I invited Mason inside while I grabbed some beer and a blanket out of the house, but he said he preferred to wait outside. When I came back outside, he’d wandered to the back of the property and was staring at the darkness of the lake. “Now do you see why I like coming out here? It has nothing to do with who owns the property; it’s all about the view.”
“Well, it’s not much to look at right now,” he responded sarcastically.
“No, but it’s still one of the most peaceful places in the area,” I said, leading him down the wooden staircase to the private beach. “If you want, we’ll come back sometime during the day and then you can see why I love it the way I do.”
“We’ll see.” It hadn’t been my intention to upset him or throw Eric in his face, but I could tell he was annoyed with me. I spread out the blanket and sat, pulling Mason down with me.
Neither of us said anything for a while as we listened to the water rolling onto the sand. The gentle breeze cut through the humidity of earlier in the day, giving the air a slight chill.
I scooted closer to Mason and started massaging the back of his neck. He was a ball of stress and I needed to know none of that was because of me.
“Hey, what’s going on up there?” I asked, kissing the side of his head.
“Have you ever opened your eyes in the morning and wondered what happened to the life you thought you’d have?” he asked as I opened a bottle of beer and handed it to him. It wasn’t the best idea for him to drink since I knew he had painkillers, but I also knew he didn’t like taking them. It wasn’t my job to parent him.
I honestly hadn’t. I knew from a young age that playing ball was the only thing I wanted to do. As soon as I admitted to myself that I was gay, it never crossed my mind to come out, because I thought it’d somehow make me seem like less of a man in the eyes of the scouts. That pissed me off, but you’d have to be blind and deaf not to understand that locker rooms weren’t the most accepting places in the world, so I kept quiet. I never stooped to the point of dating women as a cover, but there were times I’d flirt just to keep up appearances and I hated every minute of it.
While there were aspects of my life I didn’t necessarily love, I was willing to make concessions to make my dreams possible. At least I had been, but now that was changing.
“I think it’s normal to wonder what your life could have been like if you’d made different choices, but why doyoufeel that way?” I asked, trying to avoid saying anything to further upset him.
“Before this year, I thought I had everything I wanted. No, my marriage wasn’t great, but I kept telling myself that it’d eventually get better,” he admitted. “I did what needed to be done, even though I wasn’t happy.”
“Okay, but you took steps to change that,” I reminded him. “I guess I’m a bit confused. How is your life so far off-track in your mind?”
This was so not the conversation I’d wanted to have, but I told myself this was what couples did. They talked about whatever was bothering them and worked together to find solutions. And I was the one who mentioned the C word, so I had to shut up and listen.
I slid my hand down to Mason’s lower back, slowly lifting the fabric so I could press my palm against his hot flesh. I needed that connection to him because I feared this was the moment when he was going to tell me that I was the bump in his path and he couldn’t be with me.
“I can still remember the first time I picked up a ball. My dad has never been the athletic type, but we found one in the park,” he told me. “There was no one around, so I figured some kid forgot it when he went home. Anyway, I begged my dad to play catch with me. He wasn’t going to at first, but he did.
“I had to practice for a while before I was any good, but Dad spent hours working with me after he saw how well I threw the ball. I knew he’d rather be taking me on nature hikes or camping trips, but he worked with me every single night in our backyard until I was good enough to join the rec league.”
As Mason shared this bit of his childhood with me, he leaned into my side and wrapped his arms around my middle. “Sounds like a good time, so why are you upset?”
I’d have given anything to have a father willing to play catch with me. My dad was okay with me wanting to join little league, as long as it didn’t interfere with my schoolwork. When I got a baseball scholarship, he reminded me that college was still for academics, not sports.
When I dropped out after my junior year, I thought his head was going to explode even though I did so with a nice signing bonus and a baseball contract. Our already strained relationship would likely never heal from the damage caused by my going against his wishes.
“I always wanted to be able to do the same with my kid,” he admitted. “If there’s one thing I ever wanted to do more than play ball, it was be a family man. Now, I’m pretty sure Chicago won’t renew my contract after this year because my stats are in the gutter and it doesn’t look like the family thing is going to work out for me, either. Hell, if the rumor mill is accurate, I may not even make it to the end of the year.”
“Mace, we all have ups and downs,” I told him, ignoring the bit about the rumors. I’d heard them as well, but I couldn’t think about him being shipped off somewhere else.
With how hard I took Eric’s departure, there was no doubt in my mind it’d kill me to say goodbye to Mason when we were starting to build something good. “So you’re having a rough year, it happens. That doesn’t mean your career is over. And how many guys do you know who get divorced and move on to find someone else? You’ll do the same.”
Just saying the words twisted like a knife in my heart. I didn’t want him to find the next Mrs. Atley, even if there was a woman out there who’d be the perfect mother to his future children. I wanted to be enough for him.
“That’s the problem,” he growled, a bit louder and more animated. “Up until a week ago, I would have agreed with you. Now, I can’t imagine playing for another team and I have to accept that I’m never going to have what I always thought I wanted.”
“Why in the hell not?” I asked.
“Because now, when I close my eyes, you’re the one I think about,” he admitted. “You’re the one I want to be with and that means letting go of what I thought I wanted.”
“Mace, you can’t give up your own dreams for anyone, not even me.” I wouldn’t let him. As much as it’d kill me, if it came down to it, I’d walk away rather than let him spend the rest of his life resenting me for what he didn’t have.
Obviously, that was the wrong thing to say because Mason lurched off the ground and stood over me, breathing heavily as he glared down at me. “But what if this is all part of growing up? What if dreams naturally change as we learn and grow? Hell, when I was five, I thought I’d be an astronaut, but that didn’t happen. Maybe baseball is something I did for a while, but it’s time to follow other dreams. More important dreams.”
“Mason, we’re not just talking about baseball here, this is your whole life,” I argued, my heart breaking a little more with every word.
