I wince.
“Or maybe you don’t like flowers,” Avery says, reading my expression quickly.
“They’re fine.” What the hell can I say?
Oh, hey, hyacinths remind me of this story a guy told me late one night in bed, about Apollo and his lover who turned into a hyacinth, and now I can’t live near some blue flowers.
Yeah, that sounds great. I go with, “The view is great. Nice neighborhood too.”
“There’s a great organic cafe around the corner. It’s hard to beat if you like that type of food,” she says.
I give her a faint smile as I check out the kitchen. “That’s great.”
Fitz’s husband hooked me up with Avery. Dean met her at his bar and she gets high marks from the referral service for gay- and gay-friendly realtors in the city. Avery has busted her ass so far. When I called her from Florida a few days ago and said I needed a short-term rental in the city immediately, in just a few hours, she found me a place to rent for the first month here.
Now, on my one day off before the season opener, she’s taken me to six places. She’s an Energizer bunny of a realtor. Nothing seems to get her down, even though I haven’t fallen for any of the apartments for sale.
Maybe I’m not in the mood to like anything. Perhaps my wiring isn’t working that way right now.
She keeps talking as she gazes out the window. “I’m partial to the park, of course. My wife and I were married there.”
“That’s great,” I say listlessly.
That seems to be all I can manage. That’s great. That’s great. That’s great. It sounds so hollow, but that’s been my mood.
“Sorry,” I say with more vim and vigor this time. “It is great.”
At least, I hope I’m vimming and vigoring.
Avery flashes a bright smile. “Let’s check out the rest of the place. How do you think you’ll like playing in New York City?”
“Hard to say. I’ve only ever played as a visiting team. Sorry about that,” I say.
She gives me a curious look, then she waves aside the apology. “Nothing to be sorry for. Not so long as you get us the World Series.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Avery chatters more about the building, undeterred by my mood. She’s been undeterred all morning—high marks indeed.
When we head into the bedroom, I stare at the empty space, imagining what it would look like with a king-size bed.
Imagining the bed.
Imagining the company—and I don’t mean for sex.
I mean the falling asleep with someone. The waking up with someone. The November with someone.
I look away, turning to the main bath.
“Do you like it?” Avery asks as I pass her.
I give a half-hearted shrug. “When can I move in?”
She shoots me a sympathetic look. “Are you sure, Declan? You don’t seem crazy about it.”
It’s funny, the realtor’s concern. I didn’t expect someone trying to sell me something to care about my state of mind.
But maybe it’s just that obvious. Maybe I need to try harder to move on.
I wish I were as good at ignoring shit as I want to be.
“Yeah. It’s just something I need to do.” I pat the doorway to the bathroom. “This’ll do.”
“This will be your home. It’s a big deal. It shouldn’t just ‘do.’ I’m happy to show you as many places as you want to see,” she says. “Do you want to see something in Chelsea or the West Village where there’s more of a scene, maybe?”
I shudder, hating the thought. “No. I actually like being closer to work.” The Upper East Side has the benefit of proximity to the ballpark in the Bronx.
“If you want it, we can move forward and close in a month.”
Permanent.
I would own this pad.
But that’s what this is—my new permanent life in New York. Three thousand miles away from family. Three thousand miles away from my father. And three thousand miles away from the man I miss.
But it’s also across the street from those fucking hyacinths, and I can’t. I just can’t be that close.
“You’re right,” I say. "Show me something else.”
She sweeps her hand toward the door. “We’ve got a whole city to tackle.”
The next place is off Park Avenue, with a view of the East River. The kitchen is modern, the living room is spacious, and the building has a private gym. It’s a block away from a great sushi place, she says.
But mostly it’s the view I’m buying.
Or really, the view I’m not buying.
“I’ll take it,” I say, and try to focus on what I’ll enjoy about this new place. The same thing I hate about it. That it’s three thousand miles away from San Francisco.
Later that day, I head to meet my mom and her husband for lunch. I bought tickets for them both to come out here for Opening Day, and they arrived last night. I picked this restaurant in the fifties for Tyler—he is second generation Korean-American and loves to check out Korean spots wherever he travels.