Chapter 28
28
L ucas sent Joan a dopey grin in their shared dugout.
His heart pounded at the sight of her, which presented a big problem. He often jumped into relationships with both feet, riding it out until his fickle nature ruined it. If Joan were anyone else, he’d be trying to get a commitment from her, but he wouldn’t subject her to his admittedly impulsive relationship pattern. They were friends who had sex, not romantic partners. He needed to remember that.
“Just as a reminder, Dorothy, this is slow-pitch softball. You gotta take it down a notch.” He stared at her as he spoke, drinking her in. He hadn’t seen her since he woke up in her apartment three days before.
“I think I only have one level. But I’ll try.” Joan pushed her toe through the dirt and nudged his foot with hers.
They stood with Eric as well as Rowan, the teacher at Eric and Lucas’s school that Kendall didn’t like, waiting for the rest of their team to arrive. The weather report predicted a low under sixty degrees, unseasonably cool for late July, but perfect softball weather in Lucas’s opinion.
“Ah, yes,” Rowan said to Joan. “Lucas told us about your softball prowess.” Lucas frowned in Rowan’s direction. Somehow he’d made the simple statement sound condescending. “Maybe you can actually help us.”
“It’s recreational softball, man.” Eric adjusted the waistband of his athletic shorts. “It’s okay if we suck.”
They were saved from argument by the arrival of Jacob, followed by Christine, Gwen, Addie, Paulo, whose triceps bulged beneath his fitted tee, and Lucas’s assistant coach, Adam. Altogether, they’d gotten together ten people for their fifteen-person team. Another group of friends comprised the additional five players.
Lucas and Joan introduced everyone. Gwen shook hands with her customary brusque style, looking like she’d tried and failed to smile. She was a very loving, fun person once you got to know her, but first impressions were not her strong suit. She offered him a slap on the back and a mischievous grin before she walked away to get her tennis shoes.
“What’s her deal?” Rowan murmured beside Lucas.
“What do you mean?”
“She looks pissed off.”
“She’s not. It just takes her some time to warm up to people. She’s kinda private.” He paused, considering. “Or maybe she got into a fight with her girlfriend again.”
Joan, who had been hovering nearby with one ear attuned to the conversation, responded to that. “She and Jackie broke up a few weeks ago. I meant to mention that to you.”
Rowan lowered his voice even more. “That explains it, then.”
Lucas frowned. “What?”
“You know what I mean. Angry lesbians.” He said the last part at a near whisper.
“She’s bi, actually,” Lucas responded, stunned. Rowan had reduced one of his favorite people to a stereotype, and he wasn’t sure what to say.
Rowan shrugged. “Whatever,” he said before walking away.
Joan shot Lucas a “who does he think he is?” look and he felt like a complete dick for not shutting Rowan down. Neither he nor Joan were great at confrontation, but his general affability made him especially bad at it. He didn’t like to make anyone angry with him, recent arguments with his dad notwithstanding. He might have to make an exception for Rowan.
He met their remaining teammates, two women and three men roughly his age, give or take a few years. The excitement of impending competition zinged through his nervous system.
Once play began, he nearly forgot about Rowan’s egregious comment. The team gelled quickly, shouting encouragement to each other and clapping for one another.
Midway through the game, they dominated in a way Lucas almost felt bad about. He scooted away from second base as Joan walked up to the plate. He watched her, shamelessly admiring her legs in her ready stance. He’d always loved watching her play sports, and even with the low stakes, he found himself entranced by the fire in her performance, the way she chased each win with abandon. He wanted to watch her triumph over every challenge, to celebrate with her. In that particular moment, he thought the way she stared at the pitcher with challenge in her eyes was the hottest thing he’d ever seen.
The pitch came, and she sent it sailing over the second baseman’s head. He took off, rounding third and then sliding into home. He whooped, high fiving Christine, who had her turn next at bat. Christine was a capable player as well—not quite as good as Joan, but close. She was tall like Joan, like all the Colemans, and she dipped into a relaxed athletic stance. She hit a ground ball to first and got out, but they scored another run. Lucas nudged her as she trotted back to the dugout.
“Nice job, little Cece,” he told her.
She rolled her eyes at him, but he noted her smile as she shook her hair out of her ponytail.
After an easy win, they all gathered behind the dugout after the game, laughing and high fiving each other. The five newbies, as Lucas had been calling them in his head, seemed to be having a great time. They all agreed to meet at the nearby Mexican restaurant after the game.
Once some of the others had gotten into their cars, Rowan turned to Lucas, Joan, and Gwen. Rowan’s wife, Annie, had come with him, and she strolled up to their group, one hand perched on her pregnant belly.
