Page 23 of Most Likely to Match (The Matchbooks #2)

“I’m going to a therapist,” I say, then freeze at the horror on their faces.

“I’m not…I don’t mean to…” I shake my head.

Set my beer down again and turn in my seat to face them.

“I know you guys probably hate me. Dean probably hated me. And I deserved it. I think he still thinks there’s a possibility that I had something to do with it all.

” I close my eyes against the hurt of that.

“And maybe you think that, too. I won’t sit here and try to convince you, but for the record,” I say, holding Matt’s and Rick’s individual gazes for a prolonged breath.

“I wasn’t. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter that I wasn’t, because I still created the environment for it to happen, and I didn’t do anything to help him afterward. ”

Or, at least, I didn’t do enough.

“I’ve spent my adult life thinking that I wasn’t cut out for dating or relationships.

I was voted Most Likely to Succeed and I just leaned into that instead.

” I shrug. “It felt safer, I guess, than putting myself in the position to hurt someone again. But when Dean came back, I was curious for the first time. Not only about dating or whatever, but about what it might be like to be with someone, to claim them and to be claimed by them.”

I reach for Rick’s hand where it rests on the arm of his seat because now feels like the time to touch someone, even if he’s too far away for me to reach him.

“I’m not vying for sympathy here or anything.

I’ve just realized after getting Dean back that maybe I’m a little bit fucked up.

” I laugh at the understatement. “But I want to be deserving of him. I want him to trust me. I want Most Likely to Succeed to apply to more than my stupid business.”

Matt gazes out at the field, presumably uncomfortable with emotional outbursts. Rick stares at my hand resting on the seat between us; Dean’s seat.

“Look, you guys don’t have to forgive me or whatever.”

Matt snorts, clearly frustrated, and mutters something under his breath.

“It’s kind of funny, don’t you think? How the tables have turned? In high school, I was afraid that my friends wouldn’t think Dean was good enough. And now his friends know that I’m not.”

Rick looks at me, finally, wary and cautious.

“But I want to be. I’m trying to be.”

“How will you know?” Rick asks. “When you are?”

This is a big question, a big conversation for a girl who’s only filled out the intake form for a therapist. “I don’t know,” I say. “I guess that’s up for Dean to decide.”

Matt leans back in his seat, staring over my head again. He sighs, elbows Rick, who turns to him and shrugs. Like they’ve come to a collective conclusion, one communicated telepathically, they turn back to me. “Okay,” Rick says.

It’s not forgiveness. It might not even be acceptance. But for now, it’s good enough.

We win, though just barely, and by the end of the game, Dean seems more interested than when we started.

The normal thing to do after a game, especially after a win, would be to grab a drink, keep the good times rolling, as it were.

But we’re all overheated and under-hydrated, so when Matt says he’s ready to return to his hotel room’s AC, Dean gives him and Rick back-slapping bro hugs.

Matt offers his hand, and we shake, though his other hand still stuffed into his pocket.

Rick gives me a one-armed side hug, and I am happier with than I thought I’d be.

Dean and I walk silently until the next intersection, and he stops at the top of the stairs to the TTC. “Thanks for coming today.”

“Thanks for inviting me.” We loiter until the sound of a train’s squealing brakes rises from the depths of the subway. “Did you get some good photos?”

He looks down at the digital camera’s display screen, his thumb moving quickly over the buttons. “I like them.”

“Can I see?”

He turns the camera toward me. There’s the sky, the field, me.

A bug on his knee, Rick and Matt in profile, me.

Me laughing, me cheering, me standing above him, my hands in the air, my hair bouncing behind me.

I don’t know if I look beautiful or not, but I know that being the object of his affection makes me feel that way.

“Do I get a picture of you one day?” I ask.

He smiles down at the camera, the blush on his cheeks from more than the heat. “You gotta be fast to catch me,” he says, noncommittal. “Do you want to come over?” he asks. “For a swim?”

“You want me to take the train and then another train all the way to the suburbs with you so I can swim in your pool?” I ask with fake incredulity.

He pauses to think about it. “Yeah.” He nods.

“I don’t have a secret bathing suit stashed away on my person, you know.”

He grins wider. “Oh no,” he says deadpan. “Whatever shall we do?”

