Page 79 of Serving Bunt

His fingers combed gently through my curls, slow and soothing.

“Yeah?”

“And then you happened.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Pretty sure I existed before that.”

“You know what I mean.”

He nodded, eyes soft in the low light. “I do.”

I shifted higher against him, resting my chin on his chest.

“When I got drafted, I knew exactly what I wanted. Win a championship . . . or two. Golden Glove.”

“Or two?”

I scoffed. “Buy some land and retire with enough money to pass it on to my kids and their kids.”

“But?”

I swallowed. “But I never pictured this.”

The admission came out quieter than I’d intended. Because that was the truth of it. I hadn’t spent my life secretly wishing for a boyfriend. Hell, until a few years ago, I had genuinely believed I was straight.

Straight-ish.

Then Peter Diaz had crashed into my life—first as my teammate, and then again as PeteRoseCity9, the man who kissed me like the world was ending—and every neat little box I’d put myself in had been blown wide open. It was still scary sometimes.

Almost as scary as the thought of losing him now that I finally had him.

Diaz was quiet for a long moment, just stroking my hair. Then he tipped my chin up with two fingers.

“Hey.”

I met his eyes. “Hey.”

“If all of that stuff gets scary, we’ll deal with it.”

“That’s not exactly a plan, Peter.”

“No.” He grinned. “But it's a pretty good philosophy.”

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t fight the smile tugging at my lips. “Only you would say that.”

His expression softened. “We don’t have to decide everything tonight, tesoro. Fuck the media.”

His thumb brushed across my cheek.

“Fuck the fans.”

Another stroke.

“Fuck the team.”

Another.

Forget being a dog dad; Diaz was going to have me purring under his fingers any second now.