, then stopped. He put his hand carefully on Noah’s chest, felt the tremble of his heart under there, too much medication, too much heat, not enough air. Danny was going to push him away, but Noah ducked his head and bit Danny’s wrist and it stung. A splinter of red and Danny fell back, collapsing with his head hanging off the back of the chair. Fine, okay, he tried to say, but he didn’t have to. Noah was already unbuttoning his jeans.
After that, Danny wouldn’t really remember.
*
When they’re both home at the same time, which is rare, they usually end up in Noah’s apartment, which has a slightly better view. Noah is collecting photographs again, waiting for his phone to go off. Danny comes up stumbling drunk from having gone out with his teammates, and Noah lectures him about driving in this condition, in the kitchen while Danny drinks water and eats peanut butter sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
It’s a fucking bridge, if you crash you drown, but Danny tells him prosaically that it’s basically impossible to go over the side, steel and concrete chest-high to protect him.
“Well, if anybody can find a way, man,” Noah says back, but he lets it go pretty easily, satisfied that he has made his point and Danny has arrived safe one more time.
Danny, whose spring training concerns are long vanished, fit and shot like a deadbolt into his new team, sprawls on Noah’s couch, long legs everywhere, black hair in his eyes. Noah hasn’t seen him in two weeks.
After another beer or two, enough to make Danny’s muscles lose all form, he gets up and stagger-walks over the bookshelf. Noah keeps a careful eye on him, mindful of the coffee table that Danny barely misses, thankful that he keeps everything neat and there’s nothing really for Danny to trip over. And God looks out for drunks.
Danny picks up a baseball, yellowed leather and the stitches faded almost to gray.
“This, this is from before. Right?” Danny asks, turning and holding it out for Noah to see, blue scrawled names in the spaces between.
Noah lifts his eyebrows. “Before when?”
Danny grins, looks messy and in the mood to be violated. “Before now. College. You had this, I remember.”
“I’ve always had it.” A year’s worth of the Los Angeles Dodgers, when they went the distance on Kirk Gibson and Vin Scully, and Noah spent the summer sneezing from hay fever and haunting the parking lot at Chavez Ravine, rarely able to afford tickets.
Danny sits down in the middle of the floor, looking surprised. “Um.”
Noah stands up, his head spinning. “Are you okay?”
Looking down at the ball in his hands, Danny grins again. Noah wants to push him flat on the carpet and run his hands up under Danny’s shirt, see what the fifteen pounds of added muscle feel like. He must be drunker than he thought; he knows they’re done with that.
He sits down next to Danny and Danny tilts into him, all shoulders and blue eyes, just like Noah remembers.
“I’m okay, man. Noah. I’m fine.”
Noah can feel Danny breathing, the broad exhale of his chest, the skitter of air through his teeth. He slides his hand into Danny’s hair, coarse in strands and soft as a whole, and keeps him upright.
*
Playing pinball alone and swimming in the ocean and not thinking about Noah’s hand on him, Danny wanted his freshman year to be over. He was tired of the campus with all its mirrored glass windows turned white in the sun, making him afraid to go outside, afraid of going blind.
He was tired of avoiding Noah and trying to pretend they didn’t live in the same room, getting home at two in the morning and climbing off-balance into his top bunk. He kicked Noah in the head once and Noah didn’t even stir, so Danny knew he was faking. He wondered if Noah ever slept anymore.
Danny thought in a panic that Noah had seen it in him. It wasn’t anything, just an occasional glance, a bend in his way of thinking, and it was never enough to really hide. But Noah had seen right through, and Danny couldn’t help it, Noah’s hand awkward and curious and hot like Indian summer, like the advent of spring here in Southern California.
He stayed away, but the baseball season was starting and they were due at the field every day from eight in the morning until noon, learning nothing in special jock classes through the stricken light of the afternoon. Danny watched Noah falling asleep in the grass, bob of his head, sag of his shoulders, weave of his shadow against the outfield fence.
He fell asleep himself, strange places, inappropriate times, awoken in the student union by the custodians, jabbed with rulers in class. He dreamt of Noah’s hands in his hair. There weren’t enough breaking pitches in the world to protect him from this.
After a week or two of bad hallucinatory life, Danny awoke to Noah’s solemn face, Noah’s pretty mouth saying, “I’m sorry, okay, sorry.”
Danny looked around in confusion. He was in their room, in his desk chair by the window. He had no idea how he’d gotten there or where he’d been before. The green outside shone like slick magazine paper. Noah was leaning on one shoulder against the wall, and Danny was sick from missing him.
“Noah?” he said with his voice weird and high, his tongue sticky.
Noah tipped his head to the side and closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said softly.
Danny stared up at him and Noah was the best part of college, better than drinking or sitting in hallways at four in the morning, better than sleeping through class all autumn and walking down to the beach to watch the sun go down. Noah was the very best part, coal-colored hair and the cherry-colored birthmark under his right eye like a permanent shiner, and Danny kept wanting to say, who hit you, man, I’ll kick his ass.
He reached up and touched Noah’s stomach carefully, quick shocked pull of breath drawing Noah back, but Danny was resolute, half-asleep, pressed down with his fingers. Noah’s eyes opened and Danny angled his face up like a sacrifice, something he was willing to lose.
Danny couldn’t think of anything important to say, so he pushed up a corner of Noah’s shirt and tilted forward, set his mouth down on a hard wedge of Noah’s stomach. Felt Noah curse against his mouth, hands crawling over his shoulders, and Danny bit him once, twice. Licked the marks away before they could rise.
*
Just before interleague starts, Danny says that they maybe shouldn’t hang out so much. He says it kinda off-hand, sitting on Noah’s fire escape with his legs hanging through the bars. There are white caps breaking on the dark water of the bay, the night clear enough to see the humped islands outlined like animals.
Noah is in the lawn chair, precariously balanced on the gridded metal, looking down at the pale side of Danny’s face and the winded mess of his hair.
“For real?” Noah asks.
Danny shrugs, eyes tracing the bay. “It’s, like, a conflict of interest. Or something. Anyway, it’s just for three games.”
“It’s six games.”
“Whatever. You know what I mean.”
“But we’re not. Doing anything.” Noah swallows. “I mean, we’re just hanging out. Don’t know what it’s like on your team, but I’m allowed to choose my own friends.”
Danny turns to glare at him. It’s weird how blue his eyes are, worse than Noah remembers. But everything from Pepperdine is in black-and-white. “I’m allowed to choose my friends, bitch. But I’m, like. The new guy. You know? Gotta keep up appearances.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
Eyebrows crashing down, Danny stands, and Noah’s head whirls. Danny’s body fills up space like a skyscraper, like the piece missing from the city. Danny looks pretty mad. Noah catches Danny’s belt as he’s trying to stalk back inside, bringing him up short.
“Danny. Dan. Sorry. Dan.”
Danny narrows a look down at him, Noah’s face tilted up and this feels like it’s happened before. Almost everything Danny does to him feels like it’s happened before. Danny’s hip is warm against the back of his fingers, soft denim and worn leather. Noah is too old to be eighteen and fucked up anymore.
He lets Danny go. Static interference blurs between them, shuffling up from the power lines.
“Okay. I guess I’ll see you at the ballpark, then.” Noah counts lit windows in the office buildings, which is only slightly less futile than counting stars.
Danny is just standing there, and Noah can feel his eyes on him. Noah is holding his breath without being aware of it, because they’ve been ratcheting back to their friendship for three months now, but they have still yet to mention the fact that they used to have sex at every available opportunity.
Maybe now, maybe Danny will touch his face, the mark under his right eye. Noah’s not sure he even still wants that, but he’s willing to try and see.
Danny doesn’t touch him. Danny says, “Night, man,” and leaves, and Noah stays out on the fire escape, on top of the world.
*
Danny’s life funneled down. There was baseball in the morning, and class in the afternoons that he still couldn’t help sleeping through, and then there was dinner eaten on the street and hard liquor scouring his throat, and Noah was right beside him. Noah was watching him carefully and tucking the tag of his T-shirt back under his collar.
In the bar that didn’t card, where the walls were inset with aquariums and Siamese fighting fish flicked like sparklers through the water, Noah was blue-lit and it hurt Danny’s throat to look at him for too long.
The days went by so quick it was difficult to be sure that he’d ever woken up. They got back to their little room and Noah took off his shirt and folded it, and Danny made fun of him for being obsessive-compulsive, the image of Noah in jeans and nothing else carved on the backs of his eyelids. Danny had been somehow removed from the situation, his letter-perfect body double staring hotly as Noah washed his face, his back curved as he bent over the sink.
Noah’s hands were cold, still wet. He wiped them dry on Danny’s shirt and then stripped that right off him, and Danny lifted his arms, hung his forearms on Noah’s shoulders and was grateful that he was five inches taller.
