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  The hair rose on the back of her neck. Her muscles bunched. Remembering the day she’d lost her licence, the many months she’d only been able to ride her bike or take buses to get around town, still rankled. She would never let it happen again. She was a new, improved person. “If you’re wondering whether or not I should be driving, I’ve been sober for more than three years. The state of Florida restored my full driving privileges more than two years ago.”

  Heat crept into Trey’s cheeks and he shifted his ball bag to his other shoulder. Then his gaze raked over her umpire uniform. “Do you still play ball, too? Why haven’t I seen you around the field?”

  Erica firmed her lips. If that wasn’t the question of the year. Uncomfortable, she fidgeted. “For which league? Neither the men nor the women want to let me play with them. Besides, the women around here only play slow-pitch.” Slow-pitch wasn’t a horrible game, but about as boring as eating plain oatmeal every morning for the rest of one’s life. Plus, it would dull her skills should she ever be allowed to play real ball again. Baseball was her real love, however. She’d play fast-pitch if only there was a local league.

  Trey untucked his shirt from his pants. It had come partially out anyway, with one tail hanging down. “Maybe the women think you have an advantage over them since you were born a man.”

  “Then you’d think the men would let me play, but they say the opposite. They’re afraid of me getting hurt since I’m a woman. They don’t think I can compete anymore, either. That I’ll be a liability.” She inhaled deeply and told herself not to get riled up.

  As if trying to decide which camp was right, Trey looked her up and down. “So? Do you throw like a girl now?”

  Erica resisted the urge to playfully stick out her tongue. She only managed to hold it in because Trey would take it sexually and embarrass her. Instead, she rolled her eyes. “As I said, I’m fully female. I’ve been on the hormone therapy more than three years so my muscles and everything else are feminine.”

  “There are co-ed teams.” He smiled as if he’d solved a huge problem and lifted the world off her shoulders.

  She kicked up a small cloud of dirt with her toe. “Yeah, but they only play slow-pitch.”

  Trey smiled in commiseration. He scrunched his nose and scratched his head. Then a slow smile dawned over his lips. “Get a petition together. If enough people sign, they’ll have to let you play.”

  She rolled the thought around in her mind wondering how many people would sign and how many would decline because they objected to her sexuality? Fort Lauderdale wasn’t as cosmopolitan as it pretended to be. Away from the beach areas, like here, were families and retirement villages. Palm trees and warm weather aside, it wasn’t much different than living in middle America.

  Before she realised she was going to do it, she heard herself pop out with, “Would you sign the petition? Be the first name on my list?”

  He blinked as if she’d challenged him to have the sexual reassignment surgery. He looked from her to one of his passing teammates as if he was trying to compare them. “Well, I don’t know much about transgender stuff. If you’re sure you wouldn’t have an unfair advantage over the other women…”

  Hadn’t he heard her? The women only played slow-pitch. Besides, they weren’t talking pro, just rec. When she shook her head, her silky ponytail slapped her neck and tickled her cheeks. “I want to play on your league. With you and the guys.”

  Trey’s jaw clenched and his Adam’s apple protruded further. “For real? I thought you said you’re completely feminine. You’re too soft now. You’d get hurt.”

  Her skin crawled and she wanted to bury him in mountains of petitions. “I haven’t forgotten how to play or how to catch a ball. I’m still a better batter than you.”

  He glared at her then raked his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re as prejudiced as everybody else, Kincaid. Why even suggest it if you aren’t willing to sign?” Disappointed but not surprised at his statement, she plunged her hands into her pockets. This was exactly why Eric hadn’t confided in Trey.

  A hard light glinted in Trey’s narrowing eyes. “I’m not prejudiced. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  The more she thought about a petition, the more she liked the idea. Wasn’t that how the girls had convinced the city to build their fields? “Thank you, anyway. I’m going to use your idea. And I’m going to get enough names on my petition so that the men will have to let me play with them. Watch me. You’ll be seeing me on your fields soon and not as an umpire!”

