Page 63 of Stealing Home

Gavin stared at the last text. He hadn’t realized he needed to hear it until it was there. Not that it changed anything. Dom’s life was still Lucia and baseball, and Gavin had absolutely no intention of being Dom’s experiment in figuring out whether he could squeeze Gavin into the cracks of an already full life.

Gavin

I knew you were overwhelmed.

He hesitated before adding:

Gavin

But yeah. I thought you regretted it.

The typing bubble appeared almost instantly.

Dom

I don’t.

That’s the one thing I’m completely sure about.

The typing bubble appeared again, then disappeared, so Gavin waited, but no other messages arrived.

He sighed and looked around his client’s garage, trying not to wonder what was happening on the other end of the conversation. It was early afternoon, but the Barracudas had a game that night, which meant Dom was probably already at the stadium. He smiled slightly at the picture his mind supplied, of Dom hunched over his phone with a crease between his brows, trying to find the right words and probably deleting everything he wrote before he could send it.

Sometimes, Gavin forgot there were seven years between their ages, and sometimes, he noticed every one of them. Dom was twenty-four, playing major league baseball and raising a baby he hadn’t known existed a few months ago. At twenty-four, Gavin had been carrying plenty of weight of his own, building his company from the ground up, chasing luxury contracts and managing crews, and trying to prove he belonged in rooms full of people with deeper pockets and longer résumés. His future had felt enormous and overwhelming, but in a different way. Gavin had been trying to build something. Dom seemed to be trying to keep everything he already had from slipping out of his hands.

Seven more years hadn’t exactly made him an expert in anything. Everything he’d built that was supposed to be permanent had come apart anyway.

He looked back at his phone, but the screen was still quiet. For another few seconds anyway. Then the typing bubble appeared, and this time, it stayed. Gavin straightened against the workbench, thumb hovering near the screen while the dots pulsed once, twice, three times. Finally, a new message came through.

Dom

I miss talking to you.

Gavin’s heart gave one hard, hopeful thump and he stared at the words until the screen dimmed. He touched it awake again. He missed it too, more than he wanted to admit. The rhythm their conversations had fallen into had mattered, and by the time he realized how much, it’d been too late to pull back. Dom sending pictures of Lucia doing something adorable, or Gavin texting him from the hardware store to ask how many shades of gray his client could reasonably reject before the paint department banned him. The random conversations at all hours of the day just because. He’d missed having someone to tell things to.

Gavin

I miss you too.

The message sat there, and Gavin immediately wished he’d added talking to you. He watched the dots appear and disappear as Dom started and stopped whatever he was going to say.

“Fantastic,” Gavin muttered.

He set the phone down, then immediately picked it back up. Still no response. Of course. Dom hadn’t meant it that way. Gavin had just taken a casual little opening and driven a bulldozer through it. He reached for his gloves just as his phone vibrated in his hand.

Dom

Good.

Gavin frowned, but two more messages came in quick succession before he could reply.

Dom

I mean, not good that you miss me.

Good that I’m not the only one.

Relief spread through him so quickly that he nearly laughed.