by Amy Lane
Tenner smiled a little, glad he understood, and pulled out the plain silicone band for himself. Ross took it and slid it on.
“It’s not a wedding ring yet,” he said, kissing Tenner’s knuckles. “But it will be. I promise.”
Tenner’s eyes burned some more. “Come back,” he muttered. “It’s the only promise I need.”
Ross took his mouth then and sealed the deal, and after a moment of their hearts beating in the humid quiet, they turned for the parking lot so they could go get their girl.
THE BARBECUE was great, because Patrick and Desi didn’t know how to do a gathering badly, and everybody said goodbye and good luck to Ross, but only a few people noticed the rings.
Nina was one of them. “Nice,” she murmured, nodding at Tenner’s finger.
“Yeah?” And God, he really wanted her blessing.
“Invite me to the ceremony,” she said pertly, but she smiled, and it was genuine, and he smiled back.
“I’ll make you a groomsperson,” he said, and her eyes widened in horror.
And then humor.
“That way, I’ll have been in both of your weddings.” Suddenly she giggled. “Your parents would have kittens.”
Tenner laughed too. “We should invite them.”
And they both clung to each other for a moment, like friends.
Ross said goodbye to his family that night and slept where he belonged—in Tenner’s bed. It was funny, that, because he’d ramped the moment up into such a milestone, something so tremendous it would change his world with his daughter forever. But it was really so simple.
When he went to kiss Piper good night, she asked for Ross too.
“You want Ross to kiss you?” he asked, that little knife of “he’s leaving us” twisting in his chest. “You know he’s going away tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” she said sadly, “but he’ll come back. He’s got to. He needs to take care of you when I’m not here, and sleep in your bedroom when you have bad dreams.”
Tenner stared at her. “In the bedroom?” he said, feeling a little off-kilter. This was supposed to be a big deal.
“Not the guest room,” she told him. “He’s not a guest. He lives here now. So he’ll come back after his trip.” She smiled at him, with that perfect confidence that adults would figure things out eventually. “Now get him to come in here and kiss me good night!”
“Sure. Ross!” he called, still surprised.
But Ross’s footsteps up the stairs didn’t sound surprised at all. “You rang?”
Piper laughed and held out her arms and got her kiss, and they went back downstairs for some grown-up time.
“Can you believe that?” Tenner asked, bemused. “She’s got the whole thing planned. You have to sleep with me so you know this is your home, so you’ll come back.”
“She’s brilliant,” Ross said smugly. “Must get it from Nina.”
“Shut up!” Tenner smacked him with a throw pillow, and Ross laughed and pinned him against the couch, tickling him until he was breathless.
And then kissed him until he was needy, and the two of them made it back up the stairs and closed the door and turned out the lights and had very quiet, very ordinary, very satisfying sex before they fell asleep.
“Ross?” Tenner murmured as they were closing their eyes.
“Yeah?”
“You are coming back here, right?”
“Yeah, Ten. Nothing could stop me.”
“This will be your home, right?”
“Yeah. I promised in front of your kid, Ten. I wouldn’t break that.” He took his left hand, the one with the ring, and laced his fingers with Tenner’s. “See? You had the right of it.”
Rings. Joining. Family. “I believe,” Tenner murmured.
“I promise.”
Ross kissed the back of his neck, and Tenner closed his eyes. Ross’s word was good enough. Tenner would believe in him until death did they part.
It was the only way he could get out of bed the next morning.
Because the next morning, bright and early, they loaded Ross and his luggage and Piper into the car, to take him to the airport.
Tenner put the car in Park and got out to help Ross with his luggage, and then turned to hug him and was ambushed by a kiss.
A hard, needy kiss, with Ross’s hot face up against his, tears he hadn’t expected stinging both their cheeks.
“I’ll be back,” Ross promised.
“I’ll be home,” Tenner promised in return, and then one more brief press of lips, and Ross saluted Piper in the car, shouldered his duffel, grabbed his suitcase, and left, not looking behind him.
Tenner envied him. He could go deal with the whole travel routine, but Tenner had to get in the front seat of the car and wipe his face until he could drive.
“Don’t cry, Daddy,” Piper said behind him.
“No?” God, this was miserable. He wiped his eyes on his palms and looked at the ring there, finding a little comfort, but still missing Ross like he hadn’t guessed he could.
“He’ll come back. He promised. It’s all good.”
Tenner snorted, blowing tears over the steering wheel. “You say that, but you’ll be asking me every weekend if this is the one where he’s home.”
“No,” she said, eyes sober. “Mommy helped me set up a calendar. We’re counting the weeks with little X-es. He said at least ten X-es, so I won’t start to worry until after that.”
