Winning With Him (Men of Summer #2) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,5
I’ll return to AA. I swear.” Now he’s the one begging. Our roles—they change on a dime.
I lick my lips, swallow roughly. “How much do you need?”
He gives me a figure. Five figures. A very high five figures.
I don’t blink. “I’ll help you out,” I tell him, hating myself, but doing it anyway.
His haggard face lights up. “You will?”
I nod. “I will.”
Relief floods his features. “I love you.”
I’m quiet for a few long seconds, then I find the will to speak. “I love you too,” I manage to say, unsure if it’s true. “Do you have any place to stay tonight?”
“Motel down the street.”
“Let me get you a nice hotel. I’ll stay with you.”
On its surface, the offer seems generous.
Kind.
Like a good son.
A grateful smile lights up his face. I’m grateful too—that I can be his probation officer tonight. That I’ve got an ankle cuff for him now. A muzzle too, one that’ll buy me enough time and distance that he can’t hurt Grant or me.
He has no evidence of the affair, so all I have to do is keep denying it, and eventually, Dad will drop it.
We finish eating, and he doesn’t mention Grant, or a boyfriend again.
At the hotel, I check him into a room, and after he showers, he collapses on the bed, chats about Barry and their plans, talks about the steps he needs to work on in AA, and the amends he wants to keep making, including for how he handled my coming out.
Soon enough, he talks himself into sleep.
Alone with my thoughts, I text Brady, tell him I’m crashing with family, then I stare at my phone for thirty minutes.
My fingers tap out a message that feels like a guillotine.
I am putting my own head under the blade and letting it fall.
Can I do this?
With my dad snoring away, I stare endlessly at the screen, at the message.
I don’t send it, though.
I’m not sure I can.
My head pounds mercilessly, a bone-deep hammering. My leg bounces a mile a minute.
I could call Emma. Could talk to my mom. Maybe my stepdad. Could ask someone for advice. But then I’d have to explain. Admit I’ve been giving my dad money from time to time. Admit I fell for a guy on my team. Admit I don’t have my shit together.
Once I crack open this can of worms, it’ll spread inside me like a disease. I won’t have the strength to do what I need to do.
I need to fix the problem I created.
But there’s one thing to do first.
I click away from my messages and check the spring training scores, and I smile.
For the first time in a few days, Grant got a hit. A single that amounted to nothing, but still, that’s a helluva lot better than hitless. Plus, no errors. No passed balls.
As I mull that over, his name blasts across my notifications.
I sit bolt upright, nearly dropping the phone like it can see inside me. Like it knows my secrets and what I’m about to do.
With nervous fingers, I click open the text.
* * *
Grant: I followed your advice. Shifted my back knee. Thanks, man. Hope your first game was good.
* * *
That’s all.
A simple update.
A gorgeous, beautiful, heart-pounding update.
One that makes me ache and want.
One that tugs on every corner of my heart.
This news is what I hoped for.
And it’s also an obvious sign.
My guy is playing better than he did when I was there. When I was sneaking into his room every night, feeding my desires, getting in his head with my bottomless need for him.
Scrubbing my palm across the back of my neck, I replay the games that fell during the time we messed around. The Scoundrels, the Sharks, the Bandits . . . His worst games occurred when he was seeing me.
He made mistakes on the field during the day when I was seducing him, teaching him, touching him at night.
When I was a gluttonous lover, asking for more, then asking for yet another bite.
Ah, hell. I am a greedy, selfish bastard.
But I was with him last night too.
I close my eyes, my head falling back against the couch as I recall our time at The Lazy Hammock.
“But nothing during the season, right? We’ve got to focus on baseball during the season,” Grant had said.
The man underlined his needs. Highlighted them in neon ink. Made it clear what he could and couldn’t handle—no talking, no texting.