Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 30889 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 154(@200wpm)___ 124(@250wpm)___ 103(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30889 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 154(@200wpm)___ 124(@250wpm)___ 103(@300wpm)
Derek’s been clear from the start. I’m the guy with complications. My ex, my trade, my reasons. But are they really reasons…or am I just making excuses?
He’s a teammate.
As if people don’t sometimes date at the office, even if my office is a ballpark.
I should focus on work.
I’ve been playing better baseball since I got here, not in spite of Derek but because of him.
My life has just changed radically in the past few months.
So maybe I should change too.
Because this doesn’t feel like two friends shopping for mattresses. I feel the same wild possibilities I felt when Derek and I looked at apartments together.
Tentatively, I sit down on the mattress. I turn to Derek, who’s waiting for me. To make a decision. To take a chance.
“So, Adam, does this meet your needs?” he asks.
“It’s a good mattress.” I press my hand to its surface, watching the memory foam shape itself around my palm. “I’d like to get to know it better.”
Amusement creases the corners of his eyes. “You’d like to get to know the…mattress better?”
I smile. “Feels like it’s a mattress I could really rely on. That it’d be supportive of me when I need it. That it’d fit really well in my apartment or…wherever.”
Derek’s smile broadens.
“Also,” I add, “I definitely want to take it to bed.”
“Adam, are we still talking about a mattress?”
“You’re going to make me say it?”
Derek pushes up on his elbows, his eyes sparking with hope and happiness. “I’m always going to make you say it.”
“I want to wake up in your bed some mornings. I want to pick up coffee for you on other mornings. I want to go to the ballpark with you. Some nights, I want you to come over. Other nights I want to go home with you. I just want you,” I say. “I know there’s stuff to figure out, but we’ll figure it out.”
He sits up, grabs my face, and pulls me in for a kiss, something more passionate than is appropriate for a mattress store on a weekday morning. I don’t care.
Eventually, we pull apart. “So, is this one a keeper?” Derek asks.
I nod, frantically, then go talk with the salesperson as fast as humanly possible to arrange for this mattress to be delivered.
“Should arrive sometime later today,” I tell Derek when I’m done.
“Maybe we should go back to your place and wait for it,” Derek says. “Make sure it arrives and everything.”
“How responsible of you,” I say, drily, even if my heart is beating against my chest. Even if I want to drag him back against that mattress and to hell with everything else.
It must show, because he runs a finger over my hand, a quick gesture that does nothing to settle my pulse. “Invite me over,” he says. “I think you owe me a tour.”
We go to my apartment and I show him my place for the first time.
Correction: We barely make it to the couch, tumbling into each other, kissing and touching and stripping.
And coming together.
Then, we go to the ballpark.
Together.
EPILOGUE
Adam
October in Seattle is strangely hot. But maybe that’s just the sweat I’m working up hauling my things from my truck in the parking garage, up the elevator, and down the hall.
Into Derek’s condo.
Only now, it’s our condo.
I carry a box inside, setting it next to the bed in our bedroom. “That should be everything.”
Derek’s here, looking exactly like I saw him five minutes ago and also, perfect. I lean over, kissing him, then pull back.
“What do you think?” I ask, looking around.
“Took you long enough,” he deadpans.
“Ha. Yes, the last few months when I lived two blocks away were torture,” I say, since I was here nearly every night when we were in town.
“Exactly. Now you’re where you belong,” he says. A statement. The truth, pure and simple.
“I am,” I say.
Seconds later, there’s a knock on the front door. A loud “Miller!” follows.
Derek raises a brow playfully. I do the same. I’m sure we’re both thinking the same thing. If Travis hasn’t figured us out yet, he’s about to now.
“Did you want to say something to him about us?” I ask as we leave the bedroom.
Us. A relationship that lasted the rest of the season, through Seattle almost, but not quite, making it to the playoffs. Still, a better outcome than I could have ever hoped for in St. Louis, in more ways than one.
We haven’t announced we’re together since we wanted to just be together first. But we’ve been planning to tell our teammates soon. I didn’t think it’d be today, but life has a way of surprising you.
I’m ready. “We can start with Travis,” I add.
A flash of guilt passes in Derek’s eyes. “He might already know. He said something to me a couple months ago—the day I asked you to go mattress shopping with me.” My surprise must show because Derek adds, “He’s actually emotionally perceptive.”