8. Blake

CHAPTER EIGHT

Blake

"I'm sorry, sir, there appears to have been a mix-up with the reservation. We very much apologize for the inconvenience." The clerk at the nicest hotel in Fayetteville—which isn't really saying a whole lot—frowns apologetically from across the check-in desk. "We're doing construction on a few of the floors. Sometimes rooms are listed as available that aren't."

"So you don't have space for us?" I ask.

The clerk bends over his computer, pecking frustratedly at the keys. "Let me check."

Grousing at him won't make the situation any better, though part of me does want to know if he knows who I am—who Felix and I are—and can make accommodations accordingly.

We could go elsewhere. Surely there's an available bed between here and Florida. Still, I could use a break after being on the road for nine hours. So could Lilac, who is doing admirably, but whose limits I don't want to push.

I've also been fantasizing about a bed for the past two hours. Sometime in hour six, driving always goes from mindless to absolutely mind-numbing. I spent most of it thinking about beds. Specifically a bed with Shira in it, and the bare skin of her hips, and our touching the way we did at lunch…except without an audience. Or with a very specific one .

That must be the tiredness talking.

"Okay." The clerk looks up from his computer. "I have good news but not great news."

"Lay it on me."

"I did find a room—it's one of our junior deluxe suites."

"What's the bad news?"

"It comes with a king bed and a pullout sofa."

So bad news…for Felix. "Let me ask my party if that works for us."

Felix and Shira are chatting on one side of the lobby, next to a set of potted ferns and a spinning rack of souvenir postcards Shira is leafing through. Her shirt is rumpled from hours in the car; even Felix's beard looks road weary. Not a great time to spring the only room at the inn issue on them.

Still, I explain the bed situation, bracing myself for their disappointment.

"Shit," Felix says, "I've slept in worse."

"We're all gonna be in the same room?" Shira asks.

"Seems like. I can find somewhere else."

Except the look in her eyes isn't quite objection. "Sounds like a party."

"Are you sure?" I ask. "You don't have to be."

Shira stands up on her toes to kiss my cheek. "When I was nineteen, I spent a month sleeping in my car. I can manage sharing a room for a night."

She what? I can't contain my reaction—I don't know what's playing out on my face. Probably the same thing that's on Felix's: pity and an attempt to hide pity that makes it somehow worse.

Shira hasn't said much about her life before we met. Still, it's hard not to collect pieces in scraps: that she isn't close with her family. That she drives a rust-spotted car. That she's getting a late start on an education.

That she was apparently homeless for a month when she was barely an adult. I told her that I wanted to meet her family—to tell them how amazing she is. Now I want to meet them to ask what the hell was wrong with them that they couldn't see that.

She's also looking at me, startled, as if she didn't mean to let that slip out. Her teeth sit firmly on her lower lip.

It's okay . Except I have no idea what that's like—not even on my family's worst day. I don't want to embarrass her. "Thank you for rolling with this."

When I get back to the desk, the clerk is gripping the edge of the counter like he's expecting to get yelled at. Don't you know who I am? A response that won't make more beds appear. "The suite you mentioned sounds great," I say.

"Oh." He practically sags in relief. "Terrific." He taps out a few things on the computer, then slides three keys across the counter. "And for your trouble—" A voucher for room service. He runs through various amenities: a business center I mostly tune the details out for. A weight room I probably should use. "And the hot tub on the fifth floor is part of our outdoor deck experience."

Room service. A hot tub. A big-ass bed. Things could definitely be worse. "Perfect. Thanks again." And I practically whistle as I approach Shira and Felix with the keys.

Fifteen minutes later, Felix and I are standing in our hotel room, about to get undressed. We hauled our stuff up into the room, did the cursory inspection of its bed and couch and desk. "Gonna shower," Shira says. "I'll meet you all up there." Then removes herself to the bathroom.

Leaving us standing there looking at one another.

"I'm gonna change." Felix motions to his waistband as if I need the visual.

