“You should go and hang out,” I told Danny. It was clear Elijah missed spending time with his friend.

“Nah, you were busy. It’s fine,” Shaw said, and these little wrinkles appeared on his forehead as he studied me. It was uncomfortable, so I looked at Danny, who scratched his ear, then tugged on it, as if he didn’t know what to do.

“I need to go see Will anyway,” I lied, though technically not, because I did need to, but I hadn’t been planning it and probably wouldn’t be going over there if Shaw and Elijah hadn’t seen us. It was stupid that I was keeping a baseball team secret from my brother. I didn’t know why I did stuff like that. Why should it matter? But when you hid a big part of yourself for most of your life, it was hard to flip a switch and change.

“Are you sure you didn’t want to finish up what we were talking about?” Danny asked, but the truth was, I’d been done talking and had almost mauled his face, which wasn’t smart. Still…I’d never kissed a guy I’d known…except I liked Danny in a different way. Nope. I needed to send that train of thought out of the fucking station.

“No, it’s cool. I was done anyway.”

Danny frowned, then said, “Come up while I get cleaned up.”

Elijah and Shaw went to our apartment with us. I went straight to my room, got clothes, and went for a shower. I basically jumped in and out again, just to rinse the sweat and dirt off myself. When I finished, I could see Shaw sitting on Danny’s bed, could hear Elijah and Danny chatting while Danny was in the bathroom.

I grabbed my shit and left without saying goodbye.

I’d almost kissed Danny.

I hated that I hadn’t.

Stop thinking about that. Stop, stop, stop.

I took in my surroundings as I walked. One of the things I liked most about Midtown was that I rarely had to drive—well, outside of deliveries at work.

It didn’t take me long to get to Will and Jameson’s place. I hadn’t called first, so I had no idea if they were even home. I knocked on the door to their condo. It was in a really nice neighborhood and more than I could afford. Jameson’s dad had a lot of money and helped his son while he was working on his PhD, and Will had a good job at Jameson’s father’s company.

My brother opened the door, standing there in a pair of basketball shorts and no shirt. Jameson was sitting on the couch, reading a book.

I didn’t have a set plan for what I’d say. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what in the fuck would come out, so I just opened my mouth and hoped for the best. “I’m on a gay baseball team with Danny. We’ve been practicing for two weeks, and today was our first game. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you.”

“Did you win?” Will asked.

“Hell yeah. I hit the game-winning home run.”

“Nice!” He held up his hand for me. I gave him a high five, and…that was it. He didn’t look at me weird for being on a gay team, but why would he? And he didn’t give me shit for not telling him, because he knew me. He just signaled for me to come inside, and I did.

There were no words for how thankful I was for Will.

“If you don’t mind, we’d love to go to one of your games sometime.” Jameson set his book down, and I realized then just how much I really wanted that.

“Yeah, definitely. I’ll give you guys my schedule, and we can figure something out.”

I sat in one of the chairs. Will lay on the couch, with his head in Jameson’s lap. I couldn’t help watching them for a minute, so comfortable with each other. I’d never had that. Never thought I would want it, but…did I? Maybe I did.

Fuck.

I shook those thoughts from my head.

“How’d the team thing come about?” Will asked.

“It was Danny’s idea. I was iffy at first. He has all these plans to…hell, I don’t even know. It’s crazy, but the baseball thing stuck. It felt good being out there today, ya know?”

Will smiled, twined his fingers with Jameson’s, and said, “Yeah, brother, I know. I’m happy for you.”

I was happy for me too.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Danny

Over the next few days, things were both the same and not. I’d BS’d my way through the Shaw and Eli inquisition on me and Jonathan. I hadn’t lied. We weren’t fucking around, and I didn’t think we’d fuck around, despite what I was pretty sure had been a near kiss. I’d skirted around the accusations of wanting him. I’d never had to do something like that before because it had never mattered who I wanted to fuck before.

Tags: Riley Hart Stumbling into Love Romance
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