Sweet Spot: Homeruns #4 (21 page)

“Um, why?” I batted Nick’s hand away from the hem of my shirt.

“Because that one,” he said, pointing at Nick, “He’s so much like Mason it’s scary sometimes. He has zero filter, which means you’re likely in for a lifetime of embarrassment at the worst possible moments.”

A lifetime? I chewed on his words for a moment and then nodded slowly. “As long as you find a way so those moments happen more frequently, I’m okay with that.”

Sean stepped over and shook Nick’s hand before patting me on the back. “We’re trying, kid. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s not just for his sake. You deserve to be happy, too.”

As Sean disappeared up the stairs, I cuddled against Nick’s side and thought about what Sean had said. It’d taken me a long time to believe it, but yeah, I did deserve to be happy. And even with all the challenges, I was happy being with Nick.

T
he basement was
pitch black when I woke up. Although I loved feeling as if Cody and I had our little sanctuary away from the chaos upstairs, I felt uneasy every morning when I first opened my eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was still the middle of the night or if it was approaching noon. I listened for noise coming from upstairs and then flipped onto my stomach, punching my frustrations into the pillow. It had to still be night since the house was quiet.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t force myself to sleep any longer. I was on edge, irritated we’d given up my entire vacation for nothing. There’d been no phone call. And if it hadn’t come in over the three days I’d already been in Milwaukee, I couldn’t imagine today would be any different.

Finally, I threw back the blankets, grabbed my phone, and felt my way through the dark to the bathroom. As much as I wanted a shower to see if the warm water would relax me enough that I could get some sleep, I didn’t want to wake everyone, so I settled for sitting in the dark on the other side of the room scrolling mindlessly through social media. That was a fucking mistake, because my teammates, whom I’d made a conscious effort to get to know after my chat with Sean, were all posting pics from their own mini-vacations. A couple of the guys had sent messages asking if I’d fallen off the face of the earth because I’d been silent since leaving Pennsylvania. I responded quickly that I had other things to focus on besides live-posting every minute of my time off.

“Hey, why don’t you come back to bed?” Cody suggested. His voice was rough from sleep. I could almost picture the dopey look on his face and the way his wavy hair fell over his forehead when he slept. I wasn’t looking forward to saying goodbye tomorrow morning.

“Go back to sleep,” I told him. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Well, I can’t sleep knowing you’re all the way over there, so get in here. It’s cold without you.” I tossed my phone onto the coffee table and very carefully walked back to the bed.

As soon as my head hit the pillow, Cody draped his arm over my chest. “Why are you up already? It’s not even seven.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” I admitted.

“Wanna talk about it?” he offered. I should talk to him, but I felt bad enough already. Granted, it was partly his own fault because he was the one who canceled our reservation at the cabin, but I’d spent the entire time I’d been here ranting to him about how much I didn’t want to go back to Pennsylvania. How I wished the damn phone would ring already. How pissed I was that Sean talked him into us staying here.

“I just…I feel like this was a wasted trip.” As soon as the words passed my lips, I knew I’d fucked up. That sounded bad. Like, way worse than I’d meant it to. But, in my defense, it was early, I’d barely slept, and I had no caffeine. “I mean, not the time with you, obviously. But it’s not what we planned on. And I feel bad, because you were looking forward to getting away.”

“True,” Cody confirmed as he ran his fingers over my stomach. “But Eric gave me some pretty sound advice.”

“Yeah? What’s that?” I turned slightly so I could hold Cody while we talked.

“He told me being with a ball player sucks a lot of the time.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” I scoffed. “Because it’s not.”

Cody smacked my chest playfully. “Shut up and listen for once. He told me the uncertainty is also going to be there. Like right now, they still have to worry, because they know Drew could get traded to another team at any time.”

“That won’t happen,” I responded, because the thought of Stu and my dad trading away one of their top hitters was insane.

“Maybe not, but it could. Don’t you see, that’s the point Eric was trying to make,” he told me, as if it should’ve been obvious. “Hell, Eric had that happen to him. Everything was going great and he walked in one day and Stu told him he’d been traded to Seattle. Even though it worked out better for everyone in the end, it still sucked at the time.”

“I suppose you’re right.” My phone chimed, but I was too comfy to get up to see who was messaging me at the ass-crack of dawn. “It’s my own damn fault. I know better than to get wrapped up in any of the hype. Until the phone call comes from the manager or my agent, nothing’s certain.”

