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“Frankie, I . . . I don’t expect you to . . .”

“I know, I know you don’t, but this is how I operate. I’m in your life now and you’re in mine, right?”

I hesitate and open my mouth, but no words come out.

“Is that . . . not what you want?” she asks, her voice small, and that jolts me into action.

“Absolutely not. I just thought . . .” I trail off, not able to form the words.

“What?”

“I thought you might not want this anymore.”

“Charlie?” she says, “No, no way. We’re together. I’d call you my boyfriend, but it feels like the wrong word for a guy pushing forty.”

I roll my eyes at the jab at my age, but reach out to take her hands as I say, “You can call me whatever the hell you want, but, yeah, we are together.”

“So, if that’s the case,” she says, looking up into my eyes, “then when big life things happen, big decisions and choices, then I want to talk to you about it beforehand.”

“You should take the job.”

“Charlie . . .”

I release her hands, but only to raise mine to her face, cupping her cheeks softly, my thumbs brushing against the soft skin. “It’s everything you’ve worked for. You earned this and more than that. You had to work twice as hard and do it in heels. Take the job and be with me.”

She leans into the touch with a little sigh of relief.

“But on the plane you said . . .”

“I was being an idiot, a sentimental, selfish idiot.”

“Hey, that sentimental, selfish idiot happens to be my boyfriend.”

“I thought I was too old to be called boyfriend?”

“Man-friend?” she says, and then immediately screws up her face in disgust. “God, no, that sounds like someone your divorced grandma brings around. Significant other? Partner?”

Husband.

I don’t say it aloud. It’s way too soon. Way too fast.

Though . . . if the time in LA counts . .

. it doesn’t, though. It can’t, but that’s where I’m headed, if I can make sure not to screw this up.

I never thought I’d get married again. Never thought I’d want to, but the only thing I want more than a World Series ring is one she’ll slide onto my finger one day.

“ Amor . Lover.”

She’s still going with the labels, but finally I cut her off by leaning in and smothering whatever ridiculous suggestion that was coming next with a kiss.

One thing I love about her is that she gives as good as she gets.

When we used to go at it over a scouting report, she used to use her mouth to twist me into knots and she still does that now, only it’s a lot more fun when she dips her tongue into my mouth and yanks me to her by my shirt, backing up as she goes until her thighs hit the edge of her desk.

Another thing I love about her is the cues she gives me and, with just a quick nudge of her hips against mine, I know she wants me to lift her onto the desk.

So I do, palming her ass, the memory of that soft skin grinding against my thighs back in my bed firing through me as she raises one leg to hook around my knee to draw me between her legs.

“Can you be quick?” she asks, trailing her mouth from against my ear to the underside of my jaw.

“Here?” I choke out, trying to think clearly even when her tongue traces the line of my neck and her hands slip under the hem of my t-shirt. Glancing to the door, I just know Gregory has his earbuds in place with the music cranked up as loud as it can go. “Really?”

She pulls back and bites her lip, so I reach up to caress her cheek with my thumb and then gently brush it against her mouth to make her release it. It’s so rare to see her unsure, that I step in.

“C’mon, I have a better idea.”

“Better than fucking me on my desk? I know you thought about it back in the day.”

“You did?”

“Well not then, but thinking back, I know it now. You used to get that look in your eye.”

“What look?” I ask, curious. No one’s ever said that to me before.

“The one you’re wearing right now. Brow furrowed just a little, mouth set and your jaw twitching.

” She trails her fingers softly against it again, sending a shiver through my entire body at just the barest touch and my dick jumps against the fly of my jeans.

It would be so easy to just hike up her skirt and take her right here, staring out at the baseball field where I thought our dreams were going to come true.

But that dream feels like it’s dying.

Still, a new one can take its place.

“I mean it, I know a place we can go that’s way better than this. C’mon.”

I reach out a hand to her and she takes it, no hesitation at all.

We leave the office hand in hand and Gregory seems incredibly relieved as he pops out his earbuds and sends us off with a wave before refocusing determinedly on his computer screen.

“So, where are we going?” she asks. “Oh, wait, did the realtor find you a place?”

“Something like that,” I admit. “I want your opinion. Your honest opinion, and if you hate it, I need you to tell me, okay?”

“I mean, I can’t imagine that I’m going to hate it, but sure, I promise, my honest opinion.”

The neighborhood is even more bustling than usual, given that it’s the weekend and the weather is still clear, though the chill in the air is crisper than it was a couple of weeks ago.

Shit, my life has changed so much since then, I can barely remember what it was like.

Single. Living in LA . Retired.

Lonely. Isolated. Adrift.

“Wait, we’re walking. Is it right around here?” she asks, when I lead her down Ocean Avenue, the park on our left, the rest of Brooklyn stretching out to our right.

“It’s just up ahead,” I say, nodding down a side street that’s extremely familiar to her and she goes completely quiet the further along we go, until finally I stop at our destination.

“Charlie?” she asks, unsure. Maybe she doesn’t quite know what question to ask is and I get it, it’s confusing.

The brownstone we’re standing outside of on this tree-lined block, a calm retreat in the middle of a bustling city, is hers. At least the second and third floor are.

And now the bottom two floors are mine.

“Let me explain?” I say, worried that maybe it was too much.

“Yeah, that’s . . . that’s a good idea.”

I take a deep breath and then let it all out in a flurry of words.

“I know you’re the kind of woman that solves her own problems and doesn’t need a man to handle things, but this was the one thing I knew I could do.

I could get that dipshit out of your life.

I bought the bottom unit. Offered him double what he paid if he would get out today.

I put them up at a hotel in Manhattan, a whole borough away. ”

“You’re learning the lingo,” is all she says, at my casual use of the word borough , but nothing else. And I can’t read her expression. It’s entirely neutral.

“Yeah, well, I plan on sticking around for a while,” I say, rubbing at the back of my head. “I don’t have to live here. I can sell it again or even sell it to you, if you want. I think you’re probably about to get a pretty decent raise.”

So, I’ve explained and now the only thing I can do is wait.

I’m getting really good at that.