I didn’t come up with a solution that satisfied Harley. All of our discussions circled around what Harley thought was fair. He didn’t think it made any sense to try and carry on a relationship where we saw each other only a quarter of the time. He said, “Sooner or later one of us will want other company. Could you handle that? Do you want me going out with somebody else during those nine months we’re apart? And what if that guy doesn’t like me seeing you when we finally get to be together.”

The same conversation, in slight variations, happened over and over again. It eventually made me frustrated and angry. I shouted, “Of course not! I’m not an idiot, Harley.”

I talked to Chase about it, and he understood all of the issues the way that Harley did. He said, “It makes me hurt right here.” He held a fist to his heart. “I can’t stand it, but those cretins who created the organizational structure for professional baseball never thought about two players falling in love. Unless one of you decides to leave the game like I did, I’m not sure what you can do. Think about it, buddy. There are a lot of jobs around the game. We could train your voice and turn you into a great announcer. You could work in the front office and help build the team.”

I sighed heavily and said, “I’m not quitting baseball. Harley doesn’t want me to do that, and I don’t want to either. I feel the same way about him. I don’t want to think that way. We’ve both devoted so much of our lives to this. I don’t have an announcer dream like you do.”

Chase sighed. “I don’t know what to say. How is Rudy? What will you do with him?”

“I always think of him as Harley’s dog even though I’m technically his owner, and he belongs here in Charlotte. We’ve set up the network of friends that help take care of him. Damn, Chase! I don’t want to go to Chicago! Who am I going to hang out with? I’m a southern boy. I don’t know what to do north of the Mason-Dixon line.”

Chase’s voice softened. “On the brighter side of things, maybe you’ll play in a world series. Honestly, I think the Yellowjackets have at least three or four more years of building before the post-season sounds realistic. You’re a big boy, Eric. You’ll find friends. You’re the sweetest guy I know. They’ll figure that out in Chicago.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, “You’re nicer than Aaron, and that’s saying something.”

A week after we first heard the news about the trade, Harley woke up at 5:00 a.m. and shook my shoulders until I woke up, too. I grabbed the little alarm clock on the nightstand and waited for my eyes to focus. I turned toward Harley. “What’s going on? It’s 5:00 a.m. We should be sleeping.”

Harley sat up. I bit my lip as I stared at his body again. I didn’t know if I would ever have another man in my bed with a body as perfect as Harley’s. He said, “I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about Thanksgiving. I should tell my family you won’t be there, and you should go to Atlanta to be with your parents.”

“You’ve decided that?”

“It makes sense. I can’t bring you home as my boyfriend and tell them a week later that you’re moving to Chicago, and we’re…” Harley paused. He wiped at his eyes when he said, “Breaking up.”

“Aww, damn, Harley.” I reached out and pulled him close. “Of course, we can do that at Thanksgiving if that makes the most sense. Do you realize how special you’re going to be to me for the rest of my life? Even if we can’t be together, I’ll never think anything negative about you, and everybody remembers their first time. The first time we came up to bat together in bed, we hit it out of the ballpark.”

He sobbed against me and then tried to wipe the tears off my shoulder. He spoke with a voice muffled by my body. “I was looking forward to you meeting my brother and sister and Tex. I thought about us bringing Rudy and having the dogs hang out together. We could take them down to the creek. Tex loves water as much as Rudy does.”

I said, “I was looking forward to it, too. I bet your mom roasts an awesome turkey.”

Harley pulled his face away and looked up at me. The light was dim in the bedroom, and most of his expression was in shadow. He said, “She does. We have the turkey and mashed potatoes. She fixes sweet potatoes too, and we have rolls. Damn, I knew we had a lot of carbs at the meal, but I never thought about what a crazy carb load it is.” Fortunately, Harley was able to chuckle softly about his realization.

He asked, “What does the Hinsdale family do for Thanksgiving? We never talked about it. When you said yes about coming to Indiana, I thought it was all settled.”

