An emotional, slow-burn, grumpy/sunshine, queer mid-century romance for fans of Evvie Drake Starts Over, about grief and found family, between the new star shortstop stuck in a batting slump and the reporter assigned to (reluctantly) cover his first seasonāset in the same universe as We Could Be So Good.
The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie OāLearyās life. He canāt manage to hit the ball, his new teammates hate him, heās living out of a suitcase, and heās homesick. When the teamās owner orders him to give a bunch of interviews to some snobby reporter, heās ready to call it quits. He can barely manage to behave himself for the length of a game, let alone an entire season. But heās already on thin ice, so he has no choice but to agree.
Mark Bailey is not a sports reporter. He writes for the arts page, and these days heās barely even managing to do that much. Heās had a rough year and just wants to be left alone in his too-empty apartment, mourning a partner heād never been able to be public about. The last thing he needs is to spend a season writing about New Yorkās obnoxious new shortstop in a stunt to get the struggling newspaper more readers.
Isolated together within the crush of an anonymous city, these two lonely souls orbit each other as they slowly give in to the inevitable gravity of their attraction. But Mark has vowed that heāll never be someoneās secret ever again, and Eddie canāt be out as a professional athlete. Itās just them against the world, and theyāll both have to decide if thatās enough.