Page 87 of Diamond Ring
“Not a big deal.”
“It kind of is.”
“Anyone would have done it.”
“No, they wouldn’t.” Jake lets out an audible breath. “This is how it’s gonna be for the rest of my life. That’s the hardest part—that it might not getfixed.”
A strand of Jake’s hair has spilled onto his forehead. Lines of tension radiate around his eyes, like he’s bracing for Alex to kiss him on the cheek, to tell him that this isn’t going to work, to leave.
Alex brushes his hair away, kisses the skin at his temple. Doesn’t move. “Okay.”
Jake’s lips curve slightly. “Okay?”
Alex tries to think of what to say, though it’s hard to articulate. That Jake is how he is. That Alex has loved him for so long that he’s forgotten what not loving him is like. “If this is how things are, I don’t want you to be unhappy. But if it happens, we’ll deal.”
A broader smile, a kiss returned, gently. Jake relaxes next to him, sliding his hand under Alex’s. “I spent a long time bouncing from place to place,” Jake says. “It got easy not to mention it. Like, ballplayers, we’re supposed to be weird about stuff, right?”
“Yeah, I guess I’m a little superstitious.”
That at least gets a laugh from Jake. “You guess?”
“So I am.”
“You probably don’t get that feeling—” Jake begins. “You know when you’re watching a game and a team has their fielders set up in the wrong place and you just know a ball’s gonna find a gap, so you shout at the TV to just move everyone to the right position and they’re not listening? It feels kind of like that. Except I’m yelling at myself.” A breathless set of statements, followed by a deflationary exhale.
Alex turns Jake’s palm, expecting to see the purpling dig of nail marks that are sometimes there. He finds only the rise of a callus. “If stuff gets like that, tell me,” Alex says.
“It’s fine. It’s better most of the time.”
“So let me know when it’s not.”
“Okay.” Jake smiles, the soft version of his smile Alex thinks of as being only for him. “You wanna watch a movie?”
Asked without euphemism, and Alex pictures them curled up, Jake leaning against him, half talking over the movie or falling asleep on Alex’s thigh. A good image. “Yeah. Movie sounds good.”
Morning comes in the form of his phone alarm, with Jake muttering something in his sleep and kissing him, and Alex doesn’t want to leave, even if he should.
The hallway is mercifully empty, no one here to witness Alex sneaking back to his own room in yesterday’s hastily pulled-on clothes. No one, that is, until Gordon emerges from a room at the end of the hallway just as Alex is shutting the door softly so he doesn’t wake Jake up.
We fell asleep watching a movie, Alex prepares himself to say. Which is true, though not the whole truth.
“Morning.” Gordon’s dressed neatly for the gym, a wrinkle-free T-shirt and shorts that emphasize Alex’s currently disheveled state.
Alex manages a nod in return.
“Late night?” Gordon asks knowingly.
No sense in denying it. “Fell asleep watching a movie in Fischer’s room.”
“Take it y’all kissed and made up?”
A loaded fucking question, one Alex might have withered under ten years ago. His shoulders come up, noticeably enough that Gordon puts up a hand. “Sorry, that was out of line. Your business is your business.”
Alex deflates a little.Made up. An understatement for how Jake fell asleep against him, but not before saying, “I thought about this a lot” and preening when Alex stroked a hand through his hair. “It’s fine. We’re working on things.”
“Glad to hear it.” Gordon claps his arm like a dugout congratulations. “Keep it up. Feels like it’s gonna be our year.” And he whistles tunelessly as he walks off.
Chapter Twenty-One
