Chapter 23
chapter twenty-three
juan pablo
“Damn, J, you real pressed. What’s up?”
I was so far in my own head while working on Yariel Cuevas, one of the Yankees players I gave PT to on the off-season that I practically jumped at his question. I didn’t answer right away and kept massaging his shoulder as I considered what to say.
Yariel was a friend—hell, he’d been a steady hookup when I’d started dating about six months after Pris and I broke up.
He was a real one. Unapologetic about his sexuality from the first day he stepped on the field.
Even after things had fizzled out with us, we’d stayed close.
I’d been over to his place to hang out with him and his boyfriend on the regular and I knew he’d probably be a good person to talk this over with.
Of course I could talk to one of the guys, but they all were too invested when it came to me and Priscilla and even when they understood my worries, they couldn’t really be objective.
I slowly moved his pitching arm around as I worked out a way to say what I’d been stewing on for days.
“Priscilla and I are kind of involved again.” I was impressed with myself for summing up the increasingly complicated situation between Pris and me.
It had been a week since the night of the workshop and Pris had been at my house almost every day.
We’d kept it platonic the first couple of times, but as soon as she felt up for it, we were back in my bed.
We were now in this weird in-between where we were together, but not really, and it was driving me nuts.
Yariel looked up at me and blew out a slow breath. During those first months of our friendship, he’d gotten more than one earful about Priscilla and all the ways in which I’d fucked up. “Isn’t that good news? Why have you been scowling since I got here?”
I let go of his arm and pointed at one of the machines we usually worked with.
“Five reps on each side, then we switch.” I was still thinking about what to say as I walked over to the machine and got him set up for his exercises.
“It’s just that we’ve been doing this thing where she comes over and we watch shows and I make dinner.
I’ll throw my arm around her, make out…a whole lot more sometimes.
” My heart rate sped up, thinking of the night before.
She’d come to my place after work and we’d fucked right up against the door.
I didn’t even have time to properly say hello.
My face heated from the image in my head.
“But she’s got a very clear limit. We can talk about anything, but if she comes over obviously heated or fucked up from work, I’m not allowed to ask questions.
” Yariel clicked his tongue as he did his reps.
His head was down but he was clearly listening as I talked.
“The fact that she’s miserable at her job is not up for discussion, even though I can see how she basically tenses up anytime she gets a text from her captain or one of her colleagues.
That’s not my business, because I’m not her man.
” I ran my tongue over my bottom teeth as that fun fact sunk in again.
I’d let my dick trap me into a situation where I couldn’t really be there for Priscilla, not how I wanted to be.
Yariel stopped what he was doing and turned around on the machine’s seat to look at me.
We were in one of the PT rooms at the stadium, which on a random afternoon in December meant we had the place to ourselves.
Not that Yariel had any issue with talking about his personal life—the guy was an open book.
He gave me a look like I wasn’t going to love what he had to say. “Wasn’t the reason you broke up last time related to you being an asshole about how much she worked?”
I gritted my teeth as I positioned him on the machine again and worked on supporting his back as he pulled on the thing.
“That’s a pretty short version of the events, but yes,” I said testily.
“She almost got shot on the job and had been getting three hours of sleep for weeks, and when I told her I was worried about her, she decided I had something against her being a cop.”
Yariel took his time on his answer. I knew that he and his boyfriend had their struggles when it came to his job and how all-consuming it was.
Dating a professional athlete was no joke; at best you came a close second in the priorities list. He flashed those light hazel eyes at me before finally opening his mouth.
“But you do have something against her job.”
Damn, I didn’t know why I thought this fucker would go any easier on me than the guys. “It’s not that I have something against it, I just have feelings about it.”
He gave me a dubious smile and turned back around to grab the levers for the machine. “You have baggage around it. Your father got injured in the line of duty. You grew up seeing your mom constantly worried about him. You know that and she certainly knows that.”
Yes, and when she told me she couldn’t deal with me putting my stuff on her while she was trying to do a dangerous job and begged me to get some help, I blew her off until she got tired of my bullshit.
