Chapter Nineteen Jamie #3
To celebrate her college graduation, Harper and I are going on a romp through Europe.
Telling Mateo about that earns me another grin.
It’s almost enough reason to invite him along with us, or at least to the graduation ceremony, but neither invitation is wholly mine to extend.
Besides, I’m selfish enough to want alone time with each of them.
Quieting, I press my body against Mateo’s, waiting for the stories he has to share.
I get to hear a lot about his family and the time he's spent with them over the past couple of years.
Everyone is happy and healthy. I'm glad the wounds from his grandfather's life and his grandmother's death have healed as well as anything like that ever does. He’s more excited than I’ve seen him in a while when he tells me he’ll be taking his nieces and nephews on a multi-week cross-country road trip during the summer.
“Will I hear from you while you’re gone?” I ask.
“Should I call you when I’m standing next to America’s biggest ball of twine?”
Imagining him there is enough to make me laugh and then wheeze. “Either that or from any gas station mini-mart just before you blow an obscene amount of money on snacks you could get down the street from your apartment.”
Later, Mateo talks about Sophie and the nights they watched my games at the bar with Kai. I'd known about some of it, but not all. I'm weirdly glad Kai felt like he could welcome them without alerting me.
Mateo also shares a few things about his classes this year.
He shares much more about soccer and the summertime clinic he's continued to hold with Harper's help.
I don't think I'd realized the players were local middle-schoolers.
The oldest among them would still be about four months from being able to try out for his team.
It makes me curious. "Why not run something for your current players? Why younger ones who might not end up playing for you at all?"
"I love the high school kids, obviously," he says. "But there's something about the younger group—the way they don't already know better. How much they—"
"Are nervous and eager and want your help."
"Exactly. And you know I just want to be out there, running around with them. Coaching them and celebrating their little wins."
I do know. I feel the same way, and have thought about it a lot lately, but I just nod because I don't want to talk about my job.
It's nicer to bite my tongue and crawl into Mateo's lap and let him hold me.
We don't kiss, either because we've learned exactly one lesson, or because I'm still sick enough for us to use that as an excuse. Still, we keep a blanket close and each other closer, and I’m only frustrated when I wonder why we're not on the bench.
I hate that the connection we've remade feels too fragile for me to ask us to move with it intact.
It doesn’t stop me from pushing us somewhere while my fingertip traces the collar of his t-shirt. “It’s been days, and you’re not just waiting for me to go. You’re waiting to see what new promises we’ll make before I do.”
“There aren’t new promises to make,” Mateo says, pulling my hand away to lace our fingers together. “Let’s just figure out how to keep some of the old ones.”
I want that more than he probably believes, but I have hockey and he has something like a boyfriend.
Even once the school year ends, I’m going to be busy with Harper for a while, and Mateo will be busy with soccer and his road trip.
And whether it’s right or wrong, I already know I’ll be going to the lake house this year.
I need to let go of the baggage I’ve brought along before—envy, secrecy, and submission—and introduce a few more people to me.
Jamie. Not Jameson Sinclair.
Mateo whispers my name now, and I whisper to him, too.
The night I need to go to the airport, he drives me there.
It's cruel to one or both of us, but we're done fighting about it.
At the last red light before we approach the departure zone, I stare out the window at the rain that had started minutes ago.
I don't let myself turn to reach for him, even when I have something important to say.
“Spend Christmas with me,” I murmur. “The way we used to be, when we were counting down to something and got so fucking close.”
“The way we’ve been the past few days.”
I nod, tracking the path of a raindrop on the glass.
Neither of us mentions Logan, but we both know he wouldn’t fit into these plans.
Neither of us wants to wait until December, but we both know time’s never been on our side.
Neither of us asks whether this means we’re counting down again, but we both know we never stopped.
“Let’s keep a promise,” I say.
About 30 seconds of silence follow, the car rolling forward while I try to remember what hope feels like. I see the signs for my airline as Mateo slows, and then I get my answer.
