By the time we arrived back in Charlotte after our trip to the Outer Banks, the press uproar over my relationship with Eric had quieted down. I talked to my dad on the phone, and he told me that it was much easier to deal with Sam now that I was out as gay, too.

I didn’t understand his reasoning at first. I asked him whether he thought that he could explain or not. He asked if I ever have moments where my gut emotion and my intellect don’t line up. I assured him that I’d been through those situations.

Dad said, “I know that it makes no intellectual sense to think that I somehow failed Sam and caused him to come out as gay.”

I said, “You’re right. That makes no sense at all.”

He said, “I suppose it’s good that my son agrees with me.” He laughed softly and added, “Now that both of my sons are gay, it’s easy to pin it on some gene that you got from somewhere. My gut and my intellect are back together on it. I have two great sons, and they were born gay. I can go with that.”

I began to look forward to coming home for the holidays. I smiled thinking about having Eric at my side.

Sam asked to talk to me. He said, “There you go again, big brother. You’re stealing my thunder. I guess the next thing we know you’ll be better at being gay than me.”

I started to ask, “What the hell are you talking…”

He laughed hard and said, “I’m joking. Can’t you tell that? I’m happy you came out, and Dad’s a little weird. He thinks it’s okay now, and he’s started asking me when I’ll have a boyfriend. He even asked me at a restaurant the other night whether I was attracted to the waiter. That was seriously awkward. Consider yourself lucky that you’re down in Charlotte.”

The world was a perfect place. For once in my life, I understood people who felt blinded by the brightness of their futures. Then the roof caved in.

I was at the shelter. We were working on a new TV commercial to encourage people at home to adopt pets. We worked with a film crew and put together brief profiles of some of our outstanding cats and dogs.

We also took the crew through the facility. We wanted them to include shots of our staff playing with the pets and dogs wrestling around with each other in our outdoor runs. We even had them go through the reptile area where we kept iguanas, turtles, and snakes looking for homes.

Carrie and I talked in front of the camera. She said, “You should have brought Rudy along. We could have had them film you with him.”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure how photogenic Rudy is for a TV commercial. He’s a great dog and wonderful as a pet, but I’m not sure he can move viewers to show up and bring an animal home. We need the dogs and cats that can create lumps in their throats.”

We were in the process of wrapping up the shoot, and I was shaking hands with the primary cameraman when the front desk phone rang. The phone ringing was nothing unusual. It rang all the time with people inquiring about animals available for adoption and asking about surrendering their pets. Sometimes personal situations made it impossible for them to keep a dog or a cat.

Carrie put the call on hold and walked back over to me. She whispered in my ear, “It’s one of your baseball friends. I think he said his name is Aaron. I told him that I would ask if you could take the call. He said it’s urgent. He wants to talk to you immediately.”

My forehead wrinkled with concern. I hoped something bad wasn’t happening. The last time I saw Aaron and Chase, Aaron said he was a little bored. It was the downtime between the end of the season and everything that went into planning for the next season. I thought that perhaps he was looking for something to do.

I shook the cameraman’s hand once more and thanked him for the great session before heading to the desk to talk to Aaron. As soon as he said hi, I noticed the worry in his voice.

I said, “Something’s up. What’s going on? Is Chase okay?”

Aaron answered, “It’s nothing about Chase. It’s about Eric. I tried to call your cell phone, and nobody answered. I decided to try the shelter.”

“Eric?” I tugged the phone out of my pocket. I’d turned off the sound while touring with the photographers, and apparently, I wasn’t feeling the vibrations. I saw multiple calls from Aaron that I missed.

The pitch of my voice went up as I became agitated. “What about Eric? He was at home when I left to come here. He told me he was going to bake some cookies and watch old movies. What’s up, Aaron?”

Aaron sighed. “You haven’t heard the news. I’m not sure if Eric has or not. Chase is trying to call him right now. We’re both upset.”

“Upset? About what? What news?”

“I think you should talk to Eric about it. I don’t know if it’s my place to tell you if you haven’t talked to him.”

I tried not to raise my voice and yell. Carrie was already at my side with worry in her eyes. Instead of getting louder, I hissed in a whisper, “Tell me now. You know something that’s important. You can’t hide it from me.”

Aaron said, “They traded Eric to Chicago.”

I nearly dropped the phone. I couldn’t think of what to say. Icy fingers of fear gripped my heart.

Aaron asked, “Are you there? Are you okay, Harley? The trade sucks so horribly.”

My voice was dull and soft when I said, “No, I’m not okay, but yeah, you’re right. I should talk to Eric. Say hi to Chase for me. I’ve got to go.”

