Page 35 of Diamond Ring
“Both. I thought about thisa lot.”
“Show me.” Said with the same command Alex uses during games, something Jake won’t ever be able to hear again without thinking about him like this, droplets of water clinging to the bristle of his hair, a drip of it on his mouth that Jake kisses off.
He shows him, hand clumsy around Alex’s cock. “Sorry,” Jake says, because he knows his dexterity sucks with his right hand, all the things he wants to do at odds with what he’s capable of.
Alex encloses his hand with his own, fingers interweaving. “There’s no rush.” Even if there is, the seconds of their time together ticking like a countdown clock. It doesn’t take long for Alex to come all over his hand, to pin Jake to the tiled wall, mindful of his arm, and kiss him like he’s trying to tell him something.
After, Alex wraps a hand around him. “This feel okay?”
Like there’s something bad to be found in the two of them pressed together. Jake manages anuh-huh.
Alex draws back. “You sure?”
“My left arm hasn’t worked in weeks. So, yes.”
Alex slows his pace, like he can’t tell that Jake’s on the edge of tipping over. He laughs slightly as Jake gasps a request, and glances down at the hard surface of the shower floor. “Sure.”
“You don’t have to,” Jake says.
Alex smiles. “I’ll manage.” Then goes to his knees.
“I’m gonna miss this,” Jake says, on the last day of Alex’s visit when they’re looting the kitchen for second breakfast, when Alex has pulled him close and kissed him thoroughly. They’ve spent the remainder of Alex’s visit hanging out, Jake showing him the wonders of suburban Maryland in the winter—his high school, the twenty-four-hour diner, the strip-malled splendor of Rockville Pike—andhanging out, Jake using the fatigue from his arm as cover for how much time they’ve spent in bed. Some of the weight that lodged itself on his chest since the series disappeared, but a grain or two settles back as Alex’s eyebrows rise in question.
“I meant next season,” Jake clarifies. “When you’re in Oakland.”
“You’re still planning to stay here?”
Jake looks around at his parents’ kitchen, with its new countertops and faded chicken-print dish towels, as if something changed in the past few days. “I was.”
Alex’s eyebrows don’t unknit. “I figured you might have reconsidered.”
“No.” Jake gets a flicker of unease. “Is that what this is about”—he motions between them—“persuading me where to do my rehab?”
He expects a vehement denial. Instead he gets the subtle lift of Alex’s shoulder. “That’s not why.”
“Look, I don’t know how things’ll be if I go back to Oakland. The team will be gone half the time, and I don’t know what my rehab’s gonna look like. Those weeks between the series and Thanksgiving weren’t great. I kinda came a little unglued. It’s got my mom spooked.”
“Then you should stay here.” Alex doesn’t shrug so much as roll his shoulders like he’s gearing up for a fight. Which might be what this is, especially as Jake’s back locks with tension.
“You don’t want me to,” Jake says.
“I don’t. But you shouldn’t do things just to please other people—me or your family.”
Jake laughs though it’s not really that funny. “I’m not exactly wired to tell the whole world to fuck off. That’s more your deal.”
“You’re not angry you ended up here?”
Like anger will make Jake’s arm magically heal. “Of course I’m not happy about it. I wanted to win a fucking championship. Instead I’m living in my childhood bedroom. But what good is getting mad at, I don’t know, God or the commissioner about it?”
“Or me.”
Jake steps back into the relatively cool air of the kitchen. If this was someone other than Alex, he’d smile, smooth things over. Now he feels only a spiked anger, annoyance prickling like the irritation of his stitches. “Believe it or not, this isn’t about you.”
“I knew something was up and I didn’t say anything.”
Jake keeps his fingernails pitcher-short, neatly filed. They dig into his palms. He should uncurl his hand. “I told you that it wasn’t your fault,” he manages.
Alex doesn’t waver. “I should have known. I shouldn’t have let them over-pitch you like that.”
