Page 18 of Built to Last

“I’m a grumpy asshole,” I said.

“You are not,” Sam said, rolling his eyes. “You’re strong and confident and sure of yourself. Any guy would be happy to be with you.”

“You have to say that because you’re my brother.”

“I have to say it because it’s true,” Sam said. “So stop selling yourself short and maybe try thinking of some ways you can right the wrongs of the past, or at least find some sort of happier closure than what you have.”

He stood as he finished, indicating the conversation was over. We both had work to do anyhow.

“I’ll think about it,” I said, straightening and facing my computer.

I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be able to think about anything else.

CHAPTER 6

Kyle

Ididn’t like the ends of things. Whenever I approached the end of a construction project, I got antsy. Even when I had new projects lined up, like I did now, I always walked around in an anxious chokehold as things started to wrap up. And the Glenside Ave shop was more or less wrapped up with only minor details and inspection left before I drove the RV away for the last time.

Couple that with the fact that the baseball season was down to the final game, too, and I was a bristling ball of nerves as I strode across the parking lot and over to the bench where the Walruses were warming up.

“It’s gonna be a great game tonight,” Hiro, our ace first baseman, greeted me with a wide smile and a slap on the back as I joined my team for warm-ups. “We’re counting on that arm of yours to win it for us.”

I laughed, pretending everything was easy and friendly, and that I wasn’t walking on eggshells and peeking out of the corner of my eye to see if Gilbert had arrived at the ballpark yet.

He had, of course, and as soon as I spotted him stretching and chatting with a couple of his teammates, my insides did all sorts of things that made me wish I hadn’t eaten such a heavy dinner before stepping out of the safe world of my RV.

“I’ll do my best,” I said, rotating my arm to stretch out my shoulder and warm up the muscles. “The Walruses didn’t get to the championship game with just my pitching, though.”

“Damn right,” Smitty, one of our outfielders and star batsmen, announced behind me, then made a ridiculous walrus sound. A bunch of the others laughed and barked with him.

I did, too, but that laughter was only surface deep. I stole another glance at Gilbert, who seemed tenser than he’d been a minute before. When he peeked up and caught me staring, I knew why.

Fuck. This was going to be harder than I’d anticipated. And I didn’t even know what “this” was. All I knew was that for the last few days, as the electric was finished and my crew and I started to wind down the project and hand things over to Marco, Gilbert had been jumpy and weird around me. And not in the same way he’d had such a hair trigger on his temper for the last few months. Stranger still, he’d been in my orbit, working outside or walking past to check out the shop more often instead of less.

It would have been easier to handle if I hadn’t also been a gyrating ball of nerves for the last few days. I should have acclimated to having a guy I had a history with so close by. The oddness of it all should have eased up, leaving me bored with the past and ready to move on. I’d never been the kind of guy to get hung up on a past hook-up. I couldn’t afford to be that guy now.

“Earth to Kyle.”

I blinked and jerked around to face Hiro, flushing hot at having missed that he was talking to me. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “You were saying?”

Hiro grinned and handed over the glove he was trying to offer me. “I said that I’m going to miss the way that you and Meyers are always eye-fucking across the diamond once the season is over.”

For a second, I thought I’d spontaneously combusted. “Excuse me?”

Hiro went from smirking to freezing in a nanosecond. “Shit, sorry,” he said. “I thought the two of you were an item or something.”

“We’re…no. What gave you that idea?” My heart thundered against my ribs, and every fear of being outed, shamed, and canceled that had ever tormented me flared to the surface.

“I’m really sorry,” Hiro went on. “I thought—well, that doesn’t really matter, I guess. My brother is gay and I clocked a few similarities. I was just guessing, and⁠—”

“It’s okay,” I said, even though it wasn’t. At least, it wasn’t okay for me. I didn’t give a fuck whether Hiro’s brother was gay or whether the man thought he had a great gaydar. If he’d figured me out, then he really did have a sharp gaydar.

“Let’s all run a few laps to get limber,” Lon called out, gesturing for us to head out to the field.

I was more than glad to go. I needed to run to get rid of the frantic energy that was trying to take over and blow my concentration entirely.

It wasn’t until I was jogging around the far end of the field that it dawned on me I hadn’t contradicted Hiro. He might have still thought I was gay because I hadn’t outright told him I wasn’t.