Slow Pitch

by Amy Lane

“Sounds better,” Nina said. “I… all my friends live a thousand miles away. I never realized how alone we were, you know?”

  “Oh, honey,” Desi said, taking her hand, “you’re not alone. You’ve got Tenner, Tenner’s got us. We’ve got you.”

  Nina nodded weakly. “Thanks, Des. Can I talk to Ross for a minute?”

  “Sure, honey. I’ll be camping out on the sofa. Ross can take the guest room, right?”

  Nina looked Ross in the eyes and twisted her mouth. “Yeah. Here, he can have the guest room.”

  Desi left, and Ross took her place by the side of the bed. He started rubbing her back, like Desi had, and Nina closed her eyes again.

  “You have to understand,” she said softly. “He was all I ever wanted when I was in college.”

  “I get that,” Ross said. “He’s all I ever wanted, period.” And it was true. He’d never had a lover that could be his everything, until Tenner had yielded to him on a warm spring night, and Ross had fallen in love.

  She nodded. “Yeah. My parents… they didn’t even come to our wedding, you know? And they’ve seen Piper maybe once, right after she was born. And… and it was okay, because I had a husband and a daughter who loved me. I had friends at work, even if they lived in New York. But then he told me he was gay, and that felt like… like all that security had been a lie. And I was so mad. And then, he asked for the divorce, and… and it was… it was like a chance to hurt him back. I knew it was wrong, putting that thing in the settlement. But I… I didn’t know how else to show him how much he’d hurt me. And I missed him. This whole time, that friend I fell for in college, he’s been right there, picking Piper up, making sure I was okay, anticipating my every need—and I never saw him.” Her voice broke. “And now, I’m so grateful to have him in my life… in any way.” She started to sob. “And you’re being so nice.”

  “Shh… shh… it’s okay,” Ross said, leaning over and sheltering her with his shoulders. “It’s okay, honey. I’m gonna have to leave sometimes. You can keep him safe until I’m back. He’s still yours that way. And you still have Piper together. You’re friends now, just like you’ve always been friends. And you can be my friend too.”

  “Thank—” Hiccup. “—thank—” Hiccup. “—thank-thank-thank you!”

  And that was the last thing she managed to say until the storm of weeping passed and she fell asleep.

  Ross waited a couple of minutes, looking at her little oval of a face, seeing her in Piper, seeing her appeal to Ten. In a remarkably short time, she’d gone from being the evil ex to being a vulnerable woman—but then, she’d never been the evil ex to Tenner. She’d been someone he cared about and had let down, just by being human.

  Ross and Nina, they were going to be fine.

  Finally he turned off the light and went downstairs, to where Desi had helped herself to some microwave popcorn and was watching her favorite rom-com on Nina’s Netflix.

  Ross had to laugh. “Made yourself at home?”

  “Well, tea delivery is a thankless job. You gotta take your perks where you can.” Desi grinned at him. “Want some popcorn?”

  Ross’s stomach grumbled, and he remembered the takeout boxes in the car. “How would you like pork medallions in cranberry glaze?” he asked seriously. “With a sweet potato cake cooked in brown sugar and balsamic vinegar?”

  Desi’s eyes got big—she’d always had a soft spot for somebody else’s cooking. “Is there a dessert in this magic lamp? Because Nina is apparently scrupulous on the sugar thing, and I could use some cookies.”

  “Individually portioned chocolate mousse pies,” he said, pulling out his phone. “Give me a sec and I’ll go get them from the car.”

  “You,” she said soberly, “are my favorite little brother.”

  Ross grinned. “I’m your only brother, but I’ll take it.” He pulled out his phone and texted, Bad news, Ten—my sister’s eating your dinner.

  That’s fine. I owe you another one anyway. Maybe someplace less fancy, with steak.

  Done. The future was looking pretty good, Ross decided on the way out to the car. He’d have to make sure it stayed bright.

  Wearing Shades

  TENNER BROUGHT Piper home the next morning and tucked her into her own bed for some much-needed rest.

  “Is Mommy okay? She was feeling icky too,” Piper murmured.

  “She’s fine. I told you, Ross took good care of her.”

