“I know, I know!” I shout back. “I’ll move in a minute!” The girls got here and promptly took off with Twink to the snack shack to see what candy they could scrounge with all their swear jar tips. I don’t want to disappear on them before they get back.
“Good grief!” the petite, blonde haired lady sitting next to me gasps as Gordy starts stretching outside of the dugout. “What do they put in that man’s Cheerios in the morning,steroids?!”
Her friend, a brunette who has got the most unfiltered mouth I’ve ever ever heard fromanyone—he, she, or they—in such a short amount of time, snorts. “Kels, we’re not in kindergarten right now, it’s okay to just say ‘holy fuckin’ shit’ like the rest of us, ‘cuz, come on—holy fuckin’ shit. He makes Shane look like a shrimp!” She bobs a baby on her knee.
“Who makes me look like a shrimp?” a deep male voice asks from behind me. When he steps around to drop off a giant duffle bag in the away team’s dugout, I realize I recognize the guy. The blond wall of muscle from the pub over a year ago whose name was, in fact, Shane.
He spies me when he turns around, and cocks an eyebrow up. “Hey, you’re the guy from the bar up the way, aren’t you? Gannett, right?”
“The one Elliot kissed?” The brunette lady hisses, leaning forward to glower at me. “What the hell areyoudoing here?”
The blonde woman stuffs her friend back in her seat. “Lay off, Cailin. El already told me he didn’t mean anything by it.” Then, she twists in her seat, facing me. “Hi there, Gannett. Fancy meeting you. I’mKelsey, Elliot’sunfazedwife.” She holds a dainty hand out for me to shake.
“He’s here because heliveshere, Cailin,” Shane supplies.
“Uh, yeah. That’d be me. And, uhm, nice to meet you too.”
She giggles. “I’m seriously not mad, don’t worry. He said he did it only to get you a guy. I have to ask, because I myself am a dedicated matchmaker, did it work?”
I nod over to Gordy and fidget with the choker on my neck. “It did.”
Cailin, I guess, gasps. “You’re with Mr. Steroid Cheerios?”
I chuckle. “I am. And for the record, he likes protein waffles, not Cheerios.”
She raises her eyebrows and gives Gordy another appreciative sweep. “I feel sorry for your ass.Literally. It must hurt to sit.”
“Je-sus, Cailin. No filter what-so-fuckin’-ever,” Shane huffs in disbelief as Kelsey swats at her friend.
“What’s my wife saying now?” a shaved head man wearing a Ridge Falls jersey asks, tossing his bat bag into the dugout. “Do I even wanna know?” He cocks an eyebrow up at her.
“Probably not,” she hums, giving zero fucks.
The new guy looks at Shane. “Your heathens and Kenzie all took off with Jake and Riley to go to the snack shack,” he tells him. “Levi’s not coming, he got a call he had to go work.”
“Where are Quinn and Elliot?” Shane asks him.
“They found a garbage goose napping in the bed of someone’s truck up in the parking lot,” the new guy notes. “Elliot’s trying to convince Quinn to let him bring it home with them.”
“No!” I shout, shooting up out of my chair. “That’s my Gulligan! My baby!”
All eyes turn to me. “You have a pet seagull?” Kelsey asks me.
“He was a wedding present,” I note, because, yes, Gordy and I did, indeed, get married. No big ceremony, just a quick courthouse formality when we were getting the paperwork to change both his and Taryn’s last names.
And yes, he rolled his eyes and got all “that’s so hypocritical” on me, before he actually sat down and heard me out. After we talked like rational adults for a bit, we both decided that we wanted to do it because who the fuck knows how the climate of the world will be on the topic of gay marriage. It’s legal now, and we wanted to make sure that we were in case that right is ever taken away. Knock on wood, but in the event that, god forbid, anything should happen to either Gordy or I, we wanted to make sure that we were each other’s legally recognized benefactors.
Plus, I just like the sound of calling him my husband over calling him my partner.
AndI get to rub it in Evan’s face that Gordy and I got married onhisbirthday, just like he and Brooks did on mine.
What can I say? There’s only so much maturity one man can ever really get.
Speaking of Evan, I can see him, Brooks and Tally all descending down the hill to get to the field. Tati, Terra, and Twink all catch up to them. And—holy shit—I just realized how many T’s there are in the Waters clan, because we can’t forget Taryn t-t-too.
“Welp, I’m gonna just go set up on the right side of the field, I guess,” I tell the bunch. “Family’s all showing up for the big first day for us. Nice meeting you all.”
Shane nods in my direction. “Win or lose, why don’t we catch up at the pub after? I think us continuing to run into each other is some sign we ought to all just hang out.”
