Scoring With Him by Lauren Blakely

Declan

The next morning, I stroll onto the track as the sun peeks over the horizon, pale pink streaks of dawn reaching across the sky. Grant is already there, stretching on the grass.

Good morning to me.

He’s bent over at the waist, feet planted wide apart as he twists to the right. Then he switches, twisting to the left.

He rises, shoves a hand through his thick hair, making it all messy.

Messier, I should say.

Mmm.

I’d like to mess it up.

I’ve never had a type when it comes to men, but I might now, and that type is six foot four and built from pure muscle. Guess I do like a rock-hard body. And athletes are just hot.

“Hey, man,” I say as I make for the track.

“Good morning,” he says, joining me. I break into a loose-limbed jog and Grant falls in alongside me.

“Oh yes, it is definitely good,” I say, not bothering to strip the flirt from my voice.

“I take it you enjoyed the view. Is that what makes it good?”

“I take it to mean all that preening you did was on purpose?”

“What? Me? You think I’d retaliate because you whipped off your shirt yesterday?”

“I do think you’d do that, because you did do that.”

He shrugs, wicked enjoyment on his handsome face. “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it, Deck?”

I grin, enjoying the shortened name, the way he dishes out as well as he takes it. “Funny, but right now, I don’t have any problems with payback. Not at all.”

He laughs, his dark blond hair catching the sunlight, strands of it looking golden. His laugh fades, quickly, though, his voice dipping to a more serious note. He gestures to the gate in the fence around the field. “Did you know there’s a path over there that runs along the edge of the woods by the golf course?”

“Arizona has woods? This is news to me.”

“Who’s the wiseass now?” Grant shoots back.

“Like I said, payback. In any case, are you trying to lure me into the woods?”

He shakes his head, rejecting the idea vehemently. “No. No. No.”

I ease up, taking pity on his nerves. “I’m just messing with you, rookie.” Nodding toward the gate, I say, “Let’s hit it.”

“Yeah?” His tone pitches up.

“Yeah.” I arch a brow as we peel away from the track. “Are you still nervous around me?”

He pushes out a worried laugh. “No. I don’t know. Sometimes. I just don’t want you to think that I’m . . .”

“A gigantic flirt?” I supply.

Grant winces. “Yeah. That.”

That tugs on the part of me that can’t resist a soft heart. “We’re good. It’s all fun and games, right?”

His answer is instant. “Of course. And I didn’t want you to think I was disrespectful when I was, um, stretching.”

Yeah, this guy is such a mix of cocky and caring. The most enticing mix. “Nothing to worry about. We can shoot the shit and it’s cool, and you can stretch and show off your hot body and that’s cool too, since nothing is going to happen.”

“Right,” he says, with a crisp nod like he can’t acknowledge the compliment. Maybe I shouldn’t have given it to him.

“That was an impartial observation—the hot body remark,” I say, easing up. “Purely hypothetical.”

He looks my way. “My stretching was hypothetical too.”

“There you go again, wiseass.”

“Just following your lead. Since, you know, nothing is going to happen.”

I groan. Talking about not hooking up still makes me think about hooking up, so I sidestep the topic. “How was your time in Bakersfield?”

“Short but intense,” he answers, following the shift. “Way more intense than I thought it’d be. Know what I mean?”

“I do,” I say as we keep up a good clip.

“I knew it was my shot. I had to make it count. Was yours the same?”

“Definitely. Feeling the spotlight. Knowing you’re the top prospect. Wanting to prove your worth to the team.”

“And keeping distractions minimal. Better yet, non-existent,” he adds as the running path dips behind a hill, passing under canopies of trees.

“Couldn’t agree more. Learned that rule by breaking it.”

Grant tilts his head, his eyes curious. “A guy in every port?”

I shake my head, dismissing that notion. Normally I don’t care if a guy thinks I’m a player. For some reason, I don’t want Grant to think that whatsoever. “No. That’s when I started dating my boyfriend.”

“Was he a ballplayer too?”

I snort. “God, no.”

Even as he runs, Grant seems to tense at that answer. But I don’t need to sugarcoat the risks of dating someone in the same sport. “Getting involved with a ballplayer would be a mistake.”

“Of course.”

“Anyway, with Kyle, I managed minor league ball fine when we were dating, maybe because he lived close by. It was casual and all. But when it turned more serious, and it was time for spring training, the distraction became too much. I wasn’t very good at keeping things light and uncomplicated.”

“Are you better at it now?”

I scratch my jaw, but there’s not much to consider. “When I get involved, it’s not usually for very long, and mostly just during the off-season.” I’ve learned I need limits, even if they’re self-imposed. Given the way my parents’ marriage imploded with the force of an F5 tornado, I’m best off keeping relationships on a tight leash. “It’s just easier that way. Cleaner.”

“Less complications and less distractions,” Grant agrees.

“That’s why I had to end things with Kyle. It was messing with my head,” I say. “Worse, it was messing with my game.”

I’m saying it for him.

And, even more so, for me. Because as we run and talk about the minors, I need the reminder.

I can enjoy these mornings with Grant as a workout.

And that’s the limit.

The week unfolds like that—extra workouts in the morning as the sun rises then team time after nine.

