Three Strikes - 10. Hypothetically, yes

He wouldn’t admit it, but we all knew Salami had developed an innocent crush on Shane. I didn’t imagined it had anything to do with his charming and wonderful personality, I figured it was more of a lustful crush. That, I could understand and even sympathize with.

We ended up at the ballpark on Friday, thirty minutes early for our game against Hank’s Hardware. We were sitting on the bleachers watching Yarley’s team play against Landry’s Laundry. Yarley’s had quite a few attractive (straight) men on their team and the rest of the DONNAS had taken notice and wanted to watch the live action.

It wasn’t until after their game ended that we found out that Hank’s Hardware had cancelled our for some unknown reason.

I’d leaned back against the metal bleachers and propped myself up with my elbows as I watched my friends try to get the attention of the attractive, yet uninterested, men from Yarley’s team. It was like watching the blooper reel of a mating documentary where the pretty and colorful birds do a funky ass dance to prove themselves as a high quality and worthy mating partners, only instead of birds, they’re dancing in front of a group of elephants.

“Well, this is fun.”

I looked over to see Drew sliding in next to me. He was watching the flirting and laughing with as much amusement as I was.

“It really is. It was worth coming early for. Do you think your heteros know what’s happening right now? Or, are they really so oblivious?”

I wouldn’t say his teammates were flirting back with the DONNAS, but they definitely weren’t doing anything to discourage it. It was almost like they were enjoying the extra attention even though it was from a group of gay guys. They were big, attractive men who could’ve had any girls they wanted...yet there they were...

“Honestly, I have no idea, but I’m going to keep my mouth closed because this is too entertaining.”

He discreetly pointed toward the fence where the twins had cornered Joseph, Yarley’s second baseman. The twins appeared to be thirty seconds away from devouring him and he had no clue. He was innocently smiling and laughing at the conversation, idiot. We pointed out a few of the other odd couplings and had a nice laugh at their expense.

Finally, I looked at Drew, with his cute surfer looks, and asked, “Why aren’t you over there getting fawned over? I know how much you love attention.”

And he did. He might’ve been hopelessly straight, but we flirted. He loved it, and so did I. It was never going to escalate to anything other than flirting and that was okay with me because Drew was becoming a good friend and that was more valuable than anything else.

“Why would I do that when I can sit here and let you flirt with me?” he teased. “All of the heteros will be jealous because I have the hottest of the DONNAS hanging on me. You won’t leave me for one of them, will you?”

He pouted his lip and pointed at the rest of his teammates that were either engaged in platonic flirting or otherwise milling around. I rolled my eyes and blushed at his compliment.

“Why would I do that when I have the hottest DAKS begging me to blow him?” I lightly elbowed him.

He barked at the comment as he grabbed my face with one hand, squeezeing my lips out like a fish, and playfully shook my head back and forth.

“I swear to God, if I were gay, I’d be taking you home right now.”

My face flushed again. The fact he was straight didn’t matter, the thought of him taking me home was making me hard.

I playfully pushed him away from me. “You’re such a cock-tease.”

It was then when I saw Shane strolling toward our general vicinity. Being the only gay man of the DAKS (that had been confirmed) the DONNAS would likely fight tooth and nail over the asshole.

I nudged Drew into Shane’s direction.

“This should be fun. Fairyphobe is about to get attacked by birds of a feather.”

Sure enough, as soon as he was spotted, the DONNAS (or should I say ONNAS because my happy ass wanted nothing to do with him) were on him like white on rice. Salami quickly sat down next to him. Shane looked at Drew and I for help and we both smiled and gave a playful finger wave, letting him know he was on his own.

We watched the group engulf him and, within minutes Salami was practically sitting on Shane’s lap. I was surprised by how well he was taking all of the attention.

We were watching the synchronized dance the DONNAS had prepared specifically for Shane, in an attempt to show him they were the prettiest birds in all the land, when Drew broke the silence.

“Fairyphobe? What do you mean by that?”

“Simple. He seems to have a problem with gay men. And, he’s an asshole.”

“But he’s gay…” Drew narrowed his eyes in confusion.

“Okay, he seems to have a problem with effeminate gay males.”

“He doesn’t seem to have a problem with them right now.”

Drew was right. Shane sat there, surrounded by a group of fairly feminine gay males and one overly flamboyant straight man with seemingly no problems. He wasn’t phased by Salami, who was now literally sitting on his lap. I found the whole situation to be annoying and irritating. He wasn’t an asshole to everyone…only me.

“Well then, I guess I got lucky.”

