Chapter 11 Batter （and other things） Up! #3
Finn’s belly swoops at the thought. Conflicted between the idea that 28,500 fans saw his “O” face and the idea that they had the privilege of seeing his gorgeous mate come.
“We would have heard about it by now, yeah?” Luca climbs off Rowan’s lap, his knees wobbling enough that the bigger man has to hold him steady until he can keep his feet.
“Can you teach me to do that, Gray? It was so good. That tumble bit was…whoa.” He approaches and runs a soothing hand down the alpha’s spine, then through Finn’s hair.
“I liked the shirt bit,” Leo chuckles, Grayson’s shirt still wrapped around his softening erection.
“It was perfect, Pretty.” Jay grins, standing so he can crack his back.
Nodding, Gideon stands too, buttoning Jay’s shirt and sticking his hands inside his alpha’s pants under the guise of tucking it in. “I will be thinking about that for a long time, but I think Finnie forgot something.”
Finn’s brain goes back over the whole thing—from the first notes of piano to the last drop in bass.
“Thank you,” he whispers, in case it’s that he hadn’t said the words.
“No, dumbass. You need to tip your dancer.”
Oh. He wouldn’t want to offend his mate by insinuating his gift was anything but that—a gift.
Grayson giggles. “Who actually carries cash anymore?”
“Well, I just so happen to have come prepared.”
No way.
Gideon pulls a sheaf of money from his wallet, waving the bills like a fan before tossing them like confetti, laughing like the maniac he so often is.
Rowan whoops as Leo hits the music, and then the two of them begin a bump and grind.
A single dollar bill lands on the edge of Finn’s chair.
Even though his knot has long gone down, the front of his navy shorts is ruined with come and lube, and Grayson remains pressed against his chest.
The music slides into Frank Sinatra’s rendition of Fly Me to the Moon, this time Jay’s hand on the remote as he corrals the would-be strippers into a threesome, slow dance.
“Is that for little ole me?” Grayson repeats his words from earlier.
“It was worth way more than a dollar, but it’s all I’ve got at the moment.”
“You liked it?” Grayson asks, his early confidence gone now that the show is over.
“I did. So much. Now, since you have lost your shorts, where am I going to put this…” Finn wonders where he can tuck the bill.
“Gimme a sec!” Luca whispers from where he watches them, eyes soft. He slips into the bathroom, returning with Grayson’s bright red lipstick. “Here. Pucker up.”
He’s talking to Finn, not Grayson.
“Uhhh…”
“Come on. It’s part of the tip.”
Grayson and Luca are eyeing him expectantly, and Finn’s not going to deny either of them now.
Luca slicks his lips with the waxy color, eyes going dark when Finn tastes it with his tongue.
“Now what?”
“Now kiss that dolla dolla bill and tip your dancer, dummy.”
Oh. A keepsake for a job well done.
“I’ll do one, too.” Grayson bends backward like a gymnast and snags one from the floor, his abdominals a work of art.
Finn cannot be blamed when his tired cock twitches.
“Together, okay?”
“Okay.” Finn raises his bill to his lips, ready to seal the deal, when Grayson snatches it away.
“No, silly. Like this.” He lines the two bills up and then holds them between them before pressing the bills—and his lips—to Finn’s.
It’s not the kiss Finn wants, so he moves Grayson’s hand and the money away to press the sweetest kiss to his lips.
“Thank you for the gift. You were—are—so beautiful.”
Rowan pretends to gag, but there’s fondness in his gaze. “Awww, you guys are so—”
“Cute,” Jay interrupts what was no doubt going to be a variation of cringe or gross or whatever buzzword Rowan has picked up this week.
“Definitely pretty,” Gideon smirks.
Shit. He’s still wearing the lipstick. And while he appreciates it on others—very, very much—it is not Finn’s style.
“Hey, this comes off, right?”
Gideon dips Jay, and from upside down, their alpha laughs. “It’ll be off before you go back to work Tuesday, puppy.”
“Good,” he says, relieved—but as he hears the crowd cheer their hometown win from outside, it hits him.
“Wait. It’s only Saturday.”
“Uh huh.” Grayson shifts against him, smirking. “Think you can survive another dance number?”
Finn groans. “You’ll kill me.”
“I’ll revive you,” Luca offers brightly. “With glitter.” He tosses his hand like he’s throwing confetti.
“And my dick,” Rowan adds, smug.
“And a video for later,” Gideon says with a cat-like smirk.
“And good music,” Jay says, lifting his phone as Hey, Hey, It’s Your Birthday begins to play over the speakers.
“And queso,” Leo adds with a smirk. “Because I’m nacho average mate.”
A chorus of groans follows.
Someone else moans, “Goddess, Leo.”
Leo just shrugs, unrepentant. “What? I knocked that joke out of the park.” His mates begin a debate over the best baseball-sex puns.
Finn closes his eyes, heart full to bursting, letting the noise of his family roll over him in waves.
This is where he belongs.
Life couldn’t possibly get any better than this.
“Best birthday ever,” he whispers.
***
Three days later, Finn climbs the stairs, his Dopp kit in hand. He’s sore and tired in all the best ways.
He throws the kit on the bathroom counter and heads back into his room to empty his pockets on the dresser: the old leather wallet his mother gave him when he got into medical school, and a hot pink poker chip that reads top on one side and bottom on the other.
It makes him grin—this weekend had been one for the scrapbook.
His eyes catch on the edge of a single dollar bill sticking out of the billfold.
Slipping it free, Finn’s heart flutters. Pressed to the center in a flash of red is a perfectly shaped kiss. He and Grayson had exchanged the bills before clearing out the Truist Stadium box. Finn had declined at first, but Grayson—and the others—had insisted he’d earned it.
He grins at the memory of his flushed cheeks, pride rising as he remembers Grayson’s wobbly gait in the elevator.
Pulling open a neatly organized desk drawer, Finn chooses a pink-tipped pushpin—the exact color of Grayson’s cheeks and other things—and he finds a place for the memento next to the art show ticket from when he’d met Rowan and Grayson at the art show in New York.
Finn wouldn’t consider himself sentimental, not like Luca or Jay.
But this—he wants to remember forever.