I let my gaze follow his hand just for a second. "Right." But I can't seem to move.

I've spent my whole life in clubhouses, undressing next to thirty other guys. Even in a hotel room, default rules apply. Undress facing away from each other, on opposite sides of the room, like it's no big deal, because it's not. Can't be.

So I dig out swim trunks and a T-shirt and strip and keep my eyes trained on the generic hotel art. Or almost do.

A sensation breathes up the back of my neck like I'm being watched.

I glance back. Felix is already changed. For some reason, he's studying a different bland painting.

You're imagining things .

"Deck?" I ask, as I pull on my T-shirt.

"Deck," Felix confirms, then follows me out and into the elevator down to the fifth floor.

Hot tub sort of undersold this. This is an in-ground circular pool ringed by a built-in bench. Big enough for two people definitely. For three, possibly, if they don't mind a tighter fit.

I swallow that thought and turn to the task at hand. I open Felix's clipper set, test the electric razor. It buzzes to life, its indicator light showing the battery as fully charged.

Now all we have to do is get started. I wipe my suddenly damp palm against my swim trunks. I don't know why I'm worried. I've done this before. I just have to start with the longer clipper guards and work my way shorter until he can get the rest with a razor. It's simple. I wipe my hands again.

Felix grabs a tall standing lamp from across the patio and carries it over. His arms strain the confines of his T-shirt sleeves. Right . That might have something to do with my sudden nervousness. He plugs the lamp in, taking this area of the patio from twilight to full day. That's better. It's hard for my mind to stray in the full glare of a lamp.

I pull out a patio chair and motion to it. "Grab a seat."

"Sure." Felix doesn't sit immediately. Instead, he strips off his shirt and leaves it in a wad on the glass patio table. "Didn't want to get a bunch of hair in that."

I swallow. "Good thinking."

In his clothes, he's big. Out of them…I'm a big guy. I've spent the offseason working to pack on as much muscle as I can.

But Felix isn't just big—he's mountainous: thick-waisted with shoulders like hills. Hair dusts his pecs and stomach, coalescing into the line I saw earlier. As a segment, it was distracting. As a whole path…

I am not staring. I am not, and I yank my gaze down to the plastic deck floorboards to show how much I'm not staring.

After we get to Florida tomorrow, we have a whole season to play. I'm taking his job. He's generous enough not to hold that against me. That should be enough for anyone.

After a solid thirty seconds of not saying anything, Felix flutters his hand to get my attention. "Everything good?" As if he can tell it's not.

Slowly, I bring my eyes back up to meet his. "Yeah. Just worried I'm gonna mess up your beard."

"Hell yeah." He waves me toward him. "Come mess me up."

I laugh and secure the number eight guard on the clippers, then flip the switch, happy for the distraction of the razor buzzing in my palm. You shouldn't need a distraction . Shira will be up here soon. Shira isn't a distraction—just, when she's around, it's easier to focus on her and no one else. Shira will be up here soon and I'll be all right.

Cutting hair usually means standing behind someone and praying that any mistakes you make with the clippers won't be too obvious. To trim Felix's beard, I have to stand in front of him. Over him. His knees are spread to accommodate me. I step between them, ignoring the faint brush of fabric as our swim trunks touch, the heat coming off his bare chest.

"I'm gonna…" I indicate angling his chin up with my hand.

"Sure."

Right. I'm being weird. Guys who aren't…like this wouldn't think anything of it. This is normal in a clubhouse. Normal everywhere but my own mind.

I tilt his jaw, feeling the bristle of his hair. Pretend you're a barber and make conversation . But what slips out is, "Your beard's soft."

Felix's laugh tickles the pads of my fingers. "I use balm on it." He looks at me through his eyelashes and I didn't realize how thick they were or how green his eyes are.

"Oh," I say belatedly. "Feels nice."

"Are you gonna…" He motions to the clippers. Because I've been cupping his jaw without actually trimming his beard.

