30. Declan
Declan
Emma is the loudest.
“I nearly forgot what it’s like to go to a game with you,” I say to her above the noise and the shouting in the arena as New York evens the score against Phoenix.
My friend shoots me a saucy look, her blonde ponytail whipping as she turns to me. “You forgot that I’m the biggest fan on the planet?”
“It seems I did. Maybe sometime around when you burst my eardrums,” I tease.
Grant laughs, rubs his knuckle against the side of his head. “You and me both.”
“You guys can handle it,” she says, then swings her gaze back to the ice as Phoenix moves the puck toward the goal.
Emma claps several times. “Come on, James. Stop that puck.”
I toss a glance at Grant, a seat away since Emma is in the middle.
“She’s a little passionate about hockey,” I deadpan.
“Welcome to the club,” Grant says.
“I’m especially passionate when my brother is playing,” Emma chimes in, and when Fitz blocks a Phoenix goal, she loses her mind, jumping up and down, thrusting her arms in the air. “Yes, yes, yes!”
“You’re going to lose your voice,” I warn.
“I already am losing it,” she jokes, her pitch a little rumbly.
“Were you a cheerleader in high school, woman?” Grant asks.
She flashes a bright smile. “Don’t let my cheerleader looks fool you. I was full-on nerd.”
“Nerds can be cheerleaders too,” I add.
“I know. But I was only a nerd,” she says, then shouts once more at the players.
A frizzy-haired woman a few rows ahead cranes her neck around, looks up at Emma, smiles. Next, she makes eye contact with me. Recognition flashes in her features. “Go Cougars,” she says with a big, bright smile.
I tip my chin toward her and grin back. “Go Cougars.”
“Spotted in the wild,” Emma whispers.
“So famous,” Grant teases.
I roll my eyes. “You’ll be next, rookie.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears,” he says, and we return our attention to the ice.
A minute later when New York scores, Emma unleashes the most crushing cheer I’ve ever heard.
It’s contagious.
I’m so glad I’m not sitting next to Grant or I’d kiss him right now. Kiss him hard and celebrate. Clenching my fists, I draw a tight breath.
Resist him.
I keep my hands to myself, but it’s a tough battle. I don’t know what’s happening to my vaunted self-control, but it leaves the building when he’s around.
Must refocus.
As game play resumes, I cast about for a random question, the pool table chatter we engage in when we’re out with the guys. Something, anything so Grant feels like one of the guys, and not the man I desperately want to spend the night with.
“Question for both of you. If you could do anything else, besides be a ballplayer, or an art historian for Emma, what would you do?” I ask.
Grant gestures to Emma. “Ladies first.”
She adopts a wicked grin. “Hockey play-by-play commentator.”
“Oh yeah, I can totally see that,” Grant says.
“And you, G-man?” I ask, tossing out the nickname Sullivan and the other guys use with him. It sounds all wrong on my tongue.
He smiles my way, his blue eyes sparkling maybe with mischief as he gives a casual shrug.
“We’re birds of a feather, Emma and me,” he says, tapping her shoulder.
He’s touchy-feely with her in the way I suspect he is with female friends.
Maybe in the way he’s fully able to be only with women.
He’s a physical guy, and with females he can set a hand on an arm or a shoulder without any undertones.
Then he answers, “Though in my case, I’d play hockey. ”
“Sports, natch.” As I do, my brain snags on something. What Grant said in the car on the way over. If we were other people. If I played baseball and he played hockey. Is his comment just now about us? Is it a private remark? And why do I like it so much?
“What, this surprises you? Sports is my love,” he says to me, all casual and charming.
Yeah, it’s not about me. It’s not about us, and that’s fine too. His answer is all him, all one-track-mind athlete, and I laugh. I am in knots over him.
Grant’s face goes starkly serious. “Baseball is everything,” he says, then shoots me a stern stare. “Don’t try to pretend it’s any different for you.”
“No arguments here,” I say. “Baseball is life.”
Emma shakes her head, laughing. “You guys.”
“What?” I ask.
She lowers her voice to a barren whisper. “You’re so ador—”
I growl, a warning sound.
She holds up her hands in surrender.
“She’s not wrong, Deck,” Grant whispers.
Emma’s eyes twinkle with Cupid’s arrows. “ Deck .” She clasps her heart. “I die.”
“ Rookie ,” I rumble in an even lower voice.
Emma gasps, flaps her hands. “Stahp, stahp.”
Grant clears his throat. “Okay, how about we answer what we’d do outside of sports. I’ll go first. I’d be James Bond. How about you, Declan?” he asks, making a production out of sounding all professional when he says my name.