  With that, she wrenched open her door and climbed inside. Her blood boiling, her stomach a black cauldron of anger, she revved her engines and screeched out of the lot. She wasn’t sure if she was sad or happy that she’d left Kincaid eating her dust.

  Chapter Two

  After a couple of days of feeling as if aliens had abducted him and dropped him on a hostile, upside down planet, Trey was still racking his brain. How could he not have known Eric longed to be Erica? They’d lived together more than two years. He’d thought they’d shared their deepest secrets and most heartfelt desires. He thought he’d known the man inside and out.

  He snarled as he thought about his conversation with Erica. Obviously not!

  This stung. The deceit pissed him off almost as much as the drunkenness. And now she was mad at him for not wanting to sign her petition? He hadn’t been able to live with her. Why would he want to play with her again? If being totally pissed off wasn’t bad enough, his heart splintered anew as if they’d broken up again. He wanted to punch something. Anything. Why hadn’t Eric come to him with his problems?

  The only thing he’d noted at the time was that Eric dressed as a dame every Halloween. Hell! He’d found that skimpy little cowgirl outfit pretty sexy and ravaged the little tramp all night.

  His gut twisted. Eric had lied to him throughout their relationship. Could he believe anything out of the guy’s—woman’s—mouth?

  Trey shook his head. This was making him nuts. Was it still weird for Erica, too?

  He pondered their conversation. How many times had he passed Erica on the road and not noticed? On the way to work? In the supermarket? Any number of places?

  His heart twisted. His head ached. Who am I kidding?

  A couple of days later still, he cursed aloud when he couldn’t get the crazy woman off his mind. He couldn’t sleep and since his curiosity wouldn’t stop bothering him, he surfed the Internet for anything and everything about transgender women and sexual reassignment surgery. First and foremost, he tried to figure out why someone would feel the need to change himself so drastically. Secondly, he wanted to learn if it was safe for Erica to play hardball with the bunch of ruffians he loosely referred to as his team if she convinced the league’s board to her way of thinking. He was curious, too, if it would be fair for her to play against genetically born women, or if she’d have an unfair advantage.

  An hour into his research, he understood what drove people like Erica was more than wanting to dress up, wear makeup and look like a woman, or even to act like one. Most purported to feel like one inside all the time. They wanted to be themselves and they hated playing roles merely to make others happy. Playing sports complicated the issue even more.

  He found so many arguments, pro and con, regarding whether transgender women should play sports they made his head spin. Many of the articles said transgender women who’d been on hormone therapy at least two years had lost the masculine strength that would give them an advantage over other women. Yet, some sports associations had recently banned transgender women from playing on their leagues because they believed it was unfair to genetically born women.

  Not one of the sites said transgender women had lost too much strength so that it would be dangerous for them to play with men. He couldn’t miss, however, that many people still thought it dangerous for women to play in Major League Baseball.

  After a few hours’ study, he had the start of a
major headache. The only real conclusion he’d gleaned was that there was no official conclusion by the medical field as a whole. Too few transgender women existed to conduct a decent study. It seemed the decision whether or not to sign the petition would be based on gut instinct or his personal feelings.

  He didn’t want to examine his feelings too closely. He still harboured a lot of hurt and resentment and he had a sneaking suspicion he was still raw. After four years, he’d hoped he’d echo Rhett Butler and not give a damn.

  So why did he?

  He caught himself rubbing his forehead and growled. It was a sure sign of his agitation, one he didn’t like. Since he was alone in his bedroom with his laptop on his mattress, he massaged harder. No one would see. No one would care.

  Tired but agitated and still unable to go to sleep, he stayed up and greeted the dawn. Fingers of sunlight reached into his room and grabbed at him, demanding he get up and get ready for a new day. Angry at Eric and Erica, annoyed at the situation and irritated that he had to go to work despite his fitful night, he slammed the computer lid.

