Scoring With Him

by Lauren Blakely

  I squeeze my eyes shut as if it’ll make the next sentence easier. But it doesn’t. It’s still hard to say. “I can’t get him out of my head,” I admit. “It’s kind of making me crazy.”

  “Oh, sweetie. It sounds amazing and awful at the same time,” she says.

  “Exactly.”

  “So, what happens next?”

  I lift my face. At least this is easy to say. “Well, we’re having sex tonight.”

  “Ooh la la. So, I guess you’re ready.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, I’m going to shower before the game. Make sure I’m good and clean in all the ways.”

  “Good plan. But I meant are you ready in other ways? Emotionally? You always wanted your first time to be with the right guy. Is he the right guy?”

  My heart thunders, knowing the answer before I do, trying to tap it out in the Morse code of beats. “Aside from being a ballplayer and also my teammate, he absolutely is.”

  There are just those two big barriers between us.

  That’s all.

  But I don’t want to think about obstacles, so I ask what she’s been up to, and we shoot the breeze for a few minutes. When we end the call, I find a new text on my phone.

  One that punches me in the chest.

  It’s from my mom.

  * * *

  Mom: Hey, handsome! Did my dad tell you we’ll be at Opening Day??? Can’t wait to see my little boy catch his FIRST MAJOR LEAGUE GAME! Frank and I are so happy for you. He says it’s been too long. He can’t wait to catch up. He has so much to talk to you about.

  * * *

  Yeah, he probably wants to apologize for the ten thousandth time. Whatever, I’m over it.

  Over all of my mom’s boyfriends and husbands. All my dad’s wives and girlfriends. I don’t need to be their show pony.

  But I find it’s best to just smile and wave, so I tap out a quick reply.

  * * *

  Grant: Let’s hope I make the starting lineup. If so, see you then! Should be an awesome day.

  * * *

  The day I’ve longed for my whole entire life. But I don’t want them to ruin it, so I try to shove my parents out of my mind.

  I shed my workout clothes, pull on shorts and a shirt, then grab a Lyft to The Lazy Hammock, since I’m jonesing for a distraction.

  As I eat a light lunch, I chat with River at the bar about growing up in Northern California, then moving here.

  “What brought you to Phoenix?” I ask.

  The inked bartender sighs a little wistfully and scrubs a hand across his short beard. “A man.”

  “Your partner?”

  He shakes his head, frowning, but seeming resigned. “Nope. He’s history now. Caught him cheating.”

  “Ouch,” I say, crinkling my nose.

  “Yup. But that’s okay. I won’t let one bad one get me down,” he says, smiling quickly, like he’s letting the world know he’s all good.

  “Words to live by.”

  “And you and that guy from the other night looked quite cozy. Is he someone serious?” River’s eyebrows rise in question.

  I shouldn’t say a word. But River already saw us. River was on the receiving end of Declan’s fit of jealousy when my teammate threw down a claim on me. “He’s the kind you wish you could be serious with, you know?”

  River pats my hand. “I do, hun. I absolutely know.” He flashes a sympathetic smile, one that seems to telegraph where Declan and I are headed. “Enjoy it while it lasts, right?”

  I lift my Diet Coke and drink to that.

  Time to kick this funk to the ground. Tonight, I’m getting laid, and that’s what I want.

  I don’t want to think about endings.

  Six hours later, I’m showered, shaved, dressed in tight jeans that make my ass look great, a gray T-shirt that shows off my arms, and a ball cap. After grabbing a hoodie, I head down to the lobby to meet Declan.

  When I spot him just outside the sliding doors, tossing his keys up and down in his palm, I have to fight not to stare at him the way I want.

  He’s so damn handsome it makes my chest hurt.

  He wears jeans and a blue polo that stretches just so across his pecs, that hugs his arms deliciously, that teases at his flat stomach that I love to kiss and lick.

  But it’s his face that does me in. His chiseled jaw, his full lips, his strong cheekbones. Most of all, his eyes. They are my downfall. Dark brown and brimming with passion and possibility.

  Once I lock eyes with him, I will go up in flames.

  When he spots me walking to him, he turns in slow motion, his eyes meeting mine. He takes me in, and shoots me a hungry, needy look that says he can’t look away either.

  Yep, fire.

  But it’s so much more. I burn deeply for him.

  He’s not only all I can think about. He’s all I want to think about.

  29

  Declan

  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 bro
ws 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.

  30

  Declan

  Emma is the loudest.

  “I nearly forgot what it’s like to go to a game with you,” I say to her above the noise and the shouting in the arena as New York evens the score against Phoenix.

  My friend shoots me a saucy look, her blonde ponytail whipping as she turns to me. “You forgot that I’m the biggest fan on the planet?”

