“Fuck you, Frankie.” Paulie’s voice drifts up from the floor.
Frankie ignores him and bats his lashes at me. “Well, that works out perfectly. I can…keep you occupied so you’re not thinking about him. How delicious to find out you’re into dick.” He tugs on one of my blond curls. “Always thought you were handsome.”
“Frankie,” Paulie growls as he stands up and starts trying to tug his brother off the bed. Frankie doesn’t budge.
“What? I’m just offering my services.” Frankie turns back to me. “I will gladly teach you the ways of the gays.”
He rakes a gaze over me, and I feel…wow. I see what Easton means about Frankie having game. That one look was like a stroke to my dick.
“Some guys don’t like to mess with baby bis. But I think they’re missing out. What’s not to love about an eager, not-so-straight boy on his knees. Teacher-student is my favorite kind of roleplay.”
“There’s only one guy I want to get on my knees for at the moment; sorry, Frankie.” I flick a glance at Paulie. I send him a shit-stirring grin before I say, “I’ll let you know if that ever changes.”
Paulie groans.
I dissolve into laughter. My night just got so much brighter. All thanks to these guys. I’m so grateful for them.
FIFTEEN
SHANE
“Out of the baseline, Michaels!”our defensive coach yells.
A growl rumbles through my chest. Fuck.
Stone comes jogging my way.
“I know,” I bite out, and his eyebrows fly up. My eyes slide shut, and I take a deep breath. I slip on a smile. “Sorry about that. I know. I’ll be better next time.” My veins are burning up with my frustration. Nothing feels right. I’m uncomfortable in what is supposed to be my domain. I feel like someone flipped my world. Everything that used to be on my left is now on my right.
He stops at second and draws a wide circle around the base in the dirt with his cleat. “This is your boundary. Every catch, I want your footwork leading you outside it immediately.”
I blink at him. “What am I, twelve?”
His face is its typical emotionless mask. “I’m not trying to be patronizing. Your body has to relearn how to do what it’s been doing for over a decade in the exact opposite direction.And you’ve got more basework ahead of you at second than you did at short. Everything goes back to the basics. I want you out of this circle after every catch. Understood?”
I shiver. Yikes. Maybe I should start messing up on purpose, so he’ll tell me what to do more often. That deep, authoritativeunderstood—yeah, I think I could get behind that. In front of it?
“And what are the consequences if I don’t?” I toss back at him.What the fuck, Shane?I snap my mouth shut.
“Um…” His gaze meets mine, brows scrunched together. “Well, you risk a knee or ankle injury being taken out by the runner.”
Right. Not a spanking. Darn.Pull yourself together, Shane.
Those dark eyes are looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. I haven’t totally. It’s just being controlled by my lower anatomy. This crush is really becoming a problem.
We go over positioning and footwork for another hour, staying later than the rest of the team. Stone has the right of it; my body has to completely recondition itself. Out on the field, in those game-speed, split-second situations, there’s no time to think about where to plant my feet or how to angle my body. It has to be second nature, something ingrained so deep it fires without conscious thought. And the only way to get there is through brutal, mind-numbing repetition.
People watch practice and see us doing glove work, literally kneeling in front of a machine that shoots grounders at us for a minimum of a hundred reps, and think,This is hard?It looks simple, but those tiny fundamentals are the difference between making a play and blowing it.
Our next game is tomorrow night. We’ll see how much my body can be conditioned in a day. I need to prove to theClippers they made the right decision in calling me up. As much as I wish I were on the other side of the field, I want this—need this. Triple-A. Next stop the big leagues.
I hurry to grab my things and head back to my apartment. I skip the showers at the clubhouse in favor of showering at home. Because seeing Stone’s towel-clad figure was too much for my long-deprived dick to handle, and the last thing I’m going to do is rub one out in the shower stall next to him. No. I’ll just do that in the shower at home. I havesomeboundaries.
I am so hard up it’s not funny. This is the longest I’ve gone without getting laid since college, and I’m a little nervous about the lack of blood flow to my brain. I park my Jeep and head to the front door. Maybe I should go out and pick up. My stomach squirms. The problem there is, no matter who I pick up, I’ll be thinking about someone else. That’s not my way. Some guys might not care who they’re getting their dick wet with, but it’s important to me that my partner feels wanted. I know what it’s like to be used, and I don't ever want the person I’m with to feel like a means to an end, even if we’re both just there to get off.
Back in high school, girls thought I was hot. I was good enough to mess around with in the dark, but God forbid people know my trailer trash fingers touched them. Then I hit college, and I was sought after purely because I was one of our star ballplayers. That didn’t hurt nearly as bad, but there’s a common denominator in both of them. No one ever wantedme. I will never disrespect my partners like that.
I push into the townhouse, and the hum of voices greets me. More voices than usual. I perk up and toss my drawstring bag into my room as I hurry toward the main area of the apartment. One of those voices sounded feminine, which means…
