Chapter 30
LUC
The entire baseball world had been awaiting Jack’s retirement announcement, and when it didn’t come, the Minutemen’s management had put out feelers. While Jack wouldn’t be able to support our team in the playoffs this year, he would be a phenomenal off-season addition to the roster.
Fuck, I wanted to work with him every single day. We had dreamed of playing on the same professional team since we were kids, and we would now be very close to living that dream.
Kylie attempted to extract herself from the visit more than once, but when Jack asked her to plan out a Boston food crawl, she lit up. We explored the North End, enjoying Kylie’s curated culinary choices.
“What are you feeding me at the game tomorrow night?” Jack asked.
“Oh, I’m not going.”
Jack arched his brows and waited for an explanation from one of us.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. My sister is bringing my dad to the game, not me.”
Her dismissive shrug showed Kylie thought this was normal and no other explanation was necessary.
“But Luc can get you tickets…”
Kylie’s face fell, and she looked at me, hoping I would explain it. She still held fast to the conviction that I couldn’t meet her family, and while I had been understanding at first, I was tired of trying to prove to her that our relationship was more than the secret she forced it to be.
I shook my head, signaling for Jack to drop it. I fully expected him to pressure me for answers afterwards.
At the end of the night, Kylie caved and slept over, though she came to bed in full-length pajamas. Something she only wore when she had her period, and I knew that had ended the week before. And no, she wasn’t angry, but something bothered her, and talking about it wasn’t in the plan.
She left early the next day and asked me to apologize to Jack for skipping out.
Jack signed with the Minutemen a few days after they lost in the second round of the playoffs.
It sucked that the season had ended with a loss, but we had gone much further than predicted at the beginning of the year.
With the rest of the fall and winter off, I planned to spend as much time with Kylie as she would allow.
Sam had invited me to his wedding in December, and I planned to push Kylie to go public with our relationship before then.
Her new resistance centered on her refusal to be the center of attention on Kelsey’s day or during their wedding week.
They planned the wedding for Christmas Day so Crew’s father could attend during his brief hockey break.
The week leading up to the event and a few days afterward, they were hosting us all at a villa on St. John.
In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, I tried to get Kylie to come to California with me to visit my family.
She’d refused. She also avoided Jack the next two times he was in Boston.
We hit an impasse in this part of our relationship, but as long as I didn’t bring up our families, my relationship with Kylie was fucking perfect.
Jack lectured me at least once a week that I should tell her about my probable sterility, but I didn’t want her to be influenced by me if she wanted children.
If she confessed that she never wanted children, then I would share it with her.
I wasn’t blind to Kylie’s feelings towards me.
I was madly in love with that woman as well.
But I would never forgive myself if she agreed to a future, only because she didn’t want to lose what we had.
If Kylie wanted a family, I would make sure she got that, even if I had to give her up to make it happen.