  “It seems I did. Maybe sometime around when you burst my eardrums,” I tease.

  Grant laughs, rubs his knuckle against the side of his head. “You and me both.”

  “You guys can handle it,” she says, then swings her gaze back to the ice as Phoenix moves the puck toward the goal.

  Emma claps several times. “Come on, James. Stop that puck.”

  I toss a glance at Grant, a seat away since Emma is in the middle.

  “She’s a little passionate about hockey,” I deadpan.

  “Welcome to the club,” Grant says.

  “I’m especially passionate when my brother is playing,” Emma chimes in, and when Fitz blocks a Phoenix goal, she loses her mind, jumping up and down, thrusting her arms in the air. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  “You’re going to lose your voice,” I warn.

  “I already am losing it,” she jokes, her pitch a little rumbly.

  “Were you a cheerleader in high school, woman?” Grant asks.

  She flashes a bright smile. “Don’t let my cheerleader looks fool you. I was full-on nerd.”

  “Nerds can be cheerleaders too,” I add.

  “I know. But I was only a nerd,” she says, then shouts once more at the players.

  A frizzy-haired woman a few rows ahead cranes her neck around, looks up at Emma, smiles. Next, she makes eye contact with me. Recognition flashes in her features. “Go Cougars,” she says with a big, bright smile.

  I tip my chin toward her and grin back. “Go Cougars.”

  “Spotted in the wild,” Emma whispers.

  “So famous,” Grant teases.

  I roll my eyes. “You’ll be next, rookie.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ears,” he says, and we return our attention to the ice.

  A minute later when New York scores, Emma unleashes the most crushing cheer I’ve ever heard.

  It’s contagious.

  I’m so glad I’m not sitting next to Grant or I’d kiss him right now. Kiss him hard and celebrate. Clenching my fists, I draw a tight breath.

  Resist him.

  I keep my hands to myself, but it’s a tough battle. I don’t know what’s happening to my vaunted self-control, but it leaves the building when he’s around.

  Must refocus.

  As game play resumes, I cast about for a random question, the pool table chatter we engage in when we’re out with the guys. Something, anything so Grant feels like one of the guys, and not the man I desperately want to spend the night with.

  “Question for both of you. If you could do anything else, besides be a ballplayer, or an art historian for Emma, what would you do?” I ask.

  Grant gestures to Emma. “Ladies first.”

  She adopts a wicked grin. “Hockey play-by-play commentator.”

  “Oh yeah, I can totally see that,” Grant says.

  “And you, G-man?” I ask, tossing out the nickname Sullivan and the other guys use with him. It sounds all wrong on my tongue.

  He smiles my way, his blue eyes sparkling maybe with mischief as he gives a casual shrug. “We’re birds of a feather, Emma and me,” he says, tapping her shoulder. He’s touchy-feely with her in the way I suspect he is with
female friends. Maybe in the way he’s fully able to be only with women. He’s a physical guy, and with females he can set a hand on an arm or a shoulder without any undertones. Then he answers, “Though in my case, I’d play hockey.”

  “Sports, natch.” As I do, my brain snags on something. What Grant said in the car on the way over. If we were other people. If I played baseball and he played hockey. Is his comment just now about us? Is it a private remark? And why do I like it so much?

  “What, this surprises you? Sports is my love,” he says to me, all casual and charming.

  Yeah, it’s not about me. It’s not about us, and that’s fine too. His answer is all him, all one-track-mind athlete, and I laugh. I am in knots over him.

  Grant’s face goes starkly serious. “Baseball is everything,” he says, then shoots me a stern stare. “Don’t try to pretend it’s any different for you.”

  “No arguments here,” I say. “Baseball is life.”

  Emma shakes her head, laughing. “You guys.”

  “What?” I ask.

  She lowers her voice to a barren whisper. “You’re so ador—”

  I growl, a warning sound.

  She holds up her hands in surrender.

  “She’s not wrong, Deck,” Grant whispers.

  Emma’s eyes twinkle with Cupid’s arrows. “Deck.” She clasps her heart. “I die.”

  “Rookie,” I rumble in an even lower voice.

  Emma gasps, flaps her hands. “Stahp, stahp.”

  Grant clears his throat. “Okay, how about we answer what we’d do outside of sports. I’ll go first. I’d be James Bond. How about you, Declan?” he asks, making a production out of sounding all professional when he says my name.

  And it is adorable.

  One of the guys.

  He’s one of the guys.

  My answer is easy—same thing I’d say to anyone. “If I could do anything besides baseball, I would shred a guitar like nobody’s business. I would rock out to Guns N’ Roses.” I pick up my air guitar. I play the opening notes to “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” humming along. Grant’s eyes light up, twinkling. “Damn, that’s good.”