It's a poor attempt at a joke, but I see the disappointment on Mateo's face when I turn to look at him. I push myself off the couch and chase him because it's all I know. He waits because he's done what I've asked for far too long. He attempts to busy himself with dirty dishes the closer I get, but I just shake my head and he gives up. I watch him rinse and dry his hands as I step around the island, and he uses the blanket I forgot was around my shoulders to pull me into him.
"You're going back soon, right?" he asks.
"I have to. It's myjob."
"The season's over."
"Sure, for the guys on the team. You know I have more responsibilities than that."
Mateo snorts. "Yeah, I also know you need to take it easy for a while, but you're gonna push yourself past this no matter what you should do."
"I gotta say, it's nice to have something I can push past." I'm referring to my fucked up leg, but it sounds a little like I'm talking about falling in love with him, and he flinches. "No. Wait. Thatwasn't—"
"It's fine."
I drop my head onto his shoulder. "Why do we keep doing this? It's always so easy with us right up until it's not. We should know how to be friends by now. We still love each other. Iknowwe do. Nothing has changed, so why is this still so hard?"
"Because nothing has changed," he says, too fucking tender when he reaches between us to tilt my chin upward. The tears in his eyes are almost unbearable. "It's so easy when we're alone, but we've never learned how to let the outside in. We've never really been allowed to try."
"And we can't try today."
"No," Mateo agrees. "But I'll go home and get some clothes and anything else I need, and then I'll stay here until you leave. I think it's your turn to walk away."
It's strange, the specific way those words sting. He's not putting all the blame on me, even if I think that's where most of it belongs. Mateo's acknowledging the hug on the dock and all the times he's held lines I would've crossed for the chance to love him and wreck us. He's telling me now that he'd stay even longer if it weren't for the fact that I've chosen hockey over him every time. He's also being loud about his choice to watch me go.
I won’t let it happen for a while.
Most of that night is spent in the comfortable silence around my uncomfortable coughing fits. My fever is gone, and neither of us is left sweaty when we share my bed and keep bare skin against bare skin.
The next few days are filled with Mateo’s home-cooked meals, comfort movie marathons, and several trips to the backyard to soak in my hot tub. We talk about a hundred different things while we avoid details that could give the wrong things away. He's broughtme a stuffed penguin from a spring break everyone else has probably forgotten, and it’s softer than I remember.
We're not nobody anymore, so I can tell him when Harper texts me about several interviews she's lined up for teaching positions in the L.A. area. I understand little about Simon's job, other than it being some super techy app programming thing, but I know he's been willing to move to Southern California if that's where Harper ends up. The implications of that remain clear enough—even if Simon doesn't propose, he's incredibly committed to their future. When I catch Mateo's smile, it's as genuine as mine.
To celebrate her college graduation, Harper and I are going on a romp through Europe. Telling Mateo about that earns me another grin. It’s almost enough reason to invite him along with us, or at least to the graduation ceremony, but neither invitation is wholly mine to extend. Besides, I’m selfish enough to want alone time with each of them. Quieting, I press my body against Mateo’s, waiting for the stories he has to share.
I get to hear a lot about his family and the time he's spent with them over the past couple of years. Everyone is happy and healthy. I'm glad the wounds from his grandfather's life and his grandmother's death have healed as well as anything like that ever does. He’s more excited than I’ve seen him in a while when he tells me he’ll be taking his nieces and nephews on a multi-week cross-country road trip during the summer.
“Will I hear from you while you’re gone?” I ask.
“Should I call you when I’m standing next to America’s biggest ball of twine?”
Imagining him there is enough to make me laugh and then wheeze. “Either that or from any gas station mini-mart just before you blow an obscene amount of money on snacks you could get down the street from your apartment.”
Later, Mateo talks about Sophie and the nights they watched my games at the bar with Kai. I'd known about some of it, but not all. I'm weirdly glad Kai felt like he could welcome them without alerting me.
Mateo also shares a few things about his classes this year. He shares much more about soccer and the summertime clinic he's continued to hold with Harper's help. I don't think I'd realized the players were local middle-schoolers. The oldest among them would still be about four months from being able to try out for his team.
It makes me curious. "Why not run something for your current players? Why younger ones who might not end up playing for you at all?"
"I love the high school kids, obviously," he says. "But there's something about the younger group—the way they don't already know better. How much they—"
"Are nervous and eager and want your help."
"Exactly. And you know I just want to be out there, running around with them. Coaching them and celebrating their little wins."
I do know. I feel the same way, and have thought about it a lot lately, but I just nod because I don't want to talk about my job. It's nicer to bite my tongue and crawl into Mateo's lap and let him hold me. We don't kiss, either because we've learned exactly one lesson, or because I'm still sick enough for us to use that as an excuse. Still, we keep a blanket close and each other closer, and I’m only frustrated when I wonder why we're not on the bench. I hate that the connection we've remade feels too fragile for me to ask us to move with it intact.
It doesn’t stop me from pushing us somewhere while my fingertip traces the collar of his t-shirt. “It’s been days, and you’re not just waiting for me to go. You’re waiting to see what new promises we’ll make before I do.”