22. Blake

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Blake

I wake up and don't panic. We're all still in bed together—three people isn't that snug a fit if we're on our sides. Shira's tiny, but she takes up the most space—feet against my ankles, hair fanning across Felix's pillow. A bridge where she's lying between us. Yesterday, I would've said she provided some degree of deniability.

Today, I don't want to deny anything. She knows and she's still here. Felix knows and he tilted my chin up and brushed his thumb under my jaw. Kissed me and asked me if I was good.

And not the more important question. If I want to do it again today .

I don't want to move. Moving would mean conceding that it's morning. The clock reads seven. Brayden will be here soon. We're two hours, give or take, from where he lives in Augusta in the offseason. A text on my phone confirms he's just about to leave.

The one morning he's actually on time… I need to get rid of those thoughts. Brayden's bringing a car. I called, asked a favor. He said yes . Family isn't about tallying wins and losses. And it's not like it's him I'm really mad at. It's not like he's the entire reason I moved away.

We have two hours until Felix and I go back to being who we were when we got on the road: teammates. Two hours until he and Shira go back to being friends . Even if I'll never forget the wild abandon of her riding his face. Of him licking her where I got her all wet—shamelessly, like he didn't know shame could even enter the picture.

I stretch, lengthening my spine. The muscles in my shoulder are quiet. I should get up, shower, explore breakfast. Do all the things I have to do and not what I want to do.

So I kiss the back of Shira's neck. She sighs into it, rolls her hips. Her hair is curly, unbound from the ponytail she put it in to sleep. "I can feel you worrying," she mumbles.

I kiss her at the curve of her jawline. Across her lips. "My breath is probably terrible," she laughs.

"Mine too, so we match." And kiss her again.

After a minute, she sits up. Her hair is chaotic. Her eyes have mascara rings under them. "What?" she says, when she catches me looking.

"Just thinking about how beautiful you are."

That gets her throaty early-morning laugh. "Like an electrocuted racoon?"

"Like you couldn't be more perfect."

A wave of something passes over her face. Is she still waiting for me to get mad about her dancing? We all have things in our past. Nothing that won't make her think I'm dwelling on that, so I kiss her until she melts against me.

Next to us, Felix is still asleep. He looks even more bearish in the morning light—thick through his chest and stomach, stubble prickling his jaw. If I kiss him now, it won't count, right? We have two hours. In two hours, I can go back to being Blake Forsyth, who's good at everything . Everything except getting what I want.

My hand drifts over to his belly. I don't know why I like that line of hair down the center of his stomach, only that I do. There's something undeniable about that, about how my nails look tracing over his hard padding of muscle. Queer . A word that got tossed at me growing up along with a dozen others I learned to avoid.

My nails are already chipping at the edges—it makes the fact that they're painted more obvious, not less. Even with that polish gone…the word won't be or the fact that Felix and Shira saw me for who I am and didn't run.

My phone chimes again.

Brayden: I'm already bored driving.

Me: You have another two hours of it

Brayden: not at the speed I'm going

A second later, a screenshot comes through—Brayden's navigation app calculating he'll be here in about ninety minutes.

Me: Be careful with that car. It's not yours.

Because Brayden is driving out here with a car, trailed by his own vehicle he convinced a friend to drive for him. He's leaving from here down to the Atlanta Hammers' spring training complex, which just happens to be right next to Boston's.

Brayden: damn bro, I really missed you

And I start to write back me too when another message comes through.

Brayden: treating me like I'm too dumb to live

Of course he's mad at me. Of course.

Showering will take my mind off this. I need to stop lingering. I need to get up. We have ten hours of driving ahead of us.

"Hey." Felix's voice is rough with sleep. He blinks awake, spots my hand still on his belly. Smiles. "Good morning."

Kiss me . What I want them both to do. To settle between them, to stay here, held, like I was last night. "Brayden's on the road," I say.

