“Why?”
“Because what if we end up here for the next twenty years?” CJ shrugged. “If we have kids, I want them to go to public school.”
Evan stared at him, and CJ squeezed his hand.
“When I talk about houses,” he said quietly, “I’m not talking about real estate. I’m talking about finding a home.”
“I love you,” he said softly. He leaned into CJ and smiled when CJ wrapped his arms around him and pressed a kiss to his temple.
“I love you more,” CJ said, and Evan felt him smile. “You’re really cute when you’re having an existential crisis.”
“Shut up.” Evan elbowed CJ and rolled his eyes, but the knot in his stomach loosened.
Later that night, after CJ had fallen asleep stretched across the couch with a hockey game providing background noise, Evan stumbled on a real estate listing that didn’t have a single thing he wanted to mock.
He showed the listing to CJ when he woke up to go to bed.
Two days later, they were standing in the middle of a quiet neighborhood north of downtown, tucked into a street lined with trees and meticulous landscaping, staring at a house Evan could see them in. It had a Spanish-style exterior and a clay roof, a backyard that overlooked a canyon preserve, and a kitchen with dark-green cabinets Evan immediately fell in love with. There were huge windows everywhere, a built-in bookshelf in the living room, and an office they both agreed had enough wall spacefor the baseball memorabilia Evan swore he wasn’t sentimental enough to care about.
They found themselves standing in the primary bedroom together, in a pool of sunlight spilling across the warm honey-colored wood floors. CJ reached out and tangled their fingers together, and Evan realized with startling clarity that he wanted this in a way that terrified him.
“What are you thinking?” CJ asked quietly.
Evan could hear the hope in his voice, and he took one more look around the empty bedroom. Then he smiled and pulled CJ closer. “I think we’re buying a house.”
CJ’s grin appeared instantly, bright and familiar. The same grin Evan had fallen in love with when he was nineteen years old.
The same grin he suspected he’d still be in love with when he was eighty.
The buying processwent surprisingly smoothly. He expected problems with the inspection and the paperwork, or something that would delay the process. Years of professional baseball had taught him that nothing worth having ever came easily, so Evan kept waiting for something to go wrong. Apparently, buying a house was the exception. Their offer was accepted within forty-eight hours, the inspection came back clean, and the paperwork was handled by people with exceptional competence. They bought the house in cash, which eliminated most of the complications before they had a chance to appear.
They closed on the house first thing on a Tuesday morning at the end of January, two weeks before spring training started. They sat next to each other in a conference room, signing whatfelt like a million pieces of paper, and by the end of it, their hands were cramping. The Realtor handed CJ a small ring of keys, and he stared at them. For a second, Evan worried CJ was regretting the decision to buy a house, but then he looked at Evan and a smile spread slowly across his face.
“We own a house,” he said softly.
“We do,” Evan said with a chuckle. “We also have movers coming in an hour and they’re going to expect us to be at our apartments to let them in.”
“Right. Movers.” CJ shuddered. “I blocked out the actual moving part of this.”
Evan rolled his eyes and steered him toward the door. By the time they’d made it back to their building—their soon-to-beformerbuilding—CJ had already sent him three texts to remind him about things they needed to get for the new house. The first was a grill. The second was patio furniture. The third was a dog.
Evan ignored all three.
The movers arrived on time, boxes disappeared into the truck, and furniture was wrapped, loaded, and transported with surprising efficiency. Nothing got broken, nothing got lost.
By early afternoon, boxes were stacked throughout the new house and furniture was being carried through the front door. Evan kept waiting for something to go wrong, but it didn’t, and by sunset, the movers were gone and boxes filled nearly every room. They unpacked the boxes containing their sheets and toiletries, but neither of them had the energy to do more than throw the sheets on the mattress on the floor and take a shower.
If moving day was smooth sailing, the next morning was a disaster, and it started way too early.
CJ woke up just before seven the next morning and immediately went looking for the coffeemaker. Five minutes later, he was opening cabinet doors with increasing urgency. Ten minutes after that, Evan could hear him frantically openingboxes. When Evan made it to the kitchen, CJ pointed an accusing finger at him and demanded to know where Evan had hidden the appliance.
By seven forty-five, Evan was getting increasingly grumpy from listening to CJ complain about his lack of caffeine. He was pulling on a pair of joggers and a T-shirt, so he could run to the local coffee shop, when their doorbell rang. He opened the door to find Rizzo standing on the porch holding two cardboard trays of coffee and a pink donut box.
Rizzo grinned. “Morning.”
Evan stared at him. “What are you doing here this early?”
“I came to help.” Rizzo held up the trays of coffee. “And it sounds like I have the solution to your problem.”
