6. Felix

CHAPTER SIX

Felix

When I woke up today, I thought I'd be in Florida by now. Not watching Shira groan in pleasure around a forkful of mac and cheese. It's distracting. I should not let myself get distracted by her, but it's hard not to, especially when she asked me to fold her in half against a wall .

Contrary to what a lot of people believe, thinking about baseball doesn't make you not pop wood in inconvenient circumstances. Thinking about how the girl you had a year-long crush on is now dating the guy who's gonna take your job—that sure does.

Even that couldn't keep me from watching Shira. How her head tilted back, revealing the line of her neck. How she moaned into the stretch like she might if?—

I am not getting hard while sitting at a wobbly Airbnb table. I am not. So I take another bite of pasta. "This is good."

"Thanks." It's not Shira who says it. I assumed she was who arranged all this. Not Forsyth, who's shrugging like he's embarrassed at being able to prepare a meal.

"Do you like to cook?" I ask.

Another shrug, even if he gets two pleased spots of color up on his cheekbones. "Sure."

I don't know why I'm so curious. Or maybe I do. Forsyth is…less horrible than I assumed. As far as I can tell, he's good to Shira. I would have punched him if he wasn't. "What else can you cook?"

"I didn't really cook this." He examines his forkful of mac and cheese assessingly. "But I can make mac and cheese." The way he says it sounds like a particular point of pride.

"I mean, I can too. How hard is it to make something from a box?" I say it mostly to wind him up—southerners take that kind of thing seriously, I guess.

It works because Forsyth sputters, as uncomposed as I've ever seen him. He actually tugs a hand through his hair and glances over at Shira like she should come to his conversational rescue.

Shira grins at me, a little wicked. "Sure," she says, "I mean, I make mine fancier—once I cook pasta, I shred my own cheese over it."

Forsyth makes a noise of absolute outrage. "When we get to Florida, I'm cooking for you both."

Which…sounds like a friend thing. Or at least a teammate thing. It'd be easier if he was an asshole. Yeah, easier to convince Shira to dump him . Why do some guys have to be rich and successful and, yes, the kind of handsome that's almost hard to look at? I swallow that thought along with more garlic bread.

"Where'd you learn to cook?" Shira asks him.

"My grandma. I was always hanging out with her in the kitchen, wanting to know why she did this or that. But you know, after a while, my parents didn't want me spending time on stuff that wasn't school or baseball. Definitely not cooking."

"What's wrong with cooking?" I ask.

Forsyth goes a deep red. Whatever reaction I was anticipating—a shrug, a that's how it goes —it isn't that. "It's, you know…" He trails off for a second before adding, "A distraction." Said like he means something else.

I fill in the possibilities. That he was lying when he said he always wanted to be a ballplayer. That his family thought cooking was a waste of time. That there was something queer about cooking. Queer in a way that Forsyth, or at least his family, wanted to avoid the appearance of. Queer in a way I am, even if that's not something I openly advertise in a clubhouse.

Whatever the reason, Forsyth shovels in a mouthful of mac and cheese, quick enough that a drop of sauce clings to his lower lip.

There is absolutely nothing sexual about someone with oven-ready mac and cheese sauce dripping from their mouth. And yet…

He took your job. He took your girl. He'd probably deck you for thinking about Shira. And he'd definitely deck me for thinking about him like this.

I take another bite of garlic bread, hoping for the scrape of it against the roof of my mouth as a distraction, but of course, Blake— Forsyth —buttered it perfectly.

After we eat, I snag my notebook from my bag. Step out onto the front porch and breathe the frigid night air. Suburban skies are always kind of disappointing. Stars are visible but only a handful, like a scattering of grain.

Still, a habit's a habit, and I have an unbroken streak of entries stretching back into last year. So I jot down our location, the latitude and longitude. Draw a quick diagram showing which stars are the brightest.

A voice comes from the open front door. "Hey, you doing all right?" Not Shira. Forsyth, who's looking at me like I've lost my mind.

I hold up my notebook. "Yeah."

That gets his attention. He comes out, rubbing his arms at the cold. "How does this weather not bother you?" he asks.

"I like the cold—the tradeoff is I hate Florida."

Forsyth laughs. He's got a good laugh. "Give me heat and humidity any day."

Why didn't you stay in Atlanta? I can't ask him that, not when we're being almost civil. Not when he's peering over my shoulder like he's interested in what I'm writing down.

"You could just ask," I say.

Forsyth's cheeks are already reddened with cold, but he manages to go slightly pink like he's embarrassed to be caught. Something about that makes me like him more. "What're you doing?"

I aim my journal toward the thin night sky above us. "It's a stargazer journal."

"Anything good?"

"Not really." But I flip open to a page so he can see my notes. "Viewing's better on the farm. At least with baseball, I get to see what the sky looks like all over the country."

Forsyth nods. "Yeah, that's definitely why I play too." It takes a second for me to realize he's joking.

"It's a perk," I add. Like the money.

"You really miss being out in the country, huh?"

Every day. "Yeah." I scramble for a better answer just in case he goes to the team with something like, Paquette spends most of his time wishing he was back in Vermont . In other words, the truth. "My sister sends me pictures." I could leave it at that, but if Forsyth has a problem with queer people, I should probably know now. So I add, "She and her wife run the farm."

An expression passes over his face, brief, inscrutable in the half dark. Just as quickly, it clears. "They ever come to see you play?"

"Sometimes."

"You take 'em to sign the wall yet?" A reference to the huge wall in left field of Monsters stadium, one with an interior tunnel that players and their families graffiti with autographs.

