The Love Series Complete Box Set (109 page)

“Ehh, it’s not perfect, but I’m glad I was finally able to come up with something.”

“It’s chocolate and icing—that’s all a one-year-old needs.” He kisses my temple and carries the cake out to Braden who’s strapped into his high chair out on the back deck.

Reid and I stand next to Braden who looks more than shell-shocked when everyone starts singing. But at the end of the song, when everyone starts clapping, Braden brings his chubby little hands together and claps along with them. He just stares at his cake for a minute, like he doesn’t know what to do. Leave it to Reid to show him, though.

“Like this, B,” he says as he swipes his finger through the icing and right onto my cheek. I watch Reid lick the icing from his finger, more than a little shocked he just cake-faced me. Going in for the kill, I grab a handful of cake and toss it at him. Agile as ever, he ducks and it lands in Melanie’s hair.

She grabs a cupcake from the table next to her and launches it me. When it hits me square in the chest, Momma calls out, “Stop . . .” But before she can get any more words out, Evan squishes a cupcake on the top of her head. She turns quickly on her heels and shoots Evan a death stare quickly followed by a fit of laughter. “Oh, that’s it, Ev!” she calls out as she smashes a cupcake into his cheek. Reid’s busy watching the food-fight he just started. Catching him off-guard, I manage to smear a handful of cake into his face. He quickly repays the favor while managing to leave a streak of icing across my chest.

Through it all, Braden catches on, and by the time we look over at him, he’s covered in icing from ear-to-ear. Everyone “ohhs” and “ahhs” at how cute he’s being when he licks his fingers and says, “Mmmm.”

Calling a truce, Reid and I stand next to Braden and each kiss a cheek—another perfect snapshot to add to our growing list of happy memories.

When most of the chaos of our little food-fight calms, Momma takes Braden inside to wash him up. Reid hands me a napkin and leans into my ear. With a seductive lilt to his voice, he whispers, “Can I lick you clean?”

“Maybe. Under one condition, though?” His eyes widen a little and I know he must be recalling what we did only hours ago.

“Anything, you name it,” he mumbles his words against my ear and chills race across my skin.

“No more dutch ovens.” Reid taps his frosting-covered lower lip as if he’s actually weighing his options, before he plants a slow, sweet kiss to my lips.

“I think that can be arranged.”

He grins at me goofily, but when I pull his ear down to my lips and whisper, “Good, then you can lick me all you want.” His smile is replaced by a look of surprise.

Leaving him standing there, slack-jawed and shocked, I sit with Braden, who is now somewhat clean, so that he can open his presents. Of course, he finds the wrapping paper more entertaining than the toys themselves.

After everyone leaves and all of the gifts and leftovers are packed in the Jeep, we say our goodbyes and head home. Braden falls asleep on the ride home and Reid and I get lost in sharing some of our happiest, and funniest, memories of the past year.

Once everything is unloaded and Braden is in his crib, I turn on the shower and call out to Reid who is sitting on the couch in the living room.

“Wanna join me?” I make a “come hither” motion with my finger as I crack the door opened just enough for him to catch a glimpse of me naked. If he was less coordinated, he might have tripped over his own two feet as he launched himself from the couch to race toward me.

It’s a perfect way to bookend a perfect day.

Chapter 4

Fall

Late October 2014

“You think you could actually hit the ball out of the infield this time?” I toss Bryan a bat as he shoots me the “shut the fuck up” face.

“Would you leave him alone?” Dylan, the team captain and always the diplomat, claps Bryan on the shoulder. “Reid once broke his nose because the ball he’d just bunted bounced off the plate and popped him right in the face.” Of course, Dylan and Bryan share a laugh at my expense, but that was actually pretty funny. Except for the shit-storm I caught from my father about not being in proper form and how I could have won the game for my team if I knew what the fuck I was doing.

Nothing like a little encouragement from your old man, huh?

