* * *

  Rereading his last text gives me the inkling of an idea, and maybe some insight into why it’s taking me so long to give Grant an answer to his question.

  When I hear the front door open, I set down my laptop, my heart already beating a happier rhythm. I stride to the entryway, and there’s the man I’ve missed—dark blond hair, soulful blue eyes, and a grin that says he’s glad to see me too.

  “You’re a sight,” I say.

  “Then let your eyes no longer be sore,” Grant says as he slides a hand around my waist, wedges his body against mine, and presses a soft kiss to my lips.

  A rumble works its way up my throat as I sink into his arms, then drop my nose against his neck. “And you smell too damn good. Can I take you to bed right now?”

  Grant peels away and wags a chiding finger. “No dick for you until you tell me what’s wrong.”

  “You drive a hard bargain.” I sigh loudly, but before he came in, I’d been thinking something similar. I need to talk to him more than I need to sleep with him.

  Grant drops his bag in the doorway, toes off his shoes, and heads to the living room. I reclaim my seat, and he flops down next to me. “What’s on your mind?”

  Everything.

  Like how much I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

  How I want to give you everything you want.

  And how desperately I don’t want to fuck it up.

  Instead of answering aloud, I turn on my phone and show Grant my father’s text thread.

  His eyebrows climb as he reads. “Whoa. On the surface, that sounds good.” Grant looks up from the phone and brushes a kiss onto my cheek. “But I’m sure you don’t feel good at all. More like whiplash.”

  “That’s it, exactly.” My shoulders relax slowly. The only thing better than someone who gets it is someone you love who gets it. “On the one hand, I feel like a jackass for not being excited. On the other hand, I think it’ll fail before he even asks her. Either way, I don’t want to be his best man at all. Does that make me a jerk of a son?”

  “Not even a little bit.” Shaking his head, Grant takes my phone from my hand, sets it on the table. Gently, he turns me around, so my cheek rests on his chest, and I’m in his arms. He sweeps a kiss to my hair. “It’s so complicated, Deck. I don’t even know what to say, except I wish you didn’t have to deal with this. This is just part of who he is. But I do know you’re not a jerk for feeling conflicted about literally everything in that thread.”

  My heart jumps and cheers, yes, yes, yes! This is what you should have been doing all along—talking to your man.

  Grant’s arms circle nice and snug around my stomach. Curling a hand over his forearm, I hold on tight. “Grant,” I begin, swallowing past the dry patch in my throat.

  “Yeah, Deck?” He sounds on the edge of hope.

  “I’ve been thinking . . .”

  “You have?” His voice pitches higher and hope-ier.

  I swallow past a painful knot in my throat. In the past—the recent past—talking things out wasn’t something I did. But I need to talk to Grant, about this. “I want to say yes to you. To kids and all that down the road.”

  When I turn my head to meet his gaze, his eyes are wide, flashing sparks of nearly delirious excitement. “You do?”

  “I do. But I don’t want to be like my dad.” I lick my dry lips and keep going. “What if I don’t know how to handle them or their problems? Tonight, I could barely deal with my dad’s texts. I had to shut it down, which I could do because he’s an adult. But what if I can’t handle something kid-related?”

  Grant lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles. “That’s why, if you decide to do it, you’re not going to do it alone.”

  I love the sentiment, appreciate the attempt to reassure me. “But Grant, you’ve got your shit way more together than I do. You always have. You’re good at talking to young people, figuring things out. You can connect with anyone. You went through hell with your parents, but you’re not fucked up.”

  “Neither are you,” he says, holding me tighter.

  “I’m more than a little messed up. You’re the only one I’ve ever let in.”

  “And I’m still here. But you also let your mom in, and your therapist. That’s huge.”

  “And what did I do tonight? I turned off my phone,” I say heavily.

  “And that’s awesome.”

  I snap my gaze up. “It is?”