His questions are innocuous—seemingly purposefully so, Forsyth treating my family like he might anyone else's.

Something inside me relaxes. "Not yet, but maybe this season." If I'm still playing in Boston… And I turn my attention back up to the sky.

Forsyth peers with me. "So what am I looking at?"

"Mostly nothing. But see that?" I point to a bright object circulating above us. "Satellite."

He tilts his gaze up, elongating his throat. Some people are handsome only from a distance—TV handsome, Monet handsome—and plainer up close. Forsyth is handsome at any dimension. "What was that?" He points to a brief flash of light in the sky that shimmers and fades.

"Meteor."

"How can you tell the difference?"

Some things burn out bright and quick. "Colors are different. And the way they move."

"Huh. That's pretty cool." Forsyth studies the patch of darkness around where the light faded for another second. "Are we supposed to make a wish?"

"Sure." Even if Forsyth seems like the kind of guy who got every wish he ever cast over birthday candles. So I imagine what I always imagine—having enough money that the farm is secure, something that's distant as the stars above us. Shira . Who feels equally as out of reach.

When I look over, Forsyth is staring up at the sky. Then he turns to me with an unreadable expression. Does he know about me and Shira? If he did, he probably wouldn't be staring at me, tongue swiping absently across his lower lip. "What'd you wish for?" he asks.

"You ever find yourself hoping for impossible things?"

"Yeah," Forsyth says, low. What do you wish for that you can't have? He recovers a second later, shrugging as if he's casting off whatever's bothering him. "So, hey, listen, about Shira?—"

Oh fuck, here it comes. Either a stay away from her or a do you know her from somewhere? Neither of which I'm really prepared for out here, my breath fogging, my heart jumping in my throat.

"We can't let her drive tomorrow."

I laugh. "What?"

"She won't say anything about it, but I think today shook her up pretty good."

No, she probably wouldn't say anything. Not when she toughed out breaking her ankle. But I'm not supposed to know that. That's the hardest part of all this, pretending I don't care about her when I do. "I can drive. If that helps her."

Something in the way I say that makes Forsyth narrow his eyes.

"I mean, if that's helpful."

I get another of those looks. There's nothing going on between me and Shira. No matter how much I want there to be.

"Thanks, man, appreciate it." He claps me on the shoulder, then retreats back inside, leaving me with nothing but the night sky and the realization that I was wrong.

The hardest part isn't pretending I don't care about Shira.

It's knowing I'm not the only one who does.

That night, I settle into the king bed I claimed to see what Forsyth might do. If he was going to pull rank, kick my ass, send Shira in here to negotiate, even if her negotiation skills are largely like her driving: aggressive .

Not…nothing.

The bed is massive, comfortable but with a headboard that abuts the other bedroom. Sounds drift through the walls: the murmur of water running from the bathroom on one side, then the sounds of them getting ready for sleep from the other, Forsyth's low chuckle and the higher peals of Shira's laughter.

Those get replaced by noises like they're kissing. Could I hear that through layers of drywall and paint—or am I only hoping I do?

Am I going to hear them together? The thought pulls something low in my belly. I don't want to hear that. Then I inch closer to the wall and hold my breath just to make sure.

Silence. Silence, followed by the soft snores of someone in deep, unbothered sleep. Maybe they're both wrung out from today. Maybe they're both being polite, knowing that I'm right here.

Then the soft pad of footsteps up the hall, the sound of the bathroom door opening and closing, followed by a faint noise right at the edge of my hearing. A buzzing then a soft feminine groan, like Shira's trying to keep herself quiet.

Was that…? No, it couldn't be. Wishful thinking . Even if, when I accidentally walked in on Shira earlier, she dropped the showerhead like she was embarrassed to be caught.

Heat licks up my neck—she might be touching herself. She might be wet or desperate or holding back little noises I want to wring out of her.

Fuck. I'm hard. All I have is spit and my own fist, but that's all I need. I creep my hand below the sheet and take my cock in hand.

I shouldn't be thinking about this, not in bright 4K imagining. Not every fantasy I had each time Shira gave me a lap dance. How she arched her back and rolled her hips. How her nipples got hard against the elastic and mesh of whatever she was wearing. How she'd ask if I was having a good time, as if she couldn't feel the clear evidence that I was digging against her ass.

How I wanted nothing more than to kiss her, to pull her close to me, to pretend for a second that things between us were real.

Even now, I clench my eyes shut. Picture how she might feel and sound and smell. How she might taste , pouring herself all over my tongue. Or over Forsyth's as I watch them together.

I come, sudden, into the channel of my fist, jerking myself through it. Draining myself out at the thought of her, of us. Of all of us. Something as impossible as reaching through this wall.

I grunt—I must.

Next door, the buzzing clicks off. Now there's only breathing, a series of muffled groans like Shira has her hand pressed against her lips. Followed by the soft exhalation of a word. John . No, that can't be. There's wishful thinking and then there's delusion.

A minute later, she runs the sink, returns back up the hall. From the other bedroom, there's the sound of the door opening. "You okay, sweetheart?" Forsyth, clear as a bell.

"I'm good!" Shira—not the sultry version of her who used to ask if my cock was all for her, but someone embarrassed to be caught.

"You sure?" Forsyth asks as if he doesn't believe her either.

"Just had a bad dream and needed some water," Shira says. "Sorry for waking you."

She receives a mumbled no problem , then a long silence like they both went to sleep.

I should clean myself up too. I settle for a wad of Kleenex, a few scraps of which cling to me after I wipe myself off. Along with the question that I can't stop thinking: If they're so happy together, why is she lying to him?