Page 102 of Book Boyfriends
My head tilts. “How?”
“When someone accepts your apology and you continue to apologize, you’re saying you don’t believe them. That you think I’m lying.”
“I don’t think you’re lying.”
“Good.” His mouth quirks. “Then we agree. You’re not a liar and neither am I, so no more apologizing for Owen, Lars, and the Duke of Chucklefuck.”
“Deal.” My mouth ticks up in a grateful smile.
“Deal.” He releases my hand and picks up his fork. “So, back to pickleball. You said you may be willing to come again?”
“Yeah.” I pick up my fork. “It’s amazing to watch you play. You have this catlike grace on the court. You’re so sure in all your movements and this relaxed joy radiates off you. Well, when some asshole isn’t gunning for you, that is.”
He dabs his mouth with the napkin. “It’s why I love it. All the sports Pop encouraged me to play as a kid were all team-based. I love them, but there’s a lot of managing myself and everyone else. I must anticipate what my opponents want and what my teammates need. As much as athletics gives me a structure to interact with people where I know the rules, for the most part, there’s still a level of anticipating necessary.”
“But don’t you have to do that in pickleball, too?”
“Not completely. When I play head-to-head, it’s just me and my opponent. When I play doubles, it’s just my teammate and our opponents. It may not make sense to anyone else, but fewer people equals less pressure. It’s more manageable.”
“It must take a lot out of you to run an entire company,” I say, taking a sip of my bubbly.
“I almost didn’t start my company because of fear. I worried about what that pressure might do. As a kid, I’d get overstimulated, resulting in meltdowns and such, making foster parents see me as too much trouble. I just wanted to be like everyone else, but I wasn’t. So, I used to mask a lot.”
Several of the autistic influencers I follow talk about masking. It’s something many of them do either consciously or unconsciously to tamp down their natural autistic tendencies. From what they shared online, while it may offer temporary relief in a world that doesn’t embrace neurodiversity, it can have a severe impact on the autistic person. That knowledge causesme to worry about the pressure of running a company like No Boundaries might have on Davis.
“I’d force myself past my limitations, causing burnout. Things would be foggy, impacting my ability to focus or be present. I’d have trouble speaking. Sometimes, I’d be so exhausted that I couldn’t get out of bed for days,” he says.
Reaching across the table, I thread our fingers. “Does this still happen?”
“I still do some masking, but not as much. Still, the burnout does happen from time to time. It was a major issue in high school and my first few years of college. My moms found me a therapist who has helped me establish coping strategies.”
“Such as?” I soothe my thumb in slow strokes against his hand.
“A good support system. People who know me and understand me, or at least, try to. Doing what I need to do daily to take care of myself. Like taking breaks after I’ve peopled too much.” He squeezes our joined hands. “Also, knowing the signs and what I need to do to take care of myself. I imagine it’s similar with your celiacs?”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “And those strategies have been helping?”
He nods. “There are days I’m wiped out. But I know if I had to do it all over again, I’d still make the same decision.”
“What you’re doing with No Boundaries is amazing,” I say, worry nipping at me. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you said you worried it would be too much. Do you still have that worry?”
“Yes.”
“And you still carry on? You could probably fade into the background and let someone else run things.”
“I could and, maybe, one day I will. But not now.” Leaning toward me, he lifts our joined hands to his lips and presses a gentle kiss on my knuckles. “I like that you worry about me.”
“It’s kind of my thing, remember?” My mouth slants into a teasing smirk.
“As long as you leave a little of that for yourself.”
“I’m working on that.”
“In the meantime, I can worry for you.” He sits back, his hand still linked with mine.
“I’d like that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