  “Are you going to stay, Daddy?”

  “Me and Ross were going to go practice with the team,” he said with a yawn. “I think we’ll come back tonight, though, and bring you guys some soup.”

  She laughed and snuggled down, obviously grateful to be in her own bed. She hadn’t slept well in the hospital, but her color sure was better, and her fever had fallen to below 101. It would be a long week of recovery for her, like it had been for him and Ross, but she was over the worst of it.

  “I’ll have Mommy come snuggle,” he said and kissed her on the forehead. “I know she was worried.”

  “Tell her I had juice,” Piper said practically, and then her eyes fluttered closed, and she hugged her favorite bunny close.

  Tenner met Nina on his way out the door. “You’re up,” he said kindly, and she smiled.

  “I’m mostly dead,” she said, and The Princess Bride worked its magic and they both laughed a little. “It’ll take me a while before I storm the castle.”

  “Well, fine. I’m sure the castle will wait.”

  Unexpectedly she hugged him, and he held her in surprise. “You and Ross were so great last night—so great.”

  “Oh, honey. Did you think we’d leave you alone?”

  “I probably deserved it,” she muttered, and he kissed her temple.

  “No.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve missed you. As a friend. Do you think… you, me, Piper—we could be that kind of family? The kind you see on TV and go, ‘Oh, hey, they have history, but they’re doing okay’?”

  “Can Ross be included?” he asked. God, it was all he’d ever wanted for himself.

  “Well, after the last two weeks, I think the only guest room he’s going to sleep in is mine,” she said practically, and he knew he was grinning and couldn’t seem to stop.

  “Go,” she said, shoving him away with a yawn. “Apparently you two idiots are going to play softball today, which is insanity because all I want to do is sleep.”

  “We’ll come back with soup,” he promised, but she shook her head.

  “Desi’s coming over later with soup. But if you guys want to drop by, that’s fine.” Her eyes grew sober. “And that goes for… you know. Anytime. When he’s gone, and you want family—anytime. Okay.”

  Tenner nodded. “You too. Now go sleep and cuddle and get better. See you soon.”

  She climbed into bed with Piper, who curled into her chest with a happy little sigh. “Mommy!”

  “Sweetiepants!”

  And he left them together and went to give Desi the biggest hug in the world.

  “This was so kind of you—seriously. She was so alone and—”

  Desi waved his thanks away. “No worries, and by the way, you missed out. Your dinner last night was amazing.”

  Tenner sent Ross a dry look. “Food is always a good reward,” he said, and the statement was punctuated with his stomach gurgling.

  Ross, who seemed to have had a decent night’s sleep, rolled his eyes. “You haven’t eaten since yesterday? Jesus, Tenner, it’s eleven in the morning!”

  Tenner’s stomach gurgled again, and he said, “We have practice in an hour, and I need to go home and feed the cat!”

  “Gah! Joe will be fine. But you! Piper says I take care of you, baby, and I’m falling down on the job!”

  Tenner shook his head. “We have got to go change and go to practice—”

  Desi rolled her eyes. “You’ll be gone for two months, you say?”

  Ross nodded. “Yeah.”

  “It’s a good thing Patrick takes hi
m out to lunch twice a week, that’s all I’m saying.”

  Ross cocked his head. “Twice a week? And you can’t put any meat on your ass? Oh my God. Hurry up and let’s go so I can feed you.”

  Tenner scowled. “Look, I know what you told Piper, but—”

  Ross silenced him with a kiss, hard and hungry and needy, and Tenner responded, so relieved to feel Ross’s arms around him that he couldn’t even pretend. He melted, that reassurance, that strength bleeding into him and leaving some of the long, anxious night behind them.

  “Bye, guys,” Desi said on her way out the door. “I’ll see you here, tonight, while we make sure our girls are okay.”

  Ross raised his hand to wave, but he didn’t, not once, take his mouth from Tenner’s, and Tenner was grateful.

  The kiss was pure comfort, and finally, finally, when they separated, panting for breath, Ross said, “So, breakfast first, feed the cat, and text Hanford to tell him we’ll be late. Deal?”