  “Yes. You needed to disengage, but instead of just shutting down, you let me know you needed to go dark, so I wouldn’t worry. Dude, you handled it great.” He rubs his hand up and down my arm as if warming me. “Look, my parents are out of my life, but I have my grandparents. The only reason you think you’re messed up is that your father is still an addict. That doesn’t make you messed up and me not. It just makes you human.”

  “But what if I mess things up with our kids—like he did all the fucking time?” I ask.

  Grant sits up, squeezes my hand tighter. “We’ll deal with it together.”

  “Will we?” Maybe this is what I’ve needed—his assurance that he’s entirely in this with me. That he’ll be my parachute if I need one.

  “We will,” Grant says, then adds, “when and if you’re ready, and only then.”

  I let out a long, grateful sigh. I get it now. I understand what’s been taking me so long. Fear has been holding me back. But I don’t have to be afraid. Or at least, I don’t have to worry alone.

  Still, all this talking has me ready to downshift to a lighter subject. “Want to know what I was doing right before you got home?”

  “I know it wasn’t getting naked and lubing up,” he says with a pout.

  “Don’t worry. The night is young.” I reach for my laptop, flip it open. “Looking at places in Hawaii to buy.”

  “Show me,” he says with eager eyes.

  I click on a browser window. “I thought I could get us a place in Hawaii instead of Miami. When we go in November, do you want to look for a place together?” I ask.

  Maybe I’m asking too much. Buying real estate in Hawaii is a big step when I haven’t committed to a family someday. But perhaps I need to know if it’s one he would take.

  Rubbing his palms together, Grant chuckles as he checks out the pictures of a beach home with a gorgeous ocean view. “We’re so domestic. We’re going to Hawaii for a vacation, and we’re going to look at real estate.”

  “That is kind of domestic,” I agree.

  “I like it,” he adds.

  “The Hawaii home or being domestic?”

  “Both,” Grant says, kissing my forehead.

  I put the computer away and cup his cheeks so I can say something hard. “Talking to you about this is easier than thinking about it on my own.”

  That’s what I should have been doing all along. But I’m glad I started tonight.

  27

  Declan

  Later in September, the Dragons clinch a playoff spot. A few days later, the Cougars, reigning World Series champions, do too.

  Grant and I celebrate in style that night. We screw all over the house, hard and well, the only way we know how.

  But the playoffs are a hell of a hill to climb. Grant’s team makes it through the wild-card game, then is eliminated in the divisionals, and he’s not happy about that.

  The Dragons continue on to the championship round, but we lose four to one. No one is in a good mood in our house that night.

  But the great thing about baseball is there’s always next year.

  Until then, there’s the off-season.

  I’ve been waiting six years to spend an off-season with Grant Blackwood. I don’t plan to squander a second of it.

  In late October, River sends a group text inviting a bunch of us to a picnic at his family’s home in Petaluma. Reese, Holden, Owen, Grant, and I all say yes. It’s the day before we leave for Hawaii, so the timing is perfect.

  “Why don’t we go see my grandparents later that day,” Grant suggests over coffee and everything bagels.

  I declare myself in, and a few days later, Grant and I drive up the winding highway toward his hometown, leaving the city and the baseball season behind. We listen to a new playlist, a mix of my 90s tunes and his pop. A Nirvana song for every Sam Smith one. Bruno Mars for Pearl Jam. Grant even lets me play “November Rain,” and I break out my air guitar too.

  When we reach Petaluma, we pull up in front of the Michaels’ family home, perched at the end of a long gravel driveway and atop green rolling hills. I grab the food we picked up along the way at a trendy gourmet store—a tofu dish, a kale salad, and some locally-grown peppers.

  River meets us on the porch—for a bar entrepreneur, Grant’s business partner looks comfortable in the country.

  “It’s so bucolic, isn’t it?” River quips, stretching out an inked arm to show off the white farmhouse with the wraparound porch.

  “Rustic is more like it,” Owen says from inside the house.

  I glance at Grant and mouth, “Such flirts.”

