“Fuck,” Brian mutters. “He’s straight.”

Lindsay laughs easily. “You don’t know that.”

“Name one queer who played baseball as a kid. Just one.”

“Mel?”

Brian snorts. “Lesbians don’t count.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Jenny asked for a Tonka bulldozer for her birthday.”

“Sure,” Brian grouses, “Mikey’s kid gets to be gay.”

Lindsay rolls her eyes. “He expects you there for his first game.”

“What the fuck do I know about baseball?”

“You can admire all the coaches in their tight pants,” Lindsay tells him as she gathers up her jacket.

“I can do more than admire.”

“At your advanced age? Impressive.”

She easily avoids Brian’s light-hearted slap in her direction, giggling in a way that reminds Brian of late-night talks in the student lounge, drinking hot cocoa as something mournful and self importantly angst-ridden jangled on the radio in counterpoint to her laughter. It feels simultaneously like yesterday, and a lifetime ago.

“Saturday at ten,” Lindsay tells him as she pulls open the door, nearly colliding with Justin as he steps up the single stair, head down as he fumbles with his messenger bag.

“Hey!“ Justin says in greeting. “You’re leaving?”

“I need to get back to the gallery,” Lindsay tells him, eyes twinkling. “Big show tonight, you know.”

“Not so big,” Justin says.

Lindsay smiles, stops and turns on the small porch to address Brian. “We’ll go to the new place on Blythe after for lunch. Gus loves their quiche.”

Brian arches a brow. “There’s hope for him yet.”

He closes the door on her laughter, and tugs Justin into his arms to press a thorough kiss to his lips before pulling away to look into his eyes. “Nervous?”

Justin, veteran of two solo shows, one of which resulted in three sales and a commission for a mural at a prominent architectural firm, scoffs at the very notion. “No.”

Brian waits.

“Well… a little.”

“You’ll be fabulous,” Brian assures him.

“Of course I will,” Justin agrees. “I’m always fabulous.”

He slides his bag from his shoulders, letting it drop to the floor amidst the tangle of shoes and assorted Justin-paraphernalia that Brian is always nagging at him to clean up. Brian lets it go… this once. He trails Justin into the sitting room.

“What’s Saturday at ten?”

Brian sighs dramatically. “Gus has joined Little League. We have to go and be ‘supportive parents.’ I think that means we don’t get to fuck any of the coaches.”

“Little League?” Justin pauses mid-stride, hand coming up to scratch at his chin, eyes distant. “I… I don’t know if I can.”

“What have you got scheduled for Saturday at…” Brian begins, and then briefly closes his eyes, memory sharp and dark. He takes Justin’s hand, rubs his thumb soothingly across the palm, an attempt to soothe the ache that never really goes away. “You don’t have to,” he says.

Justin shakes his head. “No. I’ll be there.”

“You don’t--”

“Yes,” Justin says firmly. “I do.”

On Saturday morning, three days after Justin has made his fourth and fifth sales and earned his second commission, he sits in the white-washed bleachers at the edge of the baseball diamond and only cringes a little when Gus’s coach demonstrates proper swinging technique and sends a ball flying into the outfield with a crack that echoes in the air. He smiles wanly when Brian catches his eye and takes his hand. He draws strength from the touch.

And later, when Gus excitedly replays his one and only hit around a mouthful of quiche in the restaurant, Justin relaxes into the worn leather booth and smiles.

“Did you see me, Justin?” Gus asks for the second time. “Did you?”

“I saw you,” Justin assures him. He squeezes Brian‘s knee beneath the table, feels warm and safe. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”