“Mommy’s pretty smart,” Tenner told her. And it didn’t hurt to say, which was nice.
“She is. She says you’re going to have a wedding, and I’m gonna get a new dress. I like dresses, Daddy, just not when we get all sweaty.”
Tenner laughed again. “I know, sweetheart.” He wiped his eyes on his shoulder one more time. “You look great in dresses too.”
“Yeah, so Ross has to come back so I can wear a dress and Mommy can be pretty and meet a man.”
Tenner laughed. “Your Mommy might be fine without a man,” he said, putting the car into Drive and negotiating out of SMF without a problem. It was the world’s smallest airport. He sort of loved it, right down to the two bird sculptures on the parking building, and the giant jackrabbit in B Terminal. It was funny what you grew to love with a little familiarity.
“You weren’t,” Piper said. “You were sad, Daddy. Mommy said so, and I think she’s right.”
“Well, I was lonely,” Tenner admitted. “But your mom has friends that she visits when she goes out of town. We’ll have to let her find her own person, okay?”
“Okay. But first Ross has to come home.”
“Yeah. He will.”
They didn’t go to gymnastics that morning. Tenner took Piper to Nina’s, and they went out to breakfast. They’d just gotten their food when Tenner’s phone buzzed.
Boarding. Love you.
Eating at Denny’s. Love you too. He took a picture of Piper and Nina, who waved.
Tell them to take care of my boyfriend while I’m gone.
Tell my boyfriend to take care of himself.
Will do.
“Ross?” Nina asked gently from across the table.
“Boarding. He told you two to take care of me while he’s gone.”
“We will,” Nina said firmly. “But make sure he knows we miss him too. We want him to come home to be part of the family.”
Piper nodded, and Tenner ruffled her hair.
“He will,” he said. “And we’ll be an amazingly happy family.”
And wonder of wonders, he believed it.
TWO AND a half months later, Tenner was running around with a bunch of little girls on a soccer field, grateful for the breeze off the lake to help mitigate the blistering heat of the late August afternoon.
Behind him, Desi was giving their keeper—her daughter Polly—lessons on how to stop the ball without using her face. Tenner watched the kids playing sharks and minnows, the classic practice game, and despaired.
Watching these kids play, he got the same
feeling he’d had with two seasons with the CompuCo Sunspots. There was a lot of heart here, and a lot of joy of the game, but not a smidge of talent anywhere. And someone had wet their pants.
He watched as Piper tried diligently to win the ball from her opponent, and then, when Marcie got upset, cheerfully kick it back. That’s when he called time.
“Everybody get a drink of water,” he called, “and relax in the shade.” Fortunately their practice field was very Folsom—lots of shade trees, lots of water fountains for the girls who hadn’t brought bottles, and lots of benches, although the parents had brought their own camp chairs. Desi came up next to him, and they shared a long-suffering look.
“This is gonna be a riot of a season,” she said with a deep breath. “You heard from my brother lately? He’s promised to share the misery.”
Tenner shook his head. “I got a text three days ago saying he was going to be out of touch this week, but that’s been it. He said I’d hear from him next week at the earliest.” Tenner texted him a diary every night, just because he missed him so badly. Ross had told him to please, please keep that up. It makes me happy to imagine you home, he’d texted. But the nature of his work wouldn’t allow him to do the same. He’d tried, he texted at least every two to three days, but he was so busy. Some of his texts had carried pictures—heartbreaking devastation, workers with smudges on their faces and exhaustion in their eyes. Tenner had missed him most at night, when he’d gone home and thought of something he’d wanted to say to his other half, and then remembered that Ross might not have slept in days.
Piper and Tenner had crossed off every day he’d been missing with a red X, seven weeks, eight weeks, nine weeks—this next one would be the tenth. And with every X, each day stretched longer without him.
Tenner had never missed anybody so badly in his life. But with the missing, came the peace. Every moment of their time together was like another thread binding their future to his hopes. This thing Tenner felt, it was real. And Ross loved him in return. Faith—that thing that had deserted him so long ago, seemed to have come back with a vengeance, and it was what kept Tenner functioning while Ross was away.
He’d never had so much faith in another person in his life.
“Next week?” Desi asked, her voice far away. “Are you sure?”
Tenner turned to look at her and saw her eyes were focused on the parking lot, where what looked like an Uber was pulling up to the curb.
A tall, lanky blond guy got out, his curly hair almost to his shoulders, his duffel and his suitcase by his side.
Tenner knew that duffel and suitcase.
He knew that bright blond hair.
“Oh. My God,” he said, at the same time Desi said, “Oh my God!” next to him.