Noah was still talking, about the team or an essay he had to write or the climb of certain constellations into the near-summer sky. Danny felt Noah’s breath seep in through his skin and that brought him slamming back, no longer indirect. He tumbled Noah into the bottom bunk.
It was all so juvenile. The twine of Noah’s fingers in his hair, the tight seal of Noah’s eyelids, the slice of air through his teeth when Danny pushed his hand into Noah’s shorts. Danny couldn’t remember feeling younger than this, trying to learn how to get it right when Noah wouldn’t even look at him, wouldn’t say ‘there’ or ‘please’ or ‘more,’ or anything else that might have sketched a roadmap.
And juvenile in the strain in Danny’s chest, looking down at him. Waiting to see Noah’s head thrash to the side and his mouth fall open, odd well-kept best friend turned into a quick and gnashing knot of arms and legs, a biting ring of teeth on Danny’s throat. Like no one had ever touched his dick before, like he’d never been pinned down, and usually it didn’t take much to bring him off, which was good, because Danny wasn’t sure how much more he could stomach.
Noah was more straightforward when it was his turn, didn’t second-guess things the way Danny did or waste valuable time panicking. He wanted to try cocksucking, so one night he did, and it came to him as natural as switching speeds. Danny was happy to be his training ground, happy to feel Noah’s tongue in the cut where his leg met his body, happy to let Noah hook Danny’s knee over his shoulder and flatten a hand on Danny’s stomach to keep him from jerking up too fast. The angle was better. Everything was better.
Danny closed his eyes and banged his head on the wooden bunk and scratched his nails through Noah’s short hair. Too young to be doing this, too young to be developing this kind of grip, and while Noah slept, Danny took off his watch, fumbling with Noah’s wrist and dead-weight hand, and gently set it atop Noah’s wallet on the desk.
He climbed into the top bunk, replaying it in his head. It was like he lost his virginity every night, like it came back when he was asleep so that he could be ruined all over again come dawn.
*
After Noah’s team takes two of three from Danny’s, Danny leaves for Tampa Bay. Noah hallucinates when the shadows get thick, sees Danny stumbling through Noah’s darkened apartment with a beer in his hand and a familiar twist to his mouth.
There are the Dodgers to worry about, then the San Diego Padres, and Noah loses track for a little while. The A’s skid for eight games, the second time that’s happened in one month, and when Danny gets back in town, Noah doesn’t think he’ll want to come around anymore. Danny’s got more to deal with than whatever’s happening with his once-best friend, and Noah gets that.
Instead, Danny calls from nine stories down, asking if Noah can lend him cab fare. Noah rides the elevator down to the lobby in his bare feet, sixty dollars tucked in the waistband of his sweats. Danny half-grins when he sees him.
“He wouldn’t let me leave,” Danny says. Noah pays off the cabbie and hikes Danny’s bag over his shoulder, holding the front door open, sunlight banging off the parking meters.
“That’s gotta be a good sign, right?” Noah asks in the elevator, but Danny just gives him a look like he’s missed something.
Danny is different, old as his jersey number and favoring a new kind of beer. Noah can only sorta remember when Danny was eighteen and had seemed made up entirely of hands and eyes. Noah sees Danny’s collarbones move under his shirt and realizes belatedly that he would like to fuck Danny Haren again, so much so that he can’t make his throat work.
“Terrible trip.” Danny sighs and leans his head back on the fake-wood wall. Noah watches the pale green numbers above the door count upwards.
Still only May, he wants to remind Danny, but with the record the A’s are sporting right now, he doesn’t think it’ll help. Noah follows Danny to his apartment, biting his tongue.
Danny’s place is still mostly unfinished, couch and mattress and card table in the kitchen. They’ve all learned how to travel light. Noah’s whole life can still fit in the back of a car, if he ever needs to get out of town in a hurry.
Danny opens two beers on his belt buckle, and Noah is déjà-vu reacquainted with how hot that particular move is, Danny’s shirt bunched up under his hands so that Noah can see a runner of his stomach.
Sitting at the card table, thumbing his beer, Danny shakes his hair out of his eyes. His hair is much longer than it used to be.
“You remember that Cal State Fullerton game, sophomore year?”
Noah wonders at the way Danny is drinking slowly like he’s already hungover. “The rat bastard game?”
Danny smiles. Against Cal State Fullerton, their first baseman had gotten tossed for calling the umpire a rat bastard. It was kinda legendary, for those who’d been there.
“See, now how come none of that stuff happens up here?” Danny turns his eyes to the ceiling. “We’re fifteen games under five hundred and everybody acts like they just got shot in the back. They’re taking it so fucking seriously.”
Noah sets his beer down, clears his throat. Danny’s team is fifteen games under five hundred and Noah’s is emphatically not. It’s weird to think about. “And you’re not?”
Danny scowls and shakes his head. “I am a fucking ray of sunshine in that clubhouse.”
Noah starts to laugh, at the look on Danny’s face and the sincerity in his voice. He wants to mess with Danny’s hair until it knots. He runs the schedule quickly through his mind, grateful for the month they’ve got before their teams will face each other again.
*
The team went to Las Vegas to play the Rebels, in early May. The weather was out-of-this-world hot. Danny reeled around, his head aching from the neon and the sunlight off the desert.
He went out casino-hopping with some of the guys and got collared by security at Caesar’s for being punk kids with bad fake IDs. The shortstop talked them out of it, lying wide-eyed and negotiating their release into their coach’s hands. They all got confined to the hotel for the rest of the trip.
Noah wasn’t in their room when Danny got back, eager to relate how he’d almost been arrested. Danny had last seen him at dinner, playing Keno with one of the upperclassmen. Probably Noah had been smart enough to stick to the slots and now he was off drinking his winnings with the guys in the parking lot of a 7-11, or something.
Taking off his shirt and shoes and belt, Danny climbed onto his designated bed, the one near the window (they worked well that way, Noah liked to be closer to the bathroom and Danny appreciated a breeze, so figuring out hotel rooms was cake), and flipped through the television for awhile.
Anxiety set in quickly. There was a giant flashing K right outside the window, blood-red and rimmed in gold. Danny thought about going out and finding his roommate, drag him back by his shirt. Noah had become kinda essential to Danny’s preferred way of life. He wasn’t sure when that had happened.
Infomercials were the only thing on when Noah finally came in. Danny felt about ten IQ points dumber than when he’d started watching. He sat up and Noah was flushed, money sticking out of his pockets in fives and twenties. He grinned at Danny, pulling his tie loose and off.
“Good night?” Danny asked, pushing his hands under his legs.
Noah shrugged and stripped out of his shirt, littering paper money on the carpet. He tottered a little. “It’s a great city, Danny. Lots of. People.”
Danny lifted his eyebrows. “Are you drunk?”
Noah grinned again, held his finger up to his lips. Danny laughed and rolled his eyes. Noah unbuckled his belt and Danny fell silent. Every time, it was like getting hit from behind. Noah’s fingers against the white of his briefs and Danny’s throat closed, his shoulders tightening. Noah knew what he was doing, took his time.
Noah came to him, tasted like bourbon and the blue raspberry Slurpee that had chilled and stained his tongue, and Danny crossed his arms over Noah’s back, his mouth on the underside of Noah’s jaw.
*
The buses never stop. It’s four in the morning and Noah’s awake, listening to the 19 Van Ness roll past every fifteen minutes. He’s nine stories high and distance doesn’t help him at all, sound travels upwards in this fucking city.
He drank two cups of coffee in the clubhouse after the game, now stuck wondering if it was laced, because he can’t shut his eyes for more than three seconds at a time.
The fifty-first ambulance of the night wails by, and Noah gets up, scrubbing at his face. Air, something, so he goes to the fire escape. Standing barefoot on the metal, torn up by the wind, Noah thinks briefly of their trip to Gonzaga junior year, when Danny climbed the light standard at the stadium, high in every sense of the word, forty feet above Noah’s head.
Out of habit, Noah checks between his feet for Danny’s apartment, and sees the light on in there. He didn’t know Danny was home.
Noah gets a couple pennies and chucks them through the grate at Danny’s window. Danny’s shoulders make an appearance in shadow through the curtains, and then he’s crawling out onto the fire escape, peering up at Noah.
“Hello, neighbor,” Noah says.
Danny squints like it’s not nearing dawn. “What’re you doing up there?”
Noah shrugs. “I’ve got a six-month lease.”
“I thought you were in Chicago.”
“Next week.”
“Oh.”
They’re silent for a moment. Noah thinks it’s weird, city noise below them and he’s still half-listening for crickets. Their room at Pepperdine had looked out onto a green common.
“Noah-” Danny starts, then stops. He’s sideways lit through the window, sweats and T-shirt and bruises under his eyes that Noah can see from here.
“What?” he asks. The metal’s beginning to dig into his feet.
