The Other Fish in the Sea (Grab Your Pole, #2) Read online

  “I don’t get it. Why would Pete being gay start a rumor about you and Camie?” Bridget asked, being completely lost.

  Julia, Dylan, and Jeremy are lost as well. I’m not really surprised about Jeremy, but I am kind of surprised about both Julia and Bridget. You’d think after having been the one’s to hit on him and then determine he’s gay, they’d be a little faster on the uptake.

  “Think about it, you dolt. Pete is a pitcher and Tristan is his catcher. The rumor would be that Tristan is gay, too. It would be even worse if people knew that Simba and Nala over there are abstaining from working on another litter of cubs, so he’d be forced to go outside of their little pride to find a willing lioness to bite on the scruff of the neck to prove he’s not gay which would, quite honestly, make them both kind of cranky,” Jillian explained with the help of mental images provided by Disney and Wild Kingdom.

  She went with this comparison because he’s still lounging against me, I’m still messing with his mane—I mean hair—and in addition, Phineas and Ferb have been climbing and playing on him, so I’m sure we look like a family of felines.

  “Do you ever talk normally?” Bridget asked, sounding a little snotty.

  Jillian just rolled her eyes, returning the sneer in Bridget’s tone with her expression.

  “Oh! I get it! But what about the other catchers? I mean, wouldn’t there be rumors about them, too?” Julia asked out of curiosity. Although I have to admit, I was wondering the same thing.

  “No, you don’t get it. Tristan is Pete’s catcher. Period. End of story,” Jeff said before taking a drink.

  “You guys only have one catcher?” Julia, again and thankfully, asked before I could.

  “Mm-mm, that’s not it. It’s something called a pitcher-catcher tandem,” Jeff replied.

  “Well, I don’t know what that is,” Julia said, still confused.

  “It’s the relationship between a specific pitcher and a specific catcher…it’s also called a battery. See, lots of times, a pitcher will prefer a specific catcher because their styles and techniques work better together and that builds a trust that enables them to play better, and a tandem is just what that relationship is called,” Derek explained.

  “Right. But Trist’s and Pete’s is a unique tandem because they’re synched,” Jeff added.

  “You’re kidding?” Derek asked, sounding a little bit more than intrigued and impressed.

  “Mm-mm, you sh—” Jeff was saying before Julia cut him off.

  “Well wait, what is being synched?”

  “Okay, well sometimes, something happens for whatever reason and a tandem will bond like fuckin’ cement. Theirs did that a few years back and Trist is the only one on the team who can catch Pete.” I had to grin when Tristan toasted Pete from across the tent. “That’s also why Pete’s still walking and talking. If they weren’t so tightly bonded, Trist would’ve put him in the hospital for doing what he did at that party.” And then again when Pete toasted Tristan back. “Plus, Pete’s got a gift from God and he usually knocks everyone else Coach has ever put with him flat on their ass.”

  Tristan told me about that last night after that little “scene.” Pete could very possibly wind up pitching for MLB straight out of high school if the surgery he had worked…they don’t know if it did yet. And when Jeff mentioned his gift, Pete didn’t get upset really, but I did pick up on some of that same energy he was putting off last night. He also just kind of shared some sort of intense look with Tristan, but since I can’t really see Tristan or his eyes, I’m not sure how to take it.

  “I’ve never met a truly synched tandem, that’s really fuckin’ cool,” Derek said, looking back and forth between Pete and Tristan in an appreciative way.

  “Yeah, you should see ‘em play…they can read each other so well, it’s like they’re just tossin’ the ball back and forth like they’re playin’ a game of catch in the backyard and there’s no one else there.”

  “So, um, will knowing Pete is gay affect how you guys play now?” Julia asked, sincerely interested.

  “Wait, I’m gay?” Pete asked with a laugh like he was asking “Since when?”

  “Apparently dude,” Jeff answered, laughing again.

  “Huh. You’d think I would’ve known or that my fucked catcher would’ve at least given me a sign.”

