No suggestive whispers.
No threading his fingers through my hair and choking me on his cock while he called me his “good girl.”
He held me at night but always stopped short of taking things further. Even yesterday, we had fallen asleep tangled together after the guys had left, his hand had rested innocently on my hip. Protective, yes, but nothing more.
I understood. He was still raw, still putting himself back together after his panic attack. I could be patient for as long as he needed me to; I’d been waiting for him my entire life.
But seeing him now, squirming, erection tenting his shorts while he ogled my bare breasts, made something inside me twist with both tenderness and hunger.
“Today’s your last day off,” I said softly, keeping the subject light.
He nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
“How are you feeling about going back tomorrow?”
When he spoke, his voice was low and measured. “I think I’m ready,” he admitted, choosing his words carefully. “As ready as I can be at least. Sitting around, doing nothing is starting to make me feel twitchy. I need the field, the routine.”
“Resting and healing is not nothing.”
“I know that.” He looked up at me then, eyes soft but searching. “I just don’t want anybody looking at me like I’m breakable. Don’t want the fans, especially the kids, to think I can’t handle it.”
I tilted my head. “Where does that come from? The whole ‘can’t handle it’ thing. Because you know the team and fans love you.”
His hands flexed once, twice, before settling on his thighs. “I’m the only Deaf guy in major league baseball right now. That carries weight. Not just for me, but for every kid out there who’s been told their difference is a limitation. If I can’t handle the pressure, or if I let one bad night define me, it feels like I’m proving all those doubters right. Like I’m failing to give a voice to the voiceless. Or at least . . . failing to keep mine loud enough for them to hear.”
The words landed heavy, honest. I felt them settle in my chest like stones in a riverbed.
“I get it,” I said, reaching out to rest my hand on his. “But just try to remember that you’re also allowed to have bad days and moments where the weight feels too heavy. That doesn’t make you less of an example. It makes youreal. And those kids need to see real more than perfection.”
He turned his hand over, so our palms pressed together. His fingers laced through mine, thumb brushing the inside of my wrist.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I hear you.”
We sat with that for a minute, the quiet stretching comfortably between us.
“So, what do you want to do with your last day off?” I asked him. “We could stay in and watch more shitty movies, or . . .”
He arched his brow. “Or?”
I grinned. “We could go be frivolous. Do something silly and fun and completely non-baseball related. Like eat overpriced churros at the zoo or . . . go off-roading in the desert?”
“Youwant to go off-roading?” His eyes flicked down to my bare breasts again. “You’d have to put a top on for that, you know.”
“I’ll manage.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up.There he is.
“Churros, huh?”
“Or the botanical gardens.” I thought back to the “Scottsdale Shit” list on my phone. “Ooh, or a rodeo.”
He leaned over and kissed my forehead. Soft, lingering, the closest thing tomorewe’d had since I’d arrived. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against mine.
“Let’s do it,” he said.
The condo door clicked shut behind us a little after one a.m., the faint sweetness of churro sugar still clinging to our clothes.
My cheeks hurt from laughing so hard. Bennett’s cowboy hat, which he had purchased ironically and worn unironically for three straight hours, sat crooked on the entry table now. Beside it was the box of sopapillas we’d brought home for the guys to enjoy for breakfast.