Moving his shoulders uncomfortably, Danny looks away for a minute, and Noah says his name, forgetting that he’s Dan now. Danny looks back up, though, and breaks open that goddamn killer grin, and says:
“Unlock your door, man,”
and then he’s disappearing inside and Noah is frozen, knowing all about Danny Haren when he’s got that look on his face.
*
“Danny?”
He woke up. He was looking up at the ceiling, same as every day. It had to be eighty degrees already, black trees hanging over the green. Quick run-through of the facts: it was June. The year was almost over. Noah was awake four feet below him.
Danny cleared his throat. “Yeah?”
Noah shifted, cotton rustling. Noah had been sleeping under just one thin sheet since the brownouts started. They were both too big to sleep in the same bunk anyway, but now it was also too hot.
“Did you remember to grab my blue shirt from the lockers when you stopped by?”
“Yeah, Noah.”
“Okay.” Noah sighed, raspy scratch of his nails through his hair. “I guess, just. Okay.”
Danny stared up at the graveled plaster. They would live together again next year; they’d already called dibs on one of the graduating senior’s two-bedroom off-campus. A couch long enough to pass out on and an irregular polygon of grass in the front yard. Danny wondered about the effect of space, a hallway replacing the wood and cotton of the bunk bed as the thing that separated them.
Noah had been hanging back from him ever since finals started. Danny was not thinking about the summer or what might happen after.
“I was gonna say. My little sister’s graduating from high school on Wednesday. Did you. Do you wanna come up with me for the dinner?” Noah asked, and then coughed awkwardly.
Danny licked his lips, blinking fast. “Dude-”
“Just because, you know. It’d be all right. Free food. My dad’ll probably buy you a beer, too.”
Smirking, Danny reached back and took hold of the bed’s post, stretching his arm out like pre-game routine. “Is your sister cute?”
“Dude, gross.”
Danny laughed a little bit. “I’ll come.”
“Awesome.” Noah paused, and Danny heard him rolling over, saw the shadow of his arm over the side of the bunk in his peripheral vision. “Let’s, um. You wanna fool around or something?”
Danny grinned, and his stomach hurt. They wouldn’t make it through the summer. They weren’t built for that yet, only in training. Though Ventura was just over an hour dead west of West Covina, the draft was still two years away. Danny wasn’t fucking his best friend out of convenience, he could admit that now, a week away from the end of this first season. It wouldn’t go easy for him and he’d have to learn how to recover, transform Noah into that thing that happened once, and nothing more.
*
Noah isn’t sure how to get used to it. They’re only in town at the same time maybe three times a month, a night, a morning, a day-and-a-half weekend. Noah’s team is fighting for five hundred and Danny’s is in first place. He’s showing up at Danny’s door, summoned by text message.
Danny lets him in, weaving on his feet and still on East Coast time. He makes screwdrivers with duty-free vodka, not saying anything. Noah eats Oreos out of the package, sitting on the floor with his back against the couch. Danny sits above him with his knee against Noah’s shoulder, finds something stupid on television and it’s another perfect waste of the twelve hours they’ve got before Noah leaves for Houston.
Except that Danny rests his glass against the back of Noah’s neck occasionally, cold hook just under his hairline. Baseball is in high demand, six months since spring training and it’s like nothing exists outside planes and hotel rooms and bullpens. Being in the major leagues means everyone’s watching, and Noah thinks it’s weird that this much attention is being paid to them when they’ve made absolutely zero progress since college.
After awhile, Danny pushes at Noah’s shoulder and asks if he’s drunk.
Noah says yeah and waits for Danny to ask him if he’s staying. Danny just mumbles something, touching his fingers to Noah’s hair. Sleepy and half-loaded, this is what Noah likes best.
“You’re up tomorrow?” Danny wants to know. Noah nods, feeling Danny’s hand slide across the back of his head. “Gonna be hungover.”
Noah turns to look at him, validated when Danny’s hand goes to his neck, the side of his face. “Orange juice’s a natural defense.”
Danny snorts. “Sure.” He looks at Noah, same guy who fucked Noah up half a decade ago, ruined his summer and even now, Noah still can’t really forget that he fucking swore this would not happen to him again.
Danny smiles, his eyes almost all the way closed. “Those Oreos turned your teeth black.”
Noah checks his watch, ten and a half hours left, and Danny is the problem with road trips these days. Noah gets antsy when they’re not in the same city, so, pretty much all the time.
Taking hold of Noah’s collar, Danny tugs until Noah crawls up onto the couch next to him. He can smell citrus and insomnia on Danny now, the white strand of hair behind his ear that he has had for as long as Noah has known him.
“Hey,” Noah says, wanting to recoup for a minute, figure out how he’s letting Danny get away with this. He flattens a hand on Danny’s chest. “I don’t. Can’t tell if this is different than it was before.”
Danny shrugs and shakes his head. He’s still smiling, looking like a man should when his rookie year is going the way both of theirs are.
“Probably. Who the fuck knows, man, who the fuck cares?”
Noah can’t really argue with that.
*
In August, then, after Danny had given up on Noah and given up on crossing days off his calendar, after Danny had spent two months staying as constantly stoned as he could manage, he listened to Noah on his voicemail, meet me for a drink, dude, it’s been too long.
It had been forever. Noah had shaken his hand on the street in the middle of June, smiling and tugging his cap far down over his eyes the way he always did. Danny tilted the brim up for a second to make sure that Noah’s eyes were still exactly that dark, and then said see you in the fall.
He let Noah drive away and that was the right thing. Meeting Noah halfway between their hometowns was something else entirely.
Danny went, though, the ocean filling up his windshield as he came down over the hill. He was pleasantly hazed and unable to keep track of the hours, driving like he’d made the trip seven thousand times. He could picture Noah like a gold coin catching the sunlight, drawing him onwards, and Danny knew he had to get past this.
Noah lit up when Danny came in, crossed the bar and hugged him, pounding on his back until Danny had trouble breathing. Danny noted the raffle of Noah’s slightly-longer hair over his ears, the smell of suntan lotion and grass on his skin.
They settled into a back booth, knees knocking under the table. Noah wouldn’t let Danny pay for his drinks, and Danny hoped that meant something.
“So, listen.”
Danny cocked his head obligingly. Noah was looking at him like he had maybe been drinking for an hour before Danny’d showed up.
“Maybe we should, like, when we get back to school. Talk about what happened.”
Pushing his tongue up behind his teeth, Danny didn’t answer for a moment, then asked, “What happened?”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Dude.”
There were salted scars in the wood of the table, bad punk-rock playing on the speakers. Terrified by what Noah might say, Danny swallowed hard, said it first.
“Yeah, okay. I didn’t mean to fuck around with you. I won’t do it again.”
Noah’s eyes went huge, his mouth dropping open in a small circle. “I. What?”
Danny cut his hand quickly through the air, feeling stupid and numb, endless nagging sense that he was forgetting things, two months of weed punching holes in his short-term memory. He could have met Noah five minutes ago, walked into an unfamiliar bar and saw him leaning neatly against the wall.
“I don’t care. Experimentation, it’s cool. It’s okay. I’ll just. You’re my friend, Noah, okay? And I want it like that forever. I won’t be weird. I won’t fuck it up, I promise.”
Noah sat back, bizarre look of shock on his face. “You won’t fuck it up? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Danny blinked. “What?” Hope clawed through his chest, but Noah was shaking his head, twisting his fingers together.
“Nothing, I didn’t. Okay.” Noah shut his eyes tight for a minute, and when he looked up again, he was unreadable, and he smiled. “I thought you were gonna say something else.”
“Like what?”
Noah was quiet, lines pressing in around his mouth. “It doesn’t matter. Here, you, you want another? I’ma get another.”
Danny’s beer was still three-quarters full. He slicked his fingertips on the condensation coating the glass as Noah rose, silver light in his hair. If Noah really wanted him, he would have fought, would have said something, at least, but Noah was walking away.
Danny was watching him go.
*
Noah is in L.A. and Danny is in Anaheim, and they argue for awhile about who will come to whom. Noah never has a chance, and finds himself in the back of a cab at midnight, the billboards and office buildings flanking I-5 like walls. He’s shaky, unsettled by the way everything down here looks like somewhere he’s been before.
Some of Danny’s teammates are in the hotel bar, but Noah pulls his cap down tight and walks quickly across the lobby, pretending he doesn’t hear or see them, hadn’t faced them in Oakland three months ago. He hears one of them saying Danny’s name and flinches-they still call him Danny too.
Danny opens the door and Noah doesn’t miss the way he checks the hall before stepping back to let Noah in. He kisses Noah and pushes the jacket off his shoulders, but Noah moves away.