  “Sorry, man, I know I usually catch whatever you flip but you hurled this one right by me…”

  “You’re sorry? I’m gay and you’re sorry…is there anything else you two have been keeping from me?” He asked Tristan and Jeff with humor tinged sarcasm.

  “From a shortstop’s point of view, I think your ass looks pretty nice when you’re in your windup…does that count?” Jeff asked while still laughing.

  “Hey thanks, and yeah, that counts. So, how did I all of a sudden become gay?” You’d think he would be mad or at least irritated that his sexuality is in question but he’s finding this whole thing pretty funny.

  “Julia and Bridget clearly have the best gay-dar known to mankind,” Jillian replied blandly, totally outing our cousin and her forward friend, both of whom are now guiltily fidgeting.

  Pete looked at the two of them, then at Bridget and put the pieces together. “Is that w—?” Then he started cracking up.

  “What’s so funny?” Bridget asked, sounding particularly disgruntled. I think she was really disappointed when he turned her down and him being gay made her feel a little better about herself.

  “You! That whole thing earlier…Oh God…” he told her, still laughing.

  “Are you saying you’re not gay?” Julia asked with disbelief.

  By the way, Tristan, Jeff, and Kate are laughing too. I’m guessing they never thought he was in the first place. Not that it would really matter to anyone if he was, but still. I don’t think they’d be laughing if they really thought he was gay and still just trying to hide in the proverbial closet, you know?

  “That’s correct, I’m not gay.”

  “Pete man, it’s okay if you are…Camie and I’ll just have to violate the dress code every day for the rest of my fuckin’ life,” Tristan said, laughing and with tears streaming down his face.

  He’s exaggerating though. I don’t think I’d make him wait quite that long, but it is nice to know he’s thinking long-term. And yeah, I’m totally picturing Derek in a tux again but this time I’m hearing the “Wedding March” too. Tee-hee.

  “Thanks, dude, I appreciate your support.”

  “Anytime…you know I got your back,” Tristan choked out and then he and Jeff just flat out lost it.

  “The hell you do! I’m the pitcher, remember?!” Pete replied, making everyone aside from the two Doubting Thomas’ crack up as well.

  “Okay if you’re not gay, then explain why you turned me down,” Bridget shot at him with bitterness and resentment.

  “Are you saying any guy who turns you down has to be gay?”

  “Well…no, but you wouldn’t even take my number! And besides, everything you said made it sound like you aren’t into girls at all and even Jillian said she could see that,” she answered with wounded pride.

  Pete gave Jill, who looks bored out of her mind, a quizzical look with a funny grin and then he shook his head, dismissing whatever it was he was thinking before saying, “Look, I’m not gay…I promise I like girls just as much as Tristan does.”

  “Are you sure? ‘Cause that’s a whole goddamned lot. You know, I didn’t bestow Def Leppard’s ‘Women’ as a ringtone on him just because I like the song…” Jeff chimed in. It’s true, he had grounds there. “Oh and Melissa, we’ve all decided to change yours to Duran Duran’s ‘Girls On Film’…just fyi.”

  “Whatever!” Melissa replied indignantly but she was laughing.

  “Oh believe me, I know. I went with an old school one for him too…Mötley Crüe…’Girls, Girls, Girls’…” Pete said while at the same time, nodding at Melissa to let her know he was one of the “all” Jeff had mentioned.

  “T
hanks guys,” Tristan said, sounding gratified and I’m pretty sure he somehow indicated that he was a member of the all as well because Melissa stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Yeah, thanks guys,” Melissa shot out sarcastically.

  “You’re both welcome.” Pete said to Melissa and Tristan and then he looked back to Jeff and tried to resume his defense. “But getting back to the question, yeah, I’m sure…I’m just not a slut like he—” (EX slut…)

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry, dude, but you really kind of are…”

  “Uh, hello? I prefer recently reformed promiscuous reprobate. I’m just sayin’, if we’re gonna name call, let’s just make sure we get ‘em straight…or in your case, gay.” Just so you know, almost everyone in the tent including me is cracking up over this exchange now.

  “Okay, recently reformed slut—” Pete said, trying to continue.

  “Promiscuous reprobate,” I corrected.

