A gal named Topaz tells me I’m her inspiration. “I’ve been following you since I was twelve. But I do like the Dragons better,” she says.
“I’ll convert you,” I promise.
“That’s the only kind of conversion I would consider.”
“I hear ya, girl,” I say, and we knock fists.
Later, I meet a wrestler named Nico, who tells me, “Wrestling is better, but I guess if I have to play softball with a pro, you’ll do.”
“Appreciate that.”
They post pics all over their social media accounts, and I do too. My sneaker sponsor shares some of the shots, and it’s awesome, the support the company gives.
The next night, Reese is in town for a long weekend before she returns to campus for college graduation.
Her closest friends from school join us for a night out at a club in the Mission district. Under the pulsing lights and techno music, the four of us dance like we did in college, back when I was finishing and they were starting. But soon, Tia peels away to bump hips with a tattooed Latino guy, and Layla finds a fair-skinned brunette to grind against.
It’s just Reese and me dancing when a cute dude lasers in on me from the bar. He’s dark-haired, all Ronen Rubinstein goodness, and he can’t take his eyes off me.
Reese darts her eyes in his direction. “Just go talk to him.”
“Nah, I’m with you, girl,” I say.
“It makes me happy to see you out there, meeting people.”
“I’ll talk to him, then, to make you happy,” I joke.
“Or maybe it’ll make you happy. I know you’re enjoying your single status,” she says with a wink.
I get why she’d have that impression—it’s the vibe I give off. But it’s not my after-hours truth. It’s not even close.
When Reese scurries to the ladies’ room, the hottie from the bar makes his way over and asks if I want to dance. For a song, we move together, legs touching at times, hands running down arms at others. But once the beat fades, I say thanks, and turn to the bar.
“Wait. Want to go somewhere?” he asks, a glint in his pretty eyes.
“No thanks.”
Without a second thought—or any regrets—I head to the bar to wait for Reese. She grins knowingly when she finds me. “I saw you dancing with the hottie.”
“He was all right.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“And will you go home with him?”
Laughing, I shake my head. “Nope.”
She parks her hands on her hips. “Is it because you’re not over him?”
Sucker punch.
From my best friend too.
Rolling my eyes, I shrug, but inside I’m thinking busted. “Let’s dance.”
I grab her arm, but she refuses to budge. “Not until you tell me the truth.”
I huff. “I believe I just did.”
“Do you miss him?”
“I’m not waiting for him, if that’s what you’re asking. That would be stupid. It’s over. We didn’t make a pact to meet in five years at the top of the Empire State Building. We didn’t promise to find our way back to each other. We broke up,” I say, voice tight, muscles tense.
“I know, Grant,” she says with a gentle squeeze. “It’s me. Your friend. Your bestie, okay? All I’m asking is if you miss him.”
Her blue eyes are so earnest, so caring. Just like her touch. “I miss the possibility of him,” I admit.
Her expression goes soft, and she throws both arms around me. “Maybe someday?”
“Maybe,” I say, my throat tightening, that dangerous emotion known as hope rising in me as I hug her back.
But when we return to the dance floor, I’m still determined to finish what I started when I took that flight out of New York after winning Rookie of the Year.
I’m ruthlessly determined to stop thinking about Declan Steele.
In the middle of the next season, Chance’s wife, Natasha, leaves him, and we all keep an eye out for him as he goes through his divorce—Crosby, Sullivan, Miguel, and me. We take him out after games when we can. Now that my sister has opened a hipster bar in Hayes Valley, we have a place to go that feels like home. Sierra slings trendy cocktails at the Spotted Zebra, rocking a pink streak in her hair now. But she still wears Dragons earrings to taunt us.
Sometimes I think Chance likes to go there to talk to her as much as drink. Well, she is chatty, like a good bartender, and he seems to need it.
Later that year, the Cougars do make it to the World Series.
It’s more than a dream come true. More fantastic than every boyhood wish, beyond any cliché.
It’s utterly exhilarating, and it’s the most thrilling moment of my life when game six rolls around and I catch all nine innings and every pitch.
I’m behind the plate when Chance Ashford throws a ninety-eight-mile-an-hour fastball and the Miami Ace batter swings through it—
And misses.
I am fireworks.
I am a parade.
I wrap my glove around the ball so tight, shout to the heavens, then run out to the mound, tackling my teammate. The rest of the guys join us, as we win the World Series.
It feels like the greatest night of my life, and then, somehow, it’s even better when Declan calls me the next day, congratulating me. We spend an hour talking on the phone about the series, recounting every pitch, every inning. I relive each moment as I share it with him. He listens to me tell the story, and it feels right.
Just right.
I don’t know what to make of that, especially when something like a butterfly has the audacity to land on my chest.
It reappears, bigger and faster, over Christmas when I call to wish him a happy holiday. Then, on a Thursday morning in February, it shows up again, accompanying a text from Declan Steele.
21
Declan
Then
* * *
The first few months after Grant leaves New York are the hardest.
I’ve never really known what that’s like—getting over someone. Everyone else has been a clean break.
This is the opposite of a clean break. It’s a messy ending, one that keeps spilling over into my life, but at least there is baseball at the end of a cold winter.
The sport has gotten me through hard times before and it does it again as I learn how to hit a slider well, improve my fielding more, and drive up my consistency at the plate even higher.
I spend time with Emma, Fitz and Dean, Tucker and Marissa, and Brady and Greer. Over the next few years, the latter two couples get married a month apart and I go to their weddings.
Tucker ties the knot first, and I attend his wedding stag. I go to Brady’s February wedding alone.
And life goes on like that.
I develop new interests. I find new bands to listen to, I play paintball with Fitz, I scour stores and libraries for new books to try out. Dean and I become closer, and the brainiac in him keeps pumping recommendations at me—non-fiction stories of scandals and racy tales of business upheavals.
I eat them all up.
Those books are my gateway drug, and I go down the rabbit hole into memoirs, starting with comedians for laughs, then moving to harder-hitting tales. Stories of men and women bucking their upbringing, battling addiction, and most of all, struggling to understand what it means to love an addict.