He paces the room, trying to remember if he’d stayed at this hotel during interleague at some point. Chances are pretty good. Danny is watching him, sitting on the edge of the bed. Noah wants to ask, if it was experimentation in college, what the fuck is it now? But Danny won’t tell him what he wants to hear. Noah knows him well enough to know that.
“You guys are doing pretty good,” he says instead. Danny shrugs. “I mean, it’s been kinda incredible.”
“I guess.”
Noah kicks at Danny’s duffel, knocking it over and spilling out T-shirts he hasn’t seen in five years. “We’re like. It’s weird that the team’s doing so badly but we’re still in it. Fucking division this year, man, I don’t know. We probably won’t make it.”
Danny lifts his chin. “Did you come out here to talk about baseball?”
Noah freezes. “No,” he says slowly.
“So. Come here for a second.”
Noah crosses to him, counting his steps, testing the floor like sneaking home past curfew. His mind is torn and confused, he wants Danny something awful, but not like this. Not again.
Danny puts his hands on Noah’s hips, hooking his fingers lightly in his belt. Looks up at him and Noah doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Danny pushes up Noah’s shirt with his thumbs and Noah stops him.
“Hang on. Don’t. Gimme a second, okay?”
Stilling, Danny nods, and they rest for a minute. Noah lays his hands on Danny’s shoulders, tapping thoughtfully.
“If this is how it’s gonna go,” he says, and then can’t think of what comes next. Danny is warm, knees nudging his own. “I mean. Is this how it’s gonna go?”
Danny’s eyes flash, and he looks down, his hair slicing across his forehead. Without thinking, Noah pushes it back, soft weight against his fingers. He’s been waiting for Danny to back out for months now. It’s exhausting.
“You remember. How you used to wake me up in time for class if I forgot to set my alarm?” Danny winces, shakes his head. “No, wait. That’s not what I meant to say. It’s just. I’m late for everything these days. I keep waking up and expecting to be in the fucking top bunk again.”
Noah pieces through that, understanding maybe half. “So, what? This is, like. Nostalgia?” He thinks that even that might be enough. Everyone wants to be eighteen years old again.
But Danny is shaking his head. “No, man. More like, I got everything wrong back then, and then, this year, we were living in the same place again, and it was like, second chance. You know?”
Noah tips his head to the side. Warmth travels through his palms and up his arms, crowds into his chest. Danny is half-smiling, knows he’s already won.
“And this time you’re gonna get it right?” Noah asks him.
Danny tugs him forward and Noah goes willingly. Danny thumbs open the button of his jeans, looking innocent and not to be trusted. Noah doesn’t expect much from him, just this now, right here.
“Hey,” Danny says, lips moving on Noah’s stomach. Noah glances down, messed up forever by blue and teeth and hands skidding up his sides. “I miss pitching with you so fucking much, man. Did I say that yet?”
Noah laughs and lets his head fall back, shadows on the ceiling and Danny’s open mouth under his ribs. It’s impossible to stay standing when Danny bites him lightly and unzips his jeans, when the distance between the first time and the last shrinks to a half a second as Danny turns him around and lays him down on the bed.
Danny is grinning against his cheek. Noah is telling him, “Not yet, Danny,” and thinking giddily that Danny can do whatever he wants, even break his heart again if he promises to come back in another five years.
They fall right back in. This is how it’s always been.
THE END
and also, because i literally could not love him more:
Lady at FanFest (February 2005): Hi, this is a question for Barry. I know that the past couple of years were challenging for you, but I actually ran your forecast report for the 2005 season, astrologically, and it looks like you should be rounding back into Cy Young form. So, not to put any pressure on you, but I’m just curious, now that you’re the ace of the staff, do you feel any more pressure, and if you do, what do you do to handle it?
Zito: No, I actually feel less pressure, if you can believe that. I think that, I think it was good for Huddy and Mulder and myself to actually, I mean not, not so much for the team, but on our own personal thing we’ve always been one-third of a machine, you know, or mechanism, you know, or an institution that was kinda there, and I think it was good for each of us individually to break off and to see now who we are. We gain some autonomy, you know, we can kinda look around and now we’re out of the womb, and you know, we can all kinda morph into these butterflies from the, uh, proverbial cocoon.
Glen Kuiper: Curt, you got anything to say about the butterfly thing?
Curt Young: That is tremendous.
Psychocircular
They moved in on a Tuesday. Danny had a big olive green duffel bag from the army supply store, and four stuffed backpacks. Noah had matched luggage. Danny gave it a skeptical look and Noah blushed, muttering something about his grandmother and a graduation present.
Their room was small, a bunk bed in the corner, a window with a screen that Danny immediately popped out and put in the closet. Noah smiled nervously at him, sitting on the bed putting his shirts on hangers. The expression looked kind of unnatural on his solemn face. They made halting, get-to-know-you type conversation, Ventura, West Covina, left-handed, right-handed, top bunk or bottom? Danny played third base too, but he kept that secret for some reason, hearing how Noah talked about pitching like it was better than walking on the moon.
That night, they went to get dinner and Danny noticed that Noah’s focus was complete, flickery dark eyes and five o’clock shadow coming in so quick Danny thought he could almost see it happening. Noah licked ketchup off his knuckles and told a long story about getting stranded in the mountains in the middle of winter.
They got back to their room after getting thrown out of two bars for trying to buy beer without ID. Noah mumbled, “We’ve just got to find the right place, not everywhere cards,” as he was pulling his shirt over his head and carefully folding it. Danny was bemused by the neat square of Noah’s shirt, the slim line of his chest.
Taking turns brushing their teeth at the little sink, Danny brushed up against Noah’s bare shoulder and made rabid-dog faces in the mirror, foam-mouthed with Noah snickering at his back.
It was their first night at college. They were immediately friends.
*
2005 will be the first full season for both of them, after Noah went in the first round and Danny in the second of the 2001 amateur draft. Noah calls Danny during spring training, have you thought about where you’re gonna live yet, dude? Noah is kinda sick with anticipation, nerves whipping like snapped power lines in his chest.
Danny tells him that some of the guys have offered him a room in the house they’re gonna get, but trails off, “I don’t know, man.”
Noah nods, watching the cars go by on the Phoenix highway three stories below him, slick and red like blood vessels.
“Come get a drink with me?” he asks, and the words are barely out before Danny’s agreeing, saying he’ll drive.
In the car, they talk about college, and Noah remembers how easy it has always been between them. Danny still doesn’t watch the road as much as he should, but Noah got over that a long time ago.
They pull into the parking lot and Noah says, “There’s this apartment complex I’m looking at in San Francisco.”
Danny hums to show that he’s listening, his hands curled on the wheel and his eyes tracking the people in and out of the bar. He’s chewing on the corner of his lip like he’s always done.
“It’s real nice, Danny. There’re still places available, if, you know. You wanted.” Noah looks down at his hands, fingers still taped up all white and brown.
“Maybe,” Danny says. “Also, don’t call me Danny anymore, okay?”
He smiles at Noah and gets out of the car. It’s a second or two before Noah follows, led astray again.
*
On weekdays, it became their habit to meet up after their last classes and play pinball in the student union until it got dark enough to go looking for trouble. They’d switch off, and Noah kept a running tally of their scores in a pocket notebook he carried around. Danny would shout in frustration and tilt the machine with his hands hooked on the underside, and Noah would cry foul and subtract ten thousand points.
Late afternoon light fell pink and gold through the huge windows. It was the second week of an Indian summer and Danny kept being surprised by it, his hair heavy with sweat. He idly kept watch on Noah’s hands on the flipper buttons, Noah glaring down like somewhere under the glass there was a perfect curveball.
“I’m failing chem,” he said conversationally. “Professor told me today.”
“Baby chem?” Noah asked without taking his eyes off the game. Danny wasn’t really trying to distract him, though it would be a nice benefit. “Dude.”
“It’s complicated. There’s all, like. Formulas and stuff.”
“Maybe you’re just dumb.”
Danny grinned sharply. “Maybe you can go to hell.” The back of Noah’s neck was sunburned, and Danny thought about sketching thin white lines there with his nails, out of the blue kind of thought that he didn’t usually pay much attention to.
Noah lost his last ball and slammed his hand on the side of the machine, branging metal sound and Danny jumped. “Damn. Hate this thing.”
Danny unfolded himself from the couch, and Noah glanced at him as he rose, looking pissed off the way he did when he remembered that Danny was taller than him. Danny put his hand on the back of Noah’s neck, not for any particular reason, and the skin there was hot and taut, and Noah’s mouth smalled in confusion, a black sheen in his eyes.
Danny couldn’t think of anything to say, so he cleared his throat and let Noah go. Noah stared at him for a second, his expression unreadable. Some kids over by the coffee bar were talking about abstract art, color and form, it’s really only the intention that matters, not the final result. Danny was standing too close, trying to remember the chemical formula for hydrochloric acid.
