Namely, would you date Taylor Swift, or someone like her? Because what if she, or he, wrote a breakup song about you?
Chance shakes his head fifty times. “No way.”
“You’re really telling me you wouldn’t date Taylor Swift just because you think she’d write a breakup song about you?” Crosby asks him.
“I’m really saying that,” he says for the tenth time since Crosby refuses to accept his answer.
Crosby raises his hand. “Not me. I’d absolutely take the chance. I’d love to be the subject of a pop song. Bring it on. I will be her Layla. No questions asked.”
“Wait,” Sullivan chimes in. “In this scenario, do we get royalties on the song she writes about me being a dick? In that case, I’d take that chance.”
Miguel rolls his eyes. “You think Tay-Tay splits royalties with anyone?”
I raise a finger. “Fair point. Besides, Miguel, you’re about to get married.”
The soon-to-be groom flashes a proud grin. “And all you assholes are invited to my wedding.”
“That was so heartfelt. Can I please be your best man too, with that kind of offer?” Declan asks.
“If you’re lucky.”
A little later, when I head to the restroom, I half expect Declan to follow me.
He doesn’t.
I wish he had, and I’m glad he didn’t.
Because I know what would have happened—what my body still wants to happen.
When I leave the john, Declan is alone at the pool table. The other guys are at the bar. My skin heats as I walk to him, stand near him. “Hey. How’s it going?”
“Good. Everything’s good.” He sounds like he means it, and not like he hates me for turning him down in New York.
“How’s your family?” I ask.
Declan gives me a wry smile. “I went to Tokyo for Christmas.”
I grin. “Oh yeah?”
“I invited myself and took my mom and Tyler.”
“How was it?”
“Great. Thanks for the suggestion. I’m glad I went.”
“Me too,” I say, then I draw a soldiering breath and ask a tougher question. “How’s your dad doing? Is he hanging in there?”
He sighs, long and sad. “He went to rehab, got back together with his third wife, then went to Vegas with some friends.”
My heart sinks. “And?”
“Lost a few thousand at the slots. Lost his sobriety. Lost his wife again,” he says heavily.
“Sorry, man. How are you doing with all that?”
He jerks his gaze to meet mine, as if no one else has ever asked him that before. Maybe no one has. Maybe he hasn’t ever told anyone the details. “Managing,” he says. “I’m managing.”
“Good to hear.”
Crosby’s voice cuts in as the rest of the guys return to the pool table. “Another round?”
We play a few more games, and I go home alone.
Later in the fall, when I’m out with River at the competition, as he calls it, he makes a declaration. “I want to move back to San Francisco. Officially. I miss my family a lot. Dad, and Mom, and Echo. All my cousins. And my college friends—like Owen. He’s in the city, and he’s just one of a ton of friends I have here.”
“Owen? The one you vowed never to sleep with?” I ask with a lift of a brow. River’s mentioned his friend plenty of times, as well as the friends don’t bang friends pact they struck in college.
“Don’t say that so doubtfully,” he chides.
“Pretty sure there’s no other way to say it.”
“Anyway, I found a location for the bar, and I’m lining up the loans. I have a great manager to run the Phoenix bar, so I’m going to do it.”
“A most excellent gay bar in every city,” I say, tipping my beer bottle against his.
“You know I’m using that as the slogan,” he says.
“I already told you it was yours.” I go to take a drink, but before the beer touches my lips, I set it down. An idea has sprung into my head, fully formed. “You want a business partner? Someone to help with the financing?”
“Um . . . sure? Who do you have in mind? Adam Lambert? Because yes, yes, yes.”
I laugh. “Or me.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious.”
He jerks his gaze back. “You want to go into business together?”
I sweep my arm out to indicate the bar behind us, teeming with men. “Dude, I love gay bars. They make the sex lives of queer men ten thousand times easier than Grindr. No one on Grindr ever looks like their pic. So, yes, I would love to go into business with you.”
He arches a wry brow. “You want to go into business together to support everyone’s sex life?”
“I am sex positive. Why? Is that such a bad reason?”
“Hell no!” He grins and sticks out his hand. “Hun, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
Six months later, Miguel gets married in the Presidio with a view of the Pacific Ocean, and I see Declan at the wedding. He looks so fucking good in a suit, and I half wish I could dance with him.
Maybe more than half.
Instead, we talk about baseball and wish our friend well.
The next week, River opens The Lazy Hammock in SoMa with me as a backer. It’s fantastic, but I don’t pick up any men there. The Lazy Hammock will always remind me of just one guy.
A guy I’m determined to fall out of love with.
It’s been nearly two years since I met Declan, and every day I’m closer to that goal.
The next season, my batting average goes up a point. We make it to the playoffs, but not the World Series.
I sign a new contract and get another tattoo. Rodriguez retires, and we throw him a party, wishing him well.
I do a series of videos for the Alliance, which kicks off a spate of volunteer speaking opportunities with queer teen athletes at various groups around the country. I ask Crosby and Chance if they want to help out now and then through some of the Alliance’s Be A Better Ally projects and, happily, they do.
The guys and I become closer friends. Our bar debates ramp up, and Chance and I rib Crosby for his terrible taste in women—the man has a thing for very bad girls who want to take advantage of him. Chance and Crosby mock me for my swagger. They start teasing that when I order DoorDash, I’m really getting a blow job from a hookup. I just laugh, and let them think that, because it amuses me. And because they don’t need to know.
From our friendship off the field, our volunteer work together, and most of all, how we play, the three of us become the three musketeers. The media starts referring to us as the Cougars Trio, calling us the heart of the team. It’s heady and humbling.
I spend time with my grandparents and run a few 5Ks with my pops. His knee is like new, he says.
“How’s everything with you?” he asks me one Sunday morning when I don’t have a game.
“Everything is great,” I tell him.
And mostly, that’s true.
At night, though, my mind sometimes wanders wistfully to Arizona, and then on to New York.
In the spring of my fourth season, at the ripe old age of twenty-five, I speak at an event at a San Francisco group of high schools, along with student athletes from across football, wrestling, lacrosse, field hockey, and volleyball disciplines. After the talk, I take them to the ballpark for a softball game.