And it is adorable.
One of the guys.
He’s one of the guys.
My answer is easy—same thing I’d say to anyone.
“If I could do anything besides baseball, I would shred a guitar like nobody’s business.
I would rock out to Guns N’ Roses.” I pick up my air guitar.
I play the opening notes to “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” humming along.
Grant’s eyes light up, twinkling. “Damn, that’s good. ”
“Thank you. If only I could do it for real. What about you, Emma?”
She exhales deeply. “I suppose if I can’t call a game, I’d be a ski jumper or a fighter pilot.”
Grant offers her a fist for knocking and then dives into a conversation with her about jets. The fact that he gets along so easily, so smoothly with everyone, but especially my friends, makes my brain scramble a little more.
I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do when this fling ends in another day, another night.
This man is gorgeous inside and out.
He’s the heart-stopping kind. It’s frying my sense of reason.
When intermission comes and Grant excuses himself for the restroom, Emma grabs my arm, drops her voice, and murmurs in my ear, “Holy Rembrandt. Holy Vermeer.”
I crack up. “Explain.”
“Those are some of my favorite Dutch painters,” she says, wildly animated as she whispers, “Seventeenth Century Dutch art is my favorite time period.”
“And?”
“He’s like a painting,” she says.
I laugh. “Didn’t Rembrandt paint dudes with fancy collars?”
She rolls her eyes. “Rembrandt painted gorgeous works of art. Vermeer painted the most incredible images that move my very soul.”
“Fine. I hear ya. Though that’s not the comparison I’d use.”
“How’s this? He’s like a Bugatti. Is that better?”
That makes my engine purr. Grant is top-of-the-line everything. I grin, wide and honestly proud. “I know, right? He’s a ten.”
“More like a fifteen.”
I stroke my chin. “If he’s a Rembrandt, and he is, then he’s a one in a million,” I say, a little in awe because how the hell did someone like Grant fall into my lucky lap? But mostly I’m damn grateful that he’s with me.
At least for now.
And for now, he feels like mine.
She keeps her voice low, understanding the importance of discretion. “He’s funny and sweet. I bet he’s as besotted with you as you are with him.”
“No way. I’m not besotted.”
She narrows her eyes. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Emma,” I chide.
“I know, I know. It’s impossible. Still.”
“It is. We are impossible.” I underline the cold, hard truth with a Sharpie.
“I get it,” she says sadly and pats my shoulder, rubs it sympathetically.
“I do get it. It’s just that after college and poetry class, and the things you shared and knowing your heart.
..” Her voice hitches. This woman knows the truth about some of the toughest times in my life.
She knows more about me than almost anyone.
That’s not because she could never be a lover.
At least, I don’t believe the absence of physical attraction is a requirement for a man and a woman to be friends. Maybe it’s that Emma’s friendship was exactly the safe landing I needed at that point in my life after the tumultuous end to high school, and the stupid mistakes I made.
But mostly, I think we glommed onto each other because that’s who she is. A warm, wonderful person who didn’t judge my past. Who just wants to love me for me.
She’s a pure, true friend.
Maybe the first one I’ve had in my life.
My chest tightens but I keep the emotions reined in. I keep it all under control, recalling more T.S. Eliot.
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all...
I think of college. The reasons I needed that class. Memories swirl past me of my father, moments upon moments I wanted to undo. All those times he showed up to my games clutching a beer, shouting my name, waving drunkenly as I stepped up to the plate in middle school, in high school.
Wincing, I try to shake away the images of teammates. Parents. Umps. Their feeling sorry for me faces. Ones I saw over and over again.
Then, those memories tunnel down to me. To what I did. How I nearly tanked my own career when I was seventeen.
But I didn’t, thanks to my mom, to Emma, to T.S. Eliot. But my God, I don’t like anyone to know how I nearly lost the best thing I ever had.
I reroute to the present, to Emma, to what she said about Grant. “Do you think anyone can tell?”
“Nah, you’ve got me as your buffer. Use me,” she says playfully.
I don’t want her to think that’s why she’s here. She might play a necessary part tonight, but I need her now and always. “Please say you know that’s not the reason you’re in my life?”
“I know, Declan. I know. But if I can help you, I will.”
“So, you don’t feel used? I’d hate it if you felt that way.”
She shakes her head adamantly. “I feel essential to your life. And I love it, my friend. Don’t forget. I’m here for you.” She sets her head on my shoulder and I pet her hair gently.
“Means a lot to me.”