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“He went with you? As your date?”
Liam wished it had been a date. “He went as my friend. He also helped me get my dream job with Professor Glover. He’s like my ideal boyfriend, except . . .”
“Except what?”
“He’s your best friend.” He couldn’t face his brother. “I feel like I’m stealing him from you.”
The silence continued. He wanted Beckett to respond, to say something, even if it was just how pissed he was.
“I’d never feel that way, Squirt. But he’s not the one for you.”
Liam’s head snapped around. “Why do you say that?”
“As long as I’ve known Coury, he’s wanted to be a baseball player. It’s his big dream in life. It’s a long shot but not impossible for him. If he gets drafted, and I’d bet money he will, you’re out of the picture.”
“Wow, don’t hold back.”
“I’m not saying it to be mean or put you down. What I’m saying is, he doesn’t get to pick what team drafts him or where they send him. There are maybe seven minor league teams in driving distance, and none of them are where he’d likely end up. The pay is shit, so the teams make deals with local families who house the players, kind of like exchange students only for baseball players. Assuming he gets past the first level, he’ll be shipped somewhere else with no notice and no ability to say no.
“And that’s just where he’s going to be living during the season. There is the much bigger issue of he can’t let people know he’s dating you. You’ll be his boyfriend on the down low. You can’t visit him more than once or people will think you’re exactly what you’d be. Boyfriends. If that happens, his career is over.”
“They can’t do that.” His brother’s expression said otherwise. “Can they?”
“Not out loud, but his future depends on his coaches helping him. If they don’t want him, they’ll make sure he bombs out. You won’t be able to see him during the season, which just happens to be when you’re on summer break.”
Liam’s ignorance of baseball hadn’t prepared him for this. “I had no idea.”
“If baseball wasn’t his thing, I think it would be awesome if you two were together. But it’s not just his thing. It’s his dream.”
“So you think I shouldn’t even try?”
Beckett stared at him for a few more seconds and stood. “He’s leaving, Liam.”
Chapter Fourteen
Liam
Liam waved to his parents as they backed out of the driveway. Leaving with Pop to go “home” was weird. The opposite of leaving Grandma and Pop with his parents after a visit.
Slider barked in the back seat, and Liam grinned. Okay, that was different.
“I think last night went well.” Pop snuck a glance at Liam. “Did you have fun?”
“Yeah. Too bad Helen wasn’t there so she could meet everyone.”
Pop frowned. “Your Aunt Laura would have bitched and complained all night about how at my age it wasn’t proper. Just because she thinks acting tragic is fashionable doesn’t mean the rest of us agree.”
That didn’t sound like Pop. “Since when do you care what Aunt Laura thinks?”
“I just wouldn’t want to subject Helen to a disapproving family. We’d have to act like we weren’t seeing each other to avoid ruining the party. If we had to pretend we weren’t together, there was no point in bringing her. She deserves to be treated better.”
Coury deserved better than Liam’s post-kiss silence. Everything he’d told Beckett was true. Coury was being Coury when he did all those nice things. They weren’t dating, and Coury had treated Liam like he mattered. He didn’t hide him away from his friends. If anything, he made a fuss over Liam when they hung out with his frat brothers.
Liam repaid those efforts by signaling he regretted their brief kiss.
“No one deserves that.”
“Very true. People you connect with don’t come around every day. When you find one, like Helen, you don’t take chances. I told her the truth and gave her the option.”
Liam’s phone vibrated.
Coury: What time should I pick you up?
Fuck. In the chaos of family goodbyes, he’d forgotten to text.
Liam: I’m in the car with Pop. We left already.
Coury: ?? I thought we were riding back together.
He could hear the hurt in Coury’s words.
Liam: Sorry.
It was a shitty thing. Coury had done everything to accommodate him and Liam had ditched him for the ride back.
Coury: Gotcha. See you back at school.
Of course he would. Nothing had changed.
Everything had.
* * *
Coury
Sitting in the bleachers sucked worse now that the informal practices had become formal.
Soon.
He was doing great, his therapist had told him.
Except he wasn’t.
In the two days since they’d gotten back to school, Liam had sent one text, begging off tutoring because he had a paper due. Coury didn’t begrudge the guy the right to do his own work, but he missed their time together.
