27. Declan

Later in September, the Dragons clinch a playoff spot. A few days later, the Cougars, reigning World Series champions, do too.

Grant and I celebrate in style that night. We screw all over the house, hard and well, the only way we know how.

But the playoffs are a hell of a hill to climb. Grant's team makes it through the wild-card game, then is eliminated in the divisionals, and he's not happy about that.

The Dragons continue on to the championship round, but we lose four to one. No one is in a good mood in our house that night.

But the great thing about baseball is there's always next year.

Until then, there's the off-season.

I've been waiting six years to spend an off-season with Grant Blackwood. I don't plan to squander a second of it.

In late October, River sends a group text inviting a bunch of us to a picnic at his family's home in Petaluma. Reese, Holden, Owen, Grant, and I all say yes. It's the day before we leave for Hawaii, so the timing is perfect.

"Why don't we go see my grandparents later that day," Grant suggests over coffee and everything bagels.

I declare myself in, and a few days later, Grant and I drive up the winding highway toward his hometown, leaving the city and the baseball season behind. We listen to a new playlist, a mix of my 90s tunes and his pop. A Nirvana song for every Sam Smith one. Bruno Mars for Pearl Jam. Grant even lets me play "November Rain," and I break out my air guitar too.

When we reach Petaluma, we pull up in front of the Michaels' family home, perched at the end of a long gravel driveway and atop green rolling hills. I grab the food we picked up along the way at a trendy gourmet store—a tofu dish, a kale salad, and some locally-grown peppers.

River meets us on the porch—for a bar entrepreneur, Grant's business partner looks comfortable in the country.

"It's so bucolic, isn't it?" River quips, stretching out an inked arm to show off the white farmhouse with the wraparound porch.

"Rustic is more like it," Owen says from inside the house.

I glance at Grant and mouth, "Such flirts."

"I know, right? I tell them that all the time," Grant remarks.

"Hello! I heard you." River parks his hands on his hips, his floppy hair falling across his forehead.

"It isn't a secret," I point out.

"And who is dishing, now?" Owen pops into the doorway. "I love a good secret."

River points his thumb at his college friend. "Don't tell him any. He can't keep them."

Owen shoots a dirty stare at River. "My job is literally to keep things confidential, and I am excellent at my job." Shaking his head, he turns to Grant and me as we walk up the steps. "Lies. He tells lies."

I wrap my free arm around my guy and say with private humor, "Someday..."

Grant nods and agrees. "Yup."

"Someday what?" River glances between us in suspicion.

I pat his shoulder. "You'll see."

"And to think I helped the two of you way back when," River grumbles as he swings open the door for us.

"For which I am eternally grateful," I say as we head inside, then I lift the bag from the organic market. "We picked up some salads on the way. Tofu and kale and stuff. Want me to do anything with them?"

River snatches the food from me. "Nope. I'm just going to hide it all."

Laughing, I ask, "Why would you do that?"

"Because Owen's niece is obsessed with tofu, and I'm trying to introduce her to the joy of ice cream," River explains matter-of-factly.

"You're such a troublemaker," Owen says. "My sister is going to kill me."

"Fortunately, she's not here yet."

River winks. It includes all of us, but it feels like it's meant just for Owen.

Pearl, Owen's seven-year-old niece, isn't just obsessed with tofu and kale. She has a thing for the outdoors too. That afternoon, as I'm standing on the back porch while the sun travels across the sky, the busy blonde kid stops at the top of the stairs, looks at me very seriously, and asks if I know how to build a dam.

I roll with the non-sequitur and answer in the same tone, "Of course. Doesn't everyone?"

"Oh, good. You can be my assistant, then," she announces and scampers down the porch steps. When she realizes I'm not following, she turns back, hands on her hips, expectant.

I glance behind me. Grant is inside catching up with River on bar business, while Reese, Holden, Owen, and Pearl's parents are gathered in Adirondack chairs at the end of the porch, having fallen down the rabbit hole of one of those what-color-is-this-shirt Internet optical illusion debates.

