I channel my energy into focusing on the game for the rest of the evening, and it pays off—we win.

  Which I love, but winning was a little more fun when I went home with Adam.

  When I’m home later, rooting around the kitchen, there’s a knock on the door. It can only be Travis. When I open it, the gregarious first baseman thrusts a couple of bottles of beer at me. “If I’m buying, you’re cooking.”

  “Obviously,” I say drily.

  “That’s how we do it,” he says.

  “It sure is,” I say.

  Because…I have a routine with Travis. This is my life. Hanging out with my teammate-slash-best friend after hours. Snacking, watching TV, talking sports.

  Simple and mostly satisfying.

  Quickly, I make sandwiches, then we settle on the couch with beers. Travis flips through my queue before arriving on a show where couples check out homes for sale. “Maybe not that one,” I say, a phantom pain lodging in my chest as I take a drink.

  Travis gives me an assessing look, then toggles to the next option. “If you say so.”

  We watch a crime drama, eating and drinking, commenting on possible suspects. Mostly I check my phone screen between bites, searching for—what else—mattresses.

  Hmm. Do I want one that’s good for a side sleeper? Wait. Nope. Adam sleeps on his side.

  I groan quietly.

  Maybe after I replace the mattress, I’ll stop thinking about the guy so damn much.

  “Anything good there?” Travis asks absently. “Your phone that is.”

  If anyone else asked, they might be busting me for checking out my screen. But this is Travis. This is our routine. “Just debating if I want to go vegan.”

  He whips his head from the TV. “What?”

  I show him my phone. “I need to replace a mattress, and vegan mattresses are good for the environment,” I grumble.

  “You and Chason,” he says with a laugh.

  Yes, he knows I date guys, but does he know Adam and I had a thing? Not that I care, but what happened with Adam and me isn’t my story alone to tell. It’s ours. “What?” I ask sharply.

  Travis shoots me a look like I’m clueless. “Chason was saying earlier he needed a bed too. His mattress is all jacked. The two of you are both looking for new beds. Oh, did you think I meant…”

  I did. For a few seconds.

  I sigh, annoyed with myself for being worried. But I’m annoyed because I want what I can’t have.

  Travis sighs too, but it’s a thoughtful sound. “You know, Miller, if there’s stuff going on, you can tell me, right?” And he says stuff like he knows what’s up and is waiting for me to clarify it. “I’m cool with…anything.”

  I smile. I do appreciate that offer, but I’m not sure I want to serve up my insides. “I’m good. But thanks. That means a lot.”

  “Sure, man.” Travis’s tone is skeptical, then he adds, “I’m glad you’re good, but it’d be okay if you weren’t.”

  That’s more emotional awareness than I’m expecting from Travis. “I’ll be fine.”

  Another uh huh. “Sometimes it’s unhealthy to push stuff down,” he says.

  Something other teammates have said before, as well as a few therapists. That there’s no avoiding feelings even if you want to.

  “So when I’m feeling like that,” Travis continues, “I try to burp as loudly as I can. Really helps, you know, psychologically.”

  Which is more like it.

  Travis has a point. Maybe I don’t want to push stuff down anymore.

  Maybe this life of eating sandwiches and watching TV I don’t care about isn’t enough.

  Maybe hanging with a teammate in the evenings isn’t the end game for me.

  If I keep denying what I want, it’ll come out eventually.

  Right now, this second, I know what I want. I’m not sure I can have it. There’s no guarantee.

  But at the very least, I can try.

  I pick up my phone. This time I don’t look at mattresses. I draft a message to Adam.

  * * *

  Derek: Hey so, I need a mattress too. Want to go shopping together? As friends?

  * * *

  At the very least, I want to be friends with him. That’s a place to start, and maybe then I can ask for what I want. Except…I want more. So much more. I delete the last line, erasing As friends. I’ll take friendship, but first I’ll swing for the fences.

  I hit send.