“That was awesome,” Rowan said, and Lucas dropped his shoulders in relief. “I was a little worried when I found out we had six girls on our team.” Lucas tensed again. Rowan glanced at Gwen and Joan. “No offense or anything.”
“Well, dude,” Gwen said. “It’s kinda hard not to take offense to that. This is a co-ed softball league.”
“You know what I mean.” Rowan waved his hand.
“Oh, I think we do,” Lucas said, getting a good head of steam going. “But Joan could roll right over you when it comes to softball, so I’m not sure what you’re running your mouth about.”
Joan twitched next to him.
“Okay.” Rowan nodded several times in a row, looking like a deranged bobblehead. With his curly blonde hair, flushed cheeks, and sour expression, he looked like a surly toddler. “It was a joke, man. You can take it easy.” Next to Rowan, Annie’s face turned a rosy shade.
“Nah. I think we know what you were doing.”
Rowan sputtered before stalking off. Annie muttered a low apology before following him.
Lucas swiveled to face Joan and Gwen. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Aw. Our Lucas is growing up.” Gwen ruffled his hair. “Sometimes you gotta put people in their place, or else stop being friends with them. It happens. But yeah, that Rowan guy kinda sucks. Or maybe he’s going through something right now, I don’t know.”
Adrenaline still coursed through his system as they walked to the parking lot. Joan remained quiet for a moment in the passenger seat, but he could tell she was gearing up to say something.
“Are you okay?”
“Not really, no.” He sighed. “I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to one of my friends like that before. Rowan isn’t a good friend, I’ll admit, but I’ve been friendly with him in the past.”
“He deserved it.”
“I know. I do. It’s just, I have all this anger lately. It makes me nervous.”
“First off,” Joan said. “Sometimes anger is okay. Those bad feelings have a purpose. And second, you still have plenty of support. You don’t need to be friends with everyone. You’ve got Jacob, and your mom, and Eric. Paulo. Tons of other friends and coworkers. And you’ve got me. I’m here.”
“It makes me worry about our whole arrangement, though. What if this ends in disaster? And I can’t lose you.” He knew he was being clingy. It was one of his worst qualities.
“Do you want to stop the sex stuff? You know we can go back to only being friends if you want.”
“No,” he answered. His body tightened. “I’ll be honest here. I was so turned on watching you today I could hardly stand it. You’re like a drug.”
“I know what you mean.” Lucas had his eyes on the road, but he could see Joan rubbing her hands along her thighs. “I’m just, like, relentlessly horny.”
Lucas chuckled. A shot of lust almost had him stopping the car.
“Now that should have been our team name.”
When they arrived at the restaurant, everyone else was already seated. They’d managed to snag a table large enough for the whole team (The Nasty Pitches), minus Rowan and his wife Annie. He and Joan sat at one end with Christine, Eric, and Gwen. He preferred the middle of the table, but he took his offered seat without complaint. He’d engaged in some uncomfortable introspection recently, mostly about his neediness, and it made him realize that his seat preference was largely about being the center of attention.
Gwen unfolded her napkin and poked him with a butter knife. “Cheer up, Lukey. We just won and you look like someone stole your dog.”
He aimed an intentionally absurd grimace in her direction and she laughed.
“You always look like that,” he told her. He thought about what Rowan had said about her looking angry. She was outwardly prickly, he knew that, but she was like a mozzarella stick–gooey inside. Also, only those close to her were allowed to give her shit for it. “Why can’t I have bad moods, too?”
She pointed her knife at him again. “My bad moods are well earned, sir.”
Christine, who sat next to Eric across the table, took a prim sip of her water and rolled her eyes.
“I’ve hardly ever seen Lucas in a bad mood. I think there’s something wrong with him.”
“There’s definitely something wrong with him,” Eric agreed. His gaze scanned Christine. Which was…interesting. He wondered if his friend Eric had developed a crush on Joan’s sister.
“Why am I on trial here?” Lucas’s mood had already lifted. He really was like a puppy, he thought. Loyal, playful, and possessing a complete inability to hang on to negative emotions for very long. “I basically won that game for us, and you guys are out here attacking me.”
“That’s bullshit,” Joan said with a laugh. “It was a team effort. But if anyone won the game for us, it was Christine. Cece had two RBIs.”
Christine raised her glass in salute.
Eric gestured from Christine to Lucas. “So Christine, I’m guessing you’ve been around Lucas since he was a kid?”
Christine nodded. “He and Joan are like barnacles with each other. He was at our house constantly when we were growing up.”
Eric’s eyes bounced between Lucas and Joan. “So you guys have never been involved, then?”
Lucas choked on his drink. Christine emitted a loud cackle. She covered her mouth with her hand.