  “I know, right? I tell them that all the time,” Grant remarks.

  “Hello! I heard you.” River parks his hands on his hips, his floppy hair falling across his forehead.

  “It isn’t a secret,” I point out.

  “And who is dishing, now?” Owen pops into the doorway. “I love a good secret.”

  River points his thumb at his college friend. “Don’t tell him any. He can’t keep them.”

  Owen shoots a dirty stare at River. “My job is literally to keep things confidential, and I am excellent at my job.” Shaking his head, he turns to Grant and me as we walk up the steps. “Lies. He tells lies.”

  I wrap my free arm around my guy and say with private humor, “Someday . . .”

  Grant nods and agrees. “Yup.”

  “Someday what?” River glances between us in suspicion.

  I pat his shoulder. “You’ll see.”

  “And to think I helped the two of you way back when,” River grumbles as he swings open the door for us.

  “For which I am eternally grateful,” I say as we head inside, then I lift the bag from the organic market. “We picked up some salads on the way. Tofu and kale and stuff. Want me to do anything with them?”

  River snatches the food from me. “Nope. I’m just going to hide it all.”

  Laughing, I ask, “Why would you do that?”

  “Because Owen’s niece is obsessed with tofu, and I’m trying to introduce her to the joy of ice cream,” River explains matter-of-factly.

  “You’re such a troublemaker,” Owen says. “My sister is going to kill me.”

  “Fortunately, she’s not here yet.”

  River winks. It includes all of us, but it feels like it’s meant just for Owen.

  Pearl, Owen’s seven-year-old niece, isn’t just obsessed with tofu and kale. She has a thing for the outdoors too. That afternoon, as I’m standing on the back porch while the sun travels across the sky, the busy blonde kid stops at the top of the stairs, looks at me very seriously, and asks if I know how to build a dam.

  I roll with the non-sequitur and answer in the same tone, “Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Oh, good. You can be my assistant, then,” she announces and scampers down the porch steps. When she realizes I’m not following, she turns back, hands on her hips, expectant.

  I glance behind me. Grant is inside catching up with River on bar business, while Reese, Holden, Owen, and Pearl’s parents are gathered in Adirondack chairs at the end of the porch, having fallen down the rabbit hole of one of those what-color-is-this-shirt Internet optical illusion debates.

  There’s only me, and when I turn back to Pearl, she is still waiting.

  Oh.

  I literally point at myself. “You want me to help you build a dam? Why?”

  The kid says, “Because I’m not allowed to go to the stream without a grown-up and everyone else is busy.”

  I cannot argue with that logic.

  After a moment’s hesitation to see if an alternative will appear, I gulp down my nerves and follow her to the stream that rings the property.

  How hard can it be? I can do this.

  The little blonde forewoman tells me to find some good sticks while she picks the best spot to build. I gather supplies and watch out of the corner of my eye as she judges where to dam up the stream. When she decides, she plonks onto her knees in the wet grass, and I cringe.

  “Aren’t you going to get dirty?” I ask and get a look like I inquired if the water was wet. “I’ll rephrase. Are your parents going to be upset when you come back to the house all muddy?”

  “You can’t build anything without getting dirty.”

  I’m not going to argue with a seven-year-old philosopher when she has a good point. I focus on my task then show her my collection of sticks. “Will this be enough?”

  Pearl shakes her blonde pigtails. “A few more. We want to see how much the dam can hold and then we’re going to sneak up, like double agents, and yank up all the sticks and watch the water pour down.”

  “You’ve clearly thought this through,” I say, kneeling by the stream with my latest load of supplies.

  “Well, it’s not my first dam,” she says with a shrug.

  “Be careful,” I say as she leans over the water to sink a stick pylon upright in the mud. Fine, the stream is only a foot deep. Still, something could happen.

  As the kid chatters, occasionally giving me instructions, suddenly I’m debating the merits of various tree branches for dam construction, and oddly invested when Pearl places a few last sticks, stopping the water. “There.”