Felix yawns. "And he's bringing the, uh…?" He trails off when Shira's eyebrows shoot up, then adds, "Car?"

"Yeah. I was just getting up." Even if I don't move.

Felix's laugh lifts my palm on his stomach. It's a strange thing to know about my teammate . How the low rumble of his laugh eases something within me.

"Didn't get a good look at the shower," he says. "You think it'll fit three people?"

A question that contains another question inside it: if we're really done. If we've officially left Fayetteville , and what happened in this bed won't last longer than the time it takes housekeeping to strip the sheets. "Looked like it was only big enough for one."

So I stroke Felix's side—a good morning, a goodbye—then get up to go put myself back together.

We eat breakfast at a different restaurant than where we ate dinner. This one has a sea of tables—almost all of them empty—and a wall on one side made entirely of glass that looks down on the curving green of a golf course. Not a place for the three of us to do anything but eat.

Shira's hair is piled up in a haphazard knot. She keeps yawning and demanding coffee and frowning because what the server brings is too weak and in too short a supply. Every time my phone buzzes with a message—Brayden, telling me he stopped for coffee, Brayden, complaining that there's nothing good on the radio, Brayden, wondering if he's going to make the major league roster out of spring training—Shira jumps.

"Sorry," I say, after I answer his seventh message in ten minutes.

"I didn't realize you were that close."

Close . A funny word for it, especially when Brayden's approach feels like watching Lilac's temperature gauge tick up yesterday—like I'm bracing for oncoming disaster. "You ever have someone you talk a lot with but don't say anything to?" I ask. "It's like that."

Shira smiles at me, tight, sympathetic, from across the table. Next to me, Felix drops his hand on my knee. I shouldn't enjoy that—enjoying this will make things harder when we stop. "All right, enough," I say. "Let's eat."

We eat, talk about nothing in particular—traffic, weather, the best golf courses in Florida.

Where Felix is staying during spring training. "I got one of those week-to-week places," he says.

"Why?"

He shrugs. "It'll make it easier if the team cuts me and I gotta move somewhere else."

"My rental has a spare bedroom." Three, in fact, though I planned to give Shira one in case she wanted extra space.

"Yeah?" Felix says. "You good with being roommates ?" Like he knows us living together will turn into a six-week dry hump of an entirely different kind.

"Think about it," I say. "No pressure either way."

Something about that makes Felix laugh, big. "That easy, huh?"

It occurs to me Shira might mind—it's one thing to know I'm into men in front of her. Another if she's worried about me going behind her back. "Unless Shira objects. For, uh, any reason."

"In that case, let me go hit the head and leave you to have that conversation." Felix's smile tilts on conversation , like it's something he's amused by.

He's barely gone before Shira says, "It's cool."

"It doesn't have to be."

"Blake, I love you"—she smiles around the word like she's still getting used to saying it—"and I trust you."

"What if…" I begin, then take another sip of—yes, Shira is correct, not very good—coffee for courage. "What if last night repeats itself?"

"What, you slip and just fall in bed together?" She shrugs. "That's fine."

"You don't have to put up with me screwing around."

"Hey." She leans over the table, motions for me to do the same. "There's a pretty big distance between screwing around and dating someone else I know about . Like a continent's worth of difference."

"I don't want you to feel like you have to go along with things. I don't want to be one of those couples that keeps secrets from each other."

Something goes tight in Shira's smile. "You wouldn't be. In fact, I might make you call me up and tell me all about it."

As if that's something she wants—something she's as eager to do as I am. "Really?" I ask in case I'm somehow misunderstanding.

"When I said I loved all of you, that includes the parts you're unsure about."

Relief blooms in my belly, the kind that can only come from someone saying what you didn't know you needed to hear. "How did I get so lucky?"

Her smile relaxes into something bright. "Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing."

Felix comes back a few minutes later. He eyes both of us before sliding back into his chair. "So, what's the verdict?"

