You here yet?
Callum Cross
Yeah, waiting outside
Hold tight I’m omw. Meet me at the third gate
Hoodie in hand, I dash outside and scan the crowd for Callum, homing in on his imposing, recognizable figure and making a beeline for him.
“Hey, Ian. What’s up?” he asks as I approach, bending down to give me a kiss.
I resist the urge to make out with him in public, limiting myself to a quick, chaste peck on the lips. “Nothing much, I wanted to give you some merch for the game.”
I hand the hoodie to Callum, who unfolds it and inspects the front.
“It looks nice, thank you.” He goes for a hug, and I stick an arm out to stop him, chuckling as I connect with his pec and give it a gratuitous, unnecessary squeeze.
“Cal, you should see the back,” I say, using my free hand to flip the hoodie around.
His eyes widen, a smile tugging at his lips andat my heartstrings. He runs a hand over my name on the back before slipping the sweater on, and my chest blooms with warmth when his head pokes out of the top.
“I love it,” he says, running a hand through his hair to mess it up again.
I shrug. “You don’t get to be the only possessive guy in this relationship.”
Callum grins. “Now everyone is gonna know I'm all yours.”
My god, I like the sound of that. “I'll make it so clear. Maybe I’ll play better if I know there’s a kiss waiting for me at the end of a game.”
“Hmm, I think I’ll have to keep climbing into the dugout to make out with you.”
As appealing as that sounds, it might raise some eyebrows. “That’s one way to make the news. You’d be all over the internetagain.”
He leans into me, nudging his head onto mine and almost making me fall over. “That happened once. What’s one more time?”
“You wouldn’t be nervous or anything?” Shit. I shouldn’t stoke that, so I course-correct. “Not that youshouldbe or anything, but?—”
Callum chuckles and bumps his shoulder against mine. “Ian, you don’t have to worry about me like this.” He wraps me in a hug, and I get a sudden, predictable urge to skip today’s game and climb my boyfriend like a sexy jungle gym instead. “Iwantpeople to know we're together. Everyone, even people from my hometown. Man, I wish I still had friends from there who could update me.”
“And that'd get back to your parents,” I remind him.
He gives me a casual, unbothered tilt of the head. “I’m not scared of them anymore. I can’t live my life concerned with what they’d think about me, not when I chose to slip out at midnight and leave them behind.”
“I’m so proud of you.” I beckon Callum down for anotherkiss, and he obliges, brushing his lips across mine so gently, I grab the back of his neck and pull him in out of instinct.
Scoffing, he jerks away and swats my ass. “Enough of that, lover boy. Go play baseball.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CALLUM
Ian disappears back into the ballpark, leaving me with the remnants of our scorching kiss on my lips. It was a little peck. A chaste, PG-rated moment that still left me craving more and undressing his departing figure with my mind.
Sometimes, I still can’t believe that I’m all his.
I grin to myself, grounding myself in the moment and keeping calm. While I don’t have eyes on the back of my head, I can still tell that people are at least noticing the name I’m wearing. While I’m not sure how well student athletes are known on campus, we’re at a baseball game—most of the crowd is gonna know who Ian is, and we’re precisely where an athlete’s hoodie is gonna stand out. They don’t sell them, and the team colors are distinctive—dark blue with gold lettering and subtle green accents.
I smile, knowing that I’m Ian’s, and that it shows. The semester is wrapping up in a few weeks, and if I went back in time and told January Callum that I’d not only have a boyfriend, but that I’d be wearing clothes that basically say “Property of Ian Scott” on it, I think I’d send my past self into a spiral.