When the umpire calls “batter up,” Bryan takes one last practice swing. Leaning up against the fence, Dylan coaches Bryan through his at-bat and he actually manages to get a base hit. All kidding aside, Dylan’s a great coach.

“Thanks for letting him join.” I hold up one finger to Bryan to remind him there’s only one out. Without turning around, I angle my head to the bleachers behind us where Maddy and Melanie are cheering us on. “It means a lot to the girls, and to me.”

“Anytime, man. Besides we needed an extra player otherwise the team would have had to forfeit the season.” The Bridge, where Dylan and I work as Gay-Straight Alliance advocates, has always put up a company softball team in the local fall-ball league. I played last year and I can’t even begin to explain the memories that came to the surface. Being on the field again with Dylan, made me miss Shane so much that there were some days I thought of quitting. But when Maddy reminded me that Shane would be happier with me being on the field than at home angry over him being gone, I knew that I had to stay.

The batter after Bryan manages a single and Bryan squeezes an extra base off a throwing error. With only one out and our strongest player at bat, Todd, who is pretty much two-hundred-and-fifty-pounds of solid muscle, our chances of winning this game, and the league championship, are fairly decent.

Just as expected, Todd lifts a fly ball into left field. Bryan watches it soar overhead and starts running for home. The left-fielder is crazy fast and before Bryan even realizes it, he is in position to catch the ball; he’s just standing out there waiting for it to drop in his glove. Dylan and I are flailing our arms and yelling, “Go back! Go back!” He’s still not familiar with all of the rules of the game, so Bryan stops in the middle of the baseline and just stares at us with a dumbfounded look on his face. “Dude, go back!” I call out one last time before he seems to recall his running error.

Who the hell could have predicted what happens next, but all of a sudden, the left-fielder trips over his own feet or a large rock or something like that, and the ball drops to the ground next to him. Dylan and I resume yelling for Bryan to run. Confusion sets in on Bryan who hasn’t yet figured out the ball was not caught. Behind me, I hear Melanie screaming for Bryan to slide as the center fielder, who was backing up the play, launches the ball towards home plate. Clapping, yelling, screaming, general chaos ensues as both Bryan and the ball arrive at home plate at the same time. The softball gods must be on our side today, because by some miracle, Bryan slides his foot around the catcher and somehow completely avoids the tag.

“Safe!” The umpire yells out as he slashes his arms through the air. Bryan jumps up from his slide only to be tackled to the ground by the rest of the team. Before he even sees it coming, one of the guys has the water cooler hoisted up over his shoulder, ready to dump it on Bryan’s head.

“Ah, fuck! That’s cold!”

“Better you than me,” I laugh as I hand him his hat that got lost in the pile up after the play at the plate.

“Way to go, Bry!” Dylan high fives Bryan and the rest of the team follows. The umpire hands us our championship plaque and we line up quickly to take a picture for the office. It’s our third year in a row as league champions and it’s fair to say that Bryan has won himself a spot on the team from here on out.

After the picture is taken and most of the guys head out to their cars, Dylan, Bryan and I grab the last of the gear. “Great game, guys.” Maddy and Melanie come over to us as we’re packing up the last of our things. Braden is sitting up in his stroller playing with some of his toys. Reaching up on her toes, Maddy plants a quick kiss on my cheek and surprises me more than a little when she slaps my ass.

“No thanks to Bryan’s superb base running skills,” Dylan jokingly punches him on the arm.

“Whatever.” He chugs down his water as Melanie wraps her arm around his waist.

“I thought you were great!” I know Melanie means well, but publicly defending your boyfriend’s non-existent softball skills is only going to make him the butt of more of our jokes.

We all walk out to the parking lot as a group. “You guys want to grab a beer down at Murray’s?” Dylan asks over the hood of his car. A few of our other teammates decided to head home, needing to ice and rest before work tomorrow morning, but Todd and a couple other guys are heading to the bar. Bryan and I look at Maddy and Melanie seeking approval without really wanting to ask for it—yeah, I guess you could say we’re a little whipped.