*
Noah is the first guest Danny has over to his brand-new, big-league, San Francisco apartment, which is to be expected. It’s a short trip, one flight down from Noah’s apartment, Noah tumbling down the stairs barefoot and the soft thwap of his feet fills up his head.
Opening Day is in two days; Danny will fly to Baltimore tomorrow. He talks all night about how strange it is, the thick air in the Oakland clubhouse, the spaces between them, how he’s replaced someone he’s never even met and half the team seems reluctant to forgive him.
Noah keeps quiet, though he’s heard stories about the Oakland A’s and not all of them have to do with what goes on between the lines. Danny’s got gray dust on his hands from moving in, everything haphazard and still in boxes.
They drink beers on the mattress that’s the only furniture Danny has so far, wide pale square interrupting the honey-wood floor. They’re leaning against the wall and the pressure causes the mattress to inch away, forming a gap. If Noah leans to the left a little bit, he can see the half-bitten moon, through the window and over Danny’s shoulder.
There’s a familiar raw drag in his stomach, when he sees the tough bones of Danny’s wrist, hears the rustle of his legs on the mattress, and he drinks more to cover it. Danny’s head is back on the wall, his eyes closed, keeping up a steady stream of stories that Noah’s heard six hundred times, a few new ones from spring training.
“So you like the place?” Noah asks. He’s looking at the white walls and thinking of Danny’s racecar and half-naked girl posters from Pepperdine. He wonders if he should lend Danny some Sticky-Tac.
“Sure. Very cool. I like that the bathtub has feet.” Danny waves his bottle around without a clear purpose.
Noah grins. Yesterday, there was an exhibition game in Oakland and they pitched against each other for the first time ever. They both did okay, but Danny did better, all split split slider two-seam, impossible to figure out. Noah’s trying to make up for it, bringing the beers for tonight, offering to help Danny set up his furniture when he finally gets some, because maybe there were a couple of minutes in the fourth inning when Noah kinda hated him.
He can tell that Danny’s arm hurts in the way Danny is leaning back on his left shoulder, the way his pitching hand rests limp between them. Noah didn’t make it through the fifth inning, yesterday, and his arm is just buzzing warmly.
“I think this’ll be good,” Danny says out of nowhere. Noah murmurs to show that he’s still paying attention. “This is just like how we got started.”
Noah goes still, his spine gouging into the wall. Danny lifts his beer and his bent arm shows a blue triangle of the city through the window. Noah is prepared for a lot of things, but not for his life to regress, and he thinks that Danny must be drunk, must have forgotten that they don’t play on the same team anymore.
*
In the spring, Noah’s allergies got very bad, and all he wanted to do was lie around in his bunk with a box of Kleenex and the window sealed shut, downing prescription medication until his fingers shook. Danny was going almost crazy with cabin fever, Noah’s eyes red and wet.
“Can’t we go outside for just a little while?”
Noah shrugged, blew his nose. “You can.”
Danny glared at him. Noah knew he wouldn’t leave. Danny couldn’t stand to see anyone abandoned. He thought idly that if the baseball thing didn’t work out, he could join the Marines and that would be okay.
But instead he had his whole life to kill in their little dorm room, climbing up onto his top bunk only to paratroop-jump down, rattling through channels on the television. He messed up the geometric stack of Noah’s textbooks, and Noah watched him passively, hardly moving. Danny knew he was still alive because he could see Noah’s heartbeat clattering, his chest going like a piston.
“How long does this usually last? I mean. All spring? Because I’ll probably end up killing you out of boredom.”
Noah rolled his head, long stretch of neck. “It’s just ‘cause it’s a new place. I’ll get used to it.”
Ventura was only forty miles up the PCH from Pepperdine, but Danny understood that there might be something unexpected in the grass here.
It got dark enough that he didn’t feel bad about breaking out the liquor, and the room was lit only by the TV, flashes of color on Danny’s hands and catching up on the black screens of Noah’s eyes. Noah was congested enough that he couldn’t taste the liquor, said the burn helped his sinuses, and happily drank half the bottle. Soon he was talking in bad rhyme, smiling without style, and palming Danny’s knee.
Danny looked in confusion at Noah’s hand on his leg, tight grip and the perpendicular lines made by Noah’s fingers and the seam of his jeans. He could feel the heat of it like a dime left too close to the stove. He wasn’t as drunk as Noah, not yet close to reciting anything, but he wasn’t steady either, listed and wove in his chair, the room taking on weird oceanic qualities.
The way Noah was breathing, too, sounded kind of like drowning. The whole metaphor was making Danny’s head hurt, and he had a terrible feeling that they didn’t really know each other that well, after all. Noah’s hand was moving up, his dumb drunk smile gone, replaced by an expression of intent concentration.
“What,” Danny started to say, then stopped. He put his hand carefully on Noah’s chest, felt the tremble of his heart under there, too much medication, too much heat, not enough air. Danny was going to push him away, but Noah ducked his head and bit Danny’s wrist and it stung. A splinter of red and Danny fell back, collapsing with his head hanging off the back of the chair. Fine, okay, he tried to say, but he didn’t have to. Noah was already unbuttoning his jeans.
After that, Danny wouldn’t really remember.
*
When they’re both home at the same time, which is rare, they usually end up in Noah’s apartment, which has a slightly better view. Noah is collecting photographs again, waiting for his phone to go off. Danny comes up stumbling drunk from having gone out with his teammates, and Noah lectures him about driving in this condition, in the kitchen while Danny drinks water and eats peanut butter sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
It’s a fucking bridge, if you crash you drown, but Danny tells him prosaically that it’s basically impossible to go over the side, steel and concrete chest-high to protect him.
“Well, if anybody can find a way, man,” Noah says back, but he lets it go pretty easily, satisfied that he has made his point and Danny has arrived safe one more time.
Danny, whose spring training concerns are long vanished, fit and shot like a deadbolt into his new team, sprawls on Noah’s couch, long legs everywhere, black hair in his eyes. Noah hasn’t seen him in two weeks.
After another beer or two, enough to make Danny’s muscles lose all form, he gets up and stagger-walks over the bookshelf. Noah keeps a careful eye on him, mindful of the coffee table that Danny barely misses, thankful that he keeps everything neat and there’s nothing really for Danny to trip over. And God looks out for drunks.
Danny picks up a baseball, yellowed leather and the stitches faded almost to gray.
“This, this is from before. Right?” Danny asks, turning and holding it out for Noah to see, blue scrawled names in the spaces between.
Noah lifts his eyebrows. “Before when?”
Danny grins, looks messy and in the mood to be violated. “Before now. College. You had this, I remember.”
“I’ve always had it.” A year’s worth of the Los Angeles Dodgers, when they went the distance on Kirk Gibson and Vin Scully, and Noah spent the summer sneezing from hay fever and haunting the parking lot at Chavez Ravine, rarely able to afford tickets.
Danny sits down in the middle of the floor, looking surprised. “Um.”
Noah stands up, his head spinning. “Are you okay?”
Looking down at the ball in his hands, Danny grins again. Noah wants to push him flat on the carpet and run his hands up under Danny’s shirt, see what the fifteen pounds of added muscle feel like. He must be drunker than he thought; he knows they’re done with that.
He sits down next to Danny and Danny tilts into him, all shoulders and blue eyes, just like Noah remembers.
“I’m okay, man. Noah. I’m fine.”
Noah can feel Danny breathing, the broad exhale of his chest, the skitter of air through his teeth. He slides his hand into Danny’s hair, coarse in strands and soft as a whole, and keeps him upright.
*
Playing pinball alone and swimming in the ocean and not thinking about Noah’s hand on him, Danny wanted his freshman year to be over. He was tired of the campus with all its mirrored glass windows turned white in the sun, making him afraid to go outside, afraid of going blind.
He was tired of avoiding Noah and trying to pretend they didn’t live in the same room, getting home at two in the morning and climbing off-balance into his top bunk. He kicked Noah in the head once and Noah didn’t even stir, so Danny knew he was faking. He wondered if Noah ever slept anymore.
Danny thought in a panic that Noah had seen it in him. It wasn’t anything, just an occasional glance, a bend in his way of thinking, and it was never enough to really hide. But Noah had seen right through, and Danny couldn’t help it, Noah’s hand awkward and curious and hot like Indian summer, like the advent of spring here in Southern California.
He stayed away, but the baseball season was starting and they were due at the field every day from eight in the morning until noon, learning nothing in special jock classes through the stricken light of the afternoon. Danny watched Noah falling asleep in the grass, bob of his head, sag of his shoulders, weave of his shadow against the outfield fence.
He fell asleep himself, strange places, inappropriate times, awoken in the student union by the custodians, jabbed with rulers in class. He dreamt of Noah’s hands in his hair. There weren’t enough breaking pitches in the world to protect him from this.
