Winning With Him (Men of Summer 2)

“You can ask. It was actually my mom’s idea,” I tell Grant. “She suggested it about a year ago, when we were in Tokyo over the holidays. She’s been seeing someone basically since my dad left. She’s a big advocate of therapy, and she thought it could be good for me.”

“And is it? Good for you?”

“It is, but it’s really fucking hard.” I mime cracking my chest open with a can opener. “It’s like spilling your guts and hoping the people around you still want to hang out with you.”

He gives me a sympathetic smile. “Not your favorite thing to do—spilling your guts.”

I shake my head. “But I’m learning. We’re working through a lot of shit. Like the way I took everything on when I was younger, to protect my mom from my father’s downward spiral. How I tried to protect myself from him, how I put on blinders a lot of the time.”

“It’s what you had to do to get through,” he says.

“Or so I thought.”

“And now?” he asks. I’m grateful Grant’s taking this in stride, that he’s asking genuine questions, that he’s not scared off by my baggage.

“Now, I’m learning to be more open. To try to trust.” I draw a steadying breath. That word—trust—is the cornerstone of my issues.

Trust is so damn hard. But I want to get there. I want to trust that the world won’t fall apart around me. Trust that I don’t have to fix everything. Trust that I’m enough.

Grant reaches under the table for my hand, clasping it in his. “Man, I have to say I’m really happy for you. I’ve never been to a counselor, but it seems like it’s working for you. You seem like . . .”

I arch a brow. “A different person?”

He shakes his head, his tone adamant. “You don’t need to be a different person. I always liked who you were. Who you are. I think you seem like a more content version of yourself.”

“You can say it.” I goad him, squeezing his fingers.

“Say what?” He furrows his brow.

“A better version. I was kind of an ass.”

“You weren’t an ass. Not at all. If you were a jerk before, I wouldn’t have liked you. And I liked you. So much,” he says, his tone intense, then a little softer as he adds, “I just wanted to know more of you.”

“I want you to know more of me, Grant. I think I’m capable of that now,” I tell him, feeling completely vulnerable, stripping naked in a whole new way. This is what I need to do for us to have a chance. “We talk about you too.”

Surprise flits across his gorgeous blue eyes. “What do you say about me?”

“How I keep thinking about you. How I keep wondering. How nothing compares to you,” I say, my eyes never straying from his. “You’re my what-if.”

He tries to rein in a smile, but it’s futile. “You mean that?”

“Completely,” I say, then take a steadying breath, needing it for courage. “But here’s the thing.”

He winces.

I would too.

Here’s the thing usually precedes bad news.

“What’s the thing?” He lets go of my hand.

I set mine on the table. “When I started seeing Carla last May, she challenged me to really think about what I wanted to change in my life. Who I wanted to be. The type of person I want to be, and the type of man I want to feel worthy of.”

“And what type of man is that?”

“It’s not a type.” And here goes the full truth. “It’s you. I want to be worthy of you.”

Grant closes his eyes, like this is all so much. When he opens them, he breathes out harshly.

Worry snakes through me. I drag my hand along the back of my neck. “Is that too much? I’m sorry if it’s too much.”

Grant shakes his head. “No, it’s not too much. Not at all. I just feel like there’s a but coming. Maybe I’m bracing for it.”

Fair enough. He’s not entirely wrong. “The only ‘but’ is this: I promised I wouldn’t start a relationship during the first year we started diving into my issues. I’m really trying to treat it like recovery. Does that make sense?”

He tilts his head. “What do you think you’re in recovery from?”

“Loving an addict. Enabling an addict, for sure. Co-dependency. All of that, but also all the choices I made, like at the end of high school when I nearly tanked my baseball career. The regrets I have over that, and over how I ended things with you way back when. I’m trying to learn how to do things differently. I don’t want to bring all my bad habits into a new relationship. I want a real chance.”

Grant slides his fingers through his thick hair as he does when he’s thinking, absorbing new info. “And you want that with me?”