I take a step into him, slip my palm against his. “I don’t want to be the only one swimming naked in your backyard.” I mean it to be teasing, flirtatious. But he pauses. It’s only momentary. If it were a pause by anyone else, I would say it means nothing; it’s a breath, a thought, a blink in time.

But from Dean, it’s heavy and pregnant, and it makes me sad.

“You won’t be,” he says, his grin teasing and sweet enough that if I wanted to, I could trick myself into thinking that moment, that breath, that blink of hesitation, never happened at all.

The rocking of the train puts me… not to sleep, but fairly close.

At this time of early evening, going in the opposite direction of downtown, our ride back to Dean’s is quiet and uneventful.

We transfer from the TTC to the municipal system that lets us out a fifteen-minute walk from his neighborhood, an amenity that didn’t exist when we were teens.

Probably a good thing. We would have spent all of our spare time downtown, pretending we were city kids instead of suburban bores.

The air conditioning hums happily as he lets us in through the garage door. He hands me a towel from the first-floor linen closet and says, “I’m going to shower off the sweat first.”

“Yeah. Same.”

He gives me his shower and uses the shower in the basement.

It’s thrilling to be naked in the same house as him, while he’s naked, but not be together.

He lets me throw my sweaty baseball clothes in the wash.

“I’ll run it while we’re swimming.” And when I get out of the shower, squeeze drying my hair in the soft gray towel, he’s left a t-shirt on his bed.

I assume I’m supposed to wear it for our swim.

The sky is mostly dark blue when I step out onto his pool deck, only wisps of the pinkish, orange sunset shot through the few clouds. Dean is already in the pool, his arms over the edge, his hair slicked back and wet and his eyelashes clumped together.

Beautiful.

Instead of standing over him, in nothing but his t-shirt to give him the best possible view of what’s underneath, I drop my towel near the edge and use the stairs.

The water is cold at first, causing goose bumps to pop up along my legs.

I take my time, going step by step. Dean watches me, only his eyes and nose above water.

A shark I wouldn’t mind letting catch me.

The t-shirt pools on the surface the deeper I go.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Dean has turned off the underwater pool lights, the shirt would be entirely pointless until I fully submerge under the water and stand back up, the cotton now clinging to my hips and stomach, over my breasts, my nipples pressing against the fabric.

Dean wears something , swim trunks probably, but they’re vaguely dark and stick to him like a second skin. I don’t want to be caught staring, so I do my best to not look as we float out into the deep end.

The night is still, the water’s only ripples coming from us.

There are no barking dogs or peals of laughter and conversation from nearby backyards.

Perhaps everyone, having spent the day outside, retreated back to the comfort of air conditioning or restaurant patios.

Dean reaches for me, linking us together with our fingers so that we never float too far from each other.

Eventually, lights appear in the never truly dark sky. Probably satellites rather than stars.

“Thanks for coming today,” Dean says. His voice is rough, though I can’t tell whether it’s from disuse or emotion. “It means a lot.”

I shrug, creating a small wave around me. “I’m not sure they like me very much, but I don’t blame them.”

Dean neither confirms nor denies, which is confirmation enough, even if I hadn’t basically heard it from their own mouths.

“I hope I can change their minds, though.”

His fingers squeeze mine. “I hope so, too.”

And that, more than anything else, makes me smile, makes me beam, until my cheeks hurt, stretched beyond their limits. Dean’s hope is a promise; at least, I’ll get the chance.

“Are you hungry?” he asks after a moment.

I turn in the water, treading instead of floating, to face him. “Not really.” Though I should probably drink at least a gallon of water. “Are you?”

“No.”

I squirt a spout of water at him, barely missing his face. “Fuck off.” He laughs, turning to tread facing me, too. “Do you want to go inside?”

I dunk my head, let the water, cold but comfortable, fall over my face as I come back up. “I’m having fun.”

“Just floating?”

“Floating with you.”

He splashes me, a half-hearted tease, and I grab his hand to reel myself in closer, placing his hand around my waist. “I am.”

Under the water, my fingertips brush his stomach, his chest hair, the soft skin under his arm.

“You just want to float here?” he asks, like he’s surprised that this is enough for me.

“We could play a game, if you want.”

He laughs again. I’m probably imagining it, but his dark eyes find every fractal of light from the satellite-stars, the residual gleam from neighboring backyard spotlights, his own little night skies. “What? Like Marco Polo?”