Chapter All Players On Deck #2
The doors open directly into a small lobby where the box’s doors are standing wide open and welcoming—the scents of catering and the audio from the stadium broadcasting into the space. Yet, it’s the vast expanse of the grassy field that sets Finn’s pulse pounding.
The luxurious box sits right behind home plate, giving Finn an unfettered view of the whole diamond, where fresh chalk lines and gleaming bases wait for the men who are masters of the best game on the planet. Maybe the universe.
He fucking loves baseball—always has. He’s bombarded with memories from his childhood, where he belonged with teammates and coaches more than he did at home, where his parents rarely remembered he was there.
He wants to get the social niceties with Del over with so he can press his nose to the glass or head out onto the balcony, where the stadium-style seats wait for him, but manners mean they have to stand with their alpha until he lets them go.
“Sounds great. I’ll see you after the game,” Del says, stepping back and waving them in. “Let us know if you need anything—and enjoy yourselves.”
“Thanks again,” Jay replies.
Gideon snorts quietly behind him, already tired of people he doesn’t know and doesn’t have to like, more interested in the quality of food the catering staff has left for them.
The Pack takes that as their cue, breaking like balls in a billiards game.
The door to the box finally closes behind them, and there’s a subtle click where Grayson slides the lock home.
Leo and Rowan fall on the food like they’d not eaten for a week, while Gideon stands four feet from the glass window—close enough to see out, but not close enough to trigger his vertigo.
So as not to take the alpha unawares, Finn makes his steps heavier before putting his arm around him and slipping his hand into the back of Gideon’s jeans. “You okay up here?”
“I’m good,” Gideon snorts, ears turning pink. “I’ll stay in here, though, if that’s okay with you.”
“It’s only fifty-eight feet,” Rowan mumbles, mouth full and fingers covered in sauce from the chicken wings he’s piled high on a blue-and-white china plate.
“High enough,” Jay says, hefting a big bottle of bourbon. The black label says Tempest Twelve. Holding it up, he grins, “Knox’s newest venture. Del said his new mates run a distillery.”
“Lucky bastards,” Rowan growls, making a grab for the bottle, but Jay is faster.
“You’re not chugging a twelve-year-old bottle of bourbon on an empty stomach.”
“Or at all, please,” Finn mutters.
“Not empty now…” Rowan opens his mouth to reveal half-masticated chicken and BBQ sauce.
“Gross, Ro.” Sometimes Finn worries for his own sanity because he is no less attracted to Rowan Foster, even after the childish gesture.
“You happy, Finnie?” Jay asks, slipping the gifted bottle of bourbon between the sectional and the wall, just in case Rowan gets through the tequila he’s uncovered from the bar.
Finn is struck suddenly that this is the perfect birthday present—a luxurious box where he can watch his favorite team away from the crowds, his mates doing what they love in ways that Finn loves, loudly, and all of it behind a locked door.
His happiness overflows, so he throws his arms around Jay’s neck. With his lips on his alpha’s ear, he whispers, “Is this where you blow my mind, or are these the ‘other things’ you mentioned earlier?”
Jay smirks. “I could…but don’t you want to catch the first pitch?”
“Dammit,” Finn mutters under his breath. “That’s not fair…”
“You could multitask, but I think what I had planned might be too much for the balcony seats…”
Just as Finn thinks he could give up the whole first inning for a make-out session with Jay, the announcers begin their jobs in earnest, and the crowd roars. He’s out the door with a last kiss to his alpha’s laughing mouth, slipping by Luca standing at the glass, and into his seat beside Rowan.
He accepts an ice-cold beer from Grayson. “Wasn’t sure which way that was going to go for a minute there.”
“Dude, if you’re not going to…I am going to see if I can get to second base.” Rowan waggles his eyebrows, toasting them with the bottle of José Cuervo. He disappears back inside, and a few seconds later, Rowan has their pack alpha pressed against the glass.
Leo slides in next, a plate piled high with sushi and nachos in his hand. “Shit, we better hope the cameras aren’t interested in the boxes so early in the game…”
The thought that the crowds of fans might be watching them making out against the glass sends a jolt of arousal down Finn’s spine. Ah, yes…his ever-reliable voyeurism kink, only ever activated by his mates’ exhibitionism.
What? It’s complicated.
“Tempest friends and Braves family, please turn your attention to the field…leading off for Tempest, playing second base—Matteo Ruiz!” booms through the 50,000-seat venue, the responding boos and cheers raising the hair on his arms.
He hears a squeak from inside, and he takes his eyes off the field just in time to see Rowan dragging Jay away from the window and out of sight from any possible outside watchers. His alpha’s large handprints are clear on the previously pristine glass.
After that, Finn lets the joy of the game fill him to overflowing.
The organ belts out Sweet Caroline, and Finn and Grayson bellow the “ba-ba-baaa” with identical grins. The Kiss Cam rolls across the jumbotron, landing on an older couple who ham it up like pros. He says awwwww along with the crowd, accepting a wet kiss from Leo as his beer sweats in his hand.
Between innings, he’s buzzing, his mates moving in and out of the box, their eyes on him more often than the players on the field.
The game moves fast, with the Tempests up early, holding a tight one-run lead that stretches the tension like wire over the innings. Finn screams himself hoarse with the Braves faithful fans, jaw tight with every stolen base, every close call at first.
