Page 31

The second we’re off the hotel property and hit the first light, I jerk my gaze to Grant.

“You look fucking incredible,” I tell him.

His smile lights my soul as he says with a rumble, “So do you.”

I rake my gaze over the man in the passenger seat, the air-conditioning humming around us. “Correction: you look good enough to eat.”

He wiggles a brow. “You should then.”

“Mmm. Maybe I will,” I say, and when the light changes and I hit the gas, I reach across the console for his hand. Grant clasps his fingers with mine, sending the mercury in me rising.

But the emotions too.

Holding hands with him feels so damn good.

We’re quiet for several blocks as we cruise to the rink in the desert night.

Grant stretches his right hand to the screen on the dashboard, hits the music tab, and scrolls through my playlist. With a sexy smirk he throws my way, he selects a familiar tune.

Once the opening notes of “November Rain” fill the car, I chuckle.

As I drive, Grant steals glances at me, and I steal them right back at him, and when we hit a long light, I grab the back of his head, and drag him in for a hot, quick kiss that makes my skin sizzle. This man has my number.

“Mmm. I want to take you out and kiss you everywhere,” I murmur.

“On my body or around town?”

“Good point. Let’s make it both.”

“I thought you were pretty private about PDA?” Grant asks, curiously.

“I am,” I say. “But I’d have a hell of a time resisting you wherever we were.”

His lips curve in the start of a grin. “You’d have your hands all over me?”

The light changes and I hit the gas. “I probably would. Do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be for me not to touch you at the game?”

“How hard?”

I grab his hand and bring it to my crotch. “This hard.”

He murmurs his appreciation. “That’s my favorite kind of hard,” Grant says, rubbing his hand along the ridge of my erection.

I growl, wanting to give in, wanting to press my hand on top of his, let him stroke me. But I can’t. Moving his hand back to his thigh, I tip my forehead toward the road. “Need to focus or I’ll crash, and I don’t want to die without fucking you first.”

“That would be a tragedy,” he agrees, then leans back against the headrest and closes his eyes.

He’s smiling though.

He looks happy. Absolutely content. Like there’s no place else he’d rather be.

“I’d want all that too, Deck,” he says softly, a quiet admission in the dark. One that tugs on my chest. “I’d want to go out with you. If we were other people. You know? If we had other jobs. If you played baseball and I played hockey or something like that.”

“I do know what you mean,” I say, heaviness in my tone, suiting the turn we’ve taken.

“I’d want to be seen with you. I wouldn’t want anyone else to beat us to it.” His eyes fly open, and that blue gaze is so damn serious now.

My brows knit, but I turn my gaze back to the road, my fingers curled around the steering wheel.

I flash back to the night I met him. The things he said in the elevator. About telling his own story. “This is why you told the locker room that first day. And then later you said someone beat you to it. What happened?”

Grant’s jaw tightens and he nods as he blows out a long stream of air, laced with frustration. “You ever had someone else out you?”

“No.” My heart screams for him. For the awfulness. “That happened to you, babe?”

“Yes.” His voice is strung tight. “In front of my whole fucking high school.”

I nearly crash the car. “Wow.”

“End of my senior year. Right when I figured it out. Right when I knew. I told Reese. I told my grandparents. They were awesome, just like you’d expect.” He swallows roughly. “Then I told my mom and her husband.”

I keep my eyes on the road, but sneak glances at the man by my side. “And what happened?”

“A week later there was an assembly at school with parents and students. It was about diversity. Awareness. Important stuff about inclusion. And right in the middle of it, Frank stood up and said, ‘As the stepfather of a young gay man, I applaud these efforts.’”

Grant closes his eyes, as if the memory pains him too much.

It hurts me too, for him.

I scan the street, spotting an empty parking lot at a closed coffee drive thru. Flipping on the turn signal, I pull into the lot, park the car, and cut the engine. “Grant,” I say, my heart flooding with sympathy.

“Yeah, I know.” He heaves a terrible sigh, then scrubs his hand down his face. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I take his hand in mine again, bring his knuckles to my lips, kiss them. He shudders when I touch him, and I record that reaction in my mind, save it for a rainy day.

Then I let go and tell him something I don’t like to share either. Something that still cuts deep. “When I was seventeen, I told my dad I was gay. He said there was nothing wrong with who I like, but that I should stay in the closet. He said it would be safer. He said it would be better for me.”

Grant’s lips twist in a scowl. “You didn’t listen to him, did you?”

“I thought about it for a little bit,” I admit. “He talked about how the minors were for him playing ball. He talked about sports being the last place for a queer guy. That I was better off being”—I stop to sketch air quotes as the bitter memory rears its head—“discreet. Like it was better for me to live a lie.”

Grant huffs, grinding his teeth. “I hate lies.”

“Me too. So much.”

“What happened?”

“I thought about it, but I didn’t spend my teenage years trying to escape his lies to go live another one.” I tap my chest. “I said, ‘This is who I am. This is me. Take it or leave it.’”

“What did he say?”

I shake my head, not wanting to dwell on the man who twists my insides every time he calls or texts. “Doesn’t matter. He disagreed. Vehemently. Then he apologized the next day. Vehemently too. But he still said it. I still remember. He wanted me to hide.”

Grant grabs my face in his right hand, holds my jaw tight. “I’m glad you didn’t. When I met you and I said I was a big fan, it wasn’t just because I had a crush on you. You were kinda my hero. You have to know what it meant to guys like me in college to see a guy like you playing in the majors.”

I dip my face, not sure what to say.

“Sorry. I don’t want to ruin tonight,” Grant says, backpedaling. Dropping his hand.

I jerk my face up. Does he not get it? He can’t ruin anything.

“Don’t apologize. I like getting to know you. So much more than I should,” I say, putting that much on the line, telling him what’s fast becoming the truth of my heart, even though I won’t be able to have what I want so badly.

Him.

“Me too, Deck,” he whispers. “Me too.”

A quick scan of the lot tells me we’re still alone.

The sky is dark.

The sun is down.

It’s only us.

After I remove his ball cap, I rope a hand through his hair, tug on it, then look around the empty lot once more. “This is what I want to do at the game tonight,” I say.

I kiss Grant Blackwood with everything I have, and it still doesn’t feel like it’ll ever be enough.