"Okay."
"You're still welcome to come over for Christmas, Sinclair. To my big house, where I have a lot of room for eating and drinking and celebrating."
I raise a tired eyebrow as I look up at Taylor. "I already told you I have plans at my house for eating and drinking and celebrating."
"Yes, your small house. That you don't even own.
And since I assume your plans are with someone, I thought maybe that someone might appreciate actual holiday joy.
" He stops and smirks, and nothing about it surprises me.
Not even when he goes on. "Unless this someone would prefer it if I hosted Christmas at the lake. "
"Mmmm, that sounds like fun. Maybe next year."
He studies me for a few more seconds before he throws a dirty towel at me and walks away.
I know he's trying to figure me out. He does it with the same slight condescension with which he does everything, and I've given him little in return.
I don't think I need to, really. Especially since my mostly sober, entirely celibate stay at the lake house in August. But while there's plenty to know, there's not much I'm ready to talk about.
I'll have to eventually. And probably for a while. But not yet.
I skipped college altogether, but if last year's conversations with Harper are anything to go on, I'm as overwhelmed by conflicting emotions as students approaching their graduation.
I'm excited and nervous and so close to moving on to a new chapter.
I'm also terrified I won't remember any of what I've been taught.
I'm not sure I'll be able to run back to a classroom if I screw this up.
But there's still so much to do, and none of it will happen today. My priority is getting back to the small house I don't even own, and the man sleeping off a red-eye flight while buried under my duvet. I can only hope it will still smell like him tonight.
The past several months have felt so close to the relationship Mateo and I had before I was hired here.
It's what we almost were before I moved away from California and fractured something we'd held together with stick tape and twine.
It's what I'd wanted us to become once I got settled as a coach.
Phone calls and distant honesty and hope that obstacles wouldn't be in our way forever.
Or that I'd finally stop clinging to those obstacles just because they’re the only escape I’ve ever known.
I’m helplessly in love and helpless to make that matter more than something fickle and familiar.
The shift between us started when Mateo answered a late-night call from my daughter.
It slid ungracefully past a shared shower, a bowl of tortilla soup, reclaimed intimacy, and another spring break we can't forget.
After I landed back in New Jersey, I suffered a predictable setback from the clash of altitude and illness.
Everything slowed for a while. Texts kept us afloat, but I needed to get back on my feet.
He needed to figure out where things stood with Logan.
Well, all three of us knew where things stood, but it took some time for him to decide what to do about it.
In the end, Logan spared Mateo the trouble.
I don't know the details. Given how little Mateo offered to tell me about their last night together, I don't want them.
There's something fond about the way Mateo still says Logan's name that makes me fiercely jealous.
I'd bring up Lena if I thought it'd do any more good than throwing a bucket of water on a wildfire.
I still haven't seen Mateo in person since he dropped me off at the airport in April.
This morning I hurried out for early meetings with Taylor and left a spare key behind.
But he and I had texted each other throughout May, and I sent postcards from Germany, Italy, and France.
By the end of his school year in June, we started sending regular voice notes again.
Phone calls became more frequent during the summer, even while he was in gas station mini-marts and I was on a dock.
When the new hockey season approached, and I got busier again, we traded some quantity for quality, and made video chats a priority.
All of it has loosened bands I wrapped around myself as a child.
None of it has come with a promise of more than these couple of days.
Still, I’m humming with anticipation of what comes next for us.
This is the eighth Christmas since we met, but only the second we've celebrated together. On the front porch, I’m uncharacteristically clumsy when I fumble with my keys, but I get inside the house in time to catch Mateo coming from the direction of my bedroom.
He’s fresh out of the shower and just tugging a dark red sweater over his head.
My grin must be damning, but I don't care. "Merry Christmas Eve."
"Merry Christmas Eve," Mateo says, his smile almost shy in response. "I didn't think you'd get home so soon."