"Room's yours if you want it—Shira's okay with it."

Felix's eyebrows go up but he's grinning. "You sure?"

She laughs and taps a determined finger against the table. "I'm more than okay with it."

"So," Felix asks, his smile not fading, "what's the rent situation?"

"It's not, uh, necessary." It's not like I would charge Shira rent if we lived together. It's not like it's entirely the same, even if it's starting to feel that way.

"Then no." Felix says it matter-of-factly—says it and picks up the syrup bottle he's been disparaging since we sat down and pours another few glugs onto his waffles, then uses the bottle to motion to the resort around us. "In fact, let me get you back for some of this."

"I already paid for the room."

Felix's shoulders rise toward his ears like I've managed to make a mess of this in less than a minute. "Venmo exists."

I don't want to argue. Not when we're about to get into a car together for ten hours. Not when Brayden's coming. One fight at a time seems like a reasonable number. "Sure, if you want to grab breakfast." I text him my Venmo handle. A notification comes through. Felix Paquette has sent you a payment of…

I click accept , send back a friend request. A second later, Felix confirms. Transactions appear on his profile—they must have been set to friends-only. Various dollar amounts sent for various emojis: golf, food, maple leaves. I'm just about to start teasing him about that when I notice another set of transactions from last year, all marked with music notes. That girl he was in love with. What was her name? Melody.

Shira's name also means song . A funny coincidence.

Or so I think.

Until I tap on Melody's profile picture and one of Shira appears.

It takes a second to recognize her: her hair is longer, her face more made up. She's smiling as she holds her long manicured nails up to the camera. But that's Shira. There's no mistaking it.

My heart kicks up in my throat. Events begin to replay—Shira and Felix's familiarity with each other. How she seemed to know things about him that she shouldn't have. How a few times, he caught himself calling her by a different name.

I hold up my phone and point to the transactions. "What the fuck?" I spit. "You two knew each other?"

This time, there's no teasing. No ribbing that perfect Blake Forsyth swore. Just a matching pair of guilty expressions that are all the answer I need.

"Is this some kind of scam?" I ask.

Shira speaks first. "Blake?—"

She stops when I start shaking my head. By now my blood is up, pulse angry at my temple. A hot wave of embarrassment rushes through me. Words rise: that they must think I'm a dupe for not seeing this earlier, that they were doing this right in front of my face. When I caught them laughing with one another, I assumed it was because they liked one another and didn't want to admit it.

But now I know it's because they were laughing at me. Perfect Blake Forsyth makes the perfect mark. Of all people, I should know that things that seem too good to be true probably are. "How do you know each other?" I grit out. "Start talking."

Shira glances at Felix, then says, "I danced in Worcester, where the Monsters' triple-A team plays. Felix was a customer. I swear it wasn't more than that." Even if her face says it was.

"Why are you still lying to me?" I'm being loud. Other diners could overhear, could be getting out their phones to record us. For once, I don't really care. If I'm gonna be a mess, might as well make it public.

Shira chews her lip. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not mad that he was a customer."

Her forehead wrinkles in confusion. "You're not?"

"I'm mad you didn't tell me, that you had a secret you kept from me. I'm mad you assumed I wouldn't understand—even when I did. And I'm mad he's very clearly in love with you —or Melody, or whoever—and you're pretending like he isn't. Is it because you're in love with him too?"

Shira gasps sharply. Felix sits as still as a mountain.

Neither of them says anything. An admission. An unspoken yes. Yes, they're in love with each other. Yes, they were hiding it from me. Yes, they weren't planning to tell me: now or ever.

Fine, if that's how they want to be, then that's how we'll be. It's only ten hours to Florida. I've gone through worse for longer. This hot anger should settle by then—that this thing we built together carefully is already crumbling like sand. That, despite everything, we're still strangers to one another.

My phone chimes. A text alert.

Brayden: where you at? I'm pulling up

Fuck .