Page 2 of Finally Home

When I get my laughter under control, I lean in close to whisper in her ear, taking a deep inhale of her sweet apple-and-honey smell. “I’ll do you one better, Little Bird. My full name is Rhodes Colter Gray. Now I wanna know yours.”

“I’ll tell you, but you can’t make fun of me or tell anybody else, okay?” She actually looks anxious, and I feel an uncomfortable ache in my chest. I don’t even know this girl, but the need to have her trust me is an incessant thrum under the surface of my skin.

I nod, hoping she can see how touched I am that she trusts me with whatever she has to say. “Of course, Wren. We pinky promised, remember? Best friends don’t share each other’s secrets, especially not full names.”

She blushes bright as she bites her lip. “My full name is Wren Andromeda Reid,” she whispers. “My dad is the astronomy professor here, and he’s been obsessed with stars my whole life. I’m sure if you ever take his class, he’ll tell y’all all about the story of Andromeda.”

A sly look crosses my face, and she groans. “You’re signed up for his class already, aren’t you?”

“Every Tuesday and Thursday at 10 a.m,” I say with a smirk that earns me an eye roll. Her lashes are so long they nearly touch her eyebrows when she does that.

“Well, I have good news for you then, Rho. You’re stuck with me at least for the semester since I’m in that class too.”

My chest expands with genuine happiness, and I feel like an overexcited puppy knowing we’ll have a class together. “See what I mean about fate? You and me, blondie. We’re destined to be best friends forever. And now I get a cute study buddy too. So, what do you say? Friends?” I ask with a tap of my thumb to the back of her hand since we’re still holding pinkies.

Her smile nearly blinds me as she kisses her own thumb and gently presses it against mine.

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Rhodes.”

Three years later, draft day

My knees bounce as we stare at the TV, impatiently waiting for the announcer. Wren, her dad Archie, my parents, and Derrick, my old roommate and Wren’s boyfriend, sit around us at Archie’s house, as anxious for the news as we are. Wren is holding my hand while her idiot boyfriend plays on his phone.

Derrick and I are up for the draft today and that’s the only reason he’s here. To say I was pissed when he went after Wren late last year is an understatement. True to our pact, she and I have been best friends since the first day we met three years ago, and unfortunately, I want her even more now than I did back then. She’s everything to me, but she’s only ever seen me as a friend, and as much as that sucks, I’d rather have her as a friend than nothing at all.

What makes it even worse is that I can’t seem to hold an attraction for anyone else. I’ve been on plenty of dates and kissed girls and guys both but never felt so much as a spark. And I’ve sure as hell never felt anything even close to what I feel any time I’m around Wren. Being in sports doesn’t make it easy either. I have to pretend I’m sexually active just so the guys on the team stay off my ass about finding a hot girl to hook up with at every party.

Google eventually led me to a bunch of forums, and I feel pretty comfortable admitting I’m demisexual, which basically means I only feel sexual attraction if I’ve formed a close emotional bond with someone. The only people I’m comfortable telling are Wren and my parents, but for obvious reasons I can’t tell Wren that I’m literally only attracted to her.

I’m not ready to blow up our friendship with that bomb, so I sit back and watch the girl of my dreams fawn over my sleazy ex-roommate, knowing I’ll likely never have a chance to be with her.

She’s been dating Derrick for more than six months, but the other night I overheard him talk about how many girls he’s going to have ‘throwing themselves at him pussy first’ when he’s drafted, and how Wren is just a way to fill the time during his last year here. I almost beat the shit out of him right then, but we were at a party, and I didn’t want him or anyone else to spin it so that I’d look guilty. I plan to tell her tonight, hopefully after we find out Douchey D is getting drafted to a West Coast team.

“And for the second pick of the 2018 MLB Draft, the Charleston Raptors select… Rhodes Gray of Ridgeview University!”

“Holy shit,” I murmur as my mom screams and the dads hug each other.

Wren wraps me a tight embrace, whispering that she’s proud and happy I’ll be close to home. I squeeze her back even tighter, fighting the happy tears that try to spill over.

When she pulls back, she’s crying, too, before my mom pulls us both into a hard hug.

“Dominic!” my mom, Kaci, shouts. “Call the realtor and put in the offer. If our baby is going to live in Charleston, so are we!”

I pull back, gaping at her even as Archie and my dad grin knowingly at each other before Dad leaves the room, typing on his phone.

“I’m sorry, you’re what?” I ask incredulously.

She and Wren have equally bright looks on their faces as they hold hands and stare at me. Their bond is one of my favorite things to watch. Mom took Wren in and treated her like her own daughter, and I know how much it means to them to have that kind of relationship in their lives. “You heard me. You think I won’t be in the stands cheering at every single one of your games, Rhodes Gray? Your dad and I have been looking at places for months all over the country until we started hearing rumors Charleston was eager to pick you up.”

There’s no holding back the tears now as I throw myself at my mom like a little boy. I haven’t admitted it to anybody but Wren, but the thought of being alone in a new city is scary as hell, not to mention how much I’ve missed my parents the last three years at university. I saw them on breaks and holidays, sure, but they stayed in my childhood home in Oregon after I moved to South Carolina.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Derrick shouts, startling us all.

I pull back from my mom with a discreet wipe of my eyes, and I glance up to find Derrick looks furious. He’s glaring at the screen like he wants to beat it with his ridiculously expensive bat. If smoke could come out of a person’s ears, it would be happening right now.

Wren turns back to the TV with wide eyes, whispering, “Oh, no.”

When I turn to see what the issue is, I get a sick sense of satisfaction when I realize that Derrick wasn’t drafted today, which means he has to wait another year and enter the 2019 draft as a free agent unless somebody fucks up and he gets picked up to fill out a roster.

---