“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.