“Lowell, sweetie, is that a limp?”

I was hoping that it was barely noticeable, but Antonio picked up on the residue of my springtime adventure immediately. I exaggerated the impact on my walk as I drew close and asked, “You mean this?”

Antonio giggled and held out his skinny arms wide to embrace me with a massive hug. He said, “Yes, of course, you nut. Now come here and tell me what happened.”

Somehow, through three seasons of gay softball, Antonio and I became close friends. On the surface, we had very little in common but softball. He was a tall, skinny, black man exuding eternal optimism and having a decided preference for neon-colored clothes. I was a bulky white guy who often acted as a professional skeptic and threw on anything from my wardrobe of worn blue jeans and aging concert T-Shirts.

I said, “Well, it happened at the beach.”

Antonio pulled back slightly and stared into my eyes. He asked, “You’ve been to the beach already? It’s still chilly out there by the water. Brrrr!”

I said, “I wasn’t skinny dipping if you were worried that’s how it happened. In fact, I was climbing on the rocks trying to find the perfect one to sit on so that I could stare out to the Lake Michigan horizon and think about the random nature of life.”

Antonio pursed his lips and asked, “Is that a fun Saturday afternoon for you, Lowell?”

Truthfully, it would make up the bulk of a good weekend day for me, but I stared into Antonio’s deep, brown, sparkling eyes, and we both had a good laugh. I said, “I ended up half walking, half dragging myself to the car and then drove myself to the emergency room. They put a cast on it. I had to use crutches for awhile, but now I can even run again. I just haven’t quite kicked the limp to the curb.”

“Well, be careful! You could have died out there. Lake Michigan can be a cruel, cruel Mistress!”

I cocked my head to the right and asked, “Just how many Mistresses have you been hanging out with, Antonio?”

We both laughed again, and I said, “You know, it all would have been a lot less dramatic if I had somebody out there poking around with me. I was thinking about that while they were bandaging up the leg. Maybe I really do need a partner in crime. Maybe I need an innocent guy to corrupt. What do you think, Antonio? Are there persuadable guys out there?”

Antonio laid long, thin fingers along the side of my cheek and said, “You are so adorable, my friend. I’m sure there is a sea of little fish out there just looking to get caught on your baited hook.”

I shook my head and asked, “Do you have a ball already? Or do I need to go find Reggie? Let’s head out toward the outfield and toss one around.”

Antonio held up a neon green softball and said, “I’m a step ahead of you, mon ami.”

I followed him out to the edge of the outfield and concentrated on doing my best to avoid any signs of the limp. It was good to hear that sound of the softball hitting the glove again. While there was still a chill in the air, my teammates warming up and catching up with each other about the events that took place during winter hibernation were sure signs that another beautiful summer was not far away.

I raised my voice and said, “You know, Antonio, there is one side effect of the leg problems that really seriously sucks.”

He showed me an exaggerated motion in tossing the ball and asked, “What’s that, Lowell?”

I sighed. “Those insurance deductibles. They are killing me financially, but at least I hit the limit for the year. I can get mowed down by a bus now and not have to pay anything else.”

He put his hand to his mouth in a mock attempt to look shocked. “Well, let’s really hope that doesn’t happen. We need you on the team this year.”

I said, “It’s rough, but I’m sure that I will make it through.”

I worked retail. To me, it wasn’t a horrible job as far as a way to spend time, but the pay wasn’t good. I occasionally struggled to keep all of my bills up to date, and the medical bills definitely made it worse. I tried not to think too much about it. Life was sort of random, and I knew my personal situation could change in the blink of an eye.

Meanwhile, the buzz I felt when I was standing on that boulder all alone at sunrise with the wind catching my jacket while the waves were crashing into shore was probably worth the trip to the emergency room. I slipped on a wet spot, and I probably was lucky that I didn’t crack my head open.

I asked, “So how has your winter been, Antonio? How’s Lex?”

A huge grin filled Antonio’s face. His husband Lex was as straight-laced as Antonio was flamboyant. They were a walking dictionary definition of “opposites attract,” and I wasn’t sure I’d ever known a couple more madly in love.

Antonio said, “He’s as adorable as ever, and we took a trip out to Los Angeles to see our buddies Greg and Daniel. They introduced us to their music friends. It was so exciting. We didn’t really meet anybody that famous, but we were so close!” He held up a finger and thumb with perhaps an inch of airspace between. He said, “I even got to sing a few notes in a real life recording studio.”

Antonio added, “Lex still misses his mom. She was the rock in his family, but they are keeping things together. I’m so proud of him and his sister.”

Suddenly, Antonio paused in throwing the ball back to me. He held on to it and looked back toward the infield. I followed his gaze as he asked, “Who’s the new hottie? Wow, I thought Blake looked good last year. Give me a spoon, Lowell. He looks good enough to eat.”

