Epilogue

SIX MONTHS LATER

“I now know the real reason you’re in a relationship with two men,” I say to Brady as we watch his boyfriends move my boxes into Kelley’s house.

“So I don’t have to do any heavy lifting at times like this? It’s exactly why. That, and the cost of living these days is so pricey, you need a three-income household really to survive.”

“We can hear you,” Prescott says.

“Wasn’t trying to be quiet.”

Brady’s partners really are great, and from the couple of times Kelley and I have gone out with the three of them, they both treat Brady like a king. Maybe too much like a king.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t be helping them? It’s my stuff, and I asked you here to help me. Not them.”

“They like showing off their muscles. I promise.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I’m going to start getting unpacked while they lug everything inside.” Not that there’s much. I left my furniture back in New York for whoever my roommates were going to fill my room with. It’s basically all clothes, books, baseball crap I probably should’ve thrown out already, and knickknacks that I’ve collected over the years.

“Are you sure you should unpack? Maybe you should wait for Kelley to come home from his road trip, see that you’ve moved yourself in while he’s been away, and then maybe ask if he even wants to live with you.”

“Nah, it’ll be all good.”

If I was on the outside of this situation, I would agree with Brady. Someone secretly moving all their stuff in while their partner is away after only being together for six months? Totally presumptuous, controlling, and probably a huge red flag. But considering Kelley wanted me to move in with him as soon as I got to LA, and as much as he denied it that me rejecting the idea hurt, not to mention the countless times he’s brought up my lease on my apartment and what I think I’ll do when it’s up, it’s safe to say that when he gets home tomorrow night, I’m going to make him the happiest man in the world.

I practically live here already when he is home. I have a key to the place, and I only ever stay in my apartment when he’s away. Which is a lot.

There was no real moment where I knew I was ready to move in with him. It’s almost as if I’ve had it in my head that after my six-month lease was up, it was a given.

Because I never want to be away from Kelley. Our jobs keep us apart a lot of the time, so it makes sense to share our space.

I’ve always wanted to live with Kelley, but I didn’t want to rush things. If we had, I have no doubt we’d still be as strong as we are today, but I didn’t know six months ago if that would be the case.

We were new, and while we’d first hooked up over winter but didn’t get officially together until summer, it’s not like we can count those six months when we’d seen each other once or twice over that time.

But now … Now I know I can be who he needs me to be. He might doubt who he is sometimes, he might get in his head, freak out about something he sees in the media—he’s getting better at not looking, but slips happen—but he will never doubt me because I make sure of it.

And this step, this is just another way of me showing Kelley that he’s my priority.

I might have been happy to be an okay baseball player. I might have been okay to coast through my internship. But if there’s anything I’m sure of in this world, it’s that I’m not okay with being a mediocre boyfriend. I want to be the best. Kelley makes me want to be the best because he deserves it.

On their way back out to get more boxes, Kit and Prescott are stopped by Brady.

“If I had moved in with you two when I was back in college and didn’t tell you I was going to do it, would you have freaked out?”

This won’t work. They’re not going to rattle me. I won’t let them.

Prescott answers immediately. “Restraining orders would’ve happened.”

“See!” Brady says.

“I wouldn’t have,” Kit says. “It probably would’ve made me stay in California longer than I did.”

I turn to Brady. “Kit’s my favorite of your boyfriends.”

Prescott huffs. “Just for that, any boxes that say fragile, I’m gonna throw against a wall by ‘accident.’” He disappears out the front door, and I can’t help but laugh.

“He does know most people would stop helping altogether?”

Brady smiles. “What can I say, they love me.”

“And I love Kelley. He’s ready for this. I know he is.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am.”

What if I’m not right about this?

I’m sweating. Kelley’s on his way home, I have dinner in the oven, candles everywhere, and all I can think is that as soon as he sees all my stuff in his house, he’s going to freak out.

Which is ridiculous because he’s wanted this since I moved to LA.