  A little while after Travis leaves, my phone pings. My heart jumps when I read the message.

  * * *

  Adam: I’d like that.

  16

  Adam

  * * *

  I check my reflection in the mirror. Nice short sleeve button-down. Clean-shaven jaw. Jeans that fit well.

  My hair is a little messy. Or not messy enough, maybe?

  Stop thinking about your hair. It’s not a date.

  Too bad my pulse is surging like it is a date. I run a hand through my hair, turn away from the mirror and take off. It’s a Monday morning. Normally, I’d sleep in.

  Instead, I’m wide awake and ridiculously excited to be heading to a mattress warehouse at the edge of the city.

  When I arrive, I scan the parking lot for Derek’s truck, spotting it at the edge of the lot. He’s here first, and my nerves spike, since I’ll see him any second.

  I should not be nervous to shop for a freaking mattress. Not a date, not a date. If I tell myself that enough, it might make it true.

  As I head inside, I try to approach this like a game. I’m not nervous on the field. I know how to play. I anticipate, I react, I perform.

  But those guidelines don’t apply when I open the door to find Derek waiting inside.

  My heart stutters. It’s unfair how I react to him.

  Somehow, he’s even more handsome than the night of the rescue dog fundraiser. He wore a suit then. Now he’s wearing shorts and a navy polo shirt that hugs his chest. And does funny things to mine.

  Did he also dress like this is a date?

  Don’t go there.

  “Hey Adam, did you make a list of all your mattress requirements?” he says in that dry amused tone.

  Like that, my nerves vanish.

  “As a matter of fact, I did,” I say, striding over to him.

  He claps my shoulder. A friendly gesture, but my breath catches.

  “Let’s see it,” he says, standing next to me. So close, I can smell his cologne. That rainwater scent that transfers to his sheets. Right, I need to stop thinking about Derek in bed. Which would be easier if we weren’t in a mattress store. I grab my phone, click on my notes, and show him the specs I detailed: degree of firmness, density of cushioning, and the number and gauge of coils. My ideal bed.

  Well, my ideal bed, minus one element: Derek.

  “What do you think?” I look at him, trying to school my expression so my face doesn’t say I miss you so much.

  His blue eyes sparkle. “I think that sounds like a perfect bed,” he says, then he leads the way.

  He weaves through the store, stopping in front of a king-size bed. He pushes his hand against it, testing the springs. “Too firm,” he declares.

  “Let me try.” I press down too.

  “What? You don’t trust me?” he teases.

  “Just wanted to try it for myself. Can’t a guy test a mattress?”

  A sly smile. “Sure. A guy can,” he says, then heads to another mattress, waving me over.

  I sit at the edge of this one, testing it. It’s downright pillowy. “This one’s pretty comfortable, I say, looking up at him.

  “Comfy? Didn’t see that on your list of requirements.”

  “It was implied,” I say. “You know, the way your bed is.”

  “You liked my…bed?” he asks, voice pitching up with hope.

  I liked his bed, yeah, but I liked what it represented. Being with him. I miss that so much I can feel the missing in my bones. I pat the mattress, suddenly feeling bolder than I expected. “I did like your bed,” I say quietly.

  “Good,” he says firmly, like he’s making a declaration. I hear what he doesn’t say—he liked me in it. The way I liked being in it.

  The mattress dips as Derek sits next to me, and I’m struck with how right this feels. Him, here. Us, together.

  Not just on a bed. But on the couch. At home.

  It all felt right. All those times we spent together felt right.

  “It is comfortable,” he says, but he frowns. “Maybe too comfortable. A good mattress needs to be a little firm to stand up to . . .” He turns a slight, un-Derek red. “Well, so you can get some mileage out of it.”

  He pops back up and offers me a hand. That is so couple-y. And I love it. I lift my hand to take his, but he jerks his hand back right away. Like he realized his faux pas.

  But I saw his intention.