  Realising too late he’d been too rough, he petted his computer and murmured, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Be okay.” But after rebooting, the screen was wavy and flickering. He rebooted three more times, hoping the first time was a fluke. Unfortunately, the problem only worsened.

  “Shit!” He needed his computer fast as he did lots of work at home and couldn’t afford to be without it too long. He wasn’t an electronic genius and barely knew a motherboard from a keyboard. He didn’t fancy fighting for an hour of public computer time at the library. Nor did he want to pay the outrageous prices most computer techs charged nowadays. Even if he could justify buying a new computer before seeing if the problem was fixable or not, he had important files he needed that were on this computer.

  Then Erica’s name flashed in his mind. She was a computer genius. At age three, she started tearing apart anything and everything electronic. By age ten, she was fixing computers. By age thirteen, she was building them from scratch. Although several things had been problematic when they’d tried to live together, he’d had free and fast computer repair service around the clock. He missed that almost as much as he missed the man Erica had been.

  As much as he needed his computer fast, he couldn’t ask Erica to help him. Or could he? If she laughed in his face, he couldn’t blame her. They never seemed to leave each other on good terms.

  He ambled to the shower and tried to sluice off his black mood with cold water. He couldn’t even call in sick and go back to bed as he had an important meeting at work. So he sprayed the water in his face to wake himself up, to drill some sense into him, and had a brainstorm.

  Excited, he yelled in the shower, “I’ll sign her petition and get the ball rolling.”

  Happy with himself, he pushed aside his misgiving that she was now too weak to play with the men, rinsed off and dressed in a shirt and tie for work.

  He wasn’t her husband or even her boyfriend. She was a free soul who could decide what was best for her. Who was he to get in her way?

  A couple of hours later during his morning break, he called her. “Trey here. I have a favour to ask. Do you still fix computers?”

  There was a slight pause then she asked in a chilly voice, “Why do you ask?”

  He crossed his fingers and shifted positions in his chair. He moved papers to the side and leant forward on his desk. “Could you look at mine and fix it right away? It’s not working right and I have a big assignment I have to work on. I’ll pay your going rate. I’m not asking for a freebie.”

  “All right. Drop it off at my office and I’ll take a look at it when I can. I won’t be able to get to it right away as several clients are in front of you.”

  Swearing softly under his breath, he closed his eyes. He couldn’t wait that long. From experience, he knew when I can usually meant weeks. And he wasn’t her favourite person any more so it might mean months. He took a deep breath and added, “I’ll sign your petition.”

  “Maybe I could push you ahead a bit.”

  Only a bit? Desperate, wringing his hands, he asked, “What can I do to move to the front of the line? I’m in dire need of my machine and the file I was working on.”

  “Persuade the guys on the league and as many people as you can to sign the petition for me to play on the men’s league.”

  Trey tugged his ear. She couldn’t mean that, could she? “Did you just say I should help you get your petition signed?”

  “That’s exactly what I said. Do we have a deal?”

  He looked heavenward and muttered, “What did I ever do to you?” To Erica, he grumbled, “Yeah. You’ve blackmailed me into it. I’ll help you. Where are you working?”

  “Same place.” As if he didn’t remember, she added, “Tops on 64th.”

  Unable to believe what he was hearing, Trey’s eyes widened and he sat up taller. “They didn’t, uh, mind you becoming Erica?”

  “They’re happy for me. As long as I stay away from alcohol and do my job, they don’t care if I’m Eric, Erica or the man on the moon.” A wry chuckle escaped from her. “They like me better this way, as do I.”

  To his annoyance, a picture of the way she looked now flooded his mind and appreciation filled him. However, he was glad whenever employers were open-minded like his. He’d heard too many horror stories of gay men and lesbians being discriminated against at the workplace. Why should he feel any differently when it came to transgender people?

  “You make a pretty woman. Of course, you were a very handsome man.” He bit his lip and wished he hadn’t added the compliment.