It was no mystery who Antonio was talking about. A tall, blonde, blue-eyed guy wearing a T-Shirt stretched tight across his muscular pecs was standing at home plate talking to Reggie. I said, “He looks vaguely familiar. Maybe he hangs out at the Toolbox. That might be where I’ve seen him.”

Antonio said, “Yum. I hope he plays in the outfield. If he’s at first base, I don’t know if I can concentrate on the game.”

I adopted a fake grumble and said, “Shame on you, Antonio. You’re a married man.”

Antonio held a gloved hand across his chest and said, “Lex does not mind if I appreciate the finer elements of masculine refinement.” Then he leaned forward and said, “And there are some things there that are mighty fine.”

I jogged over to Antonio and winced slightly when I felt a twinge in the leg. I gave him a quick swat on the ass with my glove and asked, “Should we take a closer look? Reggie can tell us what’s up.”

He grinned. “I’m proud of you, Lowell. You’re on the prowl already.”

We jogged side by side toward home plate and then stopped short of the pair. Reggie was one of two de facto managers for the team. The other was his best friend Ian. Just as Reggie and the stranger turned toward Antonio and me, Ian joined us.

Reggie smiled and said, “Antonio, Lowell, maybe you can help introduce Sven around to the other players. He’s new to the team.”

Antonio held his glove to his face to hide a giggle. I guessed that he was thinking the same thing that I was. If we looked up Norwegian in the encyclopedia, there would be a picture of Sven there smiling out at us. I wanted to confirm that he was from Minnesota, too, but I held my tongue.

Sven said, “Just don’t expect perfection.”

He had a deep voice, but it did have that Minnesota dialect. He did look like a Norwegian, and he was shockingly handsome. Like Antonio said, good enough to eat. Then something struck me. He was familiar beyond just the Toolbox, but I couldn’t place it at all.

There is that gut feeling you have when you meet someone that you know you met in some other context, but you can’t place it. It was like you had the memory filed away in the file cabinets in the back of your mind, but the drawer was sticking. You couldn’t quite get it open to pull out the old papers and figure out where you met the first time.

I held out a hand to shake and said, “It’s great to have you on the team, Sven.”

His blue eyes sparkled in the sun when he took my hand with a firm grip and asked, “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t, but Reggie did. It’s Lowell.” I gestured toward Antonio who was silent but busy making an obvious visual inspection of Sven’s body. I said, “And this is Antonio. Ignore his roaming eyes. He’s married.”

There was a slight uneasiness in Sven’s laugh in response that was adorable. Then I saw something in his eyes that indicated I had just registered for him, too. We had something between us that neither of us could quite figure out. It was going to be an interesting summer.

I turned toward Reggie and asked, “So what are our chances this year, Coach?”

Reggie curled the fingers of his left hand into a fist and pressed it into the softball glove on his right. He said, “Well, Blake said he has some ideas to make us even better and more competitive this year. I’m excited. But first, no more collisions with Antonio on the field, okay?”

Antonio pointed at Sven and said, “Aw, Reggie, why bring up us at our worst in front of the new guy?”

Reggie was referencing the way our season ended two years ago. Antonio was playing second base, and I was in center field. The other team hit a high fly ball, and I rushed in to catch it. I tried to call Antonio off, and he did the same. Then we collided.

Antonio’s hand hit my nose, and his head hit my shoulder. We both hit the deck, and he was out could for a few seconds. Meanwhile, the other team scored two runs and we lost the last game of the season.

Sven asked, “What happened?”

Antonio stepped up and threw an arm around Sven’s broad shoulders. He said, “That’s a story to share over a drink. Now let’s go meet the rest of the team.”

I really wished it was my arm around those shoulders, but I let it go. Antonio was our self-appointed one-man welcoming committee, and he was very good at it. As they headed back out to the field, I dug into a canvas bag to pull out another softball, and, in a quiet voice I asked, “Hey, Reggie, is he any good?”

Reggie shrugged. He said, “I don’t really know. Sven’s worried that he’s not, but isn’t that the skill level of most of us? We can’t all be Blake or Billy Alvey.”

I nodded, “That’s for sure.” Blake was a minor league baseball player in the past, and Billy Alvey was the one straight guy on the team. They both played at a level that was a few notches above the rest of us.

Reggie added, “He does look good, though, don’t you think?”

I smirked. “So good it almost hurts my eyes.” Then I broke into a jog back out toward the outfield. The leg still gave me some pain, but I could feel it loosening up. My doctor was right. I would be able to do anything with it that I wanted to.

I gave Marshall a wave and then shouted, “Hey, Blake! You didn’t give up on us!” as I jogged past him. It felt good to be back on the softball field. We were such a motley group, you couldn’t predict for sure what would happen from one game to the next. It was just like life in general.