Play Ball

With a sigh of relief, Collin Braxton watched the last car pull out of the parking lot, ending a very long day. A glance behind him at the pile of baseball equipment still to be packed up reminded the junior high school teacher that his day still wasn't over, but the blond haired twenty-six year old would settle for the last of his after-school charges being out of his care.

It wasn't that he didn't enjoy spending time with the kids; the fact was that he loved it. After all, if he didn't, why would he ever have chosen teaching as a profession? No, it was the extra duties that had been piled on him as low man on the seniority pole that sometimes drained his enthusiasm.

Aside from his normal teaching duties this year, Collin also pulled cafeteria duty twice a week and study group an additional two days – giving him little time during the school day to work on lesson plans or grade work. More often than he liked, he wound up doing both at home on his own time. Still, he knew the drawbacks when he applied for the job, and that eventually he would scale the seniority ladder and the benefits that would bring. Until then, he could handle anything they tossed at him – or so he thought.

That belief had been sorely tested over the last six weeks, ever since Principal Warren had added acting coach for the school's junior varsity baseball team to his duties. Normally, Coach Garcia worked with both the junior and senior teams, but with the latter having their best season in years, one in which they might very well make it to the county championships, the principal decided he should focus all his attention on them.

With that decision being made five weeks into the new term, there was understandably no rush of volunteers to take over the junior team. Unfortunately for Collin, it was brought to Principal Warren's attention that not only had the third year educator gone to college on a baseball scholarship, he had also led his own high school team to a state championship – either of which, in the principal's eyes, more than qualified him to take over the junior team. What wasn't commonly known, however, was that despite a proven aptitude in the area, Collin really had no great love of sports – at least not team competitions. To him, they'd always been just a means to an end, one that he thought he'd put behind him when he'd finished college.

It took another quarter hour to finish putting away the equipment, and as Collin locked the door of the practice field's storage shed, he noticed a red shape leaning against the fence in front of the dugout. Closer examination revealed it to be a student's knapsack, and a check of the attached identification tag showed that it belonged to one of his players.

'Now what am I going to do with this?' Collin asked himself, thinking that he couldn't just take it home and give it back to its owner come Monday because the kid might need it over the weekend.

He was fairly certain that once the boy's parents discovered the knapsack had been left behind, they would come back to look for it. So the simplest solution was to just leave it where he found it. Then a glance at a few dark clouds on the horizon and the recollection that the weather report had called for thunderstorms later in the evening pretty much washed away that idea. He knew from past experience that it didn't take much rain to turn the practice field into a flood zone – which would certainly ruin everything in the bag.

'So what am I supposed to do, wait for them?' he asked himself, finding that an unappealing prospect as he had no idea how long it would take for them to realize the bag had been forgotten.

He looked again at the address on the shoulder strap, a street at the far end of the district, a good twenty minutes away from the school and twice that from his apartment.

"Ah, fuck it," Collin said under his breath as he swung the bag over his shoulder and headed toward his motorcycle, parked at the edge of the field.

As little as he wanted to go that far out of his way, he couldn't in good conscience just leave the bag here to get ruined.

-=-=-=-

"Seventy-two ... seventy-four..." Collin silently read as he slowly cruised down Concord Street, coming to a stop in front of a tan, single story frame house with seventy-eight on the mailbox.

Even though he was only going to be there a minute, Collin locked the bike out of habit and, after pulling the knapsack out of the rear storage container, replaced it with his helmet, tripping the lock on the case as well. A few quick steps brought him up the walk and two more carried him to the porch, where he quickly located for the bell. Reaching for it, his hand paused when he noticed the name above the illuminated button didn't match the one on the tag, a discrepancy that made him double check the address.

Confirming he was in the right place, Collin rang the bell and waited, ringing it a second time when there was no response after a minute. When no one answered the second ring, he decided no one was home. Possibly, they were back at the field looking for the knapsack.

'Guess I could just leave here on the porch,' he thought, glancing down its length for the best place to leave it so it wouldn't get wet if it rained before anyone got home.