After a week or two of bad hallucinatory life, Danny awoke to Noah’s solemn face, Noah’s pretty mouth saying, “I’m sorry, okay, sorry.”
Danny looked around in confusion. He was in their room, in his desk chair by the window. He had no idea how he’d gotten there or where he’d been before. The green outside shone like slick magazine paper. Noah was leaning on one shoulder against the wall, and Danny was sick from missing him.
“Noah?” he said with his voice weird and high, his tongue sticky.
Noah tipped his head to the side and closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said softly.
Danny stared up at him and Noah was the best part of college, better than drinking or sitting in hallways at four in the morning, better than sleeping through class all autumn and walking down to the beach to watch the sun go down. Noah was the very best part, coal-colored hair and the cherry-colored birthmark under his right eye like a permanent shiner, and Danny kept wanting to say, who hit you, man, I’ll kick his ass.
He reached up and touched Noah’s stomach carefully, quick shocked pull of breath drawing Noah back, but Danny was resolute, half-asleep, pressed down with his fingers. Noah’s eyes opened and Danny angled his face up like a sacrifice, something he was willing to lose.
Danny couldn’t think of anything important to say, so he pushed up a corner of Noah’s shirt and tilted forward, set his mouth down on a hard wedge of Noah’s stomach. Felt Noah curse against his mouth, hands crawling over his shoulders, and Danny bit him once, twice. Licked the marks away before they could rise.
*
Just before interleague starts, Danny says that they maybe shouldn’t hang out so much. He says it kinda off-hand, sitting on Noah’s fire escape with his legs hanging through the bars. There are white caps breaking on the dark water of the bay, the night clear enough to see the humped islands outlined like animals.
Noah is in the lawn chair, precariously balanced on the gridded metal, looking down at the pale side of Danny’s face and the winded mess of his hair.
“For real?” Noah asks.
Danny shrugs, eyes tracing the bay. “It’s, like, a conflict of interest. Or something. Anyway, it’s just for three games.”
“It’s six games.”
“Whatever. You know what I mean.”
“But we’re not. Doing anything.” Noah swallows. “I mean, we’re just hanging out. Don’t know what it’s like on your team, but I’m allowed to choose my own friends.”
Danny turns to glare at him. It’s weird how blue his eyes are, worse than Noah remembers. But everything from Pepperdine is in black-and-white. “I’m allowed to choose my friends, bitch. But I’m, like. The new guy. You know? Gotta keep up appearances.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
Eyebrows crashing down, Danny stands, and Noah’s head whirls. Danny’s body fills up space like a skyscraper, like the piece missing from the city. Danny looks pretty mad. Noah catches Danny’s belt as he’s trying to stalk back inside, bringing him up short.
“Danny. Dan. Sorry. Dan.”
Danny narrows a look down at him, Noah’s face tilted up and this feels like it’s happened before. Almost everything Danny does to him feels like it’s happened before. Danny’s hip is warm against the back of his fingers, soft denim and worn leather. Noah is too old to be eighteen and fucked up anymore.
He lets Danny go. Static interference blurs between them, shuffling up from the power lines.
“Okay. I guess I’ll see you at the ballpark, then.” Noah counts lit windows in the office buildings, which is only slightly less futile than counting stars.
Danny is just standing there, and Noah can feel his eyes on him. Noah is holding his breath without being aware of it, because they’ve been ratcheting back to their friendship for three months now, but they have still yet to mention the fact that they used to have sex at every available opportunity.
Maybe now, maybe Danny will touch his face, the mark under his right eye. Noah’s not sure he even still wants that, but he’s willing to try and see.
Danny doesn’t touch him. Danny says, “Night, man,” and leaves, and Noah stays out on the fire escape, on top of the world.
*
Danny’s life funneled down. There was baseball in the morning, and class in the afternoons that he still couldn’t help sleeping through, and then there was dinner eaten on the street and hard liquor scouring his throat, and Noah was right beside him. Noah was watching him carefully and tucking the tag of his T-shirt back under his collar.
In the bar that didn’t card, where the walls were inset with aquariums and Siamese fighting fish flicked like sparklers through the water, Noah was blue-lit and it hurt Danny’s throat to look at him for too long.
The days went by so quick it was difficult to be sure that he’d ever woken up. They got back to their little room and Noah took off his shirt and folded it, and Danny made fun of him for being obsessive-compulsive, the image of Noah in jeans and nothing else carved on the backs of his eyelids. Danny had been somehow removed from the situation, his letter-perfect body double staring hotly as Noah washed his face, his back curved as he bent over the sink.
Noah’s hands were cold, still wet. He wiped them dry on Danny’s shirt and then stripped that right off him, and Danny lifted his arms, hung his forearms on Noah’s shoulders and was grateful that he was five inches taller.
Noah was still talking, about the team or an essay he had to write or the climb of certain constellations into the near-summer sky. Danny felt Noah’s breath seep in through his skin and that brought him slamming back, no longer indirect. He tumbled Noah into the bottom bunk.
It was all so juvenile. The twine of Noah’s fingers in his hair, the tight seal of Noah’s eyelids, the slice of air through his teeth when Danny pushed his hand into Noah’s shorts. Danny couldn’t remember feeling younger than this, trying to learn how to get it right when Noah wouldn’t even look at him, wouldn’t say ‘there’ or ‘please’ or ‘more,’ or anything else that might have sketched a roadmap.
And juvenile in the strain in Danny’s chest, looking down at him. Waiting to see Noah’s head thrash to the side and his mouth fall open, odd well-kept best friend turned into a quick and gnashing knot of arms and legs, a biting ring of teeth on Danny’s throat. Like no one had ever touched his dick before, like he’d never been pinned down, and usually it didn’t take much to bring him off, which was good, because Danny wasn’t sure how much more he could stomach.
Noah was more straightforward when it was his turn, didn’t second-guess things the way Danny did or waste valuable time panicking. He wanted to try cocksucking, so one night he did, and it came to him as natural as switching speeds. Danny was happy to be his training ground, happy to feel Noah’s tongue in the cut where his leg met his body, happy to let Noah hook Danny’s knee over his shoulder and flatten a hand on Danny’s stomach to keep him from jerking up too fast. The angle was better. Everything was better.
Danny closed his eyes and banged his head on the wooden bunk and scratched his nails through Noah’s short hair. Too young to be doing this, too young to be developing this kind of grip, and while Noah slept, Danny took off his watch, fumbling with Noah’s wrist and dead-weight hand, and gently set it atop Noah’s wallet on the desk.
He climbed into the top bunk, replaying it in his head. It was like he lost his virginity every night, like it came back when he was asleep so that he could be ruined all over again come dawn.
*
After Noah’s team takes two of three from Danny’s, Danny leaves for Tampa Bay. Noah hallucinates when the shadows get thick, sees Danny stumbling through Noah’s darkened apartment with a beer in his hand and a familiar twist to his mouth.
There are the Dodgers to worry about, then the San Diego Padres, and Noah loses track for a little while. The A’s skid for eight games, the second time that’s happened in one month, and when Danny gets back in town, Noah doesn’t think he’ll want to come around anymore. Danny’s got more to deal with than whatever’s happening with his once-best friend, and Noah gets that.
Instead, Danny calls from nine stories down, asking if Noah can lend him cab fare. Noah rides the elevator down to the lobby in his bare feet, sixty dollars tucked in the waistband of his sweats. Danny half-grins when he sees him.
“He wouldn’t let me leave,” Danny says. Noah pays off the cabbie and hikes Danny’s bag over his shoulder, holding the front door open, sunlight banging off the parking meters.
“That’s gotta be a good sign, right?” Noah asks in the elevator, but Danny just gives him a look like he’s missed something.
Danny is different, old as his jersey number and favoring a new kind of beer. Noah can only sorta remember when Danny was eighteen and had seemed made up entirely of hands and eyes. Noah sees Danny’s collarbones move under his shirt and realizes belatedly that he would like to fuck Danny Haren again, so much so that he can’t make his throat work.
“Terrible trip.” Danny sighs and leans his head back on the fake-wood wall. Noah watches the pale green numbers above the door count upwards.
Still only May, he wants to remind Danny, but with the record the A’s are sporting right now, he doesn’t think it’ll help. Noah follows Danny to his apartment, biting his tongue.
Danny’s place is still mostly unfinished, couch and mattress and card table in the kitchen. They’ve all learned how to travel light. Noah’s whole life can still fit in the back of a car, if he ever needs to get out of town in a hurry.
Danny opens two beers on his belt buckle, and Noah is déjà-vu reacquainted with how hot that particular move is, Danny’s shirt bunched up under his hands so that Noah can see a runner of his stomach.
Sitting at the card table, thumbing his beer, Danny shakes his hair out of his eyes. His hair is much longer than it used to be.
“You remember that Cal State Fullerton game, sophomore year?”