I hung up the phone and shoved it in my pocket before Aaron could say anything else. Carrie looked at me, and she asked, “What’s going on? You look terrible.”

I said, “They traded him. They’re sending him to Chicago.”

She asked the critical question. “What does that mean for the two of you?”

I said, “I’m sorry to leave so abruptly, but I’ve got to go. I don’t know what this means. I…don’t know.”

I turned away from the desk and walked toward the door. I felt like I was walking through a haze, a sort of cloud. My knees were close to buckling. My thoughts were suddenly fuzzy, and I could barely feel the ground as I walked. A stone began to form in my gut. I climbed into the driver’s seat of my car and laid my head against the steering wheel. I wasn’t sure what to do next. I wanted to vomit.

Pulling my phone back out of my pocket, I started to dial Eric’s number, but I stopped when I realized that I didn’t know what I would say when he answered. Instead of placing the call, I shoved the phone back into my pocket and drove home to the apartment building.

When I was about a block away, I pulled the car off to the side of the street into an empty parallel parking spot. I got out of the car and started to walk. I wasn’t sure where to go, so I walked around the block.

After I passed the apartment building for the third time, my phone rang. I felt the vibration against my thigh. It was Eric. He asked, “Where are you? I thought you would be home from the shelter by now. I called there, and Carrie said you left almost an hour ago.”

“I’m down on the street walking.”

“Why are you doing that? I’m up in the apartment. Come on inside. We can figure out dinner. Maybe we can order a pizza and cuddle on the couch.”

I asked, “Have you heard the news?”

Eric paused. Then he said, “Ohh, that’s what this is about. You found out about the trade. Yeah, that sucks.”

I waited for him to say more, but he was silent. I asked, “Is that all you can say? What the hell? What are we going to do? I feel like the bottom fell out of my world about an hour ago. What the fuck, Eric?” My voice grew louder with each word, and I nervously glanced around fearing that a stranger might be listening.

Eric’s voice was dull and devoid of emotion. “It’s baseball. I’m not sure there’s a lot we can do. Come upstairs, please. If you don’t, I’m going to put Rudy on the leash and come down and find you.”

“Okay, I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

I walked into the lobby of the apartment building. Moments of happiness with Eric started flashing through my mind. I thought about our home runs on the last day of the season. I thought about going out for dinner the time that he asked me if I’d ever kissed a guy. By the time I reached the front door of the apartment, my mood was dark.

Eric stood inside the door waiting for me. He opened his arms, and I hugged him. I couldn’t stop my tears. Soft sobs erupted into wracking cries. Eric said, “Oh, shit. Come on and sit on the couch with me. We’ll figure something out. It isn’t the end of the world. It can’t be.”

As we settled on the couch, I looked at him through eyes glassy with tears. “Figure something out? Like what? The trade means we’ll be apart like, what, nine months of the year? We’ll have a couple of months of spring training and then the regular season. I don’t see what there is to figure out. How can we keep it together only seeing each other for a quarter of the year?”

In a calm voice, Eric asked, “Do you want me to quit baseball?”

I grumbled, “Oh fuck, no. You can’t do that. I guess this is how it works. Trades are part of the game. We should have thought about that, but did you think about it? It didn’t enter my thoughts at all. All that time we were looking at the property on the Outer Banks, and Rudy. Oh, fuck! What do we do with Rudy?”

Eric raked his fingers across the top of my head. He was incredibly calm about the situation. I appreciated it because I was anything but calm. I felt like our entire world was crumbling into dust. Eric said, “Military families do this.”

I sighed. “Military families know how long the deployments will last, and we could be on separate teams for fifteen years or more. I don’t think I can handle only seeing you three months a year. That sounds insane. I know we’re both great guys, but we’ll see other people. It’s bound to happen.”

Eric inclined his head downward and kissed my cheek. “What does this mean then? Do you want to break up?”

I yelled, “No!!” I put all of my building rage and frustration into a shout that was backed by an agonizing howl.

Eric said, “Then we’ll figure something out.”

I was desperate. I was like a boat drifting out to sea after someone untied it from the dock. “What if we can’t figure something out?” I remembered my mom telling me when I was growing up that I was a worrier. She said problems always have solutions. She said we didn’t always like the result, but there was still a solution. She thought it wasn’t worth worrying. That wasted energy.

Eric ran one hand down over my shoulder and rubbed my chest. He said, “We’ll figure something out. Our story has a happy ending. I know it does. Do you trust me on that?”

I grumbled, “I trust you on everything, except that it’s hard to trust you on that yet. I don’t have enough information.”