“Totally.” The way Bo said it reminded Sam of a starving man. “But where will you go when they come back?”
“I was hoping to buy my own place,” Sam admitted as he maneuvered around a particularly slow-moving truck. They were flying down the highway, an anomaly for rush hour.
“In Oakville?”
Sam snorted. “Fuck no. With the way house prices are right now, I’ll be able to afford my own place in Oakville on the dark side of never.”
Bo chuckled. “Where will you go then?”
“I’m not sure yet. Out of the GTA, for sure.” The Greater Toronto Area had too many people for his tastes, anyway.
“Don’t you need to be close to the city for work?”
“Nope. I work for myself, so I work from home. Most of my business is conducted online.”
His graphic design business had exploded while he was still in university. Originally, he’d started the on-the-side job as a way to help his parents pay for his tuition and to make some extra cash since his job at a small café had only netted two measly shifts a week. He’d started building websites for his friends in the business program and things had snowballed from there. SM Graphics was born mostly from word-of-mouth alone.
“That’s really cool,” Bo said. “I guess you haven’t found a house you like yet?”
“Actually, I haven’t started looking. I’ve been so distracted lately, I haven’t really thought much about it.” The hollow pit in his stomach had him gripping the steering wheel. “If the case against me doesn’t get dropped, I may never be able to afford my own place, anyway.”
“It’ll get dropped. They’d be idiots to bring this kind of case in front of a judge.”
Maybe.
Bo poked him in the arm. “You’re gonna end up back at your parents,” he teased.
Sam shuddered. “Please, no.”
“Do you not get along?” Bo asked.
“No, we get along great. I just don’t think I could move back there after being on my own.”
Bo got quiet as Sam exited the highway and cruised around downtown for a public parking lot that wouldn’t cost him more than the price of two nosebleed-section Blue Jays tickets. Resigned to the inevitable, he finally chose a lot only a short walk from the stadium. Bo insisted on paying since Sam had purchased the tickets. Sam watched him extract a twenty from his wallet, hand it to the attendant, and wait for his two dollars in change.
Sam admired the curve of Bo’s jaw and that little freckle that called for his tongue, the perpetual blush that stained his tanned cheeks, the way his blond hair fell over his forehead and curled at the back of his neck. Imagined what he’d look like on paper. Sam couldn’t help it—he started mentally drawing Bo, yet the man was such a contradiction Sam didn’t really know how to draw him. Give him a scythe so he could slay monsters? A sword to fight in Camelot? A farm to raise the village’s food? A fucking flower stand?
Bo took his toonie from the parking lot attendant and when Sam failed to move, Bo quirked an eyebrow at him. A car honked behind them. Sam tore his eyes away and parked, hopefully before Bo figured out Sam was dying to get his hands on him.
They didn’t sell cookies at the Rogers Centre, so Bo got a hot dog, a large bucket of popcorn to share with Sam, and a water bottle—the cap to which the teenager at the food counter kept for reasons Bo couldn’t guess at. By the fifth inning he was hungry again, so he got a slushie and an ice cream bar.
The crowd was frickin’ wild! The Jays’ coach had gotten kicked off the field barely five minutes into the first inning, the umps took forever to decide on a call in the third—the crowd booed hard when they decided in favor of the other team—the Jays had already scored eight home runs, and the game had been neck-in-neck since it started. Oh, and let’s not forget the streaker who’d run across the diamond during the fourth inning before security had escorted him off the field.
Baseball was awesome!
Sam hadn’t been kidding when he said the tickets were in the nosebleed section, but it didn’t matter one whit. The energy in the 500 section was like nothing Bo had ever seen. True they wouldn’t catch any stray balls, but who cared?
The crowd was on their feet as they waited to see if the Jays’ batter scored another homer. When the ball landed in the stands, the Rogers Centre practically exploded.
Even though it said “Rogers Centre” on the side of the stadium and on his ticket, Sam had called it the SkyDome. When Bo asked him about it, Sam said it was renamed in 2005 but that diehard Torontonians still called it the SkyDome. Google apparently hadn’t told Bo everything.
The dome was open to the cloudless evening and the sun had set enough that the air was becoming chilly. Bo slipped on his jacket before taking his seat again, side-eying Sam.
He’d never seen Sam so animated. The man had been coldly aloof during the last month when he’d come over to Bo’s to give him grief. And yesterday he’d been subdued yet friendly during their time talking on the porch, even when he’d talked about being sued. Bo had assumed that was just the way he was: quiet, laid-back. Apparently it took sports to get him riled up.
Which, of course, led to thoughts of what else got Sam riled up. Sex, perhaps? Not a thought he should be having surrounded by teenagers and families with small kids. Good thing nobody could read his mind.
During the sixth inning, “the wave” went around the stadium five times before it died in the section next to them. And during the seventh, he joined Sam and every other fan in a rousing rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
Baseball was his new favourite thing. Second favourite thing, actually. Sam was first even though he wasn’t really his yet. Or ever. Was the guy even gay?
“What do you suppose a cracker jack is?” Bo asked once they finished singing.
“It’s an American snack, I think.”
Bo grunted. “They have all sorts of snacks we don’t.”
“True.” Sam finished off the popcorn. “But they don’t have Coffee Crisp.”
“Or Tim Horton’s,” Bo said.
“Actually, I think there are a few Timmies’ in the States now.”
“Thieves.”
Sam laughed, making Bo smile. Sam’s lips looked soft between his light beard. Bo ached to reach out and run his palm over it, cup that strong jaw, and bring those lips to his. The feelings fluttering in his belly for Sam made him feel woozy and…new, in a way. He’d had crushes before but this felt different.
Please don’t let me be crushing on a straight guy. How cliché.
In the bottom of the ninth, the Jays were down by one with two strikes and two outs, but the bases were loaded. The crowd was cheering and hollering and dancing and waving their blue baseball hats around. It was loud and insane and Bo couldn’t believe he’d never been to a baseball game ever. Man, he’d been missing some good stuff.
The Jays’ batter hit a homer, winning them the game, and as all four players on the field ran to home from their respective bases, it was like Christmas and New Year’s and birthdays had come early for every single person in the stands.
It was seriously epic shit.
He and Sam got separated in the crowd on the walk down to street level. Bo couldn’t see over the sea of blue and white to find Sam, but he knew Sam was somewhere in front of him. When he turned a corner, he spotted Sam waiting for him against the wall.