Page 14 of Totally Played
“Your brother’s profile said he played for Animal something. What’s your team called?”
“He plays for Animal Control; I play for the Funky Monkeys.”
“For real?”
“Real as it gets. We’re the two newer teams in the league. We play one of the OG teams tomorrow night, and then both OG’s go head-to-head on Sunday.”
He nods, mostly keeping his eyes fixed on the television as I go over the major differences between our game and MLB. We watch the replay of Ryan pitching his fastball right into Dave’s glove. One benefit of watching on the television is the commentary and the extra information you get on screen. The speed counter in the corner is one of those benefits, and after Ryan’s next pitch, it shows one-zero-three point five.
I see Ash’s brows pick up.
“Shit, that’s fast,” he says, shaking his head like he’s not quite believing what he’s seeing. “So you only play for two hours?”
“Sort of, if we hit the two-hour mark, we jump right to the last inning.”
“Where every run is a point?”
“Yep, see not so hard to get a handle on.” Music starts to play, and the commentators begin talking about Ryan’s stats, and Tony steps up to bat. Ash glances my way and back to the screen a few times, like he’s trying to guess if it’s me or my brother.
“That’s Tony, right?” he says with an odd confidence.
“You sure?”
“Yep. You’re…different.”
“Pretty sure the definition of identical twins would refute that statement.”
“No, seriously, I don’t know what it is. But that’s him. I can see it now. When I first saw you, I thought you looked different from your picture.”
“No way! You totally thought I was Tony.”
“I mean, I did, because I brushed aside my gut feeling, because how often do you meet up with the identical twin of the guy you’re supposed to be hooking up with?”
“I knew it was that kind of app,” I say, pulling out my phone to text my asshole brother.
“Shit, no! I meant meet up with. There are no expectations on the app.”
“You sure about that?”
“You thought the app might be a hookup thing, and you still came anyway?”
My cheeks burn, and I go to drink my beer, but I’ve already finished this one, too. Fuck, I have to slow down. I’ve got a game tomorrow.
“I wasn’t… I didn’t…”
“Relax. I’m just fucking with you.” He laughs. “So, tell me more about Banana Ball.”
Chapter six
Ashley
Onceitbecameabro-date, Calvin’s term, not mine, the stress that normally sits in my gut, the will they like me, will I like them drama, all melted away and it became really easy to just hang out with him. Actually, the more it went on, the more I started to see that Calvin would be the perfect guy for me, if only he wasn’t straight. Though maybe that’s why I’m not seeing any of the things I would focus on if we were dating for real. I’m not overanalyzing every action. Was he late, did he talk with food in his mouth, did he look at the servers and have manners when ordering, will he look around the room at other men? You know… the ick. But I wasn’t doing that with Calvin, or he just didn’t do anything that turned me off. We talked about hockey and Banana Ball, and I’m actually enjoying watching the replay of his earlier game. I hate to admit that Redmond was right. Banana Ball is pretty epic.
“No way, come on, he was safe!” I yell at the television as Calvin chuckles beside me.
“Dude, it’s a replay, remember?”
“Shit, yeah, sorry.”
