IWOULD’VE THOUGHT THAThanging around Elijah’s Landing without Noah there would’ve felt strange or made me feel lonelier, but it didn’t. It felt right, as if I belonged there. I still missed him like crazy, but the memories we made in the house over the years wrapped around me like a warm hug. Being separated from him for weeks at a time was just as hard as it was before, but I finally had my head screwed on right. He was doing everything in his power to join his life with mine.
As for Noah, it was obvious as hell that he wanted me in the house, especially the bed we shared. Skype sessions were hotter and more intimate than ever because I was in our space. I may have teased him mercifully by leaving the black silk rope tied to the iron bed. His breath always seemed to get stuck in his throat and his jacking got harder and faster when I’d let the rope slide through my hands. I liked the feel of the rope against my skin and I wanted to be on the receiving end.
“I want you to tie me up the next time you come home, Doc. I want to be at your complete mercy.” I said those words when I knew he was fighting off his orgasm. I wrapped the rope around my wrist as a visual and gave it a good yank. That was all it took to make him shoot all over himself.
“Maverick.” I love how he growled my name when he came. “Such a fucking tease.”
My gloating was short lived, because he got his revenge the next night when he fucked himself with a dildo on the webcam. I came almost as fast as I did the first time we had sex. It was excusable at sixteen, but not so much at thirty-eight. It seemed to make Noah extremely happy that he could excite me so much since he didn’t last much longer.
Things were going very well and got even better when a moving van arrived with most of Noah’s belongings that he wanted to move from his apartment in D.C. the day before he was supposed to return to me. I wasn’t sure where he wanted to put anything so I left the boxes in the living room so we could sort them together when he got home. Home. It felt like a foreign word to me, because the space I shared with my parents never felt like a home to me. Ever. Noah had been the only home I had ever known.
I had gone to sleep happy that my guy would be home mid-afternoon the following day. Imagine my surprise when I woke to kisses on the back of my neck as a warm body pressed up against mine in the middle of the night. I recognized his scent and leaned into him, reveling in the feel of his arms wrapping around me. He must have headed home after we had a dinner date on Skype. I was so glad he was home, safe and sound, but I couldn’t help but tease him a little when his hand slid lower to seek my straining cock.
“Elijah,” I moaned, “you better not linger too long, because Noah’s on his way home. He doesn’t like to share me with anyone - man or ghost.” Noah bit my shoulder hard in retaliation, but his hand never stopped stroking me.
“You’re not funny,” he replied, but the laughter I heard in his voice betrayed him. I turned into his arms and planned to make quick work of our naked hello. He’d been up and at it for over eighteen hours and I wanted him to get the sleep he needed. Noah didn’t agree. “I want to feel you inside me. It’s been too long.”
What was a guy supposed to do? Take the only option available, of course – love him so hard and thoroughly that he dropped off into a deep slumber until the middle of the next day.
Things clicked into place for us pretty quickly with our daily routines. We started each day off with a run on the beach with Madge and then a shared shower – to conserve water, of course. We took turns cooking breakfast and then shared a long, sweet kiss before we went separate ways. Noah never failed to make sure I was wearing underwear before he left, which always made me laugh. Free-balling on a jobsite was never part of my game, but if it made him feel better, who was I to discourage him.
One weekend we went to Tara’s diner for a big breakfast and saw Dante, Hunter, and Macy sitting at a table in the back. Dante looked a little dejected as he pushed his food around his plate instead of eating it. I could tell that Macy was worried about him because she glanced over at him several times in the few minutes I had been there.
“Excuse me a minute, Doc.” I hadn’t seen or heard from Dante since he told me what he suspected about Hunter. I didn’t want to try and overstep any boundaries with the family, but I worried about how things had gone with Hunter.
“Good morning,” I said as I approached their table. Three heads turned to me at the exact same time, but they all wore different expression. Macy looked relieved to see me, Hunter’s face turned five shades of red in a matter of ten seconds, and Dante still looked dejected. It was if all the lively spark had left the kid and I wasn’t having any of that. “What’s wrong, Sprout?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“His baseball coach is really sick and he’s worried about him, but that’s not cool to acknowledge, and he’s also sad because his season is over. There’s no one qualified to coach his team and he doesn’t want to talk about that either. He feels guilty about being upset over the season ending early when his coach is so sick,” Macy explained.
I looked back at Dante, but he had looked back down at his plate. His shoulders slumped even more as if just hearing his thoughts out loud caused him more shame. I don’t know what the hell went through my mind, other than making Dante feel better, when I opened my mouth and said, “I can coach your team.”
“You can?” All three of them asked at once, causing me to laugh.
“I started playing baseball at age six and played on through high school, junior college, and even the minor leagues before an injury ended my pitching career.” I looked at Macy and added, “Can you tell me who I need to talk to?”
“Sure! I’ll look up the league president’s number when we get home and call you.” Her eyes began to tear up and I sensed that water works were about to happen. “You must be an angel.” Ha! I’d never been called that before.
“Not at all. I have the time and I’d love to help out.” I looked at Dante then. “I’m sure your coach will feel better knowing that the team gets to play on. I’m sure disappointing you kids weighed heavily on him. If you want, we can talk to him first and get his okay.”
“Mom made him a casserole and we’re taking it over later. I’ll talk to him and see if this is okay with him.”
“Just let me know, buddy.” I patted him on the shoulder and said goodbye before I returned to our table.
“I went ahead and ordered your usual,” he told me when I sat down. “Is everything okay with them?” I told Noah about the conflicting emotions that Dante was going through. “You’re an amazing guy, Mav. You’ve been a really good influence on Dante during some really tough times. I hope you’re able to coach his team.”
Later that day, I received a call from Coach Barrett himself. He was grateful that I offered to help out and in fact he remembered me from my high school days in Beaufort before we moved. He asked about my playing years in college and the minor leagues and I gladly talked to him about it. I realized I had reached levels that some people only dreamed about and I didn’t mind sharing my experiences. Afterwards, the coach provided me with the league president’s number and told me about some of the certifications I’d need to complete before I would be able to coach. I thanked Coach Barrett for contacting me directly and passed along my wishes for him to get better soon.
“This just feels like the right thing to do,” I told Noah that night as we took Madge for a walk along the beach. “I’m not at all happy that Coach Barrett is sick, but I am excited to get involved again in the game that I love so much. I hope like hell he’s able to come back next year and take his team back.”
Noah brought our joined hands up to his mouth and kissed the back of my hand. “I’m sure he’s relieved that you’re stepping in to help. I know the kids will be lucky to have you coaching them in his absence.” He got quiet for several minutes as if he was choosing his next words. “I have a confession to make.”
“You do? What kind of confession?” I asked suspiciously.
“I resented the time you spent at practice and games instead of being with me.” He said sheepishly.
“I knew.” I couldn’t keep the grin off of my face. “You weren’t very good at hiding your emotions back then. That pout before I left made me want to kiss your lips, but I always waited until I got back home and could taste your smile instead.” I tilted my head as a thought occurred to me. “Maybe that’s why I played so hard all those summers. The quicker we won, the faster I returned to you.”
