Three Strikes, You're Mine: Chapter Five - The Morning After

Liam is tired of playing the hero. In the grey light of a Philadelphia hotel room, the masks finally slip. What started as a technical argument over a slider turns into a collision of years of unspoken need. The "Second Strike" doesn't just rattle the count; it dismantles everything.

Chapter Five

The Morning After

Liam

The sun isn't a hero in this story. It’s a snitch. It’s just beginning to bleed through the microscopic gaps in the heavy hotel curtains, carving jagged lines across the carpet of Room 1204. I’m lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the Philadelphia morning begin to wake up outside, the distant hiss of a bus’s air brakes, the faint honk of a horn. Inside, the only sound is the rhythmic, mechanical hum of the air conditioner and the terrifyingly steady breathing of the man lying three inches to my left.

My body feels heavy, not the usual post-game soreness where my rotator cuff screams and my knees ache, but a thick, soul-deep exhaustion. For the first time in three years, the restless, jagged static that usually vibrates in my blood has gone quiet. The storm has passed, but the wreckage it left behind is everywhere.

I shift my legs, and the rustle of the high-thread-count sheets sounds like a landslide in the quiet room. We’re tangled together in a mess of white linens. My Beacon Heights hoodie is a dark heap on the floor; his glasses are perched precariously on the mahogany nightstand next to a half-empty bottle of water. The rivalry that’s defined my entire professional existence, the hate I used as fuel every time I stepped onto the mound—was burned away in the heat of the night, leaving nothing but the raw, stinging truth behind.

Slowly, carefully, I turn my head. My cheek brushes against the cool pillowcase, and I watch the steady rise and fall of Finn’s shoulders.

He looks different when he isn't trying to out-calculate the universe. The sharp, analytical edge he carries like a suit of armor has softened in sleep. His face is pressed into the mattress, his dark hair a chaotic mess against the pale sheets, and I can see the faint, dark marks on his skin where I’d gripped him too hard in the dark. Seeing him like this, vulnerable, quiet, and fundamentally mine for this one stolen moment—makes my chest tighten in a way that has nothing to do with my heart rate on a 3-2 count.

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Earlier in the day - The longest bus ride

I close my eyes and I’m back on the bus. Four hours of psychological warfare disguised as a road trip. I’d spent the entire ride from Boston to Philly with my noise-canceling headphones pushed so tight against my ears they left imprints, blasting a playlist I couldn't even hear. I didn't need the music; I just needed a wall.

I knew he was back there. Three rows behind me. I could feel his eyes on the back of my neck like a physical weight, like a scout’s radar gun tracking my every twitch. Finn Miller is a man of patterns, a man who believes every human action can be mapped out on a spreadsheet, but I’m a man of instincts. And my instincts were screaming that the "First Strike" at Beacon Heights Park hadn’t been a warning. It had been the start of a collapse.

When Coach Thompson called our names for the room assignment, I felt the blood drain from my face. I expected the world to stop. I expected Finn to stand up and deliver a ten-minute presentation on why putting the team’s star pitcher and its most polarizing "strategic" acquisition in a confined space was a violation of team chemistry and common sense.

But he didn't. He just stood there, white-knuckled and silent, looking like he’d just been told he was being sent down to the minors. And I? I was too much of a coward to look him in the eye. I knew if I saw those golden flecks in his brown eyes, the mask I’d been wearing since New York would crack right there in the lobby in front of Guzman and Ricci.

The elevator ride had been a slow-motion execution. The mirrored walls were a nightmare, showing me the two of us—two men who should have been at opposite ends of the earth—trapped in a six-by-six box. I’d muttered that bullshit about staying out of each others way, a pathetic attempt to draw a line in the sand that I knew I was going to cross the second the door clicked shut.

Inside Room 1204, the air had been thick enough to choke on. I’d tried to play the part of the brooding, untouchable Ace. I’d stripped off my hoodie, thrown myself onto the bed closest to the window, and stared at the scouting report on my tablet until the words blurred into meaningless shapes. I tried to ignore the sounds of him in the bathroom. The click of the door. The hiss of the faucet. The scent of that damn minty soap he uses. It was too intimate. It felt like we were already sharing a life, and I hated how much I liked it.

Then he came out. And because he’s Finn Miller, because he can’t leave a single thing unoptimized—he had to coach me.

"You're still over-rotating on your delivery," he’d said.