Whatever, I enjoy sex and I fully intend to get some tonight. So pissing Maddy off isn’t exactly on my radar. Besides, I know that when Dylan asks to head out for a few drinks, he really needs to talk.

I can’t ever say ‘no’ to him when he needs to get something off his chest.

Answering our silent question, Maddy grabs the keys to the Jeep. “Yeah, go have fun. We’ll see you guys in a bit.” I help her get Braden is his seat and toss Bryan a dry shirt from my gym bag.

“I promise I won’t be late.” As I lean through the window and kiss her goodbye, she mumbles against my lips, “You better not be.” She winks at me seductively before her and Melanie pull away.

We each grab a stool at the bar and order a Bud while mindlessly zoning out to ESPN. There isn’t much to guys’ conversation on a Sunday afternoon in a bar. Really, the main reason we go is to get away from talking. There’s something so very relaxing about just being out with the guys watching a game on TV—any game, really—and not having to say a word.

About an hour after we arrive, Bryan finishes the last of his one and only beer. “I’m out, guys.” He slides his stool forward. “I’m going to catch a ride with Todd. I’ve got class in the morning and so does Melanie. I’ll see you next weekend, yeah?”

“Sure thing, man. Great job today,” Dylan calls out over his shoulder without really taking his eyes off the screen above the bar.

The bar erupts into loud screams and cheers as the playoff game ends in a walk-off homerun. Dylan orders another drink, and when the volume level returns to normal, he clears his throat.

“So, I got a call in the office on Friday.” The quiet and unsure quality of his voice immediately sets me on edge. I twist in my seat to face him and silently prompt him to continue.

“It was on the support line and the caller didn’t give a name, but I swear I knew who it was.” He takes a swig of his beer as he seems to mentally flip through the hundreds of students we’ve met since the school year started in September.

“Dylan, there’s no way you could know. We visit at least two schools a week and it’s been what, like five weeks now since we started our fall assemblies?”

Scrubbing his hand over his face, he puffs out a deep, frustrated breath. “Yeah, I know. But when I heard her voice on the line, it just sounded so familiar. She was so sad. I could hear her pain. I could tell she was crying, but before I could get her to say much of anything, she hung up.”

“Maybe it’ll come to you.” I finish off the last of my beer and slide my glass over to the bartender.

Dylan’s eyebrows are furrowed together and he looks like he’s scanning the bar top to try and read something written there in invisible ink. “I think . . . I mean, I could be making this up, but I think before she said she was an anonymous caller, it sounded like her name was on the tip of her tongue.”

“Did she say anything else that would give you some kind of clue? A friend’s name or something like that?”

I can tell he’s mentally replaying the conversation, so when the light bulb goes off over his head, I grin and wait for him to share.

“She said ‘Cane would kill me if he knew I was calling.’ After that, I couldn’t make out anything because she was sobbing so badly. Then, the line went dead.”

“Cane? You sure?” I need to double check, make sure my ears aren’t playing tricks on me.

“Yeah, I’m certain because I remember thinking I wish she’d give me her name too so that I could put it all together and go help her out some more.”

“There was a kid in my group last week at Lincoln Memorial whose name was Cane. It can’t be all that common of a name, can it?” I clearly remember the kid too. Tall and skinny, dressed in a punk-rock inspired wardrobe from head to toe. He stayed after the assembly when I held a voluntary group session. Kids rarely open up much during those, but not Cane. He was angry and clearly hurting. I did my best to try to talk him through his pain, to get him to open up, but when he saw the other kids sitting there wide-eyed and shocked, he shut his mouth and practically stormed out of the room.

“Why don’t we talk to everyone who helps with the support line to keep their eyes out for the number that called on Friday, or anything within the same area code? If any of the callers mention anything about Lincoln Memorial, then maybe we can get in touch with the principal and go back into the school.” I offer up a lame smile hoping that it will help calm his racing brain, but I know it won’t. Dylan cares about the kids we meet more than anyone I know. He really takes their issues to heart.