  Visions of their breakup taunted him. He hadn’t been able to live with an alcoholic who was having an affair with the bottle. Wondering when the cops would ask him to go down to the morgue to identify Eric’s body had been torture. And then he’d stomped out. He’d returned only once, to remove his possessions from the house.

  He wished with all his heart Erica had shared the source of his unhappiness with him instead of anaesthetising herself in alcohol. Maybe they’d have survived her transformation. Now they’d never know.

  He struggled to lift the weight crushing his heart. When his boss Henry rapped on the door, popping his head into Trey’s office and motioning for him, Trey sighed. “The boss man needs me. I’ll drop it off on my lunch hour. Thanks again.”

  Before Erica could change her mind or the boss came back, he shut the phone and stopped by his secretary’s desk. She was fortyish, and mousy-looking, but was the best admin assistant he’d ever had. He longed to take her to a hairdresser and demand she get a shorter, more stylish do, maybe some highlights or frosting, but he feared that could be deemed discrimination. Nor did he want her six-foot, eight-inch husband to catch him in a dark alley if she were too insulted, so he kept his mouth shut about her looks.

  “Draw up a petition for me, please. Okay, Janie?”

  “Certainly. What’s it for?” she asked, with a lift of her bushy brow.

  He’d been due at the meeting five minutes ago and Henry wasn’t the patient type. “I’ll dictate the leading paragraph when I get back from my meeting.”

  After scooping up his presentation from her, he made a dash for the hallway. He threw over his shoulder, “I’ll be in the upstairs conference room with the directors for a couple of hours. Please tell Henry I’m on the way if he calls looking for me.” He winked at her, then pivoted on his heel and took off down the hall at a trot.

  * * * *

  Since the meeting had gone way past the lunch hour and he’d run from one meeting to the next, Trey slipped out of the agency at four-thirty and drove to Erica’s office, petition with his signature in one hand, his bruised computer in the other. The trip was too short. He was still in a quandary what to say, how to act around her, and what to do. Was he supposed to treat her with kid gloves, tiptoe around her new oestrogen-enhanced emotions? Or should he treat her like one of the guys who just happened to ha
ve developed breasts but no dick?

  He smiled at the receptionist who was a new face since he’d last visited Eric’s office. “I’m here to see Erica Metzger.”

  Erica felt funny rolling off his tongue but he liked the name.

  He hoped Erica wouldn’t notice he was quaking. He didn’t know if she was totally new and improved or just the feminine version of Eric still attached to the bottle. A feminine version all right, with rounded hips, softer skin and breasts. A version with kohl-rimmed eyes, glittery eye shadow and sexy lip-gloss.

  The young receptionist smiled up at Trey with a twinkle in her eyes. Her friendly smile was as much at odds with the sparkling pink skull and crossbones on the front of her shirt as it was with her spiked Rainbow Sherbet hair. She leant across her desk and pointed down the hall to the right. “Take the first right, then the second left. Go down to the end of the hall and hang another left. Erica’s office will be the second door on the right. You can go on down. She’s expecting you.”

  Trey’s heart lurched. How many nights had he waited up for Eric to come home? How many times had he prayed the man wasn’t driving drunk, hadn’t killed himself in an accident? How many nights had Eric slept at this office because he was too drunk to drive home? And now, Erica was waiting for him.

  Trey squared his shoulders and hitched his computer case more firmly in his grip. He ordered his heart to get a grip as he flashed a smile at the woman. “Thanks.”

  When he arrived at Erica’s office, he rapped his knuckles on the door. “Knock, knock. I brought the petition and the computer.”

  Only the top of Erica’s shiny hair was visible above her monitor. She was an alien caught in the green glow of the computer.

  She didn’t look up, just kept tinkering and muttered, “Leave them on the table with your phone number. I’ll call you when your computer’s ready.”

  Trey’s heart dropped to his knees with a loud kerthunk. His nerves became a pinball game. After he put his computer on the table, he quirked his brow and fisted his hands on his hips. “My phone number hasn’t changed. You don’t remember it?”