I breathe him in, and my heart feels like it’s expanding with each breath like it’s unsure how to fit in my rib cage. But I’ll make room for it, this new heart size. Pretty sure it’s never returning to how it was.
We stay like that, quiet and peaceful, as the sounds of the city wrap around Grant’s home—cars honking in the distance, music playing from the park, a trolley rolling along somewhere.
From even farther away, I imagine I can hear the Pacific Ocean crashing against the sand, that kind of nighttime whoosh the waves make as they tug on the shore.
Steady. Constant.
The sun and the moon.
I run my hand down his arm, savoring the moment.
The doorbell buzzes, and a second later Grant’s stomach growls again.
I laugh. “And I suspect the man you really want just arrived.”
“Things you need to know about me—I require lots of feeding,” he says, vaulting up from the couch and practically running to the front door, where he thanks the DoorDash guy by name.
Then we grab chopsticks and chow down.
We eat and talk.
“Listen,” Grant begins. “I know you said you’re willing to let me set the pace. But I think we should take things slow."
“Sure. That makes sense,” I say, even though I wish there were a full-speed ahead option. But schedules simply don’t permit that.
“You made yourself a promise. You gave yourself a year. I don’t think you’re rough around the edges like you said, but I also want you to do what you need to do.”
“I need to do you,” I say in a low rumble.
“Yes. And often.” He turns more serious. “But what I’m saying is I don’t want you to regret this. To say oh man, we started too soon. So, I’m going to have to lay down a rule.”
Curious, I gesture with my chopsticks for him to go on. “Continue.”
“No boyfriend talk. No future talk. No this is what we are talk,” Grant says, setting down his chopsticks in the takeout container. “What do you think?”
“That’s three or four rules,” I tease.
“And rules are good. Because I want this. Don’t you?”
I set down my food on the coffee table. Curl a hand around his head. Tug him close. “Yes. I want to prove myself to you.”
Grant shakes his head. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Deck. This is for us. You said you were nervous about starting up. So, let’s not define this thing. Let’s not make long-term promises. Let’s just . . . be. Day by day, whatever that looks like.”
I smile from deep within my soul. “I want all that, but can we maybe, possibly, pretty please make plans to see each other in May? Because I might die if we don’t.”
Grant cracks up. “I see that’s going to be an issue for us. Death from sex camel-ing. Let’s not let that happen. I will give you the whole cock treatment.”
I press my palms together and raise my gaze heavenward. “Thank you for the whole cock.”
We compare our schedules right then. He leaves for spring training in Phoenix in a few more days, since pitchers and catchers report first. I’ll head to Tampa in a week, but I’ll still see Carla via Zoom, I tell Grant when he asks.
When spring training ends, the regular season begins. Our schedules are packed, as they usually are.
“I have one day off in April,” I say heavily.
“Same,” he mourns. “But not the same one.”
We don’t have any games in the same city, even, and the Comets don’t play the Cougars till July. But I spot an opening.
I point to the May schedule for the Comets, then the same month for the Cougars. “Do you see what I see?” I wiggle a brow. “Los Angeles. Then Seattle.”
“Oh yes,” Grant says, with a dirty growl. “You’ve got a day off between playing the Bandits and the Storm Chasers. And I have a day off too.”
“And what do you know? It’s the same day. Want to invite me over that Thursday before I go to Seattle? I can make a pitstop in San Francisco for the night. If you invite me, I bet I’ll say yes.”
“Spend the night with me on that day,” he says, pointing to the calendar.
“Done.”
We don’t even attempt to figure out what happens after May, and that’s the point.
Even though I suspect we both know that beyond May is the real challenge—navigating a long-distance relationship with our jobs. But we don’t try to tonight. Tonight is for this long overdue reunion.
“I’ll miss you before then. But that’s okay,” Grant says, chin up. “You’re going to focus on Carla and keep up all this good work. That’s what I want you to do. I don’t want to mess up your recovery, as you call it. It’s a good thing we can’t see each other. And we’re not going to make plans beyond that because that will distract you from your therapy.”