1 Chapter 1

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.

—Babe Ruth

From third grade on, Stacy Evans spent more time in the principal’s office than most other students—for fighting in the halls and talking back to teachers, forgetting his homework, cheating once on a test. Only once, because most of the time he didn’t care much if he passed or failed. School bored him. Early on in high school there was the jv baseball team to keep him busy—he made the cut his freshman year, he had a damn good pitching arm and wasn’t too bad with the bat, either—but too many detentions after school kept him away from practice and he wasn’t picked for varsity. He told himself he didn’t care.

He never considered himself a jock. He spent too much time in trouble to be the school’s all-star player. His sophomore year at Petersburg High that title belonged to Rick Major, a preppy kid with skin the color of polished ebony. Stacy hated him. In the eyes of the teachers, Rick could do no wrong, but when the coach was out of earshot, he and his buddies used to corner Stacy in the locker room after a game.

“Yo Stay-see,” Rick would say, his deep voice creeping up an octave or two. With his back to the guys, Stacy would hunch his shoulders and duck his head so they couldn’t see the color rising in his cheeks or his lower lip, bloodless, caught between his teeth. He yanked up his pants so hard, the seam cut into his crotch. His hands shook as he buttoned the fly. Behind him the other guys laughed, following Rick’s lead.

It was after the last jv game of the season when Rick stepped over the bench to lean against the locker beside Stacy’s. His wide eyes looked shocked, so white against his dark skin. “Stace,” he purred, in that ‘listen to me’ voice teenaged boys seem to have perfected.

Stacy ignored him, concentrating instead on getting his uniform into his bag and himself away from the guys who circled him. Rick tried again. “Stacy. I know you hear me. I’m standing right up on you.”

On cue, the guys laughed. Stacy felt his face burn, his eyes sting. Reaching into his locker, he snagged his baseball cap and tugged it over his sandy hair, damp with sweat. Two weeks’ prior at an away game Rick pulled something similar, egging him on, in the team bus that time, and Stacy’s temper landed him in-school suspension for three days after the fight. He wasn’t falling for that shit, not again.

He started to shut his locker but Rick stopped it with one foot. Closing his eyes, Stacy took a deep breath. Oh no you didn’t—“Leave me alone.”

The laughter was gone. Stacy felt a dozen hot stares on his back, heard the first whisper from somewhere on the other side of the lockers, “Fight.” The whole team was waiting for his reaction, watching him…all except the coach, who had an uncanny knack for looking the other way on these locker room scuffles whenever his boy-star was involved.

“Or what?” Rick wanted to know.

A giggle punctuated his words, someone thought this was too damn funny to hold back. Gang up on Stacy, he had piss-poor grades and his momma couldn’t be bothered to rag on the coach about the way her son was treated by his teammates. One of the few kids at Petersburg who wasn’t black or Latino or in some way mixed but straight up Caucasian, tanned from the sun but still white. One of the shop boys who tended to kick it up, even dared to call Principal Harold Dugan ‘Dirty Harry’ to his face. Who would care if they picked on him?

Rick leaned closer and Stacy could smell chewing gum on his breath. “Hey Stacy.” His low voice carried surprisingly well in the quiet locker room. Somewhere far away Stacy could hear the drip of water in the showers. Someone slammed a locker, someone else hissed, “Shh.” Rick had them enthralled, every one. Stacy wished he could disappear.

With the quick reflexes that made him such a valuable player, Rick snatched the cap from Stacy’s head. Before Stacy could react, Rick jammed it onto his own head, hiding his tight curls. Taking a step back, his wide lips spread into a dazzling grin. “Funny how your momma gave you a girl’s name,” Rick said as he straightened Stacy’s cap, “when you don’t even like chicks. Was it just a lucky guess? Or did she know you’d be a fag?”

Their laughter smothered Stacy. A familiar anger surged through his veins, sizzling his blood, short-circuiting his brain. Without thinking, he threw himself at Rick and barreled into the other boy. Stacy’s shoulder caught him low in the chest, knocking out Rick’s breath in a great whoosh, and they both fell to the floor. Stacy’s fists pummeled Rick’s stomach with a fury of blows. Around them a chant started up, fight fight—Stacy timed his jabs to the rhythm of the crowd.