Hostile(46)

“Oh, come on. I’d come cheer you on if there’s ever a tattoo competition or an art fair or some shit.”

“Art fair? Really?”

I laugh. “So, that’s a no?” I knew it would be. He’s never gone to a game the entire time we’ve been in school. But I have to admit, I’d love the idea of him being there in the crowd, secretly rooting for me.

Knowing he’s been inside me. Knowing he knows what I look like when I come. His hands have been all over me, and no one else knows it. It’s egotistical and fucked up, but knowing he’d be watching me, I’d want to make him proud. To feel like he’s chosen the winner.

“Definitely not.”

And he crushes that little fantasy.

I shrug. “Yeah, I figured.”

“I have to work.”

I smile. “How’s that going?”

He lights up now, and it brightens my smile. “Great. I’m learning a lot, and they’re amazing. They have the time to really put their all into it. It’s not fast-paced, you know? And they care about the art. What they’re putting out there.” He looks slightly sheepish now and grabs the back of his neck with his hand. “Not that Rhys doesn’t do that at his place too. They do.”

I hate the guilt he feels. “I’m guessing you haven’t told him yet.”

He shakes his head, looking down at his tennis shoes. “I don’t know how.”

“You’ll figure it out.” I wrap my arm around him, and surprisingly, he doesn’t push me away. “I promise.”

“I’m sorry I can’t make it to your game.”

I shove him away playfully. “No, you’re not.” I pull my keys out of my pocket and unlock my car. “But you can make it up to me.”

I wink, and he shakes his head at me, but he’s grinning from ear to ear. “Lead the way.”

I hop into my car and do just that, leading him to his place.

We don’t have much in common. I know he’d rather eat glass than go to my baseball game. And I’ll never understand the hell he went through when he was younger.

But when we’re together, wrapped up in the sheets of his bed later that evening, sweaty and breathless after him owning my ass—literally—and finally being deep inside of me again, none of that matters. I lay my head on his naked chest and listen to his heartbeat.

I just wish we could stay like this forever and the rest of the world didn’t matter.

Only us.





THIRTY-ONE





“Okay. Tell me why the hell we’re spending our Friday night here, of all places,” Fletch whines as we walk through the parking lot full of cars toward the baseball fields.

“As if you had so many other important plans,” I joke, trying not to run back to Bree’s car. What the hell am I doing here?

“Oh, I did. I had a plan with my textbooks. Finals are coming up.”

Bree rolls her eyes, kicking a rogue rock off the pavement to the side. “You can afford one night off, genius boy.”

I grin at her. She always has my back, even though I know she doesn’t want to be here either.

“Some of us care about our academic careers,” he singsongs and wraps his meaty arms around her small shoulder.

“Someone needs to get laid,” she teases before she elbows him playfully when he doesn’t release her.

“Oh yeah, Bree Bree? You’re one to talk,” he jokes back.

I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling because it feels like old times with them. We give each other shit. It’s what we do. But the truth is none of us know how to connect with other people long enough to date.

We don’t date. We don’t trust. We just don’t.

Until now.

My eyes move slowly to the baseball dugout and instantly zone in on Grayson’s big body as he stretches with a bat in his hand. The game has already started and is in the third inning, according to the scoreboard, with the away team up by two.

Grayson looks calm, though, as he approaches the plate. I wish my eyes weren’t glued to the sinful way his baseball pants hug that delectable ass I’ve been inside, but they are. They so fucking are. I can’t look away.

“Seriously though.” Fletcher nudges me, pulling my hungry gaze from Grayson and back to him and Bree. “Why the hell are we here?”

Bree’s eyes meet mine, but they don’t seem to pressure me to tell him. Still, Fletcher might as well be my brother, and even though I don’t really understand what’s going on with Grayson and me, I know I want to keep doing it. And that means I don’t want to hide it from the most important people in my life.

I meet his confused gaze. “I’m kind of fooling around with one of the players.”

He doesn’t look too surprised as he looks toward the field just as we hear the clink of the bat when Grayson smashes the ball way out into the outfield. The crowd loses their shit around us, hollering at a deafening volume.

Fletch turns back to me. “Fooling around?”

I nod, waiting for him to say more and feeling a nervous tingle in my gut about what he might say. I shouldn’t worry. I know he’s a good person.

“Which one?” He turns to watch Grayson round the bases and then turns back to me, his eyes wide. “You’re fucking Grayson Lancaster the third? Are you kidding me?”