So I guide the clippers up his jawline. Strands of his beard fall away onto the pool deck. I work my way around his jaw, careful at his sideburns and on the edge of his top lip. It's the kind of task that requires a sort of mindless concentration—familiarizing myself with the shape of his face, with the texture of his hair. With the way he's looking up at me like he wants to say something.

"Here, lean your chin up," I say.

He does, and I apply the clippers to his neck. After a second, he laughs.

"You good?"

"Just tickled."

"Sorry?" It comes out a question.

Felix smiles. "Not your fault."

"Do you want me to keep going?"

He catches my wrist in his hand, his thumb and forefinger settling over my suddenly racing pulse. A flake of black sits on his thumbnail. What I thought was a bruise, but that could be nail polish. Guys sometimes just wear nail polish, not for any particular reason. Felix seems like someone who doesn't care what other people think about him. Not like you…

But I don't pull my hand away.

"Is something about this bothering you?" he asks.

Yes. But not how he means. "I'm good if you are."

He hasn't let go of my wrist. Even using the largest guard on the clippers has revealed the shape of his face, the plushness of his lips. "If it was bothering you…" He slides the pad of his thumb against the skin on the inside of my wrist, a question.

One he can't be asking me—or if he is, one I certainly can't answer.

Panic warms the back of my neck. A panic I haven't felt since I was eighteen and another guy at some baseball showcase said You wanna? and curved his fingers into a circle like I could mistake his meaning. A panic I haven't felt since I meant to say no —had every intention of saying no, really—but what came out was yes .

And then, please .

After, I never saw him again. Baseball's one of those sports where everyone knows everyone else. I'd know if he was still around. Maybe if I met him now, he'd shrug and say Yeah, game wasn't really for me .

Or maybe someone along the way made it clear that the game didn't have a place for people like him. For —I swallow around the thought— people like me.

Now Felix is asking with a certain plausible deniability. Or maybe you're reading too much into this and panicking over nothing.

Words seem impossible to manage so I shake my head. "I'm switching to the number seven guard." There. What we actually need to do.

Felix releases my wrist. He's giving me the same look as when I eased Shira off my lap, a disappointment I don't know what to do with.

So we work our way to smaller and smaller clipper guards, each round of shaving revealing more and more of Felix's face. I'm being careful—if I concentrate on the buzz and clip of hair, I won't think about anything else—but I nearly take off his sideburn when Shira walks out.

She's in cut-off shorts, a bathing suit. No, not a bathing suit—a white crochet bikini that's mostly string.

Felix looks over to where I'm staring. His eyes widen, then he forces them down to the deck like he doesn't want to be caught staring.

Look at her . The thought rises before I can stop it. Not enough people in her life seem to see her. He helped her with her math. He admires her without leering.

"She's beautiful," I say.

He glances to me like either agreeing or disagreeing could be a trap. "You're lucky to have her, I hope you know."

"You giving me your blessing?" I ask, and Felix is opening his mouth to respond when Shira pads over to us, flip-flops clapping against her heels.

"Wow, Felix," she says, "I didn't realize you had a face under there."

He rolls his eyes good-naturedly. "Try to ignore the tan line—that's the cost of working outside." Because the skin of his cheek is slightly darker than his newly revealed jaw.

"You look good." I immediately cough like I misspoke, but not before Shira's eyebrows rise minutely like she caught that. "I mean, you look fine. Tan-line-wise."

"So," he says, "finish up so you can get in the hot tub with the girl you're dating ."

That prickles. The girl I'm dating. Shira isn't just that.

"Yeah"—Shira looks up from where she's piling her hair on her head—"finish up."

I speed through the last round of shaving that leaves Felix looking like he has the world's worst five o'clock shadow. Or would be worst if he didn't look like him. If baseball doesn't work out for him, he can always model flannel.

If baseball doesn't work out for him, it's because you're taking his job .

That's enough to ground me. "I think I'm done."

