Playing The Hot Corner

I Miss You – Blink-182

Joe wasn’t there when I woke up. He wasn’t in any of the other guys’ rooms. This was the worst timing in the world – of course it had to happen the day of a game against the team we’re barely behind in the division. I roamed the entire hotel looking for him, and didn’t see him once. I made my way back up to our room, knowing I wasn’t going to last extremely long. It was only 8:00 in the morning, and I was having one of the biggest emotional breakdowns of my life.

I leaned on the wall, the tears finally falling. I never cried. Never. Now, here I was, falling apart. I slid down the wall, my face in my hands, sobbing. I tucked my knees up into my chest, hugging myself into a ball.

The years of having my best friend at my side were over, just because of one night.
I had the tiniest inkling of feelings for him over the past few years, and last night, I realized I loved him as more than my best friend. It all blew up, and now it’s done. I’ve screwed the J duo.

I felt a hand on mine, and I let it pull me up into a pair of arms. I instantly recognized the faint cologne and burrowed into Kevin’s chest, trying to curb my tears. I took deep breaths as he rubbed my back, mumbling “Ssh” and kissing the top of my head. He held me tight, comforting me without even knowing why.

“I saw Joe leave early this morning,” he said into my hair.

“Whoops doesn’t even cover it.”

“Wanna stay with me tonight?”

I nodded, grateful he didn’t ask why. For a while, we just stood there, him holding me. I eventually calmed down, and when I did, Kevin had me go get my uniform and equipment so I didn’t have to be in there when Joe came back. I wasn’t ready to face him – I didn’t know what I was going to say.

~

“Shit, Justin, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Justin sat on the park bench with Joe, looking at his best friend. Joe was in agony, he could tell. After hearing the story Joe told, he didn’t really know what to think. The two slept together, okay. But they had no idea what the other was thinking. Personally, Justin didn’t think Joe should have run off. He should have stayed and talked to Jess. Justin knew the two of them would be unbelievable as a couple, but then this happened.

“You need to talk to her. Is this going to throw off your game?”

“No. No, it’s shouldn’t.” Joe paused, his head in his hands. “I don’t know. I’ve been at odds with her before. We’ve had disagreements, but we’ve never been mad at each other.”

“You’re not mad at each other.” Justin leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “You just need to talk to her. She’s probably worried about where the hell you are, and probably as stressed as you are about this. You just need to get it over with and talk to her.”

“I’m nervous. What if I screw everything over? I won’t be able to live without her, Justin. Those few months that we didn’t speak, I hated everything. Now that I’ve gotten her back, I can’t lose her.”

“That’s why you need to talk to her. If you stay back like this, nothing’s going to get done. She needs to know what I just heard: that you don’t want to lose her. Okay?” This is why Justin was the kind of person that people came to with their problems. He knew how to fix them.
He heard Joe sigh heavily, and Joe nodded. “Yeah.” Joe stood from the bench and started walking away, back in the general direction of the hotel. Justin watched him for a second, wondering how a friendship like theirs could have fallen so fast.

~

Kevin glanced down the bench and moved from the bullpen to where Justin was standing. It was now or never that he was going to found out what happened to Jess – the two of them were on bases and most of the bench had cleared out due to the bases being loaded and up-to-bats.

“Justin, can I talk to you?”

Justin, already knowing what this was about, nodded quickly and moved with Kevin to the deserted end of the bench.

“I know something happened between them, because I found Jess sobbing in the hallway next to their hotel room. I’m assuming you know something.”

“Look, you have to keep this quiet. Neither of them would fare well if this got out.”

“Yeah, I know. I wasn’t planning on saying anything.”

Justin took a breath. “It was kind of spur of the moment, but they ended up sleeping together last night.”

Kevin raised his eyebrows. “Not like Jess said yesterday, but…the real deal?”

Justin nodded. “Do you think she’s going to be okay?”

Kevin shook his head. “She might look okay, but she’s broken. So, they slept together and then what?”

“Joe took off without thinking. I went after him and he told me everything. What about her?”

“I heard their door slam, then a little later, I heard movement outside. I looked and she was sitting on the floor, crying. I didn’t’ even ask, I just picked her up and held her. It really shook me to see her like that, you know?”

Justin nodded again, not even knowing how he would have reacted to seeing Jess like that.

“I told Joe to talk to her, but obviously he hasn’t listened.”

“That needs to happen.” Kevin watched Jess dive into home plate, barely avoiding the tag. She jogged into the dugout and both Kevin and Justin were silent, doing their handshakes like always and letting her go take her helmet off. They glanced at each other, knowing the smile on her face was fake and that she was ready to break down at any second.

“We need to do something.”