How can it be that something so pleasurable can also make you feel like you’re sliding down toward the pit of despair? Chase and I slept together two more times in the next week. If it were an ordinary dating situation, I would have celebrated every moment. Unfortunately, the fear of future consequences lurked in the back of my head adding a sour edge to what should have been the sweetest of confections.

I wasn’t the most talented guy at managing relationships anyway. I had a poor track record. While I was a minor league player, I found a boyfriend named Felix in an online dating app. The first few dates were outstanding, and I was on cloud nine.

He was an accountant who worked from home, and we squeezed in lunch dates as well as getting together late at night after games. After three formal dates, I slept over for the first time. The relationship developed at lightning speed. I should have been more careful, but I convinced myself I’d found the perfect man. He was handsome, smart, and great in bed. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that he was jealous, too. His jealousy was worse than mine.

During my first extended road trip away with the team after we began dating, Felix showered me with agitated text messages demanding my attention. He was angry when I explained that our manager insisted that we leave our cell phones in the locker room during games. After I thought I got him to calm down, he began to attack me for not sending him a message immediately after the game was over.

We had another string of great dates when I came home, but the next road trip was even worse. Felix accused me of sleeping with other men. He was wrong, and our emotional battles began to affect my performance. I wasn’t a top-level minor league player in the first place. I didn’t have room to cope with factors that sent me into a significant hitting slump.

For some reason, I was willing to stick with Felix. I don’t know why for sure, but I think it had something to do with worrying that I couldn’t find someone else. I still thank a superior power for sending me a crucial piece of information while I was pissing in Felix’s bathroom.

I saw a small card lying on the floor between the edge of the toilet and the wastebasket. I squatted down to pick it up assuming Felix might have dropped something important.

After I picked it up, I noticed that it was a frequent customer card for a local coffee shop. I started to tuck it into my pocket so I could return it to Felix when I noticed there was a signature on the back. It wasn’t Felix’s name.

Whoever wrote the signature had gorgeous penmanship. The loops in the letters were large and artful. If I didn’t assume that Elliot Fenster was a man that Felix was keeping secret, I would have enjoyed looking at his handwriting.

Felix called, “You’re taking a long time in the bathroom, Aaron. Is everything okay?”

I opened the door and said, “I’m not sure. Have you seen Elliot lately?”

The deer-in-the-headlights gaze and the draining of all color from Felix’s face told me all that I needed to know. Apparently, Felix was trying to battle his guilty conscience by accusing me of cheating.

He didn’t say anything. I shook my head and said, “It’s over, Felix.”

At the moments when I told Chase that I feared we might face attacks on our relationship, I tried to make sure I was leaving my past behind. I knew that I also had fears lodged in the back of my head that someday Chase could cheat, too.

As the baseball season rolled into May, all was well on the professional front. The Yellowjackets were in third place in their division with a winning record. We exited April with two more wins than losses. Chase was batting near .400. He was battling for the league lead in batting average, and Mo was just a few games short of leading the league in saves. Eckert gave me my fair share of credit for the success of our hitters.

The upbeat morale of my fellow coaches and the players made my fear that something had to give more frustrating. I wasn’t ready to trust that it could all continue in a positive direction. In particular, I knew that something had to happen in my relationship with Chase. I hoped it wouldn’t blow up in our faces.

I suspected that some of my teammates knew, but nobody was speaking out. We continued to socialize with Eric and Javier to squelch any speculation that we had an exclusive relationship with each other.

Our final road contest before returning home for nine consecutive games took place on May 2nd. I slept alone the night before, but I woke up at 6:00 a.m. in a cold sweat. I dreamed that Chase was terminally ill. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor and given only six weeks to live. I yelled, “No!!” as I woke and fought to catch my breath.

I sent a text message two hours later asking Chase about his schedule for the day. I hoped that he would suggest getting together, but he said he was going shopping to buy a gift for his parents’ upcoming wedding anniversary. His message said:

He punctuated the sentence with a big red heart emoji. I sighed realizing that I had to get through the rest of the morning and lunch on my own. Fortunately, Eckert was happy to meet with me and discuss any batting problems we’d detected on the team.