“Oh wow. Oh wow!” Tenner stood, frozen with surprise, until Desi jabbed him unceremoniously in the side.
“Don’t just stand there—go get him! Do you think he’s here to see me?”
Tenner took off like a sprinter at the mark, dodging around the other practice field where a bunch of seven-year-old boys screamed like an invading army, through the playground and up the hill to where Ross was scanning the chaos below the parking lot.
He saw Tenner as he approached, though, because he dropped his duffel bag and opened his arms.
His mouth on Tenner’s made the last two and a half months, miserable as they had been, seem like shadows.
Oh God. He was here. He’d come back. He was here.
“Hi,” Ross said, smiling softly as they pulled away.
“Hi. You’re here.”
Ross kissed his forehead. “I had to come here,” he said. “You were here. And I’m home.”
Tenner kissed him on the lips again, and the kiss was still going when Piper came and tugged on his arm. “Daddy! Daddy! Let me hug Ross! Ross! We missed you so much!”
Ross grinned and picked her up, and Tenner grabbed his luggage so Ross could listen to her chatter. As he walked behind the two of them, Ross looked back and caught his eye and winked.
They would have time. Time to kiss, time to talk, time to make love.
Time to plan—their wedding, watching Pat and Desi’s kids while they took a vacation, all the things Ross had wanted to do with him and Piper, family things that had needed time and planning because that’s how grown-ups worked.
They would have time.
All the time in the world.
Because Ross had meant it. He was home.
Yellow
Amy’s Light Romance
Amy Lane is a mother of two grown kids, two half-grown kids, two small dogs, and half-a-clowder of cats. A compulsive knitter who writes because she can’t silence the voices in her head, she adores fur-babies, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckleheaded macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever or sometimes for no reason at all. Her award-winning writing has three flavors: twisty-purple alternative universe, angsty-orange contemporary, and sunshine-yellow happy. By necessity, she has learned to type like the wind. She’s been married for twenty-five-plus years to her beloved Mate and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change.
Website: www.greenshill.com
Blog: www.writerslane.blogspot.com
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: www.facebook.com/amy.lane.167
Twitter: @amymaclane
By Amy Lane
An Amy Lane Christmas
Behind the Curtain
Bewitched by Bella’s Brother
Bolt-hole
Christmas Kitsch
Christmas with Danny Fit
Clear Water
Do-over
Food for Thought
Freckles
Gambling Men
Going Up
Hammer & Air
Homebird
If I Must
Immortal
It’s Not Shakespeare
Left on St. Truth-be-Well
The Locker Room
Mourning Heaven
Phonebook
Puppy, Car, and Snow
Racing for the Sun • Hiding the Moon
Raising the Stakes
Regret Me Not
Shiny!
Shirt
Sidecar
Slow Pitch
String Boys
A Solid Core of Alpha
Three Fates
Truth in the Dark
Turkey in the Snow
Under the Rushes
Wishing on a Blue Star
BENEATH THE STAIN
Beneath the Stain • Paint It Black
BONFIRES
Bonfires • Crocus
CANDY MAN
Candy Man • Bitter Taffy
Lollipop • Tart and Sweet
DREAMSPUN DESIRES
THE MANNIES
The Virgin Manny
Manny Get Your Guy
Stand by Your Manny
A Fool and His Manny
SEARCH AND RESCUE
Warm Heart
Silent Heart
FAMILIAR LOVE
Familiar Angel • Familiar Demon
FISH OUT OF WATER
Fish Out of Water • Red Fish, Dead Fish
A Few Good Fish • Hiding the Moon
Fish on a Bicycle
FLOPHOUSE
Shades of Henry
KEEPING PROMISE ROCK
Keeping Promise Rock • Making Promises
Living Promises • Forever Promised
JOHNNIES
Chase in Shadow • Dex in Blue
Ethan in Gold • Black John
Bobby Green
Super Sock Man
GRANBY KNITTING
The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters
How to Raise an Honest Rabbit
Knitter in His Natural Habitat
Blackbird Knitting in a Bunny’s Lair
The Granby Knitting Menagerie Anthology
TALKER
Talker • Talker’s Redemption • Talker’s Graduation
The Talker Collection Anthology
WINTER BALL
Winter Ball • Summer Lessons
Fall Through Spring
Published by Harmony Ink Press
BITTER MOON SAGA
Triane’s Son Rising • Triane’s Son Learning
Triane’s Son Fighting • Triane’s Son Reigning
Published by Dreamspinner Press
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Published by
Dreamspinner Press
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Slow Pitch
© 2020 Amy Lane.
Cover Art
© 2020 Paul Richmond
http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.
