Logan Jean used to be inseparable from his best friend and teammate, Riley Sinclair. From stick ball to Little League to state championships, Logan and Riley were a team of two. That changed one fateful night near the end of high school, when Logan lost the best person in his life over a stupid mistake he never meant to make.
Now adults, Logan must face Riley in what might be the turning point of his Minor League career. Riley is no doubt getting called up to the Majors, Logan hopes to get called up as well, and both are competing for this season’s MVP award. But if he can’t strike out the one batter that’s haunted him since high school, Logan may never get his big break.
Riley Sinclair has spent the past seven years getting into their ex-best friend’s head to taunt and psych him out, trying to beat him on the baseball field, instead of trying to undo the damage they’d done to their relationship when they were younger. Tonight, after the biggest game of their Minor League careers, Riley might have one last chance to explain to Logan what really happened all those years ago, and maybe fix what’s been broken.
Does Logan have what it takes to strike out his biggest rival in the league? Can Riley muster up the nerve to finally say to Logan what they’ve wanted to all this time? Or will the two of them remain strangers, standing sixty-feet apart, forever?
This time, when James asked for a fastball, Logan didn’t even think about it. He did it on purpose, one hundred percent deliberate, that much he knew, but he did it before thinking. The fastest ball of the game, ninety-six miles per hour, thrown so inside that Riley needed to drop into the dirt to avoid getting nailed by it.
“Watch it, Jean!” the umpire warned. “One more stunt like that, and you’re outta here!”
Riley, on the other hand, rose back to their feet with a familiar smirk on their face. They didn’t wipe the dirt off themself. Didn’t take their eyes off Logan. They’d been the one who’d taught Logan to do that in the first place.
Riley cracked their neck and rolled out their shoulders. Took a stance again, this time not crowding the plate as much. Riley’s gaze narrowed in on Logan as if to say, okay, that’s how you wanna play it?
The answer was a resounding yes, of course. After all these years of unanswered questions. Of unresolved tension and unspoken feelings. The answer was yes.
Just so Riley understood, Logan gave them a curt nod and then refocused on the game.
Tonight it ended.
One way or another, this was going to end. Logan needed to put a stop to it all. Cut the tension with this last pitch. Enough was enough, and he’d no longer skirt around the past, while Riley danced on toward the future, never once looking back, without even giving two shits about Logan anymore.
Turning back around, Logan took in a deep, calming breath. He knew which pitch he needed to throw. He’d perfected it as best as he possibly could, and it was the one pitch he knew Riley had trouble hitting. Difficult to execute, but it’d be so worth it if it worked.
Logan used it so rarely that it took James five tries to figure out what he was planning, and when he did, he held his hand up to the umpire before getting to his feet to jog over to the mound.
“Are you shittin’ me?” he asked when he got there. “That’s not even close to your strongest pitch.”
Logan nodded. “I know. But it’s the only one I know they have trouble with. It’s my best shot.”
Sighing, James shrugged and clapped a hand over Logan’s shoulder in trust that he knew what he was doing.
“Don’t make me regret vouching for you, my man.”
He trotted back behind the plate where Riley, instead of taking any practice swings, simply stood there holding their bat across the back of their shoulders as though they’d been growing impatient. Their eyebrows lifted -- another expression Logan knew. Riley wanted to psych him out even more, same as they used to do to other pitchers and occasionally Logan when they played as children. The old let’s hurry this up, I gotta get through with this and do something more important ploy. Unfortunately, it worked rather well against him.
Once James was in position, and Riley took their stance, Logan got the ball ready for the one pitch that had the best chance at striking Riley out.
A knuckle ball.
Logan held his breath once more. He closed his eyes and thought only about this moment. One right throw and this would all be over and done with. He opened his eyes. Everything disappeared around him. All the noise. The crowds. His teammates. The MVP award. A call up to the Majors. The world once again washed away and became nothing more than Logan Jean and Riley Sinclair.
Tunnel vision, Jeanie Boy. Just me an’ you, pal. Put it right in my glove and no one’ll ever get a hit off ya.
Logan released his breath, a burst of frosty autumn air curling around in front of him. In all the silence and emptiness, Logan wound up and fired what he hoped to be his very last pitch of the game. The pitch was hard. It was fast. It was erratic, the way a knuckle ball should be.
It took no more than an instant to get there, but for Logan, it might as well have been an hour. Time, apparently, had decided to work in slow motion. Nothing else existed beyond his heavy breaths and his pounding heart and the batter sixty feet away.
The ball finally reached them.
And Riley swung.
