Page 58 of The Try Line

I pick up his suitcase and the messenger bag he dropped in the kitchen when Janel starts ushering us through the door. It's not until we're walking down the sidewalk that I realize Mik has changed into a snug black t-shirt with short sleeves, showing off the tattoos that stop at the elbows. An older couple pushing a dog in a stroller pause and eyes him strangely. Mik greets them with afriendly smile, but they don't respond at all, only look away and shuffle a little faster down the sidewalk.

"Hey Mik," Janel calls out, more loudly than she needed to. "Make my brother happy, okay?"

The old woman, who was still looking over her shoulder at the two of us loading Mik's suitcase, nearly trips on her own feet. I smirk up at Janel as I duck into the car, and reach for Mik's hand as soon as he gets in.

It's all going to be alright.

CHAPTER 26

MIK

As soon as the plane has reached altitude and the pilot turns off the fasten seatbelt light, Jason raises the armrest between us and pulls me against his side. I lean back on him, reading a rather spicy book about a supervillain and his sexy superhero nemesis, smiling whenever Jason drops a soft kiss against my temple. He's reading through a list of questions for his rescheduled magazine interview and typing out responses for the printed portion of the magazine article. The photo shoot will be early tomorrow morning. I'm excited to see him in his element, although I suppose being photographed in a staged environment isn't the norm for him. He seems rather uncomfortable with the idea of being paraded around as a sex symbol, but all the proceeds go to a national fund for LGBTQ+ youth. He also recognizes the importance of positive attention on out players in professional sports, especially when they've been as popular as Jason has in his career playing for the Wales Rugby League.

A gorgeous young flight attendant comes to stand next to our row of seats. "Well, if it isn't Mr. Reinier. Good to see you again, sir." Her teeth are perfectly straight and pearly white. She's the kind of attractive that would probably make me feel territorial if Jason were into women at all.

"Sara!" He greets her like an old friend, reaching over my shoulder to shake her hand. "Good to see you as well. How's your brother?"

"You made his day, maybe his year, with the kind gifts you gave me for him," she says kindly in her thick accent. "He's quite smitten now, if I’m being honest."

Jason barks out a laugh, his cheeks pinking up a bit. I don't know what they're talking about, but the sight of him blushing always makes me hot under the collar.

I can't help but crack a smile. "Just wait until the next issue ofThe Scenecomes out," I tell her.

Jason's agent sent over a list of possible scenarios for the photoshoot, and I'm officially questioning whether I should be allowed to be in attendance because the mere thought of Jason naked on a wet, muddy field with nothing but a ball covering his dick makes me squirm.

Jason groans and rubs a hand over his face. Sara's eyes twinkle down at me. She cuts her eyes from me to Jason's arm around me, then back to Jason. She rolls her lips to avoid laughing at his obvious embarrassment and changes the subject by raising a questioning eyebrow to the way he links our fingers together over my chest.

"Sara, this is my…" He shifts, causing me to sit up and face him. His head quirks to the side, considering. I suppose we haven't actually put an official label on things.

What are we? Boyfriends? That sounds strange. Juvenile, almost, considering we're almost forty-year-old men who have been in love with each other since we were teenagers.

He doesn't take his eyes off mine when he says, "This is the love of my life."

"Is it now? Rather fast turnaround from seeing you a few weeks ago."

"No," he says. "It's been a lifetime."

"Ah, I understand," she says, her accent making her sound wise beyond her years. "I suppose the things we're running from catch up to us, eventually."

EPILOGUE

JASON, ONE YEAR LATER

Mik's hands tighten in mine, hazel eyes swimming with emotion. The officiant is talking—probably saying something poignant about the long journey that led us here, but all my attention is on the man in front of me. This man that walked into my life randomly at fifteen years old and flipped my world upside down.

Sometimes I think about what our lives would have been like if we'd admitted what we'd both been feeling way back then. We've talked about it so much over the last year, about how confused and yet sure Mik was, and about how I was terrified of being a stereotypical gay boy in love with his best friend. We valued our friendship and each other's comfort and feelings more than our own. If we'd just let go of our fears, we could have spent the last twenty-five years making each other happy.

Life had other plans, and we've made up for it over the past year. After retiring from the Wales Rugby League, I took some time off to decide what I wanted to do next. Thankfully, two decades of playing professional sports and cultivating endorsement deals allowed me to focus on the only thing that matters. Mik and I havebeen nomads, alternating between the condo we share with Jase during the summers, and traveling the world.

At first, Mik didn't feel comfortable for me paying his way through life, so he did some freelance writing for various sports and travel magazines. Along the way, the blog he wrote to document our adventures grew rather popular, and we became internet famous. More than half our travel is comped these days, and our map of places we've gotten to visit is full of pins and memories. We do everything together to make up for missed time, and never miss an opportunity to say how much we mean to each other.

Life is…perfect. More so because of the man standing in front of me, repeating the vows we wrote together.

I am yours and you are mine.

The way it was always supposed to be.

For however long we have left this time,

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