At the bottom of the sixth, the Braves grind their way back into it—a hit through the gap, a sac fly, and finally a line drive that sends the crowd to their feet. The score flips, 2–1 Braves, and Finn’s heart is in his throat.
He’s mid–third beer, thinking maybe he should hit the restroom when the Tempest’s centerfielder steps into the box.
Two balls, one strike.
Then—
Crack.
The ball sails high, dead center, landing deep in the stands.
Home run.
The crowd groans. The score: 2–2 tie.
Finn slumps back into his seat, stomach turning. He watches the centerfielder jog the bases—No. 11. Skye Kidd.
“That was cool,” Leo says, swallowing the last of his beer.
“Yeah, up from the minors. Four home runs this season, and he parks one 412 feet off our closer? What the hell,” Finn complains. He’ll have to pay closer attention to the twenty-one-year-old from LA.
His bladder pings again, reminding him of his own three beers. There’s just enough time to hit the restroom during the seventh-inning stretch.
“Going to hit the head,” he says to Leo, who has stuck by his side through the whole last inning while the others have come and gone.
He feels bad that he hasn’t enjoyed any of the amenities or seen much of Gideon and Luca, but he promises himself he’ll make it up to them later.
Leo follows him inside, though, taking a seat on the couch. Maybe his mate has had enough of Finn’s running baseball commentary.
Despite the A/C working overtime, the box is redolent with the scents of his pack in various states of arousal—a signal he’ll need to ignore if he has plans to empty his bladder before the bottom of the seventh.
“Having fun, Finnie?” Luca asks from Rowan’s lap. He’s lost his pants already, and his cheeks are flushed the perfect shade of pink.
“The best. Be back in a minute.”
He manages to do what he came for, despite the semi, and when he’s done washing his hands, Finn splashes water on his face. Replacing his glasses, he spares himself a grin in the mirror so he’ll remember how happy he was—and what that looks like. He even takes a rare bathroom selfie.
When he cracks open the door, someone has closed the door to the balcony. Beyond the glass, the organ is playing Take Me Out to the Ballgame while 50,000 fans sing along.
Jay is sprawled on the sectional, with Gideon on his lap, making out in between sips of that bottle of bourbon.
Luca is seated on Rowan’s dick, golden legs hooked over his elbows. The position doesn’t give the beta any leverage to ride—only grind—and forces the enigma’s big cock as deep as it can go.
Heat bursts in Finn’s belly, his cock hard in the shorts so fast he’s lightheaded.
Standing by the balcony door, Leo has his phone out, angling it toward the single chair in the center of a spotlighted open space.
Wait. What?
He definitely hadn’t noticed the open space when they’d come in. Had it been there the whole time? And the lone chair. It looks like the setup for a bachelor’s party from the movies, where some poor guy gets a lap dance from a stripper.
Oh. No.
Every single one of his mates is watching him work through the details, smirks and full-on grins on their gorgeous—stupid—faces.
His stomach drops into his toes. This can’t be happening.
Most shocking is that they had hired a stripper…for Finn.
That doesn’t seem right.
They’re a closed pack—fated, mated, and bonded for life. Finn doesn’t think it’s possible to get aroused for another person, let alone a stranger. And it would be especially hard for Finn.
If asked, he’d classify his sexuality as mate-sexual, but in broader terms, he’s entirely demi-sexual.
Before he’d met and learned to know his mates, he’d not experienced attraction to anyone.
Unlike his other mates—except Leo, who’d loved only Luca since middle school—Finn had never even kissed someone else, let alone had sex before his first time with Jay and Luca.
There is no way they hired a stripper as a present.
“What the fuck? Tell me you didn’t—”
The door to the second restroom opens behind him. Forcing an awkward smile and preparing an apology to the poor soul who’s going home without doing their job and with only a big tip, Finn’s jaw drops and his eyes bug out of his head.
No way.
Dressed in short black ass-hugging shorts and a silky matching shirt, open down his muscled chest, is his perfect mate.
Grayson.
It sounds hokey to say, but his mate looks ethereal.
An incubus sent to break Finn down into the smallest pieces.
He’s barefoot, toes tipped in black polish to match the sharp black lines on his long, elegant hands.
A single silver chain glints at his throat, joined to another that trails down into his pants, while his nipple ring snags on the transparent silk.
He’s even painted his full mouth a vibrant, lush red.
But it’s Grayson’s flushed cheeks, glittering eyes, and sexy-as-fuck smirk that steal Finn’s breath.
He’s not feeling shy. Not at all.
This Grayson is fire.
“Cat got your tongue?” Leo snorts.
Finn could not answer if he tried; his higher brain functions are offline because there is not a drop of blood in his brain.
“More…like…Gray…” Rowan says, his words punctuated by his upward thrusts into Luca.
“You look beautiful, Gray,” Jay adds, letting Gideon slip onto the couch beside him.
“Fucking gorgeous.” Finally finding his words, Finn is not surprised that it comes out as a growl.
That makes Grayson blush, but he takes Finn’s hand, matching their palms and lacing their fingers together.
“So pretty,” Finn whispers again. “Is all this for me?”
“Hmmm,” he murmurs, pulling Finn close. He runs his nose up Finn’s throat so he can press his red lips to Finn’s ear, whispering, “Gonna dance for you, Finnie.”