Ozzie’s eyes were blown wide, his pupils swallowing the hazel of his irises. His chest was rising and falling in shallow, jagged hitches. He looked wrecked, because of me.
I finally grabbed my glove from the bench, my fingers grazing his one last time.
“Get your head in the game, Ford,” I said, my voice returning to its usual captain’s bark as I stepped past him. “We’ve got six innings left.”
I jogged out to my position on the grass, my blood humming. I could feel his gaze burning a hole in the back of my jersey all the way to the field. I knew I’d just lit a fuse, and I had no intention of putting it out.
But I did. And I wanted him to know.
Just remember who dealing with you, Ozzie Ford.
* * *
The locker room was a riot. Music was blasting—some bass-heavy track that shook the floorboards—and Miller was currently dousing the bench coach in a stray bottle of sparkling cider. We’d taken the Jaybirds down 4-2, a solid win to set the tone for the season, and normally, I’d be right in the middle of the noise.
But I wasn’t.
I was distracted. I was scanning the room, my eyes skipping over the celebrating bodies, looking for that boy with a pair of stubborn hazel eyes.
Ozzie.Where was he?
His locker was empty and his gear was thrown inside in a messy heap. He was gone.
A knot tightened in my gut. I’d pushed him hard in that dugout. Maybe too hard. I’d basically told the kid I wasobsessedwith him and then told him to go play ball like I hadn’t just set his world on fire.
Why was I obsessed about him? It wasn’t just the way he played. I’d seen thousands of guys with “potential” burn out before the All-Star break. No, with Ozzie, it was the way he existed in the spaces between the plays.
I’m a man of routines. I lace my left cleat before my right; I tap the resin bag three times; I never look at the scoreboard when I’m trailing. My life is a series of controlled, rigid boxes designed to keep the “Captain” persona from cracking. But Ozzie? Ozzie is chaos wrapped in a home white jersey.
I became obsessed with the details no one else noticed. The way he bites his lower lip when he’s studying a pitcher’s throw. The way he wipes his palms on his thighs before stepping into the box, a nervous habit that makes my own hands itch to reach out and steady him.
But it’s the light in him that haunts me. This game is a meat grinder—it takes young, hopeful kids and turns them into cynical, tired men. I’ve been a tired man for a long time. But when I look at Ozzie after he makes a sliding stop, seeing that dirt smeared across his nose and that “can you believe we get to do this?” look in his eyes… it wakes me up.
He’s the only fucking thing in this stadium that feels real. The roar of the fans is white noise. He’s the anchor I didn’t know I was searching for, and now that I’ve felt it, I’m terrified of what happens if the line snaps. He just turns me on.
Fuck.I should just go find him and apologize. Maybe I creep him out.
Go find him, Lindson. Now.
I grabbed a towel and headed toward the back hallway, the one that led away from the noise and toward the training roomsand the secondary exit. The air got cooler as I moved away from the party.
Within minutes, I find him. He was near the equipment tunnel, looking fucking handsome as ever.
The stadium was mostly dark now, the big lights hummed as they cooled down, and the only light came from the dim overheads of the tunnel. Ozzie was leaning against a stack of gear trunks, his jersey unbuttoned over a grey undershirt, his head tilted back against the cold metal. He looked exhausted, but when he heard my cleats on the concrete, his head snapped around.
“Looking for someone?” he asked. His voice was raspy, stripped of the sass he usually used as a shield.
Yeah. You.
I didn’t stop until I was standing right in front of him, blocking the exit. The celebration muffled behind the heavy doors made it feel like we were the only two people left in the world.
“You disappeared,” I said, my voice dropping into that low register that only seemed to come out when I was around him. “We just won, Oz. You should be in there.”
“I couldn’t,” he muttered, finally looking up at me. The bravado was gone. He looked raw. “I couldn’t sit in there and pretend like my skin isn’t crawling because of what you said. You can’t just… say things like that and expect me to go grab a beer and act like one of the boys.”
This boy….
I stepped closer, my shadow swallowing him whole. I reached out, my hand landing on the equipment trunk on either side of his waist, trapping him. “What do you want me to do, Ozzie? Take it back?”