Winning With Him by Lauren Blakely

Declan

As soon as Grant joins me on the couch, I dive off the cliff.

“My father is an alcoholic. He started drinking when I was in grade school. It got worse and worse. Arguing, fighting with my mom, lobbing accusations at her.”

It’s like an excavation, digging into this. It feels like a bulldozer is scooping out my insides. “He’d accuse her of cheating—which she wasn’t, but it didn’t stop him. If she was happy, he figured she was cheating. If she was sad, he figured she missed her boyfriend. She didn’t have a boyfriend; she was just trying to keep her shit together and to help him.”

“Ah, man. That sounds so hard,” he says gently, his hand inching closer to mine on the cushion.

I record that response, how his gut reaction is to touch me. To reassure me with contact.

“He started drinking more, even when he was coaching my baseball team. Like, I could tell something was off. He was boisterous.”

“He was coaching . . . under the influence?”

“Yeah,” I say, still embarrassed at the memories of those days when I started to understand the fine differences between tipsy, buzzed, and drunk. “Soon, he stopped coaching because he missed too many practices. Then he was just a dad. A dad who showed up at my games drunk.”

“Deck . . .” Grant’s voice is full of empathy.

“Cheering me on while he reeked of tequila,” I continue, and I can’t look at Grant as I tell him this next bit. “When I was thirteen and was in this championship series, he didn’t show. Not until the end.” I draw a deep breath for courage and say words I’ve never spoken to anyone. Not even Emma. She knows the basics, but not the specifics. “He was there when I hit the game-winning homer, and he stumbled onto the field and fell over on home plate, completely smashed. Everyone stared at me, at us. Then they all looked away.”

Grant gives a heavy nod. “That’s seriously rough. I feel you, man. That must have hurt so much.”

“I kind of wanted to fly out of there.”

This time he inches closer, reaching for my hand.

My eyes float closed as he links my fingers with his, squeezes them. “You and your birds,” he says gently.

When I open my eyes, I crack a small smile. “The day I met you I warned you not to engage in a bird throwdown.”

“You were right. I backed away.”

I heave a sigh and trudge into the emotional quicksand. “My parents split up soon after that. My dad left, but he’d reappear in my life now and then, wanting to take me for the weekends.”

“Did he?”

I nod. “I saw him once a month, then once every other month.”

“Did he ever get sober?”

“No. He tries.” I flash back to his latest text. “He got his one-month chip right before I saw you in September, then his two-month recently. But I don’t know if it’ll last. He’s earned them before, and he usually relapses. And that’s what happened when I got to Florida.”

Grant waits for me to keep talking. I blow out a long stream of air, psyching myself up.

Because here it comes—one of the worst days of my adult life.

“As soon as I put on my Comets uniform and headed out to the field, he was there.” Shame crashes over me like a wave. Shame for who my father is and what he’s done, but mostly what I let him do to me because of his addiction.

Grant runs his thumb over my knuckles, gentle and comforting. Something I never knew I wanted.

Or needed.

“What happened then?”

I wince, trying to push words past the barbed wire in my throat. “Do you remember that picture the fan took of us at the hockey game?”

He gives a small smile of recognition. “Sure. Yeah. She was in between us.”

“Right. My dad saw it online, and the day before I left for Florida, he called you my boyfriend in a text to me.”

His brow furrows. “Why? Did he know about us?”

I shake my head adamantly. “No. The only people who knew were Emma and Fitz.” I clasp his hand tightly. “You believe me, right?”

He clasps back. “Of course I believe you.”

That’s a relief. I haul in a big breath and let the bulldozer get back to work. “Anyway, he got it set in his head from the picture that we were involved—the picture and because we’re both gay,” I say with a sarcastic snort. “He just assumed, even though I told him we weren’t.”

“Is he homophobic? Is that why you told him we weren’t together?”

“I told him we weren’t involved because it’s none of his business and because I don’t trust him with my business,” I say, my tone rising, voice harsh. Then I soften. “He’s not homophobic. At least, I don’t think so. He’s just . . . a mess,” I say, my throat catching because that’s the truth—my father is a mess. One I’m left to clean up when I barely have the tools. “I think he’s trying to be super supportive and cool about his gay son, almost like he’s trying to make up for how he handled it when I came out.”

“When he told you to stay in the closet,” Grant supplies.

“Yes. Exactly. Like, now he’s doing what he thinks is the opposite. It’s totally messed up, but he probably means well.”

“Like Frank thought he meant well when he outed me,” Grant says, a sharp edge in his voice, then he holds up his free hand, shakes his head. “Sorry, not about me. Keep going.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of the same. And when I stepped onto the field, he was there giving hitting tips to Tucker and Brady, and one of the first things he said to me was, ‘And do you already miss your boyfriend?’”

His jaw drops. “Oh, shit.”

“And I swear. It put the fear of God in me. It put the fear of the devil in me,” I say, reliving that afternoon. Recalling how the world shook under my feet, how all my protective instincts kicked in but backfired terribly. “He kept at it, saying boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend. He never used your name,” I say, curling my hand more tightly around Grant’s. “But he came close, announcing how he gave batting tips to my boyfriend.”