“But I think that’d be nearly impossible,” Cody reassured me. “Everything you do is based on your performance, and you have to listen to what you’re being told in order to get where you want to be.”

“True,” I agreed. The phone pinged again and I debated pulling myself away from Cody so I could tell whoever it was to fuck off. I needed to make the best I could of the time I had left with Cody. Before I’d gotten on the plane, I hadn’t even thought about the possibility I might not have to go back there, but I’d hung on to the thread of hope Sean had given me and had gotten used to the idea of only being a few hours away from Cody.

“Do you want to get that?” Cody asked. He knew me well enough he could correctly interpret the slight tense of my body.

“No, they can wait.” I pressed a kiss to the top of Cody’s head and pulled him on top of me. “As far as I’m concerned, the only time we need to get out of this bed today is to pee or grab something to eat.”

Cody hummed appreciatively and started rutting against me. “That sounds like a damn good plan to me.”

Cody shifted slightly and reached between our bodies, stroking me through my briefs as he flicked his tongue over my nipple.

Just as he moved to push my underwear down my legs, my fucking phone went off again. But this time, it wasn’t the relatively unintrusive ping of a text message. Someone was fucking calling me.

“Why don’t you get that?” Cody suggested.

“Don’t wanna,” I groaned, wrapping my arms tighter around his waist. “Remember? I’m ignoring everything that’s not in this bed today.”

The phone stopped and I sat up, pulling Cody into my lap. He closed his mouth over mine, his tongue pressing against my lips. I opened for him and our tongues tangled in a heated kiss. And then, the fucking phone. Again. I was so going to kill whoever was bugging me.

“Answer your phone,” Cody hissed. “And when you’re done, turn the damn thing off.”

Cody flopped back on the bed and threw his arm over his eyes. I turned on the small lamp on the nightstand so I wouldn’t have to tiptoe around. My heart raced when I picked up my phone and counted the missed calls and ignored texts from my dad. He was never this persistent.

I called him back as I climbed back into bed next to Cody, trying to tamp down the growing panic. The phone had barely rung when Dad answered. “Nick, did I wake you?”

I rolled my eyes and debated telling him exactly what he’d interrupted. But I couldn’t, because if he was calling me repeatedly this early in the morning, something was going on.

“No, I was up,” I told him. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, everything is fine,” Dad responded, a bit cautiously. “Oh hell, did I worry you by calling this early? I forget you don’t get up as early as I do.”

No one woke up as early as he did. I was pretty sure even the Dunkin’ Donuts guy stumbled out of bed to make the donuts later than Dad did.

“Yeah, but seriously, it’s early enough no one is awake yet,” I told him. “So what’s going on that couldn’t wait at least a few more hours?”

“How soon can you be here?” Dad asked. Now, he sounded excited. He was seriously one confusing man, but I’d learned over the years to just roll with it.

“Uh, I don’t know.” I wished I’d gone upstairs to make some coffee. I was in a warm bed, I had my almost naked boyfriend next to me, and my dad wanted me to leave all of that. “Maybe a couple of hours?”

“Need you here sooner,” Dad insisted. “Can you be here within the hour?”

I did the mental math. It’d take about twenty-five minutes to drive down to their house. I needed to shower because no way was I going to risk still smelling like last night’s sex when I walked through the door. And Cody needed to shower, too, because we might as well get the official introductions out of the way. My dad knew we were seeing one another, but Mom still hadn’t met him. And part of me wondered if Dad actually believed we were serious about one another since it was a topic we didn’t really talk about.

“We might be able to be there in an hour,” I told him noncommittally. Cody sat up and glared at me. I held up a finger to silence him. “But you’re going to have to feed me and have a pot of coffee brewed by the time I walk through the front door. Seriously, Dad, this had better be good. It’s my last day before I head back to Pennsylvania. I was really looking forward to sleeping in.”

“Mm-hmm, sure you were,” Dad responded. The amused lilt of his voice told me I wasn’t fooling him at all. “Don’t worry, your mother’s already hard at work in the kitchen. You won’t waste away to nothing before you get food in your system.”

“I’m actually more worried about the coffee,” I admitted. “Again, let me point out. It’s fucking early.”

“And you know I wouldn’t ask you to drag your lazy bones out of bed if there wasn’t a reason,” he reminded me. “Now, we’re wasting time. I’ll see you soon.”

