Winning With Him by Lauren Blakely
Grant
His brown eyes are broken—as devastated as mine, I suspect.
“You can’t be with me?” he asks, like my words don’t compute. Hell, they certainly don’t align with my actions tonight. Kissing him in the kitchen. Kissing him like I want to fuck him in the living room. Kissing him like there’s no tomorrow. But that right there is the problem. “I can’t, and maybe this sounds crazy, and maybe it is, but I’m too in love with you to be with you.”
He furrows his brow, shakes his head. “I don’t get it.”
“There’s no halfway for me, Deck. I can’t be just your off-season boyfriend.”
“That wasn’t what I was asking you for.”
“Are you ready, then?” I push because he has to see what this would mean. “Ready to be that exposed? For people to talk about our relationship instead of the game? We’d go from ballplayers to boyfriends.”
“I’m ready,” he says, and it’s almost like he’s digging his heels in. Like this is a come-hell-or-high-water pitch.
“But what if it doesn’t work out? You want to know what happens then?” I tap my chest. “Then I’m the guy whose heart was broken, and everyone knows it. I don’t mean everyone knows that two queer guys who used to be teammates fell in love. I mean the attention, the microscope, the way we’d be seen for that rather than for being good at the game.” I take a beat to drive the hardest point home. “And if you break my heart again, that’s all I’ll be.”
“What do you mean that’s all you’ll be?” Declan asks.
I stab my finger against my sternum. “I’ll be the guy who got dumped. You’ve been playing baseball for five years. I’ve got one year. One amazing year, but that’s it. I have to prove I’m not a fluke, that I’m not a flash in the pan. I have to play harder next year. Put up better stats.”
“And you will,” he says emphatically.
That’s the issue, though. The flashing red warning light. “But if I’m with you, I don’t know that I can. Want to know why?” I ask, laying my big, fat feelings for him on the line.
“I do. I really do.”
“Because,” I begin after a steadying breath, “I don’t know how to be with you halfway, Deck. When I’m with you, that is all I want. You are all I want,” I say, baring my soul to him. “And trust me, that’s not something I ever thought would happen to me. My parents didn’t even want me, so wanting another person like this makes no sense. And yet I do. I want to say fuck the world and be with you.”
“Say it,” he whispers desperately. “I want to be here with you, here for you.”
“I know you believe that, but the thing is, we’re strong in different ways. You know how to have baseball and protect yourself. You’ve had to do it since you were a kid. That’s your skill—you can focus on the game when the world around you goes to hell. And me . . . If you’ll let me, I can support you in whatever way you need while you deal with your family. That’s my strength. But the flip side is, I don’t know if I can keep my shit together on the field if I’m with you. I don’t know if I can focus on my job when I’m this caught up. I don’t know if I could get through heartbreak a second time.”
Declan shakes his head. “I don’t want to break your heart.”
“But you can’t promise you won’t,” I say, and he sighs, maybe knowing I’m right. “And I don’t know how to have both. I don’t know how to feel the way I do when I’m with you”— I grab at my shirt like I’m clutching my heart—“and to have the game, as well. I’m too afraid of what will happen when baseball starts again because I think I could be lost in you.” This time I reach for his face, hold him hard. “If I spend the off-season with you like I want to, I think I would fall so far in love with you I’d never come out.”
His sigh is laced with pain and regret, tinged with this wild longing too.
“I’d give everything to you,” I say. “I’d never love baseball the way I need to.” I hear desperation in my voice and can’t help it. “And I need to, Deck. Not just for me, but also for this.” I let go of him to gesture to my phone on the table.
He frowns in confusion. “Your phone?”
I shake my head. “Social media. I’ve got queer kids reaching out to me. Gay teens telling me their story. Athletes coming out for the first time. It’s insane and awesome and inspiring.” I sound impassioned, like I’m giving a speech, maybe because I am. “I don’t want to fail them. I don’t want to be a one-hit wonder. I know I’m not the only gay pro athlete, but I’m loud and I’m vocal, and I talk about LGBTQ issues online. Rights, equality, all of that.”
I have to take a breath before I can go on, speaking more gently but intently too. “I am so damned grateful you paved this path, Deck. You and other gay athletes. But I’m walking it now too, in a way that means something to me—doing work, speaking up, being a voice. And I want to matter outside of myself. I want to represent something to others. I want to succeed at the highest level to show the world that a gay guy can play ball just as well as a straight one. I want to be remembered for how I played, not just who I loved.”
He nods as he listens, inhaling deeply, exhaling heavily, resigned. “It’s love or baseball.”
I shrug helplessly. “Yeah, it is.”
“And you’re choosing baseball.”
“I can’t choose anything else,” I say, trying to get him to understand.
Declan’s dark eyes shine as he swallows roughly. He shakes his head and grabs my hand, squeezing it. “You don’t have to explain,” he says, with potholes of emotion in his voice. “I understand. I don’t like it”—he draws a deep, hard breath like he needs it to finish without choking up—“but I respect it. I get it, and I get you. Completely.”
I hate that I’ve hurt him even as he accepts the decision. But I’d hate myself if I didn’t make this decision.
Neither one of us says anything for a while. Maybe there’s nothing more to say. Finally, I rise, grab my phone, and head to the door.
Declan follows me, standing nearby as I put on my shoes and grab my jacket. He looks like he just lost the World Series. I bet I look the same way.
Probably worse, because with baseball, there’s always next year.
I don’t think love works like that.
But maybe love works like this. “By the way, you want to know how to hit a slider?”
He tilts his head, question marks in his eyes. “Sure.”
“Don’t swing at it so much. It’s a pitcher’s pitch. Track it the whole way to the plate. If it’s a slider, chances are it’ll fall on the corner and you won’t need to swing, anyway. Only swing if it’s a strike,” I say.
“Thanks for the tip.” He pins me with his intense gaze, taking me in like it’s for the last time. “Goodbye, rookie.”
“Goodbye, Deck,” I say.
Then he leans in, brushes the softest kiss to my lips, and lets me go.
I walk down the hall, a thousand-pound weight camped out in my chest, my mind screaming go back, go back, go back.
But I listen to my gut—to the instinct that tells me to get in the elevator and go.
To leave the first man I ever loved.
And hope the other love of my life doesn’t abandon me.
