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Tim and Barry are at opposite ends of the table, and the restaurant’s so noisy that Tim’s given up trying to actually listen to Nate’s story about proposing to his girlfriend Kate. She's smiling broadly as he tells it; she's slender and blonde and has very white teeth, has Kate. She keeps finding reasons to put her left hand on the table to show off her rock.
Zito’s lounging comfortably in the crook of the banquette with a ghost of a smile on his face. There was a long wait for their table and it’s getting late. He’s wearing 501s, a sea-green polo shirt, and ten-year-old leather Rainbows that have taken on the shape of his beautifully arched feet. He got some sun today and there are fine lines around his eyes; his silky dark hair curls around his collar. He looks like he smells like clean laundry.
Across the table, cluttered with platters of Indian food they’ve been sharing, Barry catches Tim’s eye and points at his Rolex.
- I’m the DD, if you can believe that shit, says Timmy to the table. That’s why he’s only had one beer, and that was at the bar before dinner. - Seven-thirty call tomorrow morning. Rags said something about the heat index.
- You poor thing, says Burrell. He leans back, laces his fingers behind his head and grins. - I’ll be dreaming about you while I'm sleeping in.
Tim gives him the finger.
Zito hands the signed check to the waiter and puts his folded napkin on the table next to his plate. He rises and leans gracefully across the table, takes Kate’s hand and kisses it with elaborate courtesy. She smiles up at him through her mascara.
- Congratulations, Zito says, crinkling his eyes at her. - Seven years of waiting for something you love is a long time. It’s like a fairy tale.
- Isn't there something in the Bible? says Nate. He’s enjoying playing the role of the prince. - Didn’t Jacob wait seven years for Rachel?
At the far end of the table, Burrell rolls his eyes.
//
Zito’s rented a Spanish-style villa in the hills above Scottsdale, at the end of twisting road covered with red dust where his nearest neighbors are mostly coyotes and lizards. At the automated gate, Tim punches in the code and winds slowly up the driveway, transmission whining, to the cobblestone turnaround. There he pulls up on the handbrake but doesn’t kill the engine. No sidewalks or streetlights out here; what light there is comes from the rising quarter moon and a scattering of stars in the middle sky.
Zito unsnaps his seatbelt. He turns, and with his left hand, reaches over to touch Tim’s neck. Lincecum flinches a little, but as Zito gently strokes the edge of his jaw with his thumb, Tim shuts his eyes and leans into the touch as Barry weaves his fingers into Tim's hair. Tim tips his head back and lets out a long breath.
Lincecum opens his eyes halfway and, without moving his head, looks sidelong at Zito. He smiles, a little at first, and the smile becomes a grin. He unsnaps his own seatbelt and pulls the keys from the ignition.
//
In 2007 they’d both wound up in San Francisco. The Giants had just given Zito the biggest contract in major-league history, $126 million for seven years. That May, Tim was called up from the minors as the organization’s top pitching prospect.
To that point, Barry’s life had looked effortless and perfect. He’d been a college star at USC, pitched the As repeatedly to victory with his unhittable curveball, won a Cy Young. He’d even done some edgy modeling stuff in the off-season. He was eccentric, meditating in the outfield and traveling with a stuffed bear, but as long as he was pitching well, who cared? In the off-season he moved to LA, where the paparazzi had bigger celebrities to chase, to escape being the Bay Area’s most eligible bachelor. Fans at AT&T still showed up with orange-and-black signs saying “Marry Me Barry?”
Tim was different. Skinny and haunted-looking, dressed like a skateboard punk, he was sometimes mistaken for a bat-boy. The Giants’ PR department had to run ads with his photograph overlaid with “Baby Face/Giant Heart: Tim is a Gamer.” He got a lot of strikeouts, but his delivery was weird and violent; he was a freak whose arm would break down. When Timmy pitched, the signs at away games said things like “Fix Your Teeth” and “Tim Lincecum Looks Like a 14-Year-Old Homeless Girl.”
//
Contents of Barry’s night-stand drawer: a tube of Astroglide, a box of Trojans, a weather radio, and a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses. Tim remembers there should also be a bottle of Advil and a tube of Carmex rolling around in the back there somewhere.
Tim uses his long fingers to fish out the Carmex and squeezes some onto his lips. After winter in Seattle, Phoenix, the desert, makes his skin feel like it’s about to peel off. He lets himself out the sliding door onto the patio and follows the wet footprints over to the pool’s overflow edge, where Barry’s lying on his back on the grass verge, hands behind his head. Tim sits down and stretches out beside him.
- You smell like a eucalyptus tree, says Barry.
Tim props himself on his side and reaches over to put his hand on Barry’s face, stroking the clean-shaven skin that smells faintly of woodfern and Indian spices from their evening at the restaurant.
He leans in, tips his nose, and kisses Barry, softly at first. Then there’s more heat, as Barry arches up a little, their tongues entwining.