Spotting a bench under which it would stay dry, Collin stepped toward it, thinking he'd also leave a note on the door so it would be found. He was halfway there when the front door suddenly opened, causing Collin to pause and turn his head back in that direction.

"May I help you?" asked a woman's voice from behind the screen door.

Collin quickly retraced his steps until he was back in front of the entranceway. The woman on the other side of the screen stood a good half foot shorter than Collin, with short grey hair cut tight round a pleasant face. She had just enough age lines to give her face character, looking to be in her early to mid fifties.

Also from her appearance, he guessed that his unexpected arrival had caught the woman in either the bath or shower and that she had rushed out of it to answer the door. Her hair was still a bit wet and the normally shapeless blue housecoat she had on was damp in enough spots to show there was nothing beneath it but skin.

"I asked if I could help you," the woman repeated, looking at him through the screen with clear intensity.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for Richard Drake," Collin said, hoping that the woman hadn't noticed that he had been staring at her not unimpressive breasts, or more accurately, the pert nipples clearly visible through her thin dress.

"And what would you be wanting Richie for?" she asked, suspicion in her tone as she crossed her arms, making her bounty even more pronounced.

"I have his knapsack." Collin replied, holding it up for her to see.

"Do you now?" she further asked, her suspicion deepening as she took a second long look at him.

A glance down at himself suggested to Collin that he couldn't blame the woman for being guarded. After all, his appearance, dressed as he was with a simple blue and white windbreaker over a skintight black t-shirt and well worn jeans, hardly said responsible member of the community.

"I guess I should explain," Collin said, trying to assure the woman of his propriety with his best smile. "My name is Collin Braxton, I'm a teacher over at Lincoln Middle School, and also Rick's baseball coach. He forgot his bag at practice and I figured I'd drop it off on my way home."

The woman's gaze moved from Collin's face to the bag, then past him to the curb where he had parked his bike, the noise of which she had heard when he'd pulled up. By the time her attention had moved back to him, her expression and demeanor changed almost a hundred and eighty degrees.

"Yes, I do remember hearing Richie mention your name," she said, her tone becoming more pleasant, although Collin could almost swear there was also a bit of disappointment in it as well. "Won't you please come in?"

Collin glanced back over his shoulder for a brief second, then remembered he had locked his bike. It would be rude to decline the invitation, even if he could only stay a few minutes.

"I'm Mrs. Connelly," the woman said as he stepped inside, "Richie's grandmother."

Collin was glad she clarified that, because he had learned the hard way not to make assumptions based on age. Back when he was still a teacher in training, he had insulted a student's mother by assuming, based on her appearance, that she was the fourteen year old girl's grandmother. It never occurred to him that the prematurely white haired woman hadn't become a mother until she was nearly forty.

As he stepped inside, Collin took a quick look at the large living room just beyond the phone booth sized foyer. It was clear that the room was the house's central space, with doorways leading to what he guessed to be a kitchen, bedroom and bath. It was tastefully decorated in a dated but functional style, but not one he would've associated with a household that had a teenager – actually two, he corrected, as he remembered that Richie had an older sister who sometimes picked him up after practice. A college freshman, she was just legal enough for him not to feel guilty about the thoughts her appearance produced. Well, at least not too guilty,

"Can I get you something to drink, Mr. Braxton?" Mrs. Connelly said as, having locked the door, she led him past the foyer.

"No thank you, I'm fine," he replied, thinking that it was hot enough that he could use something cold, but better to keep this as short as possible.

"Are you sure?" she repeated, adding a remark that echoed his thought about the heat.

"Yes," he said with a broad smile. "Is Richie home yet?"

"Oh, Richie doesn't live..." Mrs. Connelly started to say, then suddenly paused, a look of concern on her face. "Oh dear, I really shouldn't have said that, not with you being from the school and all."

Collin was confused by her comment for a moment, then it came to him. Richie's family would hardly be the first to use a relative's address to attend a school outside their own district – Lincoln being a desired location since it was usually rated second or third among the county's six middle schools.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Connelly, I'm not here to check up on that," Collin said with a reassuring smile.

