26. Shira
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Shira
After I buy a train ticket, I park myself at the beach on the edge of Fort Lauderdale. Just me, a suitcase, Lilac II, and an uncertain future. It's funny how far I thought I came in the past six years—and yet I'm somehow right back to where I was.
I should probably leave—it's three hours to the train station up by Orlando—but it's not even nine a.m. and I have until mid-afternoon. I get a coffee and a breakfast pastry filled with guava paste, and sit and eat and watch the push of the ocean against the shore. My phone buzzes in my purse. I silence it without reading my messages. Whoever's texting me won't change my mind.
After I'm done eating, I take a walk on the sand, checking for any potential twinge in my ankle. Nothing. When I get back to Boston, I'll find a club. That's an audition I probably won't fail, even if I botched the one for major-league girlfriend.
I didn't want Blake's money—but I foolishly let myself dream about what life might have been like together. Another thing I haven't learned not to do in the past six years.
Still…I walk down to the edge of the water, on the glossy sand revealed by each retreating wave. There aren't any sticks around, so I squat down and use my finger to write the first word that comes to mind.
Sorry . What I've already said. The ocean takes that.
I love you. Something I only got a few hours of practice saying. But before the ocean can claim that, I add another word.
Both.
A truth written on the edge of the water. What Blake accused me and Felix of—pretending we weren't in love with each other. Well, I'm done pretending. I'm also done pretending that I'm only in love with one of them, even if it's too late to do anything about it.
By now, the sun has risen high enough that I should probably get going. Goodbye, Florida. It took too long to get here and I already have to leave.
I'm about to head back toward where Lilac II is parked when I hear someone bellow, "Shira!" followed by an immediate, "Blake, I found her."
When I look up the beach, Felix is lumbering toward me with Blake not far behind. It only takes them a minute or so to get to me, but in those sixty seconds, time moves slow. They're both barefoot—Blake in long shorts like you might wear to go golfing, Felix, improbably, in jeans rolled up at the ankle that are crusted with sand at the cuffs as if they've been looking for me for a while.
"Why aren't you answering your phone?" Felix asks, when he gets to me. He sounds more breathless than accusatory.
"I didn't think either of you wanted to talk to me."
"We thought you'd already driven up to the train." He turns to Blake, who jogs up to us, cheeks flushed from salt water and running. "Blake was ready to buy Amtrak if that stopped you from leaving."
"Like a ticket?"
Felix shakes his head. "Like the entire train."
"It's true." Blake grins at me.
For a second, I grin right back. Did you come all this way to get pissed at me again? It seems unlikely—and unlikelier that he would have brought Felix along for it. Still… "How'd you find me, anyway?"
"We checked the house," Blake says. "That note didn't give us much to go from. I wasn't sure what to do until I realized that Lilac II has one of those share my location functions. We didn't want you to leave without at least letting you know about that feature in case you want to turn it off."
So they're offering me a way out. This morning, everything was clear—leaving felt so straightforward. Maybe this relationship burned its natural course…or maybe it hasn't, not if we're standing here, together.
Something in the sand draws Blake's smile. "What's that?" He points to my note, a faint outline that the ocean has taken most of—but not all of. I love you both. Something faded but undeniably there. Seeing that makes the next part easier.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I should've told you everything much earlier. You were right—I am in love with Felix."
A disappointed flicker passes over Blake's expression.
"But," I continue, "I'm not only in love with Felix."
"Hey"—Blake turns to Felix—"if anyone asks, this was us working on infield coordination." Before I can ask what he's talking about, he scoops me right up, kisses me, once, deep, like he doesn't care if the whole world is watching.
Then he passes me over to Felix, who pretends to sag with my weight. Who stands ankle deep in the frothing ocean and kisses me like he's been dreaming about it.
We could . The possibility is dizzying. We could .
Felix kisses me one more time, then sets me down on the soft sand where Blake is studying something on his phone, wearing an expression I've come to recognize: Blake in full planner mode.
"I know you were going to leave today," he says, "but what if you stayed and took your classes online? Do you need someone to water your plants in Boston?"
I laugh. "I think it might be too late for the plants."
"And maybe if it's not too much trouble, you could come see us play."
"I thought…" There's no nice way to say that he and Felix are competing for the same spot, though I don't really know how that works during spring training. "Did everything work out with, uh, baseball?"
Blake laughs, then pulls me to him, kisses the tip of my nose. After a glance around, he motions for Felix and does the same thing to him, a quick kiss that's over almost as soon as it begins. "Turns out," Blake says, "I'm gonna be a second baseman. I might not be great at it to start with, but I'm hoping the team is patient with me—that Felix is patient with me—if I get stuff wrong."
And he goes red when Felix kisses him, a kiss that lingers at his cheek. "Maybe you were always a second baseman and just needed the opportunity."
Blake laughs. "I'll be sure to remind you of that when I botch a double play."
"We can practice. For however long it takes." As if this isn't entirely about fielding. Then Felix's forehead wrinkles in question. "You still have that spare room?"
"I have three," Blake says. "Come take your pick." He turns to me. "How about you, Shira?"
"What do we tell people?" I ask. "I mean, if people ask—what should we say we're doing?"
Blake considers. For a terrifying minute, I worry that he'll say we don't tell anyone anything . That some part of him could be ashamed of me or Felix, no matter how much he might work not to be. Until Blake clears his throat. Gets that planning expression. "Does it need a label? Maybe it can be like…Dunkin' Donuts?"
"Like what?" Felix asks, incredulously amused.
"You know, what you called it before. How something doesn't have to be this or that: it can be sui generis —its own thing . " Blake ducks down, traces his finger in the sand, writing out words there at the end of my note. We love you too. He draws himself up from the sand, brushing his hand against the front of his shorts to dry it. "How's that sound?"
"Now that you mention it," I laugh, "that all sounds pretty fucking good."
A wave rolls in, splashing at our ankles. Erasing the message we scrawled there. Or not erasing—reshaping it into something new. And ours.