There's only me, and when I turn back to Pearl, she is still waiting.

Oh.

I literally point at myself. "You want me to help you build a dam? Why?"

The kid says, "Because I'm not allowed to go to the stream without a grown-up and everyone else is busy."

I cannot argue with that logic.

After a moment's hesitation to see if an alternative will appear, I gulp down my nerves and follow her to the stream that rings the property.

How hard can it be? I can do this.

The little blonde forewoman tells me to find some good sticks while she picks the best spot to build. I gather supplies and watch out of the corner of my eye as she judges where to dam up the stream. When she decides, she plonks onto her knees in the wet grass, and I cringe.

"Aren't you going to get dirty?" I ask and get a look like I inquired if the water was wet. "I'll rephrase. Are your parents going to be upset when you come back to the house all muddy?"

"You can't build anything without getting dirty."

I'm not going to argue with a seven-year-old philosopher when she has a good point. I focus on my task then show her my collection of sticks. "Will this be enough?"

Pearl shakes her blonde pigtails. "A few more. We want to see how much the dam can hold and then we're going to sneak up, like double agents, and yank up all the sticks and watch the water pour down."

"You've clearly thought this through," I say, kneeling by the stream with my latest load of supplies.

"Well, it's not my first dam," she says with a shrug.

"Be careful," I say as she leans over the water to sink a stick pylon upright in the mud. Fine, the stream is only a foot deep. Still, something could happen.

As the kid chatters, occasionally giving me instructions, suddenly I'm debating the merits of various tree branches for dam construction, and oddly invested when Pearl places a few last sticks, stopping the water. "There."

"Well done, engineer," I say.

Pearl lifts her head to grin at me, but something makes her eyes widen, and she points. "Ooh! I see a hawk."

"Whoa. Where is it?" I follow along her raised arm to a sprawling pine tree. On a tall branch sits a bird of prey.

"That's a red-tailed hawk," I tell her. I know a lot more about ornithology than I do about building dams.

"I want to see it," she says eagerly, then stares up at me. "You're tall. Can you lift me up?"

"Sure." I give her a boost, lifting her high so she can crane her neck for a view of the bird.

"Can it do any tricks?"

"Is soaring in the air a trick?"

"Flying is cool."

"Is capturing prey a trick?"

Her hand flies to her mouth. "Uh-oh. What if the dam makes it easy for the hawk to catch fish?"

I set her back on her feet. "Then I think it may be time?—"

"Double agents!" Pearl cheers and scurries back to the stream, where she dismantles the dam in seconds. "There. The double agents have saved the fish," she declares.

Can I laugh? Maybe? But how do I know what hurts a kid's feelings?

"That might call for an ice cream," I suggest instead, wondering if River has tempted her to the dark side yet.

The kid wrinkles her nose, so I guess not. "I don't like ice cream."

I snort. "Said no one ever."

She laughs, and I do too, without even thinking about it.

Look at that. I helped build a dam, I talked about birds, and made her laugh. Pearl isn't some alien creature who hates me on sight. She's a clever, bossy little person who likes to stay busy, and I can handle that.

"I swear I don't," she says about the ice cream. "River got me to taste it, but I didn't like it."

"What do you like, then? Like, for a snack."

"Chips. Popcorn," she says as she walks along the edge of the stream. "Pretzels too, but you can forget peanuts because gross."

"Ah, you're a savory then."

She stops, her eyes twinkling with curiosity. "What's that?"

"It means you prefer salty food to sweet," I tell her.

Pearl smiles. "That's why I don't like ice cream. I'm a savory. You figured it out!"

Like a Tasmanian devil, the seven-year-old rushes toward the porch, stops in front of her parents, then points at me. "He says I'm a savory!"

I drop my head in my hands, laughing.

A few seconds later, I look up to see Grant walking down the hill toward me. He stops a foot away, wearing a fantastic smile.

Maybe, possibly, it matches mine.