“Yeah, you do.”
Greg
knew
Marsh did, because the instant Greg asked, Marsh turned his head, looking to the corner of his closet. Toward the box where he kept those letters from the kids he’d taught over the summer. But he didn’t say anything.
When Greg couldn’t take it anymore, he put a hand to the side of Marsh’s face, nudging gently until Marsh twisted to look at him. “You know what I think?” Greg asked.
“No. But I’d really, really like to.”
“I think you’re lucky. And amazing. And if you just trusted in that enough, you could do anything you wanted to.”
But Marsh was already shaking his head, fighting the loose grip Greg had on his jaw. “I’m not. I’m—”
“You love kids, and you love history, and you love baseball. Forget all that bullshit from yesterday about going and getting a factory job.” Because it was obvious, wasn’t it?
“I don’t know…”
“You’d be an awesome teacher, Marsh.”
“No,” Marsh said, pulling farther away, but Greg grabbed his wrist, keeping him close.
“You would. And I bet you’d love it, too.”
And Greg’s chest
hurt
, it ached to see the way Marsh’s gaze burned. To see the doubt there. “I’m not smart enough.”
“You keep saying that.” Greg couldn’t keep the frustration from his voice now. “And I don’t know why.”
“Try looking at my transcript. It’s not that hard to figure out.”
“Having a hard time with your classes when you’re at one of the best colleges in the country is nothing to be ashamed of. You’ll still walk out of here with the same degree as anybody else.”
“I’m only here because of baseball.”
“You’re here because you deserve to be. And sure, maybe you had a leg up because you’re good at sports, but you made it anyway. You are making it. You can do this.”
Marsh’s eyes were shuttered, his whole posture closed in, and he was picking at his fingernails. “I’d—It’d be an extra semester. I looked into it once before. I’d have to cram in another course in the spring, and then stay another term to do student teaching.”
“So stay another term. You were the one who was so worried about what you’d be qualified for once you got out of here with this degree. If you know there’s something you’d like, and you’re just one semester from being able to do it, why wouldn’t you?”
Marsh’s expression was still twisted with hesitance and denial, though, and he was right. Greg
didn’t
get it. He couldn’t begin to imagine what this was like, because, yeah, he had been lucky. He’d known what he wanted to be since he was a kid, so there’d never been this doubt. He’d decided what he was going to be, and he’d gone for it.
He didn’t know why Marsh wouldn’t want to do the same. Not when he was so good, and when his future held so much promise, if he’d just stick with it and see this thing through.
“It’s so much money,” Marsh said.
“It is.” There wasn’t any denying that. “But if you only end up with one year’s worth of student loans, you’re still doing better than I did.”
That made Marsh’s head snap up. “You have student loans?”
“Four years’ worth of them. I got scholarships to cover a lot of it, but you met my folks. You know where I come from. We couldn’t afford tuition.”
Marsh’s gaze searched Greg’s with a wildness, but for the first time, there was something hopeful there, too. “How’d you know? That it would be worth it?”
“I didn’t.” Still didn’t, honestly, because he would be paying those loans back for years once he was out of grad school. “But I knew what I wanted. So I took the risk.”
His parents had always taught him to shoot for the stars and never to settle. He’d taken those lessons to heart. Most of the time.
He still couldn’t believe he’d settled for so little from Marsh for so long, when he could have had it all. When he could have had
this
.
A warm, sly smile cracked Greg’s lips, and he put a hand on Marsh’s shoulder. “At least think about it?”
“Yeah. I will. Coach has been keeping them off my back while I figure out what to do, but the financial-aid people have been bugging me to set up an appointment for next week. I figured it was going to end up being when I let them know I wasn’t coming back next semester, but…”
Hope leapt faintly in Greg’s throat. “But it could be for something else.”
“Yeah. It could be.” Marsh snapped his mouth closed, but there were words still hanging on his lips. Something that needed to be said. He glanced up, eyes open and wide, a vulnerability ringing the edges that made Greg’s heart feel like it was being stretched right out of his chest.
“Marsh?” he asked.
“Do you think I can do it? Seriously?”
And Greg couldn’t help himself. He leaned in and closed his eyes and pressed a hard, closed-mouth kiss to those perfect lips. Shifting his palm to press against the warm expanse of skin over Marsh’s pulse, Greg said, as earnest as he could make himself. “If you want to…I think you can do
anything
.”
“Well, Mr. Sulkowski, I’m so glad we finally managed to get a hold of you.”
“Yeah.” Marsh tugged at the collar of his shirt. Greg had told him to wear a tie, that when you were dealing with people about money you should always wear a tie, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. There’d be time enough for that, someday, but for now Marsh was going into this dressed as nothing but himself. He forced the one corner of his mouth to twitch up, affecting the kind of smile that usually got people to do what he wanted them to. “Thanks for being so patient with me.”
The woman across the desk from him smirked and opened up a file full of pink notices—pieces of paper that matched the pile he’d been amassing quite the collection of himself. “Coach Hartman may have put in a good word or three for you.” She pushed the unpaid bills aside, riffling through to produce two stacks of paper. She lay them out in front of him, rotating them so he was looking at them right-side-up.
The words stared back at him. The two paths from which he had to choose. A stack of loans that would follow him for years, or a statement of intention to withdraw. He sucked in a deep breath as he stared them down.
“So,” she said. “Have you decided how you’d like to proceed?”
Greg’s words echoed in his mind.
What do you
want
?
Marsh’s dad had told him what he thought he was good for, his coaches what he was good at, and his teachers, more often than not, what he wasn’t. But it had been a long, long time since someone had asked him what he wanted.
Before Greg had shown up, he hadn’t really let himself want much of anything. Even then, he’d scarcely dared to believe that he could have it.
