He squeezes my hand, presses a gentle kiss to my shoulder before resting his head there again. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. but I can’t change the past. That’s what Fred taught me. All I could change was my future. And so I did, thanks to him.”
We sit in silence for a long time as I stare up at the stars, unburdened, relieved to have told Oliver everything Pauline said I needed to. Damn her, she was right.
His voice soft and gentle, Oliver breaks the silence as he says, “I know you already have the world’s admiration. You know you have mine. But, for what it’s worth, knowing what I do now, I admire you so much more for this, Gavin: for having found something to hold on to when a lot of people would have understandably given up, for letting a stranger love you when the people who should have loved you best failed you most. That’s a greater courage, a deeper strength, than anything you have or will ever show on a field.”
My heart aches, love stretching it at the seams as I press my forehead to his. “Thank you.”
Tipping his head, Oliver brushes noses with me, then presses a kiss to my lips.
When he sits back, fingers threading through my hair, he says, “Fred inspired your support program for kids, didn’t he?”
“How do you know about that?”
He shrugs, smiling coyly. “I have my resources.” Scooting closer, he says, “Fred gave you more than soccer. He gave you hope, and you were brave enough to take it and run. That’s what you want to give kids.”
I grumble something noncommittal, feigning deep interest in retying my swim trunks’ drawstring.
Oliver kisses my cheek. “I’m sure he’s so proud of you, Gavin.”
“He was.”
“What do you mean by that?”
The words rush out of me, angry, unstoppable. “That…fucker didn’t tell me he was dying. He didn’t tell me. He kept it from me, until he was on death’s doorstep.”
“Oh, Gavin.” Oliver sits up straight in the water and faces me fully. “God, I’m sorry.”
“He said he was protecting me, that I had no business sitting around, pissing away a season, watching him die,” I growl, roughly wiping my eyes. “It’s been fifteen fucking years, and I’m still so angry with him.”
Oliver pulls me into his arms, until my head hits his shoulder, buried in the crook of his neck. “Of course you are.”
“He was the one person who was supposed to love me and not fuck it up, and he did it anyway. He kept his sickness from me. Because my career was what mattered more to him. My career was what made me matter. All anyone’s ever seen or cared about me is my brilliance in fucking soccer. My career ending, it’s so much more than just losing something I poured my heart into for decades. It’s taking away the one thing I’ve ever been able to count on. Except…”
I pull away, just enough to meet his eyes, to clasp his face as I tell him, “Except you. I need you to know this. I will fuck up. I will get growly and freaked out, and I will panic as I adjust to this next part of my life. But I love you. I choose you. I choose us. I will fight with everything I have for us. And maybe knowing this shit that is my past will make it a little easier when I’m a fuckup. That’s…that’s what I wanted you to know.”
Gently, Oliver eases through the water, straddles my waist, legs bent on either side of my hips. Now it’s his turn to cup my face. “I don’t scare so easily. I’m not going to dip the first time you bite my head off—newsflash, you already have plenty the past two years, and here I am.”
I grumble miserably and drop my forehead to his shoulder. Oliver presses a kiss to the crown of my head and says, “I love you, Gavin Hayes. Soccer or not. Fifty million bucks to your name or a five-dollar bill. And Fred loved you, too.”
“Some way of showing it.”
Oliver nods. “He messed up. Sometimes people do very foolish things when they love someone. It doesn’t mean he loved you less. It means he loved you imperfectly. I’m going to mess up, sometimes, and love you imperfectly, too. I don’t want to, but, hard as it is to believe, I am a mere mortal.”
I lift my head, eyebrow arched. “I’ve seen your set piece execution; I remember.”
A smile lifts his mouth. “We’re both going to mess up. And that’s scary. But I think it’s okay to be a little scared, maybe it’s even good. It means we know what’s in our hands, how precious it is.” He sets his hand over my chest, his palm warm and heavy. “Our hearts.”
I swallow roughly, jaw clenched, eyes wet. “I’ll keep you safe,” I tell him. “I’ll love you with everything I can.”
“I know. And I’ll keep you safe, too. And I’ll make sure you never doubt what you mean to me. I’ll tell you loud and often, as free as the wind on my skin, the sun and the stars lighting up the sky. I’ll tell you that I love you, your tired legs and your aching back. That I love you when you walk off that field for good and when you step onto it in a new way because you simply can’t walk away from it, not yet, maybe not ever.
“I’ll tell you that I love you when I’m old and you’re older. That I love how you hate color but you love it on me. That I love how you love the ones most people overlook: the incontinent cats, the lonely grandpas, the curious, chatty kids. I’ll tell you that I love how deeply you love others even when you are afraid to. That I love you for bravely showing me love when you didn’t know what it was, but you knew I needed it, and you needed it, too.
“I will never let you doubt, Gavin Hayes, that no matter what life brings us, I love that you exist, in all the slim chances of time and space, that you are here, now, with me. I will spend as long as we have, so unbelievably thankful I found you.”
My eyes well. Slowly, I pull Oliver close. Our mouths brush, soft, warm. I breathe him in, hold him close, breathing out, slow and unsteady.
Brushing back my hair from my eyes, he traces my beard along my neck, my cheekbones. Then he wraps his arms around my neck and kisses me, hard and promising. I groan as my body hardens and burns awake for him.
“What hurts?” he asks.
I smile at him, drifting my hands down his back. “You tell me.” I move my hips, so he feels me, ready beneath him
“Here?” Oliver asks.
I shake my head. “Inside.”
We stand, both a bit unsteady, and step out of the tub. I wince as I take my first step across the deck. God, my back’s a mess. Suddenly, that surgery I’ve been dreading, the one that Dr. Chen told me is absolutely necessary for the multiple disc herniations in my lower vertebrae, sounds incredibly appealing.
Towels around our waists, we enter the house through the sliding glass doors. I stop almost immediately, noticing the fire Oliver built.
“Not that your butt was out of bed long enough to notice yesterday,” he says, “but the nights are still cool here, even though it’s warm in the daytime. I figured a fire might feel nice.”
I take in the great room of the A-frame—well, really it’s a massive cabin with an A-frame at its heart that’s been updated and sprawled into much more, cozy and comfortable, rustic simplicity. The great room is lined with bookshelves, gorgeous modern art that Oliver’s explained is his brother Axel’s, and lots of family photos. The fire in the hearth snaps and illuminates a plush sofa that could easily hold a dozen people.