“You won’t,” I say, desperate to know what’s going on.
“I asked for the trade,” he blurts, serving up the admission in a messy heap, like a scoop of melted ice cream, spilling all over the bowl.
I tilt my head and rub my knuckle against my ear in disbelief. “What did you just say?”
“When I saw Carla a couple weeks ago, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt how I felt. I knew we were happening, that we were never going to unhappen, and I had to find a way to be with you. I even talked to Holden when he was in New York,” Declan confesses.
“You told Holden about us?”
“No,” he says emphatically.
I laugh. “I actually don’t care if you did. I want everyone to know I’m in love with you. But keep going, now that you’re not freaking me out anymore.”
He squeezes my hip. “Holden and I went for a run. We were talking about second chances, and there was some woman he wanted to have a second chance with,” he tells me.
I crack up. “Reese?”
“Holden is involved with your Reese?”
I nod, big and long. “Dude, I showed you my note last night. I said both of our boyfriends were on the Dragons.”
“Ah,” he says with a nod of understanding. “That actually makes a lot of sense now. But I didn’t know it when he was telling me about a woman he was longing for. And I said if you have a second chance, you have to do everything to make it happen.” Declan gives a sweet shrug. His voice goes low, tender. “This is my everything. I have nearly ten years of service in the majors. My contract was coming up at the end of the season. Before I could become a free agent, I made a pitch for the Dragons to pick me up instead. I knew that would make me more attractive in a trade.”
“You could go anywhere. Any team would have you,” I say, bursting with excitement. He chose to come here. To a team that’s struggling. To a team that’s reshaping itself after a speckled history and a cheating scandal. When Declan could have the pick of the litter, he chose . . . me.
Just me.
That’s the choice he made.
I’ve never felt so wanted.
I loop my hands around his neck, scooting closer, basking in the best story ever.
“And I didn’t want to go just anywhere,” he continues. “I only wanted to be here. The Comets wanted prospects, so Vaughn worked his magic to see if the Dragons would pick up my contract. And we made a deal that they could extend my contract for the same price.”
My eyes pop. “But you could get a massive raise at the end of the season as a free agent.”
“I make enough money. I make more than enough money for many lives. I don’t need more. I need you,” he says, letting go of my hip to roam a hand up my torso, spreading his palm over my heart and melting me completely. “I wanted to be with you, Grant. And you mentioned once you have a no-trade clause, which is unusual at your age, and also awesome, so I figured if I could get out here, maybe you really would be stuck with me.”
I beam. “I had a feeling your trade wasn’t just a lucky break. I swear, it felt almost too good to be true. But you made it happen.” I lift my face to the ceiling, feeling like all the sunshine in the world is shining golden rays down on me. I clasp his cheeks, hold his face. “You’re never getting rid of me. You are so stuck with me. If you thought I was in love with you before, now I’m, like, twelve million times more.”
My boyfriend just laughs as I serve up my overjoyed heart on a silver platter, then he asks, “And you know what I have to say to that?”
41
Declan
“Tell me. Tell me now.” Grant pushes his finger against my sternum, demanding it.
I clear my throat, trying to collect myself, trying to breathe past the balloon of awesome occupying my chest. “I want to be stuck with you. I’ll take your twelve million. And I’ll give you twelve million more. Asking for a trade was the easiest decision I’ve ever made.
“You’re a moonshot, Grant. You’re a grand slam. Of course I’d do everything I could to be with you.” I pull him closer. “This is my everything. And the fact that you’re asking me to live with you is all I could ever want. So, I say yes.”
Grant goes soft and melty, his eyes shining with happiness. “You’re my walk-off home run.”
That’s all I need to hear.
I smother him in kisses. Because I can. Because I want to. And because I want him to feel all the certainty, all the love that he’s given to me. He wraps his arms around me, hauls me in close, and lets me kiss his forehead.
I’m learning that’s something he seems to crave. Gentle, tender touches. A kiss on the cheek. A sniff of the hair. An arm around his shoulders.
I love that I can give him what he needs. He’s given me so much. His love is never qualified; it never has a price tag. He loves hard and big, and he supports me in ways I didn’t know I needed but now can never go without.
As I hold him close, all I can think is these are couple goals.
Five years later, I have them. I have him. I have everything.
That evening, I have a job to do, and a boyfriend who’s going to be in the stands rooting for me.
The only issue is he’s going to need to hold his applause till after the game. “Now, don’t go all crazy wearing a Steele jersey, okay?” I instruct as I head down the stairs.
“As if I’d do that,” he scoffs.
“Maybe I can get you some Rafe Rodmans with my number on them. Custom-made.”
“I’d wear the hell out of them,” Grant says. He tosses me the keys to his Tesla from the entryway table. He insisted I take his car tonight, so I kiss him goodbye and leave for work.
Even though I’ve been playing for ten years, switching to a new team—my third team—dredges up those old high school nerves. Will they like me? Will I fit in? Will I do a good job?
I can only control one of those things, so I focus on that. On playing the game.
I punch up my playlist. My 90s rockers help me get in the zone, so I turn to Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, and Axl Rose as I drive familiar roads through the city that was once my home and now is again, in a new and better way.
The music centers me, wipes away the lingering worries as I pull into the players’ lot and the stadium and park my boyfriend’s car.
That makes me smile.
I’m driving Grant Blackwood’s car to work.
I head into the ballpark through the players’ entrance, where the team’s general manager waits for me with a big, welcoming grin. We chat along the way to the locker room, and she tells me the Dragons have number eighteen already stitched on my jersey.
“Hopefully, you’ll feel at home here right away,” she says.
“I already do,” I tell her.
I go into the locker room, say hi to the team’s PR guy, a cool dude named Owen. We spoke on the phone yesterday as he was prepping the news about my trade. “Anything you need, any time of day, just let me know,” Owen says.
"I will,” I tell him.
Then he introduces me to my new coach—a former minor leaguer named Edward Thompson—and after that I say hi to my new teammates.