  Even when he clears his throat and weaves to another section of the store. As I watch him walk, I try to hold on to the reasons for resisting that felt vital a day ago.

  He’s my teammate.

  I should focus on the game.

  My life has changed radically in the past few months. All weighed against Derek offering me his hand in a mattress store. I want to take it.

  Touching him, connecting with him—that’s all that mattered in the moment. Maybe it’ll stop mattering any second, but when he finds the next mattress, and flops down on it, my heart gallops.

  I want this.

  But it’s not just the bed or the sex.

  It’s him.

  All my reasons are good ones. Levelheaded and thorough and nice. I flash back to the first night in Phoenix. To him kneeling on the floor. When he demanded I tell him what I wanted. Even after a few hours of knowing me he could tell that I sometimes have trouble articulating that.

  Derek’s been clear from the start. I’m the guy with complications. My ex, my trade, my reasons. But are they really reasons…or am I just making excuses?

  He’s a teammate.

  As if people don’t sometimes date at the office, even if my office is a ballpark.

  I should focus on work.

  I’ve been playing better baseball since I got here, not in spite of Derek but because of him.

  My life has just changed radically in the past few months.

  So maybe I should change too.

  Because this doesn’t feel like two friends shopping for mattresses. I feel the same wild possibilities I felt when Derek and I looked at apartments together.

  Tentatively, I sit down on the mattress. I turn to Derek, who’s waiting for me. To make a decision. To take a chance.

  “So, Adam, does this meet your needs?” he asks.

  “It’s a good mattress.” I press my hand to its surface, watching the memory foam shape itself around my palm. “I’d like to get to know it better.”

  Amusement creases the corners of his eyes. “You’d like to get to know the…mattress better?”

  I smile. “Feels like it’s a mattress I could really rely on. That it’d be supportive of me when I need it. That it’d fit really well in my apartment or…wherever.”

  Derek’s smile broadens.

  “Also,” I add, “I definitely want to take it to bed.”

  “Adam, are we still talking about a mattress?”

  “You’re going to make me say it?”

  Derek pushes up on his elbows, his eyes sparking with hope and happiness. “I’m always going to make you say it.”

  “I want to wake up in your bed some mornings. I want to pick up coffee for you on other mornings. I want to go to the ballpark with you. Some nights, I want you to come over. Other nights I want to go home with you. I just want you,” I say. “I know there’s stuff to figure out, but we’ll figure it out.”

  He sits up, grabs my face, and pulls me in for a kiss, something more passionate than is appropriate for a mattress store on a weekday morning. I don’t care.

  Eventually, we pull apart. “So, is this one a keeper?” Derek asks.

  I nod, frantically, then go talk with the salesperson as fast as humanly possible to arrange for this mattress to be delivered.

  “Should arrive sometime later today,” I tell Derek when I’m done.

  “Maybe we should go back to your place and wait for it,” Derek says. “Make sure it arrives and everything.”

  “How responsible of you,” I say, drily, even if my heart is beating against my chest. Even if I want to drag him back against that mattress and to hell with everything else.

  It must show, because he runs a finger over my hand, a quick gesture that does nothing to settle my pulse. “Invite me over,” he says. “I think you owe me a tour.”

  We go to my apartment and I show him my place for the first time.

  Correction: We barely make it to the couch, tumbling into each other, kissing and touching and stripping.

  And coming together.

  Then, we go to the ballpark.

  Together.

  Epilogue

  Adam

  * * *

  October in Seattle is strangely hot. But maybe that’s just the sweat I’m working up hauling my things from my truck in the parking garage, up the elevator, and down the hall.

  Into Derek’s condo.

  Only now, it’s our condo.

  I carry a box inside, setting it next to the bed in our bedroom. “That should be everything.”

  Derek’s here, looking exactly like I saw him five minutes ago and also, perfect. I lean over, kissing him, then pull back.

  “What do you think?” I ask, looking around.

  “Took you long enough,” he deadpans.

