Chapter 15
JEFF
I’m two minutes late for the morning staff meeting. I don’t fucking care. Helen is waiting for me at the door from the parking lot with an iced coffee and my clipboard.
“Thank you,” I say, already looking at the notes she’s assembled for me.
She makes a surprised little sound. “You’re welcome.”
“This is good.” I take another sip of coffee. “Really good.”
“It’s the same as always. Did you maybe get more sleep than usual last night?”
I laugh. Less than usual, although, not by much. I’ve never been a great sleeper. I wake up early and think about baseball from morning to night. “No.”
“Well, something has softened your bark.”
“The day is still early,” I growl.
“That’s more like the Jeff Rosehill we know and fear.” She points me down the hall. “They’re waiting for you. Analytics has some new stuff for the road trip, fyi.”
Great. The scouts will be thrilled.
The batting coach falls into step beside us. “Atlanta has a new pitcher that we’ll see day after tomorrow.”
“I was just telling him,” Helen says.
He nods. “We’ve got his data loaded into the Trajekt.”
All right, then. We need a bit more time carved out of the morning for batting practice. And just like that, the day is underway.
Midmorning, after a frustrating practice where a couple of our young call-ups don’t seem as open to feedback as they should be, I have a quick notes session with the batting coach and then head to the front office area in search of Molly.
In search of my wife.
I was full of big talk this morning, about patience and waiting six months, but I can’t go six hours without wanting to see her and claim her as my own.
She’s in a meeting, so I make myself comfortable in her office since she’s done that a couple of times to me.
I smile to myself as I sit in her chair. Our first in-joke as a couple, the workplace ambush.
In the distance, through the productive hum of the office, I hear someone say Molly’s name.
I stand up, and then I hear her voice as she approaches. “Yep, I can show you how to make the vertical content videos for social media. It’s pretty easy once you get into a routine. It’s all about getting a system on your phone.”
“I hate working on my phone,” the person she’s talking to says. A man.
I frown.
“And I’m not as pretty as you, so …”
My frown deepens and I step into the hall just in time to see her duck as someone wearing an Outlaws polo shirt leans in and waggles his eyebrows.
“Get your hands off her,” I growl.
He pivots, a comically frightened look crossing his face. “Coach Rosehill!”
“I’m fine,” Molly says hastily, her eyes wide. “Hi.”
I step between them, pausing a moment to give her my undivided attention. “Hi. Give me a second.”
“Don’t—”
But I’m already doing it. I grab the front of that soft polo shirt that wears the logo of the team I took to the fucking World Series, and I fist it tight enough that he makes a whimpering sound as I shove him against the wall with a satisfying thud. “Who are you?”
“Owen Fisker,” he wheezes. “Family Services and Team Support.”
“What did you do to make her duck, Owen Fisker from Family Services and Team Support?”
“Nothing.”
“Not. Fucking. Nothing.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I don’t fucking believe you.” I lean in close so even Molly can’t hear what I say next. “If you fucking look at her again, it’ll be the last thing your eyeballs do before I pop them out of your skull, do you understand me?”
“You can’t—”
“I can. I am. I will. What you mean to say is, I’m sorry for being unprofessional, Ms. Henderson.” I step back, shaking him off my hand like a wet rag.
He scowls at me, then stares at the floor in front of Molly’s feet. “I’m sorry for being unprofessional, M-Ms. Henderson.”
After he scurries away, I follow Molly into her office and close the door. “Don’t get mad at me when he’s fired later.”
“Don’t fire him,” she says. Then she looks at the door. “That wasn’t necessary.”
“Disagree.”
“I mean the closed door.”
“Ah. I also disagree about that.” I cross to her and pull her close. “This might be the last chance I get to kiss you for a week.”
“You just threatened to blind a man for hitting on me in the workplace.”
Oh, she heard that?
“That’s different. He’s not your husband.” God, she feels good in my arms.
“You said we’d keep this secret …” But she’s already softening for me.
“We will.”
“You closed the door.” She pushes up on her toes.
My wife wants a kiss just as much as I do.
“You’ll have to be quiet.”
She is. I give her my mouth, and she takes it eagerly, her tongue pushing against mine. It’s not a long kiss, it can’t be, but it’s enough to reconnect us, to ground me.
When we break apart, we’re breathing hard.
“I want more,” I admit. I mean it on so many levels.
“Not here.”
Yes, here. Yes, anywhere. But not today. Not yet.
“I know. But it is okay to let your husband make you feel good.” I kiss her again, spearing my tongue against hers, tasting her desire, her eagerness to soften. Then I prop my hip against her desk. “What was your meeting about?”
She squeaks. “We aren’t making small talk.”
“I’m asking my wife about her work.”
“Oh.” She exhales shakily. “It was about social media visibility and SEO stuff.”
“SEO?”
“Search engine optimization.”
“Ah.”
“Visibility is a big part of brand awareness and also serves as a significant reminder to our core audience. If we do engagement and SEO right, then we don’t need to pay for as much advertising.”
“Got it.”
“It’s a fun challenge.” An alarm goes off on her phone. “Speaking of which, it’s time for me to post something online, so …”
“Can I watch?”
“I’m not recording myself. It’s just …” She taps the screen a few times, pulling in a video clip, then some text from a prewritten script, and finally she adds a funny little quip in the comment box. “There, I’m done.”
“That was fast. Now I see why the pervert in the polo shirt wanted your help.”
“He didn’t really. This isn’t his job. That was an excuse.”
“He’s definitely fired.”
“Please leave before I kiss you again.” She looks pleased at the way I stepped in to protect her, even though she wants to be logical and argue against it.
So I kiss her again, anyway, and I grab a random magazine off her desk. “Can I take this with me to cover how much I like kissing my wife?”
“Yes. Take it. Go. Have a great game and a great road trip.”
“I’ll call you tonight. Might be late.”
She watches me go to the door.
“I’ll stay up,” she says quietly, just before I open it.
And fuck if I don’t need that magazine all the way back to the clubhouse.
I call her that night in Atlanta. She’s sleepy but oh-so sweet and easily talked into making herself come as I tell her in detail what I want to do to her when I get back.
The next morning, I wake up alone, hard, and desperate for more of her innocent heat. I resist the urge to call her again, to have phone sex this early in the morning, but just as I’m stepping out of the hotel room, she sends me a good morning text and a selfie.
She’s in bed.
She’s naked.
And just like that, I’m back in the hotel room, my cock out and her voice in my ear. This time, she’s the one fumbling through the sweetest dirty talk. I come so fucking fast, and she follows.
We talk every night and every morning through the rest of the road trip.
By the time our plane touches down in Florida again, there’s no question about where I’m heading as soon as I get in my car.
And then she answers the door to her apartment wearing nothing but my jersey.