  “Thank you, Baby,” Tristan said and leaned his head back to give me a kiss.

  “My pleasure,” I murmured against his lips.

  “Sorry…recently reformed promiscuous reprobate like he is—”

  “Thank you, that’s much better.”

  “You’re welcome…and I’m just not interested in you,” Pete said first to Tristan and then to Bridget.

  “In me or her…I forgot who we’re talking about,” Tristan said, throwing his hands in the air to demonstrate his feigned confusion and his f-ing fantastic sense of humor.

  “Either. Both,” Pete answered, like he might’ve been confused now too. “I know I’m interested in that picture though.”

  “Well of course, me too, but what I wanna know is if you had to choose, who would you pick? Because honestly, I think I’m better looking than Bridget and even though I’m reformed, you know you’d have way more fun with me than with anyone else here. That is, unless Melissa is as adventurous and photogenic as her grandma…I wouldn’t know, though, because I haven’t seen the picture!”

  Bridget rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help laughing and Melissa just dropped her forehead into the palm of her hand.

  “That’s true, dude. From what I’ve heard, he’s all kinds of fuckin’ fun…I bet Melissa’s grandma would pick him,” Brandon added to the outrageously twisted banter while knocking knuckles with Tristan. I rolled my eyes.

  “Dude, are you asking if you can bite me on the scruff of the neck?”

  “Well, maybe not right away…I mean I am a pretty big believer in foreplay and all, but if you play your cards right, like maybe a nude photography session or two…who knows? We could both get lucky.” Seriously, they’ve crossed so many lines now I don’t even know where to begin and Jeff is going to rupture something laughing so hard.

  “Camie, for the love of God, would you please do something about him? I don’t think he’s gone this long and it’s making me nervous. Besides, I’m not very photogenic.”

  Tristan took a picture of me this morning that revealed I’m not very photogenic either so I feel for Pete. “Welcome to my world…what you need to do is keep him away from cameras of all kinds and get him to agree to boundaries. He’s pretty good about sticking to them. Well, most of the time. Sometimes. Alright, only occasionally…you know what, Pete? You’re screwed.”

  “Well it’s about goddamned time I got laid!”

  “Hey!” I interjected and smacked him in jest.

  “Oh, sorry, Baby…I’ll only be thinking of you and Melissa’s grandma, I swear.”

  “Oh bullshit. If I don’t mean enough to you to have your full attention, then you can forget it mister,” Pete put in with an over the top lisp. Really, he added a freaking lisp. Jeff is going to have internal bleeding soon.

  “SHIT!”

  “Come on, dude, just talk Camie into pitchin’ something you can knock outta the ball park, I’m sure you’ve done it before,” the big-mouth-jerk-Brandon said. Seriously, I was all for giving him a break for not having any tact, but now? Yeah, not so much.

  “Mm-mm. Can’t.” Totally can if he really wanted to, so he should’ve said won’t.

  “Why not?” Because he’s not an asshole!

  Tristan studied Brandon for quick moment while he took a drink and then said, “Few reasons…one, I don’t get off on coercing chicks, that’s fucked up. Two, my batting average makes her nervous so she’s agreed to walk me instead of saying I hit a foul and me having to pick up the bat again…and don’t get me wrong, I’m more than goddamned grateful for getting that because I also made a fuckin’ error, so I’m just lucky to still be in the goddamned game at all. And three, stealing is a contract violation, the consequences of which would be that she’d trade me faster than you can say Bob’s her uncle and I really like being on this team.”

  Aww…that’s so sweet. Isn’t that just so sweet? He deserves some leeway for that.

  “You made an error, huh?” I have no idea how Brandon followed that.

  “Yeah, it was gnarly…I still have nightmares about what happened,” Tristan answered with a small shiver.

  “So do I,” I said and shivered right along with him.

  He tilted his head back and gave me a heart wrenching apologetic look and a tender little kiss to go with it that made me feel like crying. I just wrapped my arms around him and held him tight.

  “Um, how do you make an error?” This time it was Bridget who asked and it sounds like she’s just trying to figure out if they’re still talking about sex, actual baseball, or something else entirely.