Drills, exercises, sprints.

Batting practice and field work, then extra time practicing the new rules for sliding into home, meant to reduce punishing collisions at the plate.

I stay in touch with my friends and family—texting baseball updates to Mom and Tyler, trash talking Fitz, and enjoying Emma’s funny observations after moving to New York City. (So much scaffolding! How can there be this many dry cleaners? I am in diner heaven!)

My favorite text conversation comes from Emma and Fitz in a group chat.

Fitz:I’ve got a game against Phoenix in March. Want tix?

Declan:Hell, yeah. So long as it doesn’t conflict with a spring training game.

He sends the date, and I check my schedule. The timing lines up.

Declan:Center ice, baby. I want center ice.

Fitz:And I want first baseline when you play the NY Comets. Do we have a deal?

Emma: Hello? I’m still here! And I want to go to Phoenix too!

Fitz: Say the word and I’ll fly you in, Ems.

Emma:Word.

As I close the thread with Can’t wait to see you, I smile, glad they’ll be in town.

Yes, life is good.

Ticking along.

I’m One-Track Steele—friends, family, baseball.

The one glaring exception? How much I look forward to morning workouts with Grant. How they’re becoming the best part of each day for the next week.

Saturday morning, it’s a game day, and once more I find Grant on the track, ready to hit the golf course path as the sun rises.

We didn’t discuss switching to the golf course. It doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to figure out why we gravitated that way.

It’s more private, with more shade and less chance of being seen. Even if I didn’t find him wildly, insanely attractive, I’m hanging out with the other queer dude on the team. Rumors would fly, and there is no need to fan ’em.

“Have you always been an early-morning-extra-workout person?” I ask.

“Definitely. Gotta stay a step or ten ahead, you know?”

Do I ever.“Work harder and better,” I say with a nod.

There’s an understanding with Grant that I’ve only ever had with Fitz—the awareness that we have to work harder, have to constantly prove we belong.

Sports has changed so much over the last ten years, thanks to a guy named Sandy Hildebrand who bought the Dallas football team, making headlines then as the first openly gay team owner. Soon, he banded together with other queer business leaders and spoke up about wanting queer athletes to have the same sponsorship opportunities, respect, and chances as straight players. Soon more athletes came out—in high school, college, and the pros.

Still, I feel the pressure of what it means to be part of that change. Of being lucky to be on this side of it.

“It’s a good pressure though,” I say to Grant.

“Same. Reminds me of Apollo 13. The movie,” he adds.

I jerk my head back in surprise. “Wait a hot second. Are you referencing a movie from the nineties? And you said I was from another generation.”

“I am a study in contradictions,” he says. “It makes me all kinds of fascinating.”

“It sure does,” I mutter under my breath as we near a small lake along the edge of the course.

“And the flick is from 1995. I’ve seen it about twenty times because it’s my grandfather’s favorite movie. There’s this line early on when Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise are running a sequence for the moon landing, and Sinise wants to run it again. At first there’s some resistance, but then Tom Hanks says, ‘Well, let’s get it right.’”

“And that stayed with you? ‘Well, let’s get it right’?” It says a lot about him—about his work ethic, which matches mine.

“It applies to a lot of things. Doesn’t matter how much you practice or how many hours you’ve put in. The goal isn’t to check off time on a box. The end game is doing it till you get it right.” He shrugs, but I know what he’s saying is important to him. “That’s why the early morning workouts. Not to log hours or reps or miles, but to win games.”

I nod along. I see it that way too, but I like how he’s said it. “Words to live by.”

“Movies have some good ones now and then,” he says.

For a flash of a second, I imagine watching a flick with him, then turning it off because I’m overwhelmed by the way he smells and how much I want to lick the column of his throat, drag my lips over his jaw, rub my face against his stubble.

God help me.

A caw rends the air—we both jerk our gazes to the edge of the lake as a heron swoops down, joining another one. The male snaps his bill then stretches his neck.

“Ah, the mating call of the heron,” I remark. Maybe it should be “Heron help me,” because the break in tension has saved me.

“How do you know they’re mating?” Grant asks. “They aren’t banging. Also, how do birds bang?”

This, I can talk about easily. “He’s preening for her. Soon he’ll bring her twigs. They might even exchange them.”

“Ah, the twig exchange. Of course.” Grant shoots me an amused smile. “And my other question, Mr. Ornithologist?”

“The how-do-they-bang one?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Grant,” I sing-song, “when a male bird loves a female bird very much . . .”

“Enjoy this bird,” he says, flipping me the middle finger.

We keep that up, running and shooting the shit, and before I know it, I’ve peeled off an hour. Grant makes these morning workouts something they’ve never been before—fun.

But are they too fun?

I’m here to work, after all, not to get to know this fascinating man.

Should I end them?

Cut them off?

But they have a natural end every damn day, when we join the team for practice. Once we hit the diamond, we’re catcher and shortstop again, and that’s working out just fine.

That day, the Seattle Storm Chasers arrive for a home game, and we destroy them.

That’s all that matters.

Friendship with Grant isn’t a detrimental distraction.

These morning workouts aren’t hindering my game.

The problem is lying in bed at night, thinking about how badly I want morning to come.