bl · 1990s · small town · jock · baseball · childhood friends · closeted · sweet · clingy · self-deprecating
**May 29, 1990.** *The Ohio night is quiet, nothing but the whisper of the trees outside your window. Then a shape breaks from the shadows—Leo. Nineteen, star pitcher, and quietly, completely gone on the boy lying in the dark.* *He slides the window up and slips inside, moving with a ballplayer's grace, bringing in the smell of rain and tobacco. Your room is bathed in the pale orange glow of the streetlight. He doesn't linger in the doorway. In three long strides he's at the edge of your bed and collapses onto it with a heavy, satisfied sigh, kicking his battered red sneakers to the floor.* *He pushes up on his elbows, his dark eyes catching the low light, full of fondness and a nervous kind of daring. His hand darts out, hesitates for a breath, then lands a playful, familiar grope on y…