Grant jerks his head back. “What? How?”

I scrub a hand over the back of my neck, wishing I could speed through this conversation to get to the other side. “Remember when I said your weight was too far back on your knees?”

“Sure.”

“That was his advice. He’d said that to me in a text. He watched my last Cougars game online. He’d seen the photo of us, and he said, ‘Tell your boyfriend his weight is too far back on his knees.’ So, I passed it on to you,” I say, hating that I somehow sound like a liar.

Grant drops my hand, drags his through his hair. His eyes widen, shock registering in those blue irises “Wow.”

Yes, this is my baggage. This is what I come with. This is why I don’t open up.

“That came from him?” he asks, maybe needing to be sure.

“It did.”

“I thought it was you. Like a piece of advice from you.”

I shake my head. “No. That was Jon Steele. He was a great minor leaguer. Honestly, he’d be a great hitting coach if he could get his act together. I was pretty pissed when he first told me what you should do. But I knew he was right, and I wanted you to do well, so I passed it on.”

A long sigh seems to fall from his lips. “He was right. So, I guess, thanks. I get why you told me. It worked.”

My hand aches to hold his again, so I reach for him, and he lets me. That emboldens me. “The whole time he was talking in Florida to the guys, all I could think was how he was seconds away from blurting out your name. Everyone would know we’d been involved, and it would look bad that we’d been together as teammates, especially with you going into your first season.”

Grant nods in understanding. “That would have been a red-hot mess.”

“Exactly,” I say, relieved that he gets it. “I was just so sure he was going to say something. He kept it up during dinner that night. All I could think was that someone would know, word would get out, we’d become this media circus. And if that happened, what would it do to you when you hadn’t even made the roster yet?”

Grant’s jaw ticks, like he’s processing all this news.

And it’s a fuck-ton of news.

“Not gonna lie, Deck. This is . . . a lot,” he says in a heavy tone.

That’s what worries me the most now, I suppose. That I’m a lot. That he won’t want to deal with my a lot.

It’s not just baggage. It’s a cargo-hold full.

“And you were playing better without me. You did well in the first game when I was gone, and you’d done so much better before we started up. I thought ending things had to be for the best. For you.”

He’s quiet for a beat, then a few more. “But was it for the best? Shutting me out like that?”

I drag a hand through my hair, regret roiling through my veins. “It was all I knew to do at the time. That’s what I was trying to say when I called you before Opening Day,” I say, and like a kick in the pants, it hits me how thoroughly short-sighted that was. “And now I can see like a billboard flashing in front of me that calling you before Opening Day to deal with my shit was a mistake too.”

He gives a subtle shrug that says yeah, it was. “Listen, I understand everything you’re saying. At least, I think I do. I won’t try to pretend I understand addiction or alcoholism, but it sounds like the way you grew up was complicated and difficult.”

“I know you didn’t have it easy, either,” I say. I don’t want to be all woe is me.

“I didn’t, but I’m talking about you,” he says, soft but firm. “So let me talk about you, okay?”

“Okay.”

“What I’m saying is thank you for telling me. Thank you for letting me into your stuff. I know that’s not easy,” he says, then takes both my hands in his and squeezes, and I think yes, we can fix this, we can sort this out. “But you could have called and told me that. You could have talked to me.”

And he hits that on the nose.

Gets right to the heart of the matter.

“I was a coward, Grant,” I say, owning it. “I fucked up. That’s my biggest regret. I was too scared to call you.”

“Why? I’m not going to judge you for your family.”

I press my lips together, wanting to hold in all these hard truths. But I let them out instead. “I knew if I called you, if I heard your voice, if I even asked for advice on how to handle the shitstorm of my life, that I’d cave. Ask for more of you. Want more of your time, more of your big fucking heart.”

“I’d have given it to you,” he says, tender and so damn vulnerable that I want to smother him in kisses and let him do the same to me. I want to drown in his affection and get lost in him.

“But I thought the only way I could help you was to . . . end it.”

Grant’s face is stony for a few seconds. Then for several more before he drops both my hands, ending his touch. “I get what you’re saying.” He pauses, works his jaw. “But the problem is you really fucking hurt me.”

My heart plummets, an elevator cut from its cable. “I know,” I mutter.

“But do you? Do you have any idea how I felt when I got your text?”

I meet his eyes, face him like a man. “No. Tell me. Because I thought about it every day. I thought about you every day.”

He swallows like there are rocks in his throat. “I felt like I was nothing. I felt like what we shared was nothing. Like our plans to meet in November were a lie. Like I was just this stupid virgin you messed with and then kicked to the curb.” His eyes are hard enough to cut glass. “That’s how I felt.”

“You weren’t nothing, Grant. You were everything,” I say, then I dig down deep, reaching far inside with a brand-new shovel. “I was falling in love with you. I’m still in love with you.”

The world turns silent.

Everything in the universe hits pause.

Cars stop.

Animals freeze.

The Earth ceases to orbit as Grant drags a hand down his face, then turns away from me.