Noah wonders at the way Danny is drinking slowly like he’s already hungover. “The rat bastard game?”
Danny smiles. Against Cal State Fullerton, their first baseman had gotten tossed for calling the umpire a rat bastard. It was kinda legendary, for those who’d been there.
“See, now how come none of that stuff happens up here?” Danny turns his eyes to the ceiling. “We’re fifteen games under five hundred and everybody acts like they just got shot in the back. They’re taking it so fucking seriously.”
Noah sets his beer down, clears his throat. Danny’s team is fifteen games under five hundred and Noah’s is emphatically not. It’s weird to think about. “And you’re not?”
Danny scowls and shakes his head. “I am a fucking ray of sunshine in that clubhouse.”
Noah starts to laugh, at the look on Danny’s face and the sincerity in his voice. He wants to mess with Danny’s hair until it knots. He runs the schedule quickly through his mind, grateful for the month they’ve got before their teams will face each other again.
*
The team went to Las Vegas to play the Rebels, in early May. The weather was out-of-this-world hot. Danny reeled around, his head aching from the neon and the sunlight off the desert.
He went out casino-hopping with some of the guys and got collared by security at Caesar’s for being punk kids with bad fake IDs. The shortstop talked them out of it, lying wide-eyed and negotiating their release into their coach’s hands. They all got confined to the hotel for the rest of the trip.
Noah wasn’t in their room when Danny got back, eager to relate how he’d almost been arrested. Danny had last seen him at dinner, playing Keno with one of the upperclassmen. Probably Noah had been smart enough to stick to the slots and now he was off drinking his winnings with the guys in the parking lot of a 7-11, or something.
Taking off his shirt and shoes and belt, Danny climbed onto his designated bed, the one near the window (they worked well that way, Noah liked to be closer to the bathroom and Danny appreciated a breeze, so figuring out hotel rooms was cake), and flipped through the television for awhile.
Anxiety set in quickly. There was a giant flashing K right outside the window, blood-red and rimmed in gold. Danny thought about going out and finding his roommate, drag him back by his shirt. Noah had become kinda essential to Danny’s preferred way of life. He wasn’t sure when that had happened.
Infomercials were the only thing on when Noah finally came in. Danny felt about ten IQ points dumber than when he’d started watching. He sat up and Noah was flushed, money sticking out of his pockets in fives and twenties. He grinned at Danny, pulling his tie loose and off.
“Good night?” Danny asked, pushing his hands under his legs.
Noah shrugged and stripped out of his shirt, littering paper money on the carpet. He tottered a little. “It’s a great city, Danny. Lots of. People.”
Danny lifted his eyebrows. “Are you drunk?”
Noah grinned again, held his finger up to his lips. Danny laughed and rolled his eyes. Noah unbuckled his belt and Danny fell silent. Every time, it was like getting hit from behind. Noah’s fingers against the white of his briefs and Danny’s throat closed, his shoulders tightening. Noah knew what he was doing, took his time.
Noah came to him, tasted like bourbon and the blue raspberry Slurpee that had chilled and stained his tongue, and Danny crossed his arms over Noah’s back, his mouth on the underside of Noah’s jaw.
*
The buses never stop. It’s four in the morning and Noah’s awake, listening to the 19 Van Ness roll past every fifteen minutes. He’s nine stories high and distance doesn’t help him at all, sound travels upwards in this fucking city.
He drank two cups of coffee in the clubhouse after the game, now stuck wondering if it was laced, because he can’t shut his eyes for more than three seconds at a time.
The fifty-first ambulance of the night wails by, and Noah gets up, scrubbing at his face. Air, something, so he goes to the fire escape. Standing barefoot on the metal, torn up by the wind, Noah thinks briefly of their trip to Gonzaga junior year, when Danny climbed the light standard at the stadium, high in every sense of the word, forty feet above Noah’s head.
Out of habit, Noah checks between his feet for Danny’s apartment, and sees the light on in there. He didn’t know Danny was home.
Noah gets a couple pennies and chucks them through the grate at Danny’s window. Danny’s shoulders make an appearance in shadow through the curtains, and then he’s crawling out onto the fire escape, peering up at Noah.
“Hello, neighbor,” Noah says.
Danny squints like it’s not nearing dawn. “What’re you doing up there?”
Noah shrugs. “I’ve got a six-month lease.”
“I thought you were in Chicago.”
“Next week.”
“Oh.”
They’re silent for a moment. Noah thinks it’s weird, city noise below them and he’s still half-listening for crickets. Their room at Pepperdine had looked out onto a green common.
“Noah-” Danny starts, then stops. He’s sideways lit through the window, sweats and T-shirt and bruises under his eyes that Noah can see from here.
“What?” he asks. The metal’s beginning to dig into his feet.
Moving his shoulders uncomfortably, Danny looks away for a minute, and Noah says his name, forgetting that he’s Dan now. Danny looks back up, though, and breaks open that goddamn killer grin, and says:
“Unlock your door, man,”
and then he’s disappearing inside and Noah is frozen, knowing all about Danny Haren when he’s got that look on his face.
*
“Danny?”
He woke up. He was looking up at the ceiling, same as every day. It had to be eighty degrees already, black trees hanging over the green. Quick run-through of the facts: it was June. The year was almost over. Noah was awake four feet below him.
Danny cleared his throat. “Yeah?”
Noah shifted, cotton rustling. Noah had been sleeping under just one thin sheet since the brownouts started. They were both too big to sleep in the same bunk anyway, but now it was also too hot.
“Did you remember to grab my blue shirt from the lockers when you stopped by?”
“Yeah, Noah.”
“Okay.” Noah sighed, raspy scratch of his nails through his hair. “I guess, just. Okay.”
Danny stared up at the graveled plaster. They would live together again next year; they’d already called dibs on one of the graduating senior’s two-bedroom off-campus. A couch long enough to pass out on and an irregular polygon of grass in the front yard. Danny wondered about the effect of space, a hallway replacing the wood and cotton of the bunk bed as the thing that separated them.
Noah had been hanging back from him ever since finals started. Danny was not thinking about the summer or what might happen after.
“I was gonna say. My little sister’s graduating from high school on Wednesday. Did you. Do you wanna come up with me for the dinner?” Noah asked, and then coughed awkwardly.
Danny licked his lips, blinking fast. “Dude-”
“Just because, you know. It’d be all right. Free food. My dad’ll probably buy you a beer, too.”
Smirking, Danny reached back and took hold of the bed’s post, stretching his arm out like pre-game routine. “Is your sister cute?”
“Dude, gross.”
Danny laughed a little bit. “I’ll come.”
“Awesome.” Noah paused, and Danny heard him rolling over, saw the shadow of his arm over the side of the bunk in his peripheral vision. “Let’s, um. You wanna fool around or something?”
Danny grinned, and his stomach hurt. They wouldn’t make it through the summer. They weren’t built for that yet, only in training. Though Ventura was just over an hour dead west of West Covina, the draft was still two years away. Danny wasn’t fucking his best friend out of convenience, he could admit that now, a week away from the end of this first season. It wouldn’t go easy for him and he’d have to learn how to recover, transform Noah into that thing that happened once, and nothing more.
*
Noah isn’t sure how to get used to it. They’re only in town at the same time maybe three times a month, a night, a morning, a day-and-a-half weekend. Noah’s team is fighting for five hundred and Danny’s is in first place. He’s showing up at Danny’s door, summoned by text message.
Danny lets him in, weaving on his feet and still on East Coast time. He makes screwdrivers with duty-free vodka, not saying anything. Noah eats Oreos out of the package, sitting on the floor with his back against the couch. Danny sits above him with his knee against Noah’s shoulder, finds something stupid on television and it’s another perfect waste of the twelve hours they’ve got before Noah leaves for Houston.
Except that Danny rests his glass against the back of Noah’s neck occasionally, cold hook just under his hairline. Baseball is in high demand, six months since spring training and it’s like nothing exists outside planes and hotel rooms and bullpens. Being in the major leagues means everyone’s watching, and Noah thinks it’s weird that this much attention is being paid to them when they’ve made absolutely zero progress since college.
After awhile, Danny pushes at Noah’s shoulder and asks if he’s drunk.
Noah says yeah and waits for Danny to ask him if he’s staying. Danny just mumbles something, touching his fingers to Noah’s hair. Sleepy and half-loaded, this is what Noah likes best.
“You’re up tomorrow?” Danny wants to know. Noah nods, feeling Danny’s hand slide across the back of his head. “Gonna be hungover.”
Noah turns to look at him, validated when Danny’s hand goes to his neck, the side of his face. “Orange juice’s a natural defense.”
Danny snorts. “Sure.” He looks at Noah, same guy who fucked Noah up half a decade ago, ruined his summer and even now, Noah still can’t really forget that he fucking swore this would not happen to him again.