Felix scrubs a hand over his face. A few stray hairs rain down onto the pile of them by his feet. He uses his T-shirt to gather most of them and dumps that into a nearby trashcan, then shakes out his shirt. "I'm gonna shave. I always forget this itches like crazy."

It'll be easier with him walking away, I reason. I didn't account for the flex of muscles in his back. I'm just looking to see if he has any tattoos to rib him about. He doesn't. I watch him anyway.

When he scans his room key on the sensor by the door and slips back inside the hotel, the invisible band that's been constricting my ribs loosens.

Right. Hot tub. Room service. Shira , who's sitting by the water, steam rising around her.

"They gave us a voucher for room service," I call. "You want a drink?"

She laughs. The steam from the hot tub haloes her hair around her face. "You don't just want to have a glass of warm milk and go to bed?" she asks, faux-innocently. She draws her foot through the water for emphasis.

"I'm thinking not."

"What happened to nice, humble Blake Forsyth?" She manages to make humble sound like an insult.

"He can't come to the phone right now." I peel off my T-shirt and toss it onto a chaise. "Aren't your shorts getting wet sitting on the deck?" I ask.

"You're right." She stands and shimmies out of them then kicks them away, leaving her in only that white bikini.

The strings sit on the curves of her hips, like I could run my thumbs under them, like they'd be easy to peel off her. My body throbs. That's the thing about wanting. Pushing it down only intensifies it.

"Better?" Shira asks with a tease in her voice. She offers the limber line of her leg. Her muscles shift. Her tanned skin gleams with tiny droplets of water I want to chase with my mouth.

I don't trust myself to say anything, so I just nod, and she laughs as she walks down the gradual stairs leading into the hot tub. Water laps at the narrowest part of her waist. My hands ache for her, the same want I had with Felix—to take her in my arms, to hold her, to press her close to me.

It wouldn't be fair to reach for her now, to treat her as an easier option. From the sound of it, too many people in her life have given her cause for doubt. I won't be another one.

What'd Felix call her? The girl you're dating . Who's currently skimming her fingers over the surface of the water. "Order us something to drink," she says, "then come in here."

I do as I'm told—a quick call to the hotel room service line. It takes some convincing to get them to bring the order out by the pool deck. "We'll be good," I promise the clerk.

"I never said that!" Shira splashes around in the hot tub, sending dots of water over to where I'm standing on the deck.

I step aside to avoid the splash, then concede defeat, letting water slide down my skin.

"Put a thousand on the room as a tip," I say into my phone.

And get a noise of disbelief. "Oh, you're serious?"

"Absolutely." It's not exactly playing things humble, but screw humble. Fuck humble.

At the clerk's agreement, I hang up. I set my phone down on the chaise next to my shirt and kick off my shower slides. It's quiet out here, just the sound of cars passing on a nearby highway and Shira splashing. "We could put on some music," I call to her.

Another splash. "Sure!"

"Where's your phone? I think there's a dock if you want me to put on something you like."

"Don't, uh, worry about it." Her voice takes on an odd note.

"It's really not a big deal."

She shakes her head. "Whatever you want is fine. Or no music is good." Even if it seems like she's been dancing to an invisible soundtrack.

A breeze goes over the pool deck, prickling my skin with gooseflesh. "You sure you aren't chilly?" I ask.

"This is bathing suit weather in New England. And if you're cold, come warm yourself up."

Each step into the hot tub kicks up my heart rate. Shira's hair has started to curl in the steam. Rivulets of water descend down her skin. She's back to dancing, fluid and precise, every movement like something she believes deeply and commits to.

Right, I came in here to do something. "Felix said something funny when I was cutting his beard."

Shira freezes. Her eyes go wide. Her teeth gnaw worriedly at her lower lip. "Oh?" she says like she's staving off whatever question she actually wants to ask.

"He called you the girl I'm dating ."

The dark lines of Shira's eyebrows knit together. "If we're not…"

Like she's not certain. Obviously, I've made a mess of this. "I have been wondering—how is it that you were single when I met you?"

