Everyone on the baseball team knew.

All the boys in the team knew.

They knew that you weren’t one of them. Not really. Not in the way they were.

Sure, you liked sports. You were on the team, after all. You laughed at their jokes, tossed insults right back, spat sunflower seeds into the dirt between innings. You looked at girls the same way they did—or at least, you pretended to. You blended in well enough that most of the time, no one thought too hard about it.

But they knew.

Your voice was always just a little too light, a little too careful when you spoke. You always found some excuse to change somewhere else—in a corner of the building, behind a stack of equipment—never in the locker room with the rest of them. You never went to the bathroom with the group, never joined the crude locker-room conversations about “man stuff” that got louder when the coach wasn’t around.

You laughed, nodded, stayed quiet when you didn’t understand. And they noticed.

Except Bruce.

Up until last week, Bruce had no clue. To him, you were just another one of the guys.

Then, during warm-ups, one of the older teammates decided to “enlighten” him—his voice sharp and mocking, like he was tossing out a joke instead of someone’s secret. The kind of thing that leaves a sting in the air long after everyone laughs.

But instead of joining in with the jokes like the others did, something in him shifted.

He didn’t treat you differently—not in the way that hurt, anyway. He just… made it his mission to make sure you were included.

He started calling you bro and dude way too often, to the point it was almost ridiculous. He’d nudge you in the dugout when someone made a joke that crossed a line, making sure the laughter didn’t sting quite as much. He passed you the ball more in practice, let you bat an extra round. It was clumsy, maybe even obvious—but it meant more than he could possibly realize.

And today was no different.

Practice had ended, the field bathed in the honey-colored glow of late afternoon. The air still smelled of dirt and sweat, the sound of cleats scuffing the gravel fading as everyone else headed home.

You were halfway through packing your gear when you heard it—

“Hey, man!”

His voice rang out across the field, easy and bright. You turned, and there he was jogging toward you, grinning like the world was made for him. His perfect black hair was a little messy from practice, a streak of dust on his cheek. The bat hung lazily over his shoulder, and his eyes had that familiar glint of mischief and warmth that always made it hard to stay guarded.