“We’ve gone out for Thanksgiving dinner since I was twelve. When I was younger than that, my grandma always cooked the turkey. When she decided to retire from making Thanksgiving dinner, my parents declared that we would go out. They said it saved having so many leftovers and a pile of dirty dishes.”

“Wow, I’m sorry you didn’t have a homemade Thanksgiving dinner.”

I said, “It’s not as bad as it sounds. We went to the same restaurant for most of the years. The owners knew us well. A Greek family ran the restaurant, and they did all of the classic Thanksgiving food, but I loved that they also did Greek pastitsio. I couldn’t wait to have that with my turkey.”

“Pastitsi..what?”

I chuckled softly. There was something incredibly warm and friendly about our conversation. The sun wasn’t up yet, and it was almost dark in the bedroom. I had a horrible lump in my throat thinking that the nights in bed with Harley were coming to an end, but I loved our ability to talk about holidays and our families with warm feelings. I said, “Pastitsio. It’s sort of like a Greek lasagna except it has lamb and white sauce.”

He shook his head. “You and your white sauces on pasta. I guess I would have to pass on that dish. I’ll stick with mom’s turkey gravy. I put it on both the mashed potatoes and the turkey. It makes my mouth water thinking about it. My dad is doing better with having two gay sons, but I think he might feel relieved that I’m not bringing a guy home.”

Harley lowered his head. He wasn’t crying, but he looked like someone placed a weight of over 50 lbs. on his shoulders. I said, “Harley, I hope you find somebody even better than me. I’m sure he’s out there.”

He didn’t respond. Instead, he slipped out the side of the bed. Turning toward me with the darkness shrouding his face, Harley said, “I can’t sleep. I’m taking Rudy out to the living room. Maybe we’ll find an old episode of Bewitched on the TV. I wish I could twitch my nose and change all of this.”

I whispered, “I love you, Harley. You know that.”

He didn’t answer, and I watched Rudy disappear out the bedroom door behind him with a wag of his tail. Harley pulled the door shut, and I slid down deep under the sheet and blankets on the bed. I still hadn’t cried yet about the trade. I knew that I would eventually, but the timing would probably surprise me. I wasn’t much for crying. Harley was doing enough for both of us. When I finally did cry about something, it was often well after the event that triggered the emotion.

I fell back asleep, and I didn’t wake up until almost three hours later. Harley’s side of the bed was still empty. The next thing I noticed was the aroma of frying bacon. I raised an eyebrow and sniffed again. Harley didn’t usually cook. For a moment, I wondered if he’d invited one of our friends over to cook breakfast for us.

I climbed out of bed and pulled on a bathrobe. As I padded my way to the kitchen, I saw Harley standing at the stove. I said, “What are you doing? You don’t cook breakfast.”

He turned around, and he had a smile on his face. Harley said, “I’ve been reading up the past few days. I decided I’d better learn how before you leave for Chicago. I don’t want to go back to fast food and frozen dinners.”

I said, “It smells delicious. You know, we have to hang out together when our teams play each other. We can go out after the games, and I’ll show you great places in Chicago.”

Harley fished the bacon strips out of the skillet on the stovetop, and he said, “Chicago is a great city. I bet you’ll love it there.”

Before he brought breakfast to the table, Harley pulled something out of the pocket of his bath robe. He set it down in front of me and said, “Well, I guess this guy’s luck ran out.”

I looked down and saw a small stuffed and sewn figure wearing a red T-Shirt and a backward baseball cap. I asked, “Is that…?”

Harley nodded. “Mo knew a woman who takes old good luck items and makes them into something new and small to carry around. This little guy is wearing remnants of my lucky shirt.” Harley sighed heavily.

I poured a glass of orange juice for each of us. Harley brought two plates of food to the table. I said, “I’m happy to know that you can cook and get along without me.”

Harley shook his head. “I won’t get along well without you. At least I won’t for a long time. It doesn’t matter how well I can cook. Damn, how do I not think about this? Everything was going so well.” Harley looked into my eyes.

I sighed heavily. “I know how hard it is. I keep trying to hang onto the idea that we’re both great guys, so that means we’ll do well in the future. We can help each other out. I’ll always be here for you.”