  “Ha. Yes, the last few months when I lived two blocks away were torture,” I say, since I was here nearly every night when we were in town.

  “Exactly. Now you’re where you belong,” he says. A statement. The truth, pure and simple.

  “I am,” I say.

  Seconds later, there’s a knock on the front door. A loud “Miller!” follows.

  Derek raises a brow playfully. I do the same. I’m sure we’re both thinking the same thing. If Travis hasn’t figured us out yet, he’s about to now.

  “Did you want to say something to him about us?” I ask as we leave the bedroom.

  Us. A relationship that lasted the rest of the season, through Seattle almost, but not quite, making it to the playoffs. Still, a better outcome than I could have ever hoped for in St. Louis, in more ways than one.

  We haven’t announced we’re together since we wanted to just be together first. But we’ve been planning to tell our teammates soon. I didn’t think it’d be today, but life has a way of surprising you.

  I’m ready. “We can start with Travis,” I add.

  A flash of guilt passes in Derek’s eyes. “He might already know. He said something to me a couple months ago—the day I asked you to go mattress shopping with me.” My surprise must show because Derek adds, “He’s actually emotionally perceptive.”

  “You’re right,” I manage. “That is kind of shocking…Or maybe not, truth be told.”

  Travis has been…astute, and aware. He encouraged Derek to let me stay with him right away. He knew Derek was the kind of guy who’d open his home to a teammate. Travis knows he too can come over any night and hang with us.

  We stop in the living room, a few feet from the door. Derek taps me on the arm. “Want to tell him?” With that, nerves, the edge of his chewed lip. A reminder that the team is his family.

  “Miller!” Travis yells again. “Whatever you’re doing, I’ve seen it all before.”

  I take one of his hands in mine. This is important. “I’m good to tell him if you are.”

  Derek nods, apprehensive, and I have to kiss him, and so I do, a kiss followed by another knock. “He’s my closest friend,” Derek says, semi-apologetically.

  “He’s your closest friend,” I say with a smile, “so we should tell him.”

  “He’ll be cool with it,” Derek says.

  “You remember when you told him how to pronounce my name and he did it, no question?”

  Derek nods.

  “He looks up to you.”

  Derek’s eyebrows rise. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. Clubhouse leader and all that.” I give his hand a squeeze. “So we can tell him if you want.”

  With that decided, Derek pulls the door open. “Hey,” Derek says. “We want to—”

  Travis smirks. “—Tell me what? That you’re boning or whatever?”

  Derek lets out a long, slow breath, but he doesn’t drop my hand. “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “I already knew that,” Travis says, with a satisfied shrug. “Maybe before you did.” He taps a finger against his temple. “Now who’s the clubhouse leader?”

  “Definitely not you,” Derek says, laughing.

  “Yeah, probably not.” Travis drums a hand against his jeans. “You cooking or what? I’m starving.”

  “Sure,” Derek says. “Want to stay for lunch?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he says, then he winks. “But don’t worry. I’ll take off after and you can enjoy being…roomies again.”

  I laugh. “We will.”

  “We definitely will,” Derek echoes.

  And we do for the rest of the off-season. We spent most of it together, here in Seattle, going out to the trendy restaurants in our neighborhood, checking out endless coffee shops, playing golf.

  And seeing my family. He comes with me to Houston to meet my parents. He’s the perfect gentleman at dinner, but later, when we’re alone walking through downtown, he confesses he was nervous the whole time.

  “I just wanted them to like me,” he says.

  I stop on the street, smile, catch his lips in a kiss. “They do. Just like I do,” I say. But that’s not true. “Actually, I love you.”

  His gaze turns tender. “I love you too, Adam.”

  In February, Arizona is already sweltering as we get ready for the fundraiser together—in our rental for spring training.

  The house is a single story with stucco walls and a red tiled roof. It looks just like every other house around it. Except this one has both our signatures on the lease for the next few months.

 

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