“Sorry,” Christine said. “Everyone asks them that. Absolutely not.”
“We’ve always just been friends,” Joan said. As she said it, her left hand drifted to his thigh, and he tensed under her light caress. Their positions made it difficult for anyone else to see what she was doing. She shot him a questioning look. He was unsure whether to nudge her hand away or pull it toward him, so he remained still.
“Like brother and sister, right? That’s what you’ve always said.” Gwen eyed them.
“Definitely.” He wasn’t feeling brotherly toward Joan at the moment, though. He pushed his knee into hers, digging it into the side of her thigh.
Eric gestured between them. “What’s the story, then? How did you get to be so close?”
“It’s not an exciting story,” Joan said. “A shared love of sports and watching movies. We played in each other’s backyards as children. I remember passing notes back and forth in middle school, because we both hated algebra. Lots of little stuff like that.”
Christine snorted. “Disrupting class, sis? The golden child does have a rebellious streak, after all.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Joan said, but she smiled. “We also almost got into a bad car accident together as teenagers. An oncoming vehicle drifted into our lane when we were on our way home from Lucas’s friend’s house in Glenview. For months we told people we almost died together, though I’m pretty sure we were being dramatic.”
“I had nightmares about it for months,” Lucas said. “We’re lucky we didn’t have any season-ending injuries.”
“Yes, of course,” Christine said. “The most important things were your baseball and softball seasons.”
Eric laughed, his eyes tracing over Christine’s face. Yeah, he had it bad.
From there, they engaged in lively conversation with the rest of the table. He and Joan traded seemingly innocuous touches that set his blood aflame. By the time they had paid and made their way back to his car, he felt ready to combust.
Christine stopped them before they climbed into his truck. He’d never disliked Christine, but at that moment, he wanted her to go away.
“Did Mom tell you about the caregiver they hired? For Ben? I think they’re going to have this lady stay with him once Dad goes back to work. At least until he can get back into his day program.”
Joan nodded. “Sounds like she’s a good fit. I think I was so shocked I forgot to text you about it.”
Joan sounded overwhelmed, and Christine pulled her in for a quick hug. Okay, he did like Christine, and she clearly loved her sister. But he was still squirming with impatience. The girls chatted for a few more minutes.
“We’d better get going,” Joan said, and Lucas almost collapsed with relief. They said their goodbyes and started toward Lucas’s house, where Joan had left her car.
Their touches became a little more purposeful and a little less incidental. Joan let her hand trail up to his groin, and he did the same to her. She opened her legs. By the time they reached his house, unbearable arousal overwhelmed him.
They walked in and he spun Joan around, pinned her against the door, and kissed her. They stayed in that position for several minutes, devouring each other and panting.
“What’s the term you used? Relentlessly horny?” He pushed his hips into hers. “I might not survive this.”
“Poor baby.” She kissed him again, then pulled away. “Do you have lube?”
He stroked her hair back from her face, and she melted into him.
“I bought some when we talked about it,” he admitted. “I knew that would be important.”
She grinned at him, a playful tilt of her lips that sparked all his nerve endings, and he thanked his past self for making the purchase.
“Come on.” She led him to his own bedroom. He stumbled after her.
She whirled around to face him. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her again, lowering her to the bed, though he had to shove some golf magazines out of the way as he did so.
He covered her and kissed along her neck the way she liked. He might never tire of this, he thought. When he moved back to her face, she put a hand on his chest to stop him.
“I want to try some penetration.” At his raised eyebrows, she continued. “Just a finger, not your penis.” Her hand met her forehead as she laughed. “I don’t know how to make this less clinical.”
He ground his hips into hers, and she groaned. A bolt of lust seized him. It was like this every time they’d been together, like lightning striking his senses.
“Tell me what you need.”
“I might need to have an orgasm or two first. Sorry, I know I’m a lot of work. But that will help me relax.”
He covered her mouth with his hand.
“You aren’t ‘work’,” he said. “Anyone who’s made you feel that way should be ashamed of himself. This is a privilege.” He held her gaze, willing her to understand. Giving her pleasure had become his favorite thing to do, and he’d hear none of her apologies.
As they shed their clothes, Lucas perused her body. He wanted to lose himself between her long, tan legs. He slowly kissed and licked his way up one, starting with her foot, and by the time he got to his destination, they were both squirming. Lucas was hard to the point of discomfort.
He lowered his head to her. This part was the best. He licked her until she writhed on the bed, her glorious legs squeezing him, then increased his pressure until she came apart, calling his name. He was so turned on he could barely move, but he hauled himself up beside her, letting her have a break.
She turned to him.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Is that a real question?”
She grinned. “Give me a minute, then I think I’m ready to give this a try.”