The look of relief on her face said that she was glad to hear her mistake hadn't caused a problem.

"Just out of curiosity, though, what school is Richie zoned for?" Collin asked, thinking that if it was on his way home, he might still drop off the bag.

"Jackson," she said.

Jackson Middle School consistently ranked sixth every year that Collin had been teaching. He couldn't blame Richie's family for using a bit of deception to keep him out of there. As far as a second trip to drop off the bag, it was also even further out of the way than Mrs. Connelly's house had been.

"I guess I'll just leave the knapsack with you, then, and trust you'll see that it finds its way to Richie," Collin said, holding it out to her. "And as far as I'm concerned, I was never here, so I couldn't know who lives here or who doesn't."

"You're a good man, Mr. Braxton," Mrs. Connelly said as she took the bag and placed it on a nearby table.

"It was nice not meeting you," Collin said with a grin as he started to turn back towards the foyer.

He'd barely got to the front door, with Mrs. Connelly in tow, when an echoing thunderclap filled the air. It was loud enough to cause both of them to look up at the ceiling in response.

By the time, Mrs. Connelly opened the door, a torrential downpour filled the streets as far as the eye could see. Collin had misjudged how much time he had to get home, and now it was clear that he wasn't going anywhere until it passed.

"Think I could interest you in that cold drink now?" Mrs. Connelly asked.

-=-=-=-

Leading Collin out into the kitchen, Mrs. Connelly set him down at the small Formica table and quickly produced a pitcher of cold milk along with a plate of homemade cookies. After taking a bite of one, the teacher thought there were far worse places he could've been trapped by the unanticipated storm.

Mrs. Connelly took a cookie for herself, nibbling away at it in between a few questions about Collin's career. She seemed genuinely interested and the young man answered as honestly as he could.

"My, you do have a lot on your plate," she remarked after he explained the scope of his extracurricular responsibilities. "Where do you find the time for a personal life?"

"I guess I don't." Collin admitted.

"No girlfriend?" Mrs. Connelly asked, already having taken note of the absence of a wedding band on his hand.

Collin didn't immediately respond, embarrassed by the fact he couldn't remember the last time he'd even gone on a date, much less gotten laid. Certainly it had been before the start of the school year.

Mrs. Connelly, however, took the look on his face to mean something else. She couldn't believe that, even with the work schedule he described, a good looking young man like him was spending all his nights alone.

"Boyfriend?" she inquired, thinking that nowadays you could never really tell.

"I like girls," Collin said, the question causing him to flash back for a moment to his college years and a few offers he'd had to explore the other side of the bed – offers he'd politely declined.

In a small way, the answer disappointed Mrs. Connelly as, prior to asking it, she had already exhausted her mental list of nice girls she could introduce him to, having branched out to include a few not so nice ones as well. Unfortunate, every girl that came to mind was already involved with someone. If Collin has been so inclined, she could've introduced him to that nice young man across the street, the one who was always kind enough to clear both their walks whenever it snowed. So with nothing helpful to say, she changed the subject, asking how her grandson was doing on Collin's team.

"Well, he tries hard," came a too quick answer.

"I'm sure they all try hard," Mrs. Connelly said, "but the question I asked was, how is he doing?"

"Well..." Collin said, the hesitation in his voice clear.

"The truth is never the wrong answer, Mr. Braxton," Mrs. Connelly said.

"Well, like I said, Richie tries hard, but I'm afraid that he isn't all that good – at least not as compared to the other players on the team," Collin said reluctantly. "In all honesty, I really don't understand why Coach Garcia even had him on the team in the first place. In fact, I've even thought about replacing him."

"Oh no, you can't do that," Mrs. Connelly said, her voice unexpectedly loud and filled with apprehension.

Taken back by the expression on Mrs. Connelly's face, Collin wasn't sure what to say. Honesty, he thought, wasn't always the best policy.

"Let me show you something, it might help you understand," the older woman said, rising up from the table and disappearing into the living room.

