The Eighth Inning

The chalk dust hung in the stagnant air of The Rack & Cue, settling on everything—on the felt tables, on the empty glasses, on the three decades of regret that Marcus carried like an extra layer of skin. He watched Jack line up his shot, the pool cue sliding through calloused fingers that had once gripped a baseball with major-league promise.

"You remember that summer?" Jack asked, not looking up. "Triple-A, Syracuse. You threw a no-hitter." He struck the cue ball. It cracked into the eight ball, which dropped into the pocket with a satisfying finality. Just like that. Game over.

Marcus swirled the ice in his whiskey. "I remember the MRI six weeks later. Torn rotator cuff. Season over. Career over."

"We were going to be friends forever," Jack said, leaning against his pool cue. "You in the majors, me coaching. That was the plan."

The plan. The word hung between them, heavy with all the things that had gone wrong. Jack's gambling addiction. The fifty thousand Marcus had lent him—his signing bonus, really—to cover debts to people who broke bones for a living. Jack's promise to pay it back once his "investment" in the baseball futures market paid off. The silence that followed when it didn't.

"I'm getting married," Marcus said suddenly.

Jack's face flickered with something—hurt, maybe, or just the realization that time had kept moving without him. "To who?"

"Sarah. From accounting."

"Sarah." Jack nodded slowly. "Good." He placed his pool cue on the table. "Marcus, I—"

"Don't." Marcus stood up, leaving money for his untouched drink. "Some games only get played once."

He walked out into the humid night, leaving Jack alone with the pool tables and the ghosts of what might have been. Behind him, through the window, he saw Jack chalk his cue again, ready for another game with an opponent who wasn't there anymore.