“You’re hardly a chicken-shit. You’re great with the press, Deck. I’ve seen your interviews. Is it all because of poetry?”
I smile, nodding. “Yes. I owe a lot to T.S. Eliot, Yeats, Frost. I have my favorites, though, like The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. It centers me, helps me focus. I used to recite lines in my head before I would talk to the press, and eventually, talking to them became second nature.”
“That is seriously cool. You’re so natural when you give interviews—you’re a great advocate for baseball and for playing your heart out.”
I square my shoulders with pride. “Thanks. I wanted to be like Jeter. A leader on the field, and the guy the media can turn to.”
Grant is quiet for a beat, and then takes a deep breath. “When I went to college, I was determined to tell my own story about who I am.”
“Because of your stepfather?” One night during spring training five years ago, Grant had shared that his mom’s new husband outed him in an assembly in front of the entire high school.
“Yes,” he says now, so assured and determined. “I never wanted to feel that way again—so exposed, everyone assuming they knew this one piece of me. It was intense and, well, uncomfortable is an understatement.”
“I bet,” I say, my heart aching for that kid. For any kid who had to endure that.
“Anyway, I kind of shut down for a bit after that. I didn’t want to leave the house, or play ball, or even go for a run. All the things I loved.”
“That’s a hard thing to deal with. What did you do?”
“My grandparents took me out to dinner. To my favorite sushi place, since I love sushi,” he says.
“Me too.”
“Good to know,” he says, a little flirty, and I dig that sound. “So, over spicy tuna rolls, my grandmother told me, ‘You can either let this get you down, or you can be someone who speaks up for yourself and for others. Tell your own story.’ That was my light bulb moment. I saw how I needed to own my identity in every way. To out myself constantly. Slap it up on social media. Say it when I meet people. To be active, be proud, be out, so others could be too.”
I’m honored that he’s sharing the rest of the story with me. Letting me glimpse why he is who he is. “The whole Frank thing inspired you, then? Made you who you are?” I ask, pressing the phone closer to my ear.
“In a way. It lit a fuse in me, sure. And so did my grandparents. They said, ‘You’d make a great activist. Maybe this is your moment.’”
A smile takes over my face. “You took something hurtful and turned it around.”
“But, Declan, if you think about it, we both did that. We both took these situations we didn’t ask for and used them for good.”
“To become the men we are today,” I say, buzzed that Grant Blackwood and I are finding new common ground on Christmas morning. It’s like an extra gift in my stocking, especially since I want this conversation to be the start of a much deeper one we have soon.
With that in mind, I ask if he’ll be at an upcoming awards event in San Francisco in February.
“I will,” he says, a note of hope in his voice.
“Me too.”
In the background on his end of the line, a woman calls his name, laughing.
“I’ll be inside in a minute, Sierra. I’m just on the phone.”
I hear her ask, “Who are you talking to?”
Grant pauses, maybe wondering who I could be to him. All the titles I could have.
“Someone,” he finally replies, and I don’t mind that. I do, after all, want to be someone to Grant.
I, too, like that he returns to the topic of the event. “So, you’ll be here in February, Declan?”
“I will. Will I see you there?” I ask, a note of hope in my voice this time.
“Yes, you will.”
It’s not a plan per se. But it’s damn close.
When I land in San Francisco in February, my first instinct is to message Grant.
It’s a good instinct.
When he writes back, I’m pretty damn sure I’m going to be changing my flight and staying an extra day.
And, more to the point, an extra night.
Present Day
22
Grant
I’m naked in bed, under the covers, chilling and listening to a thriller when the text arrives.
It’s a Thursday morning in February, and I pause the book as soon as the message pops up.
* * *
Declan: Holy fuck. I just landed. It’s fuck-all cold in San Francisco.
* * *
Smiling, I stretch out on the bed and type:
* * *
Grant: Don’t you know what Mark Twain said? The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
* * *
Declan: It’s not summer. It’s February, and it’s colder than New York.
* * *
Grant: Not here in my house. I have a fireplace in my bedroom.
* * *
Declan: Showoff.
* * *
I snap a photo of the fireplace—it’s electric, but still. The end of my bed is visible in the shot, and I don’t crop it out. I add one word and send it to him.
* * *
Grant: Toasty.
* * *
Declan: That’s not the word I’d use for the shot of your bedroom.
* * *
Maybe I should stop. But after the World Series, and after talking at Christmas, this text exchange feels natural. It feels like what Declan and I should be doing today.
* * *
Grant: What word would you use, then?
* * *
Declan: HOT.
* * *
Grant: True. Maybe I should take off the covers.
* * *
Declan: Don’t let me stop you.
* * *
Grant: Oh, I wasn’t. I definitely wasn’t.
* * *
Declan: Is there a picture coming my way?
* * *
Grant: Damn, I send you one pic, and you’re angling for another?
* * *
Declan: You’ve always been good at sending me selfies that made me want more.
* * *
Grant: True. One of my many skills. Here you go.
* * *
I send him a pic of me in bed. It’s from the waist down, but the covers are on, showing only the shape of my legs under the white duvet.