Page 86 of Diamond Ring
“You were going. I would’ve followed you anywhere.”
Jake stops walking. “Why?” Like he needs to hear Alex say it.
A hundred things, a thousand—how during that first interview, Jake navigated around questions that Alex was nervous about while refusing to let them ignore him. How he was always brimming with so much confidence, even with the entire world looking at him. “When I told you my dad died, you came over and listened to me talk about him.”
“Anyone would have.”
“No, that’s the thing, they wouldn’t.” Or how Jake came over earlier this season armed with doughnuts and a bottle of whiskey he had no intention of drinking just because Alex said he was maybe, possibly, considering retiring. “I wanted to be with you.”
Jake taps a knuckle against his. “Wanted?”
A question that hangs in the humid New York air. “Want.” It comes out hoarse, like it’s pried from his chest.
“I want to kiss you in the street.” Jake casts a look at the flow of pedestrians around them. “And all the rest of the time.”
New York is never really dark, but they manage to find a lightless corner, a grove in the park without any onlookers but the sheltering arms of trees. Jake backs himself against one, taking off his ball cap. Without it, he could be anyone, anonymous, except for how Alex can’t bring himself to look at anything else. Jake wets his lip, an anticipatory flash of tongue, and smiles when Alex tracks the movement.
His hands find the hem of Jake’s shirt, skimming the soft skin of his belly underneath, feeling the even cadence of his breathing. Jake, whose smile is like a city at dusk, something lit up against the darkness, who kisses him and winds his arms around him. For a second, the world simplifies to the press of Jake’s lips and the look in his eyes, to feelings Alex doesn’t want to let go even when he draws back.
“I was gonna stay at Sofia’s for the series in Boston,” he says. Something he’s done occasionally over the years with managers’ permission, even if the older he gets, the more he resents having to ask. “If you wanted to stay there too.”
“Team might think it’s weird.”
Alex shrugs. “They might.” Not quite a question—if being together extends beyond coinciding on the same team. If this is like the last time—for a season and no more.
“Sure,” Jake says easily. “I kinda always wanted to see where you grew up. I hear it’s haunted.” He waves his fingers a little sarcastically.
“There’s some stuff going on with Evie and my aunts, if that makes a difference.”
“You’ll be there?”
Alex nods.
“Then I’ll be there.” Simple as that, and Alex kisses him again, and again, Jake’s laughter at his mouth like champagne.
They walk back to the hotel, each brush of their shoulders a spark. A ride up in the elevator with other passengers, who mostly study their phones. They pause outside Jake’s room, as he fumbles his key from his wallet. When he opens the door, the bedding is still sprawled across the floor. Jake sighs when he sees it.
“I could help you make the bed,” Alex offers.
“No,” Jake says. “I mean, we can put the sheets back on but it’s better if I don’t do the rest.”
They pluck the sheets from the floor, shake them out and secure them, then fluff the pillows before piling them back on. Jake leaves the comforter where it is, glaring at it with an animosity he rarely turns on anyone but Alex.
“This stuff is so annoying,” Jake says.
“I don’t mind.”
“No, it annoysme. Like, that’s what the meds help with. They take it from it being all I can think about to this background hum. But it’s time I could be using to do literally anything else.”
Something that hadn’t occurred to Alex: how long each day Jake spent on this stuff, like inescapable chores.
“Here.” Jake reaches for the comforter, tossing it haphazardly on the bed. “I’m supposed to try not rearranging things to remind myself that nothing bad will happen or whatever.”
He kicks off his shoes, strips out of the rest of his clothes—shirt, pants, socks—down to his shorts, then clamors onto the bed, comforter deflating like a marshmallow under him. He nods to Alex. “You coming in?”
Alex does, though not before undressing to his underwear, then climbs up next to Jake. They lie like that, the comforter lumpy under Alex’s back. He tries not to shift in case that’ll bother Jake even more.
“Thank you,” Jake says after a minute. “I feel better than I did.”