  “No, really…I literally have fuckin’ nightmares about that and Camie can’t eat licorice anymore, so let’s move on.”

  So we did. However, that doesn’t mean the conversation got any less personal or outrageous.

  We played a game…

  7.

  A Veritable Rainbow Of Color & A Submarine

  “Okay, speaking of games, I’m making an executive decision…we’re gonna play Have You Ever. The rules are thus, if you have ever you have to drink but if you have and don’t own up to doing the deed and get caught, you have to drink twice on top of the original drink. However, if someone calls you out incorrectly, that person has to drink twice. So, that makes three drinks total for not being honest and two drinks for being wrong, everyone got it?” Derek said, trying to move away from the subject of Tristan’s and my nightmares. Tristan however wasn’t so sure we wouldn’t end up having worse ones as a result of playing this particular game.

  We stayed where we were and while everyone else was preparing many beverages in advance and getting themselves situated in a circle in the tent, Tristan looked at me and whispered, “Maybe I shouldn’t play…”

  “Why not?” I asked and moved a piece of his hair out of his eyes.

  His response was a lifted brow and a dubious statement. “Really? Have you ever? With a two drink penalty for not ownin’ up to something? Camie, there’s a whole mess of shit a game like this can dredge up and with some of the people playing in this particular group, if I can’t pull off some really convincing lying I’m gonna get fuckin’ tanked and you’re gonna end up finding out about God only knows what without being forewarned…”

  “Tristan, I’m not gonna let you sit out of a game with our friends just because someone might dig up a skeleton of yours from before you even met me for crying out loud…tell the truth or go ahead and get drunk, I’ll be fine either way. Besides, it’s just a game.”

  “Yeah, you say that now but trust me, we don’t want me that drunk and just watch, it’ll start out being just a game but it’ll end up being like a fuckin’ war and it has the potential to get really nasty. And Camie, you know what’ll happen if we really get into it…I just wanna avoid getting us caught in the crossfire at all costs, you know what I mean?”

  Yeah I know what he means…if we start bickering it’ll most likely escalate into a fight and then we’ll end up demonstrating for our friends, my cousins and their friends the odd way Tristan and I vent our anger. Ugh,
no thanks…

  “Yeah okay, I see your point…well, let’s have a codeword we can use to let each other know if we’re not having fun anymore and if that happens, we’ll both just stop playing and then we can deal with it alone, sound good?”

  “Sweet! I knew we’d need a safe-word eventually! Now we need a benign word we’ll be able to call the game with…ooh, what about rai—”

  “Please can we use butterfly?” Jeff interrupted, sticking his head right in between Tristan’s and mine, and reminding us both that he’d been a witness to that conversation last month when Tristan had to explain to me what a safe-word even was.

  Tristan shoved his head away and laughing he said, “You mind your own fuckin’ business…butterfly works for me though.”

  “I’m good with butterfly too,” I told him.

  “This is gonna be great!” Jeff enthused, still with his head in our personal space.

  “Go away. You’re one of the reasons we need a word to play the game in the first place…goddamned gravedigger. But Baby, you do realize there’s standing room only in my cemetery, right?”

  “I do now, but it doesn’t matter anyway. We’ll be fine,” I said, being proud of how confident I sounded. Truth is, after how I’ve handled hearing about bits of his past before, I’m a little nervous about how I might react. But who knows…I could be selling myself short and nothing I don’t already know about might not even come up.

  Jeff gave out a little cackle of glee and rubbed his hands in expectation, making me doubt what I’d just thought. “Excellent! Alright buddy, you ready to get your drink on?”

  “Aw Jesus…I’m gonna end up plowed…”

  Kate then shoved Jeff further back and to Tristan she said, “Small sips.”

  Both Tristan and Jeff looked at her and simultaneously asked, “What’s a small sip?”

  The four of us started laughing and then realized the game was beginning so we quieted down enough to hear the first question. It was asked by Bridget who I think still doesn’t believe Pete is straight and is trying to use the game to confirm whether he plays for the same team or not.