Learning How to Play.

I don’t even know how it started . . .

I had always had a thing for the baseball players. That All-American look and those lean muscles.

Keith was the standard example of the baseball player. Tall and lean, with an effortless tan. He had dark brown eyes and dark brown hair and the most perfect lips I had ever seen in my life. Sometimes I would spy him chewing in class, spitting in to a Mountain Dew can. And sometimes we would catch each other looking at the other and smile.

I know it was spring. I know it was that last semester of high school when feelings, emotions, and hormones are running wild. Your last chance to get it all in.

Baseball season may or may not have been over. Track season may or may not have been over.

I was at work, as I always was. Keith started coming in more and more often, and later and later into the night. Sometimes he wouldn’t even be buying anything, just waiting out in the parking lot propped against his car.

I don’t even know how it happened, but one night he was waiting out by my car when I got off from work. Propped against the Cougar. God, I hated those cars. But there he was and I decided, “why not?” and let my guard down and jumped in the passenger seat after he opened the door for me.

I didn’t even call my Mom to tell her I would be late. Responsibility was a thing of the past.

We didn’t really have much to talk about. He was playing the new Nas album and I nodded my head like I had heard it before. But of course I hadn’t.

Next thing I knew we were pulling into the little league field. It was dark and we were alone and who the hell actually does this . . .

But then all I could think about were those perfect lips. Those perfect lips right in front of me, waiting. I had no idea how I had gotten myself into this situation, but I had better take advantage of it while I could. Perfect lips don’t come along every day. And so I dived in.

I emerged about half an hour later. Perfect lips can pull you in. It was late, and I needed to get back home. Needed to get home before my Mom noticed how late it was and, most importantly, before I got myself in too deep.

She didn’t even notice that my lips were chapped.

* * *

And then I was right back where I had left off.

Somehow he was leading me through his house, down to the basement. We passed his mom sitting at the kitchen table and she gave a small nod of acknowledgement. She could tell I wasn’t permanent.

The basement was dark and the couch was old. He turned on the TV and all I remember was seeing Kevin Costner and a baseball. That was it.

I didn’t know where the time had went and then the movie was over and he was guiding me upstairs and out the door. My lips were chapped again and I was disoriented from the dark. His mom nodded without looking up.

He took me to my car and I drove home slightly confused and starting to think this could be more than chapped lips.

* * *

And then I was sitting in economics class and his friend came over to me and said, “Keith told me about this weekend. He said he was glad he had such long arms.”

Again, I was confused and now doubting this would ever amount to more than chapped lips.

* * *

And then I was in the backseat of his Cougar as he sped down Route 2, darting in and out of traffic. He was going at least eighty and I didn’t care.

“Color Blind” was playing and he was singing and I reached my hands out to touch his neck as the lights of the traffic blurred around us.

I thought that meant something.

* * *

And then I was at the senior party watching him and Amy crawl into that tent together, in the middle of broad daylight.

The best part was it didn’t bother me. I could take the chapped lips but I wasn’t ready to be crawling into a tent with him.

Any confusion that had once clouded my thoughts was gone and I suddenly saw things clearly as I walked back to something I could actually pursue . . .

* * *

And then I was sitting with him in Andy’s basement, over a year since the senior party. We were all home for the summer and Andy’s parents were gone.

I had a fifth of beam I was drinking straight out of the bottle. This same bottle would eventually lead to a near-death experience, but that is beside the point.

Keith was tan and pierced and I was tan and pierced.

We all thought we were so much bigger and wiser than we were.

Andy took shots out of his fake eye and Tim sucked a lollipop. And Keith gave me the look again and all I could see were perfect lips.

The night ended with him and me in a guestroom. And I gave into the perfect lips but I would not give into anything else. He was nothing more than perfect lips and the realization that this was the best I had ever been at truly keeping things casual.

I was attracted to him, but didn’t want to be with him. And that was just fine with me.

I left him disappointed in the middle of the night.

* * *

And then I was in the front seat of his truck a year later.

I was home for the weekend. Kristen D. and I were engaging in some friendly competition and he was my ticket to win. As soon as he showed up I knew I would be taking home a victory.

And so I crawled into that front seat with a bottle of Corona and inhaled what he had and I let him kiss me, although the lips no longer seemed as perfect. They had lost their fullness over time and I was disappointed and satisfied at the same time.

I left him disappointed again, but I left with the largest smile I have ever smiled upon my face as I skipped down to the firepit and let Kristen D. know that I had won.

* * *

The truth is I have never been able to hit the ball out of the park.

But at least with Keith I was able to learn when to walk.