It’s not like he’s suddenly changed his mind .

Shit, what if he’s changed his mind?

I wonder if it’s too late to call Kit and Prescott and ask them to come move my stuff back out. Though, my apartment’s already gone, so I have nowhere to put it, and how did this romantic gesture go from being exciting to turning me into Kelley levels of anxious?

Before I have the chance to panic to the point of throwing all my belongings out a window, the front door opens, and Kelley’s voice travels down the hall and into the kitchen. “Thad?”

My heart thuds, and I try to call out where I am, but only a rasp leaves me.

Kelley appears a moment later, wide smile on his face. “What’s all this?”

“A welcome home.”

He approaches me, wraps his arms around my back, kisses me softly, but then pulls away and picks a cherry tomato off his salad plate and pops it in his mouth. “You cooked. Should I be scared?”

“I’ll have you know I’m getting really good at cooking, thank you very much.”

“Uh-huh. So, what did you order in and put in the oven to pass off as your own?”

He knows me too well. “Your favorite. But I did make the salad.”

“And it’s not burned. Good job.”

“Are … are you supposed to cook salad?”

Kelley laughs. “No, but that was my joke. I guess it doesn’t work when you have no idea how to cook.”

“Oh.” Any other day, I would’ve gotten that, but it went right over my head because I’m nervous as fuck.

“Are you okay?”

No. I’m being ridiculous. “I’m really not. I need to show you something.”

I take his hand and lead him toward the bedrooms.

“I like where this is going.”

“It’s not sex. We’ll have sex later, but that’s not what this is.” I stop at the guest bedroom door and take a deep breath .

“Ooh, who do you have in there? My parents. Your parents. Um, a therapist who wants to commit me for a seventy-two-hour hold?” He hesitates. “Maybe I don’t want to know what’s in there.”

“Out of all of those options, I’m hoping you think it’s better than all of them combined. If not, I’m kind of fucked.” And homeless.

I open the door to put us both out of our misery, and when Kelley sees the stacks of moving boxes—which I haven’t unpacked because Brady got in my head—Kelley’s face lights up.

Like I knew it would. Definitely knew it would.

Wasn’t freaking out at all.

He bounces on the balls of his feet. “Is this what I think it is? Are you finally moving in?”

“If you’ll have me.”

His arms engulf me. “If I’ll have you? I’ve never stopped wanting you here. I don’t think I’ve been too subtle about it. Were you really worried?”

“I wasn’t! I had this big idea planned where I unpacked all my stuff and was just living here when you got back, and then Brady got in my head.”

“He’s fired. How dare he make my man think.” Kelley is nonstop smiling, and being the one who’s made him that happy makes any nervousness I had worth it.

“Can I please be there when you fake fire him in person?”

“Deal. We’re really doing this though? You’re here? With me? Living together and, you know, being all legit?”

“Legit? What, were we not as serious last week, having not been living together?”

“No, but you know what I mean. This is big.”

“It’s only as big as we make it out to be. We both struggle with change, so?—”

Kelley shakes his head. “I don’t mean big as in a big deal. It’s the right amount of big. It’s big big. Good big.”

I can always tell how happy Kelley is by how little sense he makes.

“It’s the beginning of everything else, you know? ”

“Everything else?” I ask.

“Marriage. Kids?—”

My face must give away my shock because he quickly backtracks.

“Before you start freaking out, I know these are things we need to work toward. We can’t jump in as much as I want to. But this is a start.”

“You … you think about that stuff? With me? Without getting bouts of anxiety and second-guessing everything first?”

Kelley presses against me, where he belongs. Where I want him to be forever. We haven’t spoken about this kind of thing before, so to hear he thinks that way too, it’s everything to me.

And just when I think everything is falling into perfect place, he goes and says the one thing that cements my feelings forever. “Ever since that night you promised me I could be myself around you, I’ve believed it. I’ve lived it. Out of everything in my life I could get anxiety over, loving you isn’t even on the list.”