“If this goes wrong now, it’ll hurt worse than it did the first time.” Evan brushed his thumb over CJ’s knuckles. “But I’d still rather try.”
“Me too,” CJ said.
“Okay,” Evan said, and CJ’s face broke into a wide smile. Evan pressed a quick kiss to his mouth, then stepped back. “I’m gonna head to my place for a little while. I think we both need some time to regroup.”
CJ nodded, but he didn’t argue or try to convince him to stay. Evan glanced toward the door, then back at CJ, who remained seated on his kitchen counter, giving him the space he needed. Evan headed to the front door and slipped his sneakers on before grabbing his bag from where he’d dropped it. He turned, and his eyes landed on CJ, leaning against the wall outside the kitchen now, arms crossed, watching him. He looked guarded now, cautious, and there were a dozen things Evan wanted to say to him, but they stuck in his throat. Instead, he closed the distance between them and pressed another quick, firm kiss to CJ’s mouth before pulling back just as fast.
“I’ll see you at the field,” he said.
CJ nodded, and Evan hesitated for a fraction of a second longer, then turned and forced himself to walk out the door without looking back.
His condo felt different when he stepped inside. He couldn’t put his finger on how, but when he locked the door behind him and walked to his kitchen, the space felt empty. He dropped his keys onto the counter with a clatter, and the too-loud sound made him flinch as he started to replay the last hour in excruciating detail. He braced his hands on the counter and dropped his head as he let out a slow, shaky breath.
“Yeah,” he muttered into the quiet. “This is fine.”
It wasn’t. Not even close. But it was a start.
19
CJ
He wokebefore his alarm to the sound of someone moving in his kitchen. For one disorienting second, he thought someone had broken in, then he heard the coffeemaker sputtering to life and the clink of a mug against the counter. A cabinet door closed too loudly and a soft curse followed.
Evan.
It was six-thirty on a Thursday morning at the end of June. They had a late-afternoon game against Boston later, and CJ should have been annoyed that he’d been woken before he absolutely needed to be. Instead, he smiled and rolled out of bed, dragged on a pair of shorts, and padded barefoot down the hall. Evan stood at the counter in gray joggers and an old Chicago Blazers T-shirt that CJ was pretty sure Evan thought was his now because he’d stolen it three weeks ago and never returned it. His curls were standing up in several directions, and he was glaring down at his coffee mug like it had offended him somehow.
“You know,” CJ said, his voice still rough with sleep. “Most people would just give up trying to make themselves like coffee.”
Evan jumped hard enough to nearly spill the hot liquid. “Jesus Christ.”
CJ grinned. “Morning.”
“I’m getting you a bell.”
“You’re no fun.”
Evan narrowed his eyes and handed him a mug. “Drink your terrible black coffee and shut up.”
CJ took the cup and let his fingers brush Evan’s. Evan’s gaze flicked up and then away, and CJ took a sip of coffee to keep from sighing. There were some mornings when he was still skittish in the little moments, and CJ knew he had more work to do to prove that Evan could trust his touch. This was one of them and, not for the first time, CJ wished he could read Evan’s mind. He leaned against the counter and eyed Evan over the rim of his mug as he took another sip.
“You spending the night tonight?”
Evan shrugged. “Depends.”
“On?”
“How annoying you are.”
“So you’re definitely leaving early.”
That earned him the ghost of a smile. It wasn’t much, but CJ would take anything Evan gave him now.
The thing neither of them would admit was that Evan had already stayed at CJ’s four nights this week. And neither would acknowledge that there was a drawer in CJ’s bathroom that held Evan’s toothbrush, deodorant, and a T-shirt Evan claimed he’d left by accident, even as more of his items had quietly appeared there. The thing neither of them would say aloud was that this had started to feel like something dangerously close to the start of a life. A hidden, private life, but a life all the same.
They still arrived at the stadium separately, but that was a habit built more from convenience than caution. They both had pregame routines they refused to stray from. Evan came inearly, when the clubhouse was still quiet and the pregame flurry of activity hadn’t started yet. CJ usually rolled in later, loudly greeting anyone who crossed his path. They walked through different doors when they could, took separate routes through the stadium when they had to hit the field, and did their best to avoid giving anyone an easy headline.
But distance became harder to maintain the deeper they got into the season, and sometime over the last month, they had built a careful, public version of friendship.