Still propped up on my elbows, I stretched my legs out in front of me and crossed them at my ankles. Drew was about to say something when Aaron climbed the bleachers and sat on the other side of me, making me the meat in their hetero sandwich. Salami would be jealous, except he was happily perched on Shane’s lap. Aaron greeted me by slapping my shoulder and giving Drew a slight nod.

“Good game today. You guys killed it out there,” I congratulated.

“Nah. Thanks to you guys, Landry’s is the new Dougie’s Design, now that Dougie’s doesn’t suck. It was an easy win.”

I nodded in agreeance. It was true, Dougie’s Design wasn’t gonna be at the bottom of the barrel anymore.

We talked about the game, about the other teams—their strength and weaknesses—and how we thought the season would play out. We agreed on most things except who was going to come out on top, (rooting for our own teams, of course) and that’s what we were arguing about when Shane interrupted us.

“Hypothetically, would you guys want to go out for dinner and drinks at Mully’s tonight?”

Drew excitedly nodded his head and Aaron stuck his thumb out in approval. Shane and the rest of the DONNAS were looking at me and waiting for my answer. Hypothetically, did I want to have drinks with the DONNAS and the DAKS? Sure, of course.

I shrugged, “Sure.”

Shane looked surprised by my answer. “Yeah?”

“It would probably be a good time.”

“Okay,” he smiled. Then looked at his watch. “Mully’s in twenty minutes,” he announced loud enough for everyone to hear.

Everyone quickly disbursed. We were all wearing our game uniforms but I was sure the DONNAS were planning to wear them to Mully’s because they had already spent too much time getting ready. Plus, only Shane, or a hetero, would think twenty minutes was enough time to change for an evening out. Drew, Aaron, and I were shuffling our way off the bleachers when Aaron squeezed my shoulder.

“See you in twenty.”

“Oh—yeah, I’m not going,” I clarified and chuckled at their confusio.

“The answer to Shane’s hypothetical question was yes. Yes, hypothetically, I think it would be fun to hang out with everyone again. But actually—there’s a class at the gym tonight and, now that I don’t have a game, I can actually go, so I’m gonna do that.”

Aaron stopped very suddenly in front of me, making me bumped into him. He looked slightly annoyed, but mostly amused by my response.

“So, you’re not going tonight?”

I shook my head no.

“Because you have a workout class?”

I nodded.

With a sly smile, Drew added, “And because you hate Shane.”

I nodded.

“You know there’ll be eight other people there, right?”

“Yeah, but Shane is the only one who treats me like scum under his shoe and although I’d love to spend the one week anniversary of our drunken mistake under a constant flow of alcohol, I’d rather not spend it with him.”

Drew was about to say something, but Aaron cut him off by placing his hand against his chest.

“No, he’s right. Shane is an ass. For the record, Shane’s an ass to everyone, not just you. It’s who he is.”

“Are you trying to build a case for him or against him? Because I don’t know what’s worse, the fact he’s only an ass to me, or to everyone.”

Aaron laughed. “Neither, I’m only stating the facts. Anyway, you have fun tonight...at your...class. Drew and I will be enjoying ourselves at Mully’s. It’s gonna be quite an interesting night.”

I highly doubted anything was going to be interesting, but with that, we waved goodbye to each other and set out into different directions.

*** *** *** ***

One of the classes offered at the gym was a six week course on parkour. I never would’ve guessed they taught classes on the matter, but I knew I had to do it.

When I arrived, there were fifteen other guys and they were all significantly younger than me. I think they were all friends; in high school or recently graduated.

The parkour itself was awesome. They had faux buildings made out of different materials at varying heights. They taught us how to climb, jump, and throw our bodies around—which was something I was naturally good at. I think my history of always varying my workouts, plus dance and gymnastics, gave me a leg up on everyone else.

However, the company left a lot to be desired. They weren’t a welcoming bunch, so I spent the majority of the class alone. At first, it was obvious they had a problem with my sexuality, or at least a few of them did and the others weren’t about to step out of line. By the end, it was clear they had a big problem with the fact I was so much better than they were. Whatever. That was their problem, not mine.

Regardless, by the time I showered and changed, I was in a less than shiny mood. People are so fucking dumb sometimes. I checked my phone as I left the gym and found a list of unread text messages, most of them from the DONNAS, begging me to go to Mully’s, plus one from Drew that said.

[Drew] Aaron and I agree that ur the glue that holds these two groups together. Everyone’s pouting and it's awkward. At least come watch Shane and the birds. Drinks on us. Plz come.