Her forehead scrunches even more. "Um, with school and work and my ankle and everything…" she mumbles. Like she's apologizing .

"I meant, how is it after a bad year I managed to get so damn lucky?" I draw her close and kiss her. Her mouth parts eagerly under mine. We're separated only by the thin fabric of her bathing suit and my swim trunks. Want rises in me, the kind I've been repressing for a month: not to ask too much, not to pressure, not to rush her into anything. Even as my pulse races in my veins.

When I pull back, she's looking at me through the thick line of her eyelashes. Her eyes are brown and laughing and a little uncertain—like I've given her a reason to be uncertain.

"Are you seeing anyone else?" I say. "Because I'm not seeing anyone else."

"Are you asking if I want to be exclusive?"

Exclusive. More like…forsaking all others, but that's too much after only knowing her for a month. Even as a part of me whispers: Are you sure you want to forsake a very specific other?

"I'm yours if you want me to be," I say.

This time, Shira's eyes widen in pleased surprise. Then she frowns. "Would your family be okay with you dating me?"

I don't really care what my family is good with. "Why wouldn't they be?"

She looks at me as if I'm missing something obvious. "Because my name is Shira Klein? Because I'm Jewish? I got the sense that they're religious."

I shake my head. There's a difference between being religious and wanting to be seen in church. "Even if they have a problem with you, that's their problem and not yours." I kiss her reassuringly—I hope reassuringly—even if her frown hasn't faded. "You still seem unsure."

"You'll also be in Florida for six weeks," she says. "If you want to have this conversation when we get back…" She shrugs. "I know things can get lonely."

Oh, this is her being understanding . Ballplayers cheat. Or a lot of ballplayers cheat. It's something I know, even if I don't really understand it. Thinking about Felix doesn't count because nothing can come of it. "I'm not planning to date someone else while I'm in Florida," I say. "Unless you want to date someone while I'm in Florida."

She shakes her head. "Wasn't planning on it. The men of Boston leave a lot to be desired."

"That's the sense I'm getting."

For some reason, that makes her throw back her head and laugh. Her hair comes loose, the ends of it dipping in the water. She gathers it up again. "Now I'm gonna have to straighten it."

"I like it this way."

"It's pretty wavy."

"Shira"—I pull her to me, my arm curving around her lower back—"I'm not sure there's a way you could look where I wouldn't think you were beautiful."

"I'll remind you that you said that when you see me first thing tomorrow morning."

"I can't wait." I kiss her. Her hair slips from its bun. This time, she doesn't pull it back up.

Her body is flush with mine. Something about being held apart by the slim barrier of fabric feels more naked than if we were actually naked together. I stroke my thumbs at her neck, playing with the fragile bow that's keeping her top in place.

"You could untie that," she whispers.

I blink. Glance around. There's no one else up here—and it's late enough that there probably won't be any time soon, except for room service bringing our drinks. Except for Felix . It's possible he's going to shave and shower and pass out on the foldout couch. We might be alone up here. We might not be. I don't know which possibility is more thrilling.

It's wilder than I've ever been—than I've ever let myself be, always worried that someone will snap a photo and I'll end up splashed across social media. First, it was so I'd get drafted. Then it was to encourage Atlanta to call me up to the majors. Then it was six years of keeping my image clean in order to get a big contract in free agency.

Now…now I'm with Boston, guaranteed more money than I could spend in a lifetime. For the first time ever, I could do the big-league lifestyle. But I don't want her to feel like she has to do this. "Out here?" I ask. "Other people could see."

"I'm not that shy." Shira laughs like it's a joke I don't quite get. She draws herself to me, takes my hands and places them on the narrow span of her rib cage. "Besides, I trust you to be a gentleman."

I brush my fingers right below her top, against the soft undersides of her breasts. "I don't feel real gentlemanly right now."

She smiles at that, wicked. "Isn't it good manners to give me what I want?"

And that's the other problem: I'm not sure I know how.