Chapter 7

2

“Benson! Hey Benson!” The voice of Jeff Schneider, the Thunderbolts pitching coach, cut through the fog that swirled in O.B.’s mind. He’d had a rough night. Sleep had come easily but he’d wakened several times from disturbing dreams. Some were about Chuck. In those dreams he’d imagined Chuck as more than a casual fuck, more like someone he cared about. The other dreams, which bothered him the most, were more like nightmares. In them the stranger he had seen at the bar and thought he recognized was stalking him, trying to find out who he was. It seemed to O.B. in the dream that the man wanted to expose him, to let the world and his teammates know he was a gay baseball player. The worst part was toward morning, when he’d woken with a start. He thought he knew who the man was. The guy was someone O.B. had seen before, but couldn’t quite put his finger on who or where.

“What?” O.B. barked as he shook off the images he was mulling over.