I hung up the phone and tossed it to the foot of the bed. Cody started rubbing circles over my back and kissed my shoulder. He was waiting for me to tell him what was going on, but the truth was, I had no clue. I tried to tell myself my mom was excited about spending some time with us before I left and had been annoying Dad already. It was possible, but unlikely. Dad knew how rare downtime was for me, and I liked to think he wouldn’t call just to appease her. But nothing else made sense.

“Can you make me coffee while I shower?” I asked as I planted my feet on the floor. “Dad wants us at the house within the hour.”

“Well, we could shower together,” Cody suggested playfully. “You know, to save time.”

That sounded lovely, but that wouldn’t help. I batted his hand away from my dick, which physically ached now that it wasn’t going to get the release it wanted. “We both know we take more than twice as long when we’re in there together. And there’s no time for that. We’ll just have to get out of my parents’ as soon as possible so we can get back to what we were doing.”

“Fine,” Cody groaned. “You’re zero fun sometimes. You do know that, right?”

“Hey, you’re the one who canceled the cabin,” I reminded him. “If we were up there, I wouldn’t have heard my phone ring and I’d probably have my dick buried inside of you by now.”

Cody threw himself onto the bed dramatically. He was so damn cute when he pouted. “Don’t remind me.”

Cody pulled up in front of my parents’ house with two minutes to spare. I chuckled, wondering what their pretentious neighbors would think about his rusted-out, duct-taped car polluting the pristine image of the neighborhood. After today, that wouldn’t matter because we’d be taking my car back to Cody’s and he would drive it, whether he wanted to or not. Then, I’d start working on getting him into something more reliable. It didn’t have to be new or flashy, but he needed a safe car.

Dad greeted us at the door with two steaming mugs of coffee. I took one and quickly hugged him. “You’re a god.”

“No, I’m your father.” He chuckled and patted me on the shoulder. “I know what a prick you can be when you’re under-caffeinated. But you should really consider weaning yourself off that crap.”

I gaped at him as though he’d just told me the Easter Bunny wasn’t real. “Shut your mouth, old man,” I teased. “I’ll give up a lot to make sure I’m in the best shape possible, but you’re losing your mind if you think I’m going to give up the coffee. Besides, I don’t drink it all day like I used to.”

“True, he’ll turn off the pot by eight at night,” Cody interjected. Fucking traitor.

“That sounds about right.” It was surreal to watch my dad and Cody interact so easily. Cody took his proffered hand as they greeted one another. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Likewise.” Cody’s hand twitched, like he was fighting the urge to chew his nails. It was a disgusting habit, but he was trying to break himself of it. He was nervous about today, because he still worried the two of us being together would create issues with management. When I’d tried to argue about it, he pointed out his entire job was to make the players look good, and someone could claim he was somehow giving me preferential treatment to further my career. I’d shut him up by reminding him I was still in Double-A and it’d be a long time before that even became a possibility.

Dad led us into the dining room, where Mom was just putting the last of breakfast on the table. I looked around, trying to figure out if she’d made every dish I’d ever claimed to be my latest favorite breakfast food.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you,” she squealed after she’d set down a plate of French toast. She cupped my face in her hands and kissed both of my cheeks. When she pulled back, she frowned. “You look tired.”

Funny, I thought I felt better than I had in months. “I’m blaming Dad,” I told her. “He’s the one who dragged me out of bed so early.”

Mom shook her head and pursed her lips. “No, that’s not it,” she disagreed. “You’re not taking care of yourself. Marcus, tell him he needs to make sure he’s getting enough sleep and eating right.”

Oh, she didn’t want to go there. No way in hell was I going to tell her how impossible that was for guys at my level. We made shit money and spent most of our lives in parks or on buses trying to get to the next destination. And even though Cody told me my dad was trying to make changes in the minors, he was only one man. I doubted he’d ever convince the other GMs to increase the pay or ease up the schedule a bit.

“Angela, I’m sure he’s doing everything he can,” Dad assured her. It seemed he was just as eager to change the subject as I was. “Now, why don’t we eat before everything gets cold.”

“Good plan,” I agreed. My mom stared at Cody, who was fixated on something at his feet. “Oh, Mom, this is Cody Marshall. My boyfriend.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and I worried she wasn’t as okay with me being gay as she swore she was. That fear evaporated when she wrapped Cody in her arms and kissed his cheek. He stiffened, uncomfortable with the affection from a complete stranger.