  “I don’t know what I’m getting out of that—”

  Ross kissed him again, short and hard, and pulled back. “Don’t fuck with me here. You were gone, the kid was sick, I was worried, and your ex-wife broke my heart. I need you to do what I’m saying here, and don’t give me any shit, okay?”

  Tenner swallowed and nodded, realizing that this was what made partners, just as much as the “You do this and I’ll do that” dynamic. “Yeah,” he said meekly. “Let’s go feed the cat.”

  “And the human!” Ross muttered, exasperated. “No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to hear it. You look exhausted, and it’s making me stabby, and we need to leave and let them sleep. Now go. I’m driving. We’ll grab an Egg McSomething on the way.”

  TENNER WAS tired and out of sorts at practice, and when Ross told the team why, they told him to go home.

  “You should have called me,” Hanford said after the team scattered to practice fielding. His eyes went back and forth between Ross and Tenner as if they weren’t about to dash his hopes. “I’m great with kids.”

  “Ross took care of us,” Tenner said with meaning. “He’s really good at it.”

  Hanford looked at Ross, who was nodding with the same meaning, and his face fell. “Oh. Oh, I didn’t realize…. I’m sorry. I, you know….”

  Tenner shrugged and hoped he could help the young man save face. “We were quiet about it,” he said, not even wanting to think about what his neighbors had heard that Tuesday when they’d stayed home an extra day to have sex.

  “Yeah.” Hanford sighed and looked out at the rest of the guys. “Well, Kipper asked me to pizza next week,” he said, a little bit of hope in his voice. “Maybe I should go.”

  “Definitely,” Ross said, and Tenner sent him a dirty look.

  And then yawned.

  Which meant it was their signal to go, so he could nap before dinner.

  PIPER AND Nina got slowly better that week, much like Ross and Tenner had, and Ross gave up any pretense of sleeping at Pat and Desi’s. And that was a good thing, because, as it turned out, they had less time than they thought.

  The Monday after their abortive date, Ross texted Patrick and Tenner that he’d pick them up for lunch. At first Tenner was just happy to see him in the middle of the day, but when they got out to his SUV, he looked grim-faced and upset.

  “What’s wrong?” Patrick asked.

  Ross let out a breath, wearing a face Tenner had never seen before—angry and frustrated and almost tearful. “I… the territory we’d kept from burning before I came up here is in danger again. They start deforestation next week. So I… I leave on Saturday.”

  Saturday?

  “That’s… that’s really soon,” Tenner stated, trying not to lose it. “When are you coming back?”

  Ross had his foot on the brake and turned that heartbroken face to Tenner. “I don’t know,” he said, voice pitching. “I… I’ve got to do this. The company that’s running the deforestation will only negotiate with me, and all the people who’ve been trying to replant the area are people I recruited. I can’t leave them like this, baby. I—” He glanced into the back seat where Patrick sat, looking sad but resigned. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re coming back,” Pat said, waving his hand like it wasn’t even a thing. “We’ll be okay.”

  Tenner swallowed hard, and Ross turned back to him. “Will you be okay?” Ross said, and then, without even a glance at his brother-in-law, he said, “Will we be okay?”

  Tenner stared at him, looking unhappy and worried and… and so, so dear. “I can’t imagine being more in love with you in two weeks than I am right now,” he said with a shrug.

  Ross let out a strangled laugh and held his hand to his heart. “Wow! Right when I thought you had no game.”

  Tenner rolled his eyes. “I have great game,” he said with dignity. “Just not… you know. When I’m super depressed.” He’d been planning on two more “date weeks.” Two more chances to make amazing love with Ross McTierney.

  You trust me so beautifully in bed. Can’t you trust me enough to hope?

  He didn’t have a choice—time had apparently forced his hand. He had to hope. He wasn’t going to function without it.

  “Yeah,” Ross said, lowering his voice. “Saturday is going to suck.”

  They shared a look, complicated and painful. Finally, Pat spoke up from behind them, saving the moment from becoming too fraught.

  “But Friday night isn’t gonna,” he said with decision. “Party after the games. My place. Barbecue to send Ross off and make him want to come back. Who’s with me!”