When she returned less than a minute later, it was with a framed 8x10 photograph that she set down on the table before returning to her seat next to him.

"That's Richie's grandfather, my husband, Roy," she said as the substitute coach looked down at the image. "He passed away about three years ago."

The photograph, that of a handsome young man in a baseball uniform, had obviously been taken a long time ago, possibly as much as forty years back based on the design of the outfit. Collin didn't recognize the name of the team emblazoned across it, or the logo on the bright red cap.

"Back in the day, Roy was a third baseman for the Lexington Eagles, that was a triple A minor league team," Mrs. Connelly explained. "He played for over ten years, and while he never made it to the majors, that never stopped him from always giving his all. After he retired from baseball, he was the coach at Lincoln before Terry Garcia."

'Well, that certainly explains how Richie got on the team,' Collin thought, thinking that Coach Garcia was hardly going to say no to the grandson of the man he replaced. 'Still, I wish he'd mentioned it to me.'

"Richie idolized my husband," Mrs. Connelly continued, "and he took his death hard. That was why he went out for the team in the first place – to make his grandfather proud."

"I didn't know," Collin said, thinking that was an understatement. In all honesty, he knew little more about most of the players on his team other than their names and the positions they played. At least those who didn't have hot older sisters.

"Well, there's no reason you should've," Mrs. Connelly replied, "but now at least you understand why being on the team is so important to him – and to me as well."

"I guess I could try and give him a few pointers," Collin said, wondering even as he did so where he was going to find the time.

"If you could, that would be wonderful," Mrs. Connelly said excitedly, then adding a moment later in a calmer tone. "That is, if it wouldn't be too much of an imposition."

"No, not at all," Collin lied, but actually feeling good about doing so.

"Richie's father has tried working with him, but he's, I guess you could call him athletically challenged," Mrs. Connelly smiled. "I've often wondered what my daughter sees in him, but as they say, love is blind."

Collin barely suppressed a smile, having seen the large family portrait on the wall in the living room. Carrying at least twenty pounds more than he needed to, Mr. Drake was indeed physically unimpressive, and that was putting it kindly. Mrs. Drake, on the other hand, was an absolute knockout, ever hotter than her daughter. You had to wonder what brought two such opposite people together, at least physically.

Unfortunately for Collin, his visualization of Richie's mother, specifically his thought of what she might look like without the conservative dress she wore in the photograph, had produced an involuntary, and highly inappropriate reaction in his body. One he was thankful to have hidden from view by the table.

The embarrassed look on his face, however, wasn't hidden, nor did it go unnoticed. While Mrs. Connelly had no way of knowing for sure what had prompted his reaction, she couldn't help but have been aware how often his eyes had focused on her breasts as they talked. Curiosity led her lean back just enough that her own gaze found the cause of his discomfort – a discovery that brought a smile to her face. And with it, a rather shocking idea, at least one that should've been considered shocking.

-=-=-=-

"You know, Collin – you don't mind if I call you Collin, do you?" she said, leaning closer to him as she asked, "I was just thinking that there might be something that I could do for you, compensation you might say, for any help you gave Richie."

"Mrs. Connelly, I couldn't take any money from you," Collin said, assuming that was what she meant.

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of money," she said, a mischievous gleam sparkling in her eyes.

Collin's eyes, in turn, reflected an 'I don't understand' look.

"What if ... what if you were compensated another way?" she asked, her smile growing broader.

"I don't understand," Collin said.

"Well, a healthy young man like yourself has needs, doesn't he?" Mrs. Connelly further asked. "Needs that, from what you said before, obviously aren't being met."

It took a few seconds for her words to fully register in Collin's head.

'Omigod, she can't mean what I think she does?' he thought as comprehension replaced confusion.

"What if I could take care of those needs?" Mrs. Connelly asked, leaving no doubt of her meaning as she reached across under the table and placed her hand on his still hard cock.

Collin froze at her touch, a silence filling the air so strong that you could've heard the proverbial pin drop.