“She does.” I pressed my lips until they were a flat line, waiting for more of Yariel’s hot takes.
“Did you tell her you’re seeing someone?”
I nodded once, sat on the bench across from him, and handed him a bottle of water, since we were clearly going to have a heart-to-heart. “I did tell her, and she was happy about it.”
“Did you tell her you’re seeing a therapist because after you two broke up, you were a mess for months and you’ve been on a quest to be a better human for her since then?”
I pursed my mouth and looked up at the rafters in the ceiling, very much not wanting to keep talking about this.
“Nope. Because she’ll think I’m just trying to earn points or something. And that’s not why I’m going to Dr. Badia. At least not anymore.”
Yariel cut his eyes at me like he’d been taking private lessons from Milo as he chugged water. After smacking his lips like an ass, he opened his mouth to ream me out again.
“So she’s supposed to guess? She went through it with you, for years.
Gave you a thousand chances and she’s, what?
Going to magically figure out you got your shit together this time?
Also how do you expect her to trust you to hold it down for her with the job and be real with her when you’ve been hating on it forever?
” He shrugged, but in his eyes I could see he was worried about me.
“I mean, if I were her, I’d think that her struggles with her job were the best news ever for you. ”
I really needed to get some friends that lied to my ass on occasion.
I sighed and got up again, ready to get on with the session. “I’d never be happy about her being miserable at her job.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Damn, Yari, chill.” I put my hands up, palms out.
“I will. I mean true, in the past I would’ve just been happy to hear her wanting to do something else, but it’s not even that.
Those workshops and shit that she does are mad good.
You should see the shit she writes on her blog and talks about on her podcast.”
The last week, I’d pretty much scoured the internet for everything that Pris had ever written or recorded, and I was legit blown away. “I haven’t ever heard anyone mix social justice with sex and pop culture like that. Her shit is lit. She could probably write a book; she’s got so much to say.”
I stopped talking and noticed Yariel was rubbing his chin like he was scheming something. “What’s her website’s name?”
“Come As You Are.”
He laughed at that. “Dope. I’ll take a look, if I’m into it, I’ll tell my agent about it. This is the kind of shit she loves.”
I grinned at that and went in to give him dap. Yariel was working on a tell-all memoir about his experience as an openly gay Major League player and Dominican man, so he probably did know people that would be into Pris’s stuff.
“Bet,” I said clapping Yari’s hand hard. “Maybe if Pris can finally see that she has a real career option on her hands, she might feel differently about taking bolder steps to make it happen.”
Yariel stood up and grabbed his phone from his pocket and the goofy smile that showed up on his face told me that his boyfriend had sent him a message.
“He’s waiting for me at home.” The way Yariel said that made me ache.
That’s how I felt whenever I knew that I’d get home to find Priscilla there or that she was on her way.
It was how it had always been with her, and I was so close to getting that back.
I could feel it. I just needed to grow a pair.
I clapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the massage table. “Let me work on your deltoids for a moment and then you can shower and go see your man. And thanks for the advice, brother. You gave me some homework.”
After I’d cleaned up the machines and was heading back to the center where I had some afternoon clients, I took my phone out as I walked to my truck. I typed out a message without giving myself too much time to back out of it.
You coming by tonight?
I was thirsty and at this point it made no sense denying it.
I had to tell Pris the truth. All of it.
How I felt about her and all the ways I knew I’d let her down.
I hadn’t been the boyfriend she deserved, even at our best. I’d relied on her to do all the emotional heavy lifting.
It wasn’t enough that now I knew better, I needed to tell her, too.
I had to stop assuming she would just “see” how I’d changed.
Part of changing was being able to say shit.
When the message bubble came up, I could feel a cheesy grin just like Yariel’s from earlier blooming on my own face.
Maybe. But FYI the offer of some wine and popcorn would sweeten the deal.
I tried to count to sixty before replying, but gave up after thirty.
Done.