  “We can invite Piper since it’s Friday,” Ross said wistfully. “She’ll still be recovering, but I can see her Friday night, right?”

  “Yeah,” Tenner said, thinking about how warm the nights were now in May. “I think she’ll be so excited.”

  And Ross would be sleeping with Tenner that night—because they had no time left, and Tenner wasn’t going to waste a second.

  But it wasn’t enough, just making that resolve, sending Ross off with that “I love you, come back” in his ears.

  Tenner needed more—a sign. A signal. He remembered Ross “marking his room” that first night, and after lunch that afternoon, as he sat in his cubicle and stared sightlessly at his computer, he had an idea, like a bolt of lightning.

  He got online and ordered Ross’s surprise. It showed up Thursday morning.

  THE LAST game of the season was Ross’s last Friday in town. After Tenner’s team lost its game heinously—but not so heinously they didn’t at least get two at bats—Ross met him to go get Piper as the field lights were going down.

  “Patrick just reminded me about the barbecue tonight,” he said. “In honor of me getting the fuck out of Dodge. You, Piper, Nina—they want the whole nine yards. You can even invite the Sunspots, if you want. Hanford and Kipp might make out behind something and give us a thrill.”

  Tenner rolled his eyes. “You know what would give me a thrill? If Hanford could catch the damned ball. That would thrill me no end. That would be an instant orgasm where I stood, oh yes it would.”

  Ross laughed softly. “So you do love softball more than you love me.”

  Tenner looked at him sourly. “No, but I might love it more than I love your brother-in-law. I was supposed to join his team when you left, do you know that?”

  “I do,” Ross said.

  “But I can’t. I can’t. Because these guys still suck on ice, and they keep looking at me, with their big eyes, going, ‘You’re going to be our captain again in the summer season, right, Tanner?’ They don’t even know my name, Ross. And you know what the worst part is?”

  They neared the cinderblock bathrooms—the cinderblock bathrooms—and Ross touched his arm so he’d stand still. “You’re going to do it?” Ross told him, like he wasn’t surprised at all.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna do it. I’d feel like some asshole who kicked puppies if I—” The lights clicked off, and they were left alone in the war
m dark of the early summer night. “—didn’t,” Tenner finished weakly.

  And Ross was there, his heat, his smell—and he was familiar now, he was Tenner’s, but it was no less of a thrill because they’d had each other, spent nights in each other’s arms, had promised a future together.

  “You’re not a guy who kicks puppies,” Ross said, running tender fingertips along Tenner’s jaw.

  “No,” Tenner murmured.

  Their kiss wasn’t urgent or electric. They weren’t going to jump behind the bathrooms and bang each other like strangers this time, because they weren’t strangers, and they had better places to make love.

  But the kiss was an affirmation, a reminder, of all that they had become in the past month and a half, and all they had yet to be. Tenner moaned slightly and clenched Ross so tight it was probably hard to breathe.

  “Hey,” Ross murmured. “It’s okay.”

  “You promised,” Tenner reminded him.

  “So did you.”

  “Your home is with me,” Tenner said, because Ross had been a wanderer, and now he wasn’t anymore, and Tenner had done that.

  “And I’ll be home to take care of you,” Ross said softly. And God, Tenner hadn’t thought he’d needed that, but he’d been so wrong. He needed Ross. Not to pay the rent or to feed the cat but to care for Tenner’s soul.

  Tenner nodded, eyes still burning, and then pulled back and dropped his equipment bag so he could fumble in the pocket. He came back with a small box that had been delivered the day before but that he hadn’t wanted to leave in the house.

  “Here,” he mumbled. “This isn’t very romantic, but here.”

  He pulled out the two rings, both of them gray silicone, plain and serviceable, and sturdy. “They’re not wedding rings or engagement rings, but… but I don’t want you a thousand miles away without anything but memories.” He slid the ring onto Ross’s finger, glad his guess about the size had worked. “There. I bought two extras, so if it rips or whatever, you can replace it. It’s just—”

  “Perfect,” Ross said, pulling out his phone so he could look at the ring in the flashlight. “Perfect, Tenner. Where’s yours?”