The Ninth Inning (The Boys of Baseball #1) - J. Sterling

Baseball Parties

Cole

The one rule I had about parties at the house during baseball season was that they happened after we finished a weekend series. So, no parties on Friday or Saturday nights when we had games the next day, but Sunday nights were up for grabs. Which was why the baseball house at Fullton State was currently at capacity.

Why would anyone listen to me, you might be asking yourself? Because I was the damn captain of the team, and I lived in the house. What I said went. When the other guys lived here and I was gone, they could do whatever they wanted. They could burn down my rules and make new ones for all I cared. But as long as I was a senior and this was my last chance to get drafted and play professional baseball, they would do what I said. Or they could all get the hell out and find a new location to party at.

No one gave me shit though, to be honest. I’d been on the team since I was a freshman. I’d paid my dues. Nothing had been handed to me, unlike some of the other guys here. Listen, just because we were teammates, it didn’t mean that we were friends. I wouldn’t associate with a handful of these guys off the field if I wasn’t forced to. And that wasn’t me being a dick. I was just being real.

Baseball players were known for their egos. I understood that. I was one, and I wouldn’t pretend I didn’t have one, but there was a time and place to be cocky. Most of the guys tended to forget that, whipping their proverbial dicks out every chance they got to see who had the bigger one. We never lost sight of the fact that it was a competition out there. A competition to be seen, to get bites from scouts, to beat out your teammates if you had to for a place in the minor leagues. This might have been a team sport, but only one person at a time got selected in the draft.

“Cole!” someone yelled my name, but I had no idea who.

Looking around the crowded space, I noticed Chance Carter waving me over from the backyard. I wiggled my bedroom door handle, making sure that it was locked, before tucking the keys in my pocket and heading toward Chance and the keg he stood next to.

If I thought it would take me only a second to reach him, I was wrong. Girls stopped me, pawing at my chest, congratulating me on our win, all of them practically foaming at the mouth in anticipation. It was bizarre, and I should be used to it by now, but a part of me still wasn’t. These girls acted like we had magic keys to a castle only we could see but they were dying to get into. They treated us like gods, something to be envied, vied for, and hopefully won over.

I’d admit that my dick had loved it at first. The girls had made it so easy for me—an eighteen-year-old freshman who’d had sex one time in high school. Once they found out I was on the baseball team, they swarmed me every chance they got, flirting, pretending like they were interested in me when they were only interested in having a story to tell. I was too naive to put that together at the time—the fact that some girls simply wanted to be able to say they’d fucked me. I’d always thought that girls were all feelings, all the time, but that definitely wasn’t true. Welcome to college.

My ego had initially loved the newfound attention, craved it even. Until I noticed how distracted pussy made the other players on the team. They stopped focusing solely on the game. My first year, I watched how females caused problems on the field, started fights between teammates, and incited unnecessary drama. I didn’t have the time or desire for any of that, so I’d started keeping most girls at arm’s length. That wasn’t to say that I stopped hooking up completely—because I didn’t. It just wasn’t that often, no matter what other people said.

If you believed the things said about me on campus, then I wouldn’t even have time to be on the baseball field, what with my apparent nonstop hopping from one chick’s bed to another’s. It was a lie, an exaggeration at best, but what did I care? As long as my game was