Page 58 of The Best Parts of Him
Ryland nodded. “Yup.”
“What about your other hoodie? It was hanging off one of the kitchen chairs.”
“Got that too.”
“And you grabbed snacks for the plane?”
“I’ll pick something up once I get past security.”
“Your phone charger. It was in the living room last time I saw?—”
“Dabbs,” Ryland gently interrupted, his gaze soft. “I’ve got everything I arrived with. And if there’s anything I forgot, you can give it to me when our teams play each other next month.” He gestured at Dabbs’ abdomen. “Think you’ll be healed enough to play by then?”
“Fuck, I hope so. Otherwise, it’ll be a really boring few weeks.”
“It’ll give you time to work on your books, though. Have you thought about what I said? About publishing under your own name?”
“No. Between the Scrabble games, pumpkin carving, and playing naughty nurse, when would I have had the time?”
Throwing his head back, Ryland laughed, and Dabbs couldn’t help but smile at him.
Having Ryland stay with him had been . . . illuminating. Ryland was fun and charming and his joy for life was as infectious as it had been in Maplewood. None of that was a surprise. What he hadn’t counted on was how much he’d enjoy having Ryland’s bouncy energy in his space.
Ryland was patient and gentle nursemaid and naked and naughty nursemaid both. But, more importantly, he was the man who’d arrived on Dabbs’ doorstep to take care of him, despite his own injury. He was the man who’d cared for Dabbs’ dogs as if they were his own when Dabbs had been unable to stand upright. He was the man who had gone live with said dogs this morning while they’d been in the yard out back, for seemingly no other purpose than to brag about the fact that he’d gotten to spend several days with these two cuties. Aren’t you jealous?
He was the man who went live, who posted daily to his social media profiles, because it gave him the attention he’d been so desperate for after his parents split up. He was the man who was determined to be the best for that very same reason.
Dabbs had once wished that he could pull back Ryland’s layers, but he never would’ve expected the universe to grant his wish in the form of an appendectomy and a dislocated shoulder.
And now Ryland was leaving—he was due back in Columbus to start working with his trainer on strengthening his shoulder—and Dabbs was dreading returning to an apartment that would be devoid of laughter and beguiling smiles and cursing at the hockey game on TV and debating the validity of little-known Scrabble words.
“Give it some thought, at least,” Ryland said, and it took a second for Dabbs to recall what they’d been talking about.
“You could always talk to your teammate about it,” Ryland went on. “Owen Cotton, right? The one who illustrates children’s books? He’ll be able to tell you what it’s like to publish under your own name. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the I-worried-about-XYZ-for-nothing.”
“True,” Dabbs acknowledged. He’d talked to Cotton about illustrators, but he hadn’t thought to talk to him about pen names versus given names since, at the time, he’d been dead set on publishing as P.N. Leeds.
Ryland checked his watch. “I should go.”
Dabbs’ chest tightened. He forced a smile. “Have a safe flight. Text me when you get home?”
“I will.”
They’d done the whole goodbye-kiss thing at Dabbs’ place, and then again in Dabbs’ SUV after he’d parked in the airport’s parking garage, and again after that with Ryland pressed against the trunk. Dabbs’ lips were a touch raw from all the kissing they’d done recently, but that didn’t stop him from wanting one more before Ryland left.
Ryland nodded once, almost decisively. “Okay. I’m leaving now.”
“Okay.”
He didn’t move. He stood across from Dabbs, staring at him with a question in his eyes that Dabbs didn’t know how to interpret. Another nod, and Ryland smiled, an echo of its usual wattage. “Okay. Bye.”
He turned, wheeling his carry-on behind him.
The need to call Ryland back burned the back of Dabbs’ throat, and he bit his tongue to swallow the words. His feet, apparently acting with a mind of their own, had no such inhibitions, and he stepped forward without conscious thought.
“Rya,” he said at the same time that Ryland whirled and strode back to him, his eyes blazing.
“You do know this wasn’t a one-time thing, right?” Ryland jabbed him in the sternum. “This wasn’t a convenient interlude while we were both laid up.” Another jab. “When we were in Maplewood, you made a token protest about us doing the long-distance thing, but that’s all it was—a token protest. We will do the long-distance thing. End of story.” Jab. “Deal?”