  “Well done, engineer,” I say.

  Pearl lifts her head to grin at me, but something makes her eyes widen, and she points. “Ooh! I see a hawk.”

  “Whoa. Where is it?” I follow along her raised arm to a sprawling pine tree. On a tall branch sits a bird of prey.

  “That’s a red-tailed hawk,” I tell her. I know a lot more about ornithology than I do about building dams.

  “I want to see it,” she says eagerly, then stares up at me. “You’re tall. Can you lift me up?”

  “Sure.” I give her a boost, lifting her high so she can crane her neck for a view of the bird.

  “Can it do any tricks?”

  “Is soaring in the air a trick?”

  “Flying is cool.”

  “Is capturing prey a trick?”

  Her hand flies to her mouth. “Uh-oh. What if the dam makes it easy for the hawk to catch fish?”

  I set her back on her feet. “Then I think it may be time—”

  “Double agents!” Pearl cheers and scurries back to the stream, where she dismantles the dam in seconds. “There. The double agents have saved the fish,” she declares.

  Can I laugh? Maybe? But how do I know what hurts a kid’s feelings?

  “That might call for an ice cream,” I suggest instead, wondering if River has tempted her to the dark side yet.

  The kid wrinkles her nose, so I guess not. “I don’t like ice cream.”

  I snort. “Said no one ever.”

  She laughs, and I do too, without even thinking about it.

  Look at that. I helped build a dam, I talked about birds, and made her laugh. Pearl isn’t some alien creature who hates me on sight. She’s a clever, bossy little person who likes to stay busy, and I can handle that.

  “I swear I don’t,” she says about the ice cream. “River got me to taste it, but I didn’t like it.”

  “What do you like, then? Like, for a snack.”

  “Chips. Popcorn,” she says as she walks along the edge of the stream. “Pretzels too, but you can forget peanuts because gross.”

  “Ah, you’re a savory then.”

  She stops, her eyes twinkling with curiosity. “What’s that?”

  “It means you prefer salty food to sweet,” I tell her.

  Pearl smiles. “That’s why I don’t like ice cream. I’m a savory. You figured it out!”

  Like a Tasmanian devil, the seven-year-old rushes toward the porch, stops in front of her parents, then points at me. “He says I’m a savory!”

  I drop my head in my hands, laughing.

  A few seconds later, I look up to see Grant walking down the hill toward me. He stops a foot away, wearing a fantastic smile.

  Maybe, possibly, it matches mine.

  28

  Grant

  After River and I catch up on plans for The Lazy Hammock, I hunt for Declan to see if he’s ready to take off.

  As I turn into the big kitchen, I see Reese standing at the kitchen window. Before I can ask if she’s seen Declan, she motions silently for me to join her.

  Curious, I close the distance and stand next to her. She points to where the backyard falls toward a stream that circles the property.

  “Look,” she stage-whispers.

  I do, and my gaze lands on my broad-shouldered, six-foot-three boyfriend. He’s lifting Owen’s pip-squeak of a niece up high, giving her a bird’s-eye view of something in a tree.

  My smile stretches from here to Hawaii. “Check that out.”

  “Damn,” Reese says with an appreciative sigh. “Is there anything hotter than a guy you love being good with kids?”

  She’s probably right, but at the moment, Declan’s just hot.

  Hell, he’s hot at every moment—when his hair is a wild mess in the mornings, when he’s sweaty after a game. When he’s asleep and when he’s awake. When he curls up next to me on the couch. When he makes me sandwiches. When we go for a walk.

  That man is fine, but also, I’ve seen beyond his looks. I know how brave and strong he is, how vulnerable and kind, how supportive and funny and fearless. I know how much he gives of himself to me—more than he realizes—and how he does it to make me happy.

  He wants all the good things in the world for me.

  With him, though I have so much more than I ever imagined. I have everything and then some.

  “He looks good with kids, but he always looks good,” I say, with a happy hum as I drink in the sight of the guy I love.