Danny smiles, his eyes almost all the way closed. “Those Oreos turned your teeth black.”
Noah checks his watch, ten and a half hours left, and Danny is the problem with road trips these days. Noah gets antsy when they’re not in the same city, so, pretty much all the time.
Taking hold of Noah’s collar, Danny tugs until Noah crawls up onto the couch next to him. He can smell citrus and insomnia on Danny now, the white strand of hair behind his ear that he has had for as long as Noah has known him.
“Hey,” Noah says, wanting to recoup for a minute, figure out how he’s letting Danny get away with this. He flattens a hand on Danny’s chest. “I don’t. Can’t tell if this is different than it was before.”
Danny shrugs and shakes his head. He’s still smiling, looking like a man should when his rookie year is going the way both of theirs are.
“Probably. Who the fuck knows, man, who the fuck cares?”
Noah can’t really argue with that.
*
In August, then, after Danny had given up on Noah and given up on crossing days off his calendar, after Danny had spent two months staying as constantly stoned as he could manage, he listened to Noah on his voicemail, meet me for a drink, dude, it’s been too long.
It had been forever. Noah had shaken his hand on the street in the middle of June, smiling and tugging his cap far down over his eyes the way he always did. Danny tilted the brim up for a second to make sure that Noah’s eyes were still exactly that dark, and then said see you in the fall.
He let Noah drive away and that was the right thing. Meeting Noah halfway between their hometowns was something else entirely.
Danny went, though, the ocean filling up his windshield as he came down over the hill. He was pleasantly hazed and unable to keep track of the hours, driving like he’d made the trip seven thousand times. He could picture Noah like a gold coin catching the sunlight, drawing him onwards, and Danny knew he had to get past this.
Noah lit up when Danny came in, crossed the bar and hugged him, pounding on his back until Danny had trouble breathing. Danny noted the raffle of Noah’s slightly-longer hair over his ears, the smell of suntan lotion and grass on his skin.
They settled into a back booth, knees knocking under the table. Noah wouldn’t let Danny pay for his drinks, and Danny hoped that meant something.
“So, listen.”
Danny cocked his head obligingly. Noah was looking at him like he had maybe been drinking for an hour before Danny’d showed up.
“Maybe we should, like, when we get back to school. Talk about what happened.”
Pushing his tongue up behind his teeth, Danny didn’t answer for a moment, then asked, “What happened?”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Dude.”
There were salted scars in the wood of the table, bad punk-rock playing on the speakers. Terrified by what Noah might say, Danny swallowed hard, said it first.
“Yeah, okay. I didn’t mean to fuck around with you. I won’t do it again.”
Noah’s eyes went huge, his mouth dropping open in a small circle. “I. What?”
Danny cut his hand quickly through the air, feeling stupid and numb, endless nagging sense that he was forgetting things, two months of weed punching holes in his short-term memory. He could have met Noah five minutes ago, walked into an unfamiliar bar and saw him leaning neatly against the wall.
“I don’t care. Experimentation, it’s cool. It’s okay. I’ll just. You’re my friend, Noah, okay? And I want it like that forever. I won’t be weird. I won’t fuck it up, I promise.”
Noah sat back, bizarre look of shock on his face. “You won’t fuck it up? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Danny blinked. “What?” Hope clawed through his chest, but Noah was shaking his head, twisting his fingers together.
“Nothing, I didn’t. Okay.” Noah shut his eyes tight for a minute, and when he looked up again, he was unreadable, and he smiled. “I thought you were gonna say something else.”
“Like what?”
Noah was quiet, lines pressing in around his mouth. “It doesn’t matter. Here, you, you want another? I’ma get another.”
Danny’s beer was still three-quarters full. He slicked his fingertips on the condensation coating the glass as Noah rose, silver light in his hair. If Noah really wanted him, he would have fought, would have said something, at least, but Noah was walking away.
Danny was watching him go.
*
Noah is in L.A. and Danny is in Anaheim, and they argue for awhile about who will come to whom. Noah never has a chance, and finds himself in the back of a cab at midnight, the billboards and office buildings flanking I-5 like walls. He’s shaky, unsettled by the way everything down here looks like somewhere he’s been before.
Some of Danny’s teammates are in the hotel bar, but Noah pulls his cap down tight and walks quickly across the lobby, pretending he doesn’t hear or see them, hadn’t faced them in Oakland three months ago. He hears one of them saying Danny’s name and flinches-they still call him Danny too.
Danny opens the door and Noah doesn’t miss the way he checks the hall before stepping back to let Noah in. He kisses Noah and pushes the jacket off his shoulders, but Noah moves away.
He paces the room, trying to remember if he’d stayed at this hotel during interleague at some point. Chances are pretty good. Danny is watching him, sitting on the edge of the bed. Noah wants to ask, if it was experimentation in college, what the fuck is it now? But Danny won’t tell him what he wants to hear. Noah knows him well enough to know that.
“You guys are doing pretty good,” he says instead. Danny shrugs. “I mean, it’s been kinda incredible.”
“I guess.”
Noah kicks at Danny’s duffel, knocking it over and spilling out T-shirts he hasn’t seen in five years. “We’re like. It’s weird that the team’s doing so badly but we’re still in it. Fucking division this year, man, I don’t know. We probably won’t make it.”
Danny lifts his chin. “Did you come out here to talk about baseball?”
Noah freezes. “No,” he says slowly.
“So. Come here for a second.”
Noah crosses to him, counting his steps, testing the floor like sneaking home past curfew. His mind is torn and confused, he wants Danny something awful, but not like this. Not again.
Danny puts his hands on Noah’s hips, hooking his fingers lightly in his belt. Looks up at him and Noah doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Danny pushes up Noah’s shirt with his thumbs and Noah stops him.
“Hang on. Don’t. Gimme a second, okay?”
Stilling, Danny nods, and they rest for a minute. Noah lays his hands on Danny’s shoulders, tapping thoughtfully.
“If this is how it’s gonna go,” he says, and then can’t think of what comes next. Danny is warm, knees nudging his own. “I mean. Is this how it’s gonna go?”
Danny’s eyes flash, and he looks down, his hair slicing across his forehead. Without thinking, Noah pushes it back, soft weight against his fingers. He’s been waiting for Danny to back out for months now. It’s exhausting.
“You remember. How you used to wake me up in time for class if I forgot to set my alarm?” Danny winces, shakes his head. “No, wait. That’s not what I meant to say. It’s just. I’m late for everything these days. I keep waking up and expecting to be in the fucking top bunk again.”
Noah pieces through that, understanding maybe half. “So, what? This is, like. Nostalgia?” He thinks that even that might be enough. Everyone wants to be eighteen years old again.
But Danny is shaking his head. “No, man. More like, I got everything wrong back then, and then, this year, we were living in the same place again, and it was like, second chance. You know?”
Noah tips his head to the side. Warmth travels through his palms and up his arms, crowds into his chest. Danny is half-smiling, knows he’s already won.
“And this time you’re gonna get it right?” Noah asks him.
Danny tugs him forward and Noah goes willingly. Danny thumbs open the button of his jeans, looking innocent and not to be trusted. Noah doesn’t expect much from him, just this now, right here.
“Hey,” Danny says, lips moving on Noah’s stomach. Noah glances down, messed up forever by blue and teeth and hands skidding up his sides. “I miss pitching with you so fucking much, man. Did I say that yet?”
Noah laughs and lets his head fall back, shadows on the ceiling and Danny’s open mouth under his ribs. It’s impossible to stay standing when Danny bites him lightly and unzips his jeans, when the distance between the first time and the last shrinks to a half a second as Danny turns him around and lays him down on the bed.
Danny is grinning against his cheek. Noah is telling him, “Not yet, Danny,” and thinking giddily that Danny can do whatever he wants, even break his heart again if he promises to come back in another five years.
They fall right back in. This is how it’s always been.
THE END
and also, because i literally could not love him more:
Lady at FanFest (February 2005): Hi, this is a question for Barry. I know that the past couple of years were challenging for you, but I actually ran your forecast report for the 2005 season, astrologically, and it looks like you should be rounding back into Cy Young form. So, not to put any pressure on you, but I’m just curious, now that you’re the ace of the staff, do you feel any more pressure, and if you do, what do you do to handle it?
Zito: No, I actually feel less pressure, if you can believe that. I think that, I think it was good for Huddy and Mulder and myself to actually, I mean not, not so much for the team, but on our own personal thing we’ve always been one-third of a machine, you know, or mechanism, you know, or an institution that was kinda there, and I think it was good for each of us individually to break off and to see now who we are. We gain some autonomy, you know, we can kinda look around and now we’re out of the womb, and you know, we can all kinda morph into these butterflies from the, uh, proverbial cocoon.
Glen Kuiper: Curt, you got anything to say about the butterfly thing?
Curt Young: That is tremendous.