We met for coffee at 8:00 a.m., and I quickly frowned when he said, “Sooner or later, O’Rourke will crash. It always happens with rookies. We can’t expect this production to continue.”

I squeezed my hands into fists to stop myself from speaking defensively. Instead, I tilted my head to the right and asked, “What if, just this one time, he’s for real. It’s not completely unprecedented in baseball. Ichiro was Rookie of the Year, MVP, and the winner of the batting title all in the same year.”

Eckert shook his head. “Chase O’Rourke is no Ichiro Suzuki. Ichiro was almost thirty years old when he came to the U.S., and he had years of professional experience in Japan. It’s not a fair comparison at all. Meyer Huggins agrees with me about O’Rourke’s hot streak, too. He’s bracing for the downturn.”

I decided that I needed to change the topic, and we discussed other players on the team, including Eric and Javier. We unearthed much more agreement on the rest of the bats in our lineup.

I made sure that I was on the field at the stadium at 2:00 p.m. on the dot. It was still relatively early, and I scanned the fifteen or so men present to see if I could spot Chase.

A smile filled my face when I found him lying in center field on the grass performing stretching exercises. I jogged up to join him. He looked up at me and asked, “Do you see something you like? I might be able to make an offer for cheap.” He turned his head to the left and the right before grabbing his package while he smiled from ear to ear.

I nudged his thigh with my shoe. I said, “Stop, someone will see.”

Chase laughed as he stretched one leg far to the side. “There aren’t enough guys around to notice. Why don’t you get down here and help me stretch? Maybe you could get in a little grope. I promise that I won’t try to run away.”

I dropped down to one knee and gripped his ankle to help provide extra pressure for the stretch. I asked, “Don’t you ever get nervous about this?”

“About what?”

I grumbled, “Us. This is real life.”

Chase stretched his arms over his head. The movement caused his jersey to spread tight across his chest. “I guess maybe a little bit, but I figure if we get busted somehow, there’s nobody else I’d rather have with me as I try to fight my way out of the pit. You’re worth the risk.”

“But it’s our careers.”

“It’s just baseball,” said Chase. He slipped into his announcer’s voice saying, “They sacrificed it all for romance. This is the sweetest baseball story ever told.”

I heard my voice rising in tone and agitation. “You don’t take any of this seriously! I’ve got goals. I’m sure you do, too. It’s like you want us to get caught. Do you even want to understand?”

Chase’s face wrinkled up in confusion. He asked, “Did something happen? I know you’re worried about this, but you’re deeper in a hole today. Maybe I should show you the sweet coffee grinder I found for my parents for their anniversary. I know it sounds like an odd anniversary gift, but they LOVE their coffee. It was nice to get out of the baseball bubble for a few hours, too.”

“If you l…” I stopped myself from saying the word. Instead, I confessed to part of the agitation. “I had a bad dream, Chase. I was going to lose you. I woke up in a cold sweat.”

His face suddenly looked sympathetic. He pulled his arms back toward his chest and then reached out to me. “Hey, come down here and sit with me.”

I lowered myself to the turf. The grass was still slightly damp from the intermittent showers near the end of the game the night before. I pushed my fingers through the grass and said, “Be careful out there in right field. It might be slick.”

Chase sat beside me with his legs bent and placed a hand on my knee. He said, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m yours. You’re stuck with the rookie right fielder. The worries are all a little speed bump in life. I know that. We’re going to figure it out in the end. We’ve got many more years of our lives to live than we’ll spend on the baseball field.”

“I’m glad you’re so confident. Some days you’re more like a coach than I am.”

Chase shrugged. “I don’t have the concentration ability I’d need to be an effective coach.” He reached out and ruffled my hair with his fingers. “Speaking of restlessness, how about we go for a jog along the outfield wall? Do you want to come with me? We can’t have our coaches getting fat and lazy.”

“I’m not fat.”

“I didn’t say you were, and I don’t want you to get that way. It’s not healthy.” He stood, flashed a million dollar smile, and tugged on my hand.