Squaring his shoulders, Marsh fixed the woman with a steady gaze. “I believe I have.”
Her fingers twitched against the pieces of paper. “Well?”
For the second time in a handful of days, he stood on the precipice between one vision of his future and the next. And he stepped forward, shifting his weight out onto nothing but faith.
“Hey, Greg.”
Greg started at the sound of knocking at his door, his heart racing right up until he recognized Ronnie’s voice and spotted his head peeking around the corner.
“Hey.” He adjusted his glasses and absently hit save on his computer, glancing at the time as he did so. It was getting late. Marsh should be back any minute now.
Fidgeting, he cracked his knuckles and swiveled in his chair toward the door. He’d been twitchy as hell all afternoon, waiting. He didn’t know how long Marsh’s appointment was going to take, but this seemed to be dragging on forever.
But that was okay. It was a good sign, really. Withdrawal forms probably took less time to fill out than promissory notes. Greg drummed his fingers against his knee. Sure, Marsh had seemed to be leaning the right way whenever they’d touched on the subject over the past few days, but doubt had lingered in his eyes, like he still didn’t know if he could do it, or if he was worth it.
Greg wanted to
shake
him.
Ronnie stepped a little farther into the room, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning his shoulder against the wall. He shifted his gaze pointedly between Greg’s twitchy fingers and his face.
Greg forced his hand to still and breathed out a long, deep sigh. “What’s up?”
“Not much.” Ronnie angled his head toward the hall. “Meeting up with some of the other guys for a burger. Maybe some drinks after. You in?”
“Nah.” He gestured toward his computer instinctively, preparing to make an excuse about work, but then he stopped himself. That wasn’t what this was really about—not this time. “I’m waiting for Marsh to get home,” he admitted.
Ronnie
tutt
ed at him, but it wasn’t a serious rebuke. “First you ditch us for your data, now for your boyfriend. You ever gonna get your priorities straight?”
“I don’t know.” He couldn’t help the grin that stole across his face. “Think they’re pretty well sorted as it is.” Much better than they had been a couple of weeks ago, in any case.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Give me a call if you change your mind.”
“Will do.”
With that, Ronnie pushed off, giving Greg a decidedly non-regulation salute and then disappearing down the hall. Greg let his shoulders slump as he turned toward his desk.
All the finagling Marsh had done with Greg’s schedule last week had bought him some breathing room. He’d gone back to work at his part-time job, but only in a limited capacity—no more extra shifts. Ronnie had stopped asking him for so much shit, and he’d finally been able to put some quality time in at the lab. If he could just sift through this last set of data, he’d probably even be able to give Chu those results he needed.
He shoved his glasses up his nose, because he was going to concentrate, goddammit. Marsh would be home when he was home, and until that time, Greg still had work to do.
Who was he kidding?
A torturous, painfully unproductive twenty minutes crawled along before the sound of the front door opening and closing rang out, following by a moment’s silence and then the pounding of footsteps on the stairs. Greg’s heart leapt up into his throat, but he held his ground. This might just be Ronnie remembering something he’d forgotten, or Jason coming home.
Or it could be Marsh, shoving through Greg’s door without knocking, looking fit to burst, all his efforts to suppress his smile a miserable failure, and Christ. Greg loved seeing him like this, eyes wild and happy, face flushed, like he’d just run a marathon. Or like he’d just faced down a giant pile of fears and told them in no uncertain terms to fuck off.
Greg just loved
him
.
“You’re staying,” he said, before Marsh could get out a word, before he could even get three feet into the room. Because the hope was bubbling up inside him to the point of pain.
Marsh would stay. He wouldn’t run off into some unknown future where he didn’t want Greg following, or into some self-imposed exile because he didn’t think he was good enough. Marsh had to stay, because he deserved to.
Because Greg had not had even close to enough.
Marsh’s step faltered for half a beat, but then he found his footing again. He crossed the last few feet, not bothering to hide his grin now as he launched himself into Greg’s chair, making it wobble alarmingly. Greg caught them, though, getting a hand on the corner of his desk to stop them rolling backward and bracing himself with a foot against the floor.
And then his arms were full of Marsh, Marsh’s thighs straddling his hips, and his face was right there, so close and perfect and handsome and his.
“How did you know?” Marsh asked.
“You’re smiling.” Beaming almost as hard as Greg had to be right now. “If you’re smiling, you’re staying.”
The curve of Marsh’s lips only deepened, his eyes melting into an expression so soft it seared right through to Greg’s heart. “I’m staying.”
“Thank God,” Greg managed. The hot press of Marsh’s mouth cut him off before he could say any more, chased by the slick glide of his tongue. His brow pressed against Greg’s, and Greg felt surrounded—held in a way he never would have imagined, even though Marsh was the one sitting on his lap, Greg technically the one supporting Marsh.
Even though, really, it was hard to tell who was supporting whom, and Greg didn’t think he’d ever want it any other way.
Greg pulled back from the kiss, grasping the sides of Marsh’s face in his hands. “I’m so proud of you.”
“I know you are.” Marsh’s smile got a little less wide, a little more raw but no less real. He reached up and touched the frame of Greg’s glasses and then his cheek. “Made all the difference, you know. Having someone believe in me.”
Grinning, Greg kissed him again. “I know exactly what you mean.”
With a little shake of his head, Marsh hopped up off Greg’s lap, bounding backward a couple of steps. His gaze went to the pile of notebooks and printouts strewn all over Greg’s desk. “You busy?”
And Greg could hear the caution there. It was well-placed, really. Greg had a ton to do, but he would
always
have a ton to do, and there were more important things than work. Better ways to spend his time that shouldering the world and going it alone.