His voice was soft, but it hit me harder than any line drive I’ve ever taken to the ribs. I didn't look up at first, but I could feel him standing there in the amber glow of the city lights, watching the blue light of the tablet carve out the hard lines of my shoulders. He started talking about my slider, about the humidity, about the "three-inch drop" in my delivery.

He was trying to fix me. He’s always trying to fix things, to make them fit into his little boxes of logic and probability. He thinks if he can control the mechanics, he can control the outcome. And I finally snapped.

I stood up slowly, the movement predatory. I stepped into that narrow, shadowed space between our two beds—the "no-man's land" that had vanished the second we walked in. I wanted to see him flinch. I wanted to see that New York composure shatter into a million pieces. I’d asked him what his "strategy" was for the fact that I couldn't look at him without wanting to tear the world apart.

I told him I was losing my focus. I told him he was the only thing I saw when I closed my eyes.

When I finally touched him, just a ghost of a brush, my fingers tracing the sensitive skin just below his ear—it felt like a lightning strike. It wasn't a distraction. It was the only real thing I’d felt in years. And when he grabbed my wrist, I expected him to throw me off. I expected him to be the "professional" one, the one who reminded me about the 1:00 PM start time and the team's standing in the AL East.

But his pulse was racing under my thumb. It was a frantic, galloping rhythm that matched the roar in my own ears. He wasn't stopping me. He was anchoring me.

"You're a teammate, Liam," he’d breathed, but even he didn't believe it.

"I'm a man who's tired of pretending I don't want to ruin you," I’d answered. And God, I meant it. I wanted to ruin the rivalry. I wanted to ruin the distance. I wanted to find out if the man under the percentages was as desperate as I was.

The kiss wasn't a kiss. It was a collision. It was three years of beanballs and brush-back pitches and silent glares across the diamond finally reaching critical mass. He tasted like mint and heat and something that felt like home. When his tongue brushed against mine, the sound he made—that low, broken groan of surrender—was more satisfying than any strikeout I’ve ever recorded.

We’d tumbled onto his bed, the blankets a casualty of the war we were finally fighting together. Every touch was a claim. Every gasp was a revelation. When he told me I hated him, I didn't lie. I do hate him. I hate how much power he has over my count. I hate that I can't throw a single pitch without wondering if he’s shifting in center field because he saw something I missed. I hate that he's the only one who truly knows me.

Now, in the grey, unforgiving light of the Philadelphia morning, the "Second Strike" is a matter of record.

I lie there, my arm draped over my eyes, listening to the city wake up and listening to him sleep. My body feels spent, but my mind is already back on the clock. The "Third Strike" is looming over us like a shadow in the batter's box.

This afternoon, we have to walk out of this room. We have to walk past Coach Thompson in the lobby, get on that bus, and go to the stadium. We have to put on the same uniform and pretend that we aren't two people who just spent the night dismantling every boundary between us. We have to be "Miller and Hart" for the cameras, for the fans, and for the teammates who are already suspicious.

But I know, as the sun slowly illuminates the wreckage of our room, that the count has changed forever. It’s no longer about whether we’re rivals or teammates. It’s about whether we can survive the fall when the rest of the world finds out what happened in Room 1204.

I’m the Ace. I’m supposed to be untouchable. He’s the Strategist. He’s supposed to be unshakeable. But right now, we’re just two guys in a hotel suite, caught in the quiet before the inevitable explosion.

I reach out, my fingers barely grazing the dark hair at the nape of his neck. He stirs in his sleep, a small, soft sound escaping him—a sound that isn't for the fans or the coaches, but just for me. For a second, the fear of the "Third Strike" vanishes, replaced by a fierce, terrifying protectiveness.

Whatever happens when we walk out that door, I’m not going back to the way it was. I’m done playing by the old patterns. If the world wants to see us fall, let them watch. I’ve already lost my focus, and looking at him now, I realize I never want to find it again.

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Journal Entry (Scrawled on a crumpled page from the nightstand notepad, tucked under Liam’s heavy silver watch)

Target: Finn Miller.

Observation: I thought I was the one in control. I thought I could pin him down, make him admit he was wrong, and walk away with my ego intact. But the second I touched him, I realized I’ve been the one losing the game all along. He didn't just get under my skin; he moved into the foundation. The "Second Strike" didn't just rattle me—it leveled me. Now, all I can think about is the 1:00 PM start, and the terrifying reality that I have to stand on that mound and look at him in center field without the whole world seeing the ghost of my hands on his skin. I don’t know how to play this game anymore. I only know how to play for him.

Come back next week for another story

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

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Published by LS Phoenix

New Hampshire, USA

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First Edition: February 2026

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