Chapter 62
Chapter Sixty-Two
Savannah
I walk into the family room for the game wearing a generic Peaches sweatshirt.
I don’t remember if it’s Asher’s or Brayden’s.
Brayden’s probably, from the way the inside is soft as if it’s been washed a bunch.
Given the way the entire room stares at me, the bright pink A on the front might as well be a scarlet one.
A few of the women corral their children closer. More of them aren’t looking at me—they’re staring straight at Lexi.
“Hey, girl,” she calls, then gets up to greet me, air kissing me on both cheeks for good measure.
“Everyone looks worried I’m gonna take their man,” I whisper.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Two’s enough for you…” Lexi gives me a wicked look. “Right?”
“Two is definitely enough.” I drop my stuff, make my way through the buffet, settle in to divide my attention between my reading and the game.
None of the other women approach, but there’s whispering—the kind of whispering that means everyone is talking about you, even if when I look around, most people go back to scrolling on their phones or watching the game feed.
Is this how it’s gonna be for the next however many years? Brayden’s contract says he’s with Atlanta—barring being demoted or a trade—for another five years. Asher only has three, but he’s already said he’s going to bother his agent about an extension.
Maybe he shouldn’t, if we’re going to be greeted with silence.
Out on the field, the Peaches are warming up, the crowd packing in for the last regular season game.
Some have signs; a few wave rainbow flags.
If anyone is booing or throwing things on the field, the TV cameras aren’t picking it up.
If I go out there, I’m likely to be recognized.
I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than the silence I’m being met with here.
My phone has been quiet, mostly because I blocked all but known contacts. Victoria left me a long voice note that managed to be the world’s sweetest I told you so. Forrest just texted huh and then, so that’s why Shireen was talking about unconventional relationships.
When I responded, so it’s Shireen and not Dr. Ghorbani now? Forrest just sent a halo emoji in return.
If those are the people I have—Brayden, Asher, Lexi, Victoria, Cherri, Forrest, and Katia—then that’s enough. Even if the silence in the room around me is feeling a little…silent.
I dive into the paper I’m reading, getting lost in the analysis. Even reading the methods section is, well, kind of fun. I’m about to text Forrest asking if that’s how he feels all the time, when Lexi’s son toddles over to me.
“Hey, Izzy.” I set my paper aside and pull him up to my lap. He settles in, eyes focused on the TV monitor above us playing the game.
He points to the screen where the Peaches are about to take the first at-bat of the inning. “Papa!” he yells, delighted, when his father comes to the plate.
“That’s right, that is your papa,” I say, then talk through what’s happening on screen.
The colors that players are wearing, the shapes that are found on the field.
What the pitcher is doing, what the batter is doing, what the people in the stands are doing.
Hopefully not insulting the man in the on-deck circle.
Isaiah flies out to center after a ten-pitch at-bat, and I know enough about baseball now to recognize that that’s a success, no matter the outcome. Which brings up Brayden.
Izzy points to the screen in question.
“That’s Uncle Bray,” I say. “He’s my husband.”
The TV broadcast picks up enough crowd noise to know that not everyone in the stands is happy to see Brayden. A few yell things. A few more boo. Brayden grips his bat with his bare hands, the black band of his wedding ring on his finger like an oath.
The pitcher throws. Brayden doesn’t hesitate: he swings.
The second his bat makes contact with the ball, I know it’ll be a home run.
The camera zooms in as he rounds the bases waving to the stands.
Maybe a salute. Maybe a fuck you. Either way, he’s grinning when he touches home plate and throws his arms up to the sky, when he passes Asher on the way to the dugout just as Asher is leaving the on-deck circle.
For a moment, neither man looks entirely sure what to do. Then Asher smiles—his real, genuine grin, and bashes his arm against Brayden’s playfully, just as Brayden does the same thing back.
“That’s Asher,” I tell Izzy. “That’s my other husband.” Mostly because fiancé feels like too big a word to teach a two-year-old.
Izzy just claps his hands together. Sounds out a word that I realize is his attempt at homerun.
“Yes, Uncle Brayden did hit a home run.” I hold up four fingers and count off the bases—first, second—and I’m just getting to third when Asher swings at the first pitch of his at-bat.
His hit isn’t a home run, but it’s a wall-banging double like he wants to shut up anyone in the stadium who Brayden didn’t already silence.
When he gets to second base, he peels off his batting gloves and stuffs them in his back pocket.
He’s got on his ring too and he holds it up for the camera as if daring anyone—the second baseman, the fans, the entire sport of baseball—to say something about it.
Grace, the shortstop’s girlfriend, moves to sit next to us. She has bright red hair, bright red nails, both of which should clash with her pink Peaches jersey but on her they work. She holds her hand up to shield her mouth from the rest of the room, then loudly whispers, “Both?”
I crack up. “Yeah, both.”
“Uh, how?” But she doesn’t sound embarrassed by the question so much as intrigued.
I cup my hands over Izzy’s ears, even if he seems content to watch the game. “Like, logistically or…?” I ask Grace.
She laughs. A few more of the WAGs drift over, clearly interested in the convo, even if the churchier ones hang back, though I can see them tilt an ear toward us, trying to eavesdrop.
“We make it work,” I say.
“And Brayden and Asher are…” Grace boops her index fingers together illustratively.
Despite myself, I turn slightly pink. “They are also together, yes.”
Grace sits back in her chair, considers all of that for a minute, then pushes me on my shoulder, careful not to jostle Izzy. “Girl, you are living the dream.”
I study the rock on my finger, how when I first slid it on, it’d felt like a weight. How now it feels like a promise. “You know what? I really am.”
After the game, I go down to the familiar hallway to wait for Brayden and Asher to emerge.
Security staff wave to me, a few nudging each other with elbows as if to say look, that’s her. Some part of me dreaded the notoriety: not that I hated the attention, but that I’d go from being someone’s daughter to someone’s wife.
I don’t hate it, now that I know they belong to me as much as I belong to them.
Brayden comes out first. He smiles when he sees me, like he’s been waiting all day to do just that. Asher follows close behind. “Hey, princess,” he says. “We had a question for you.”
“Oh, yeah, what’s that?”
“We wanted to know if you wanted to go out with us.”
I laugh. “Aren’t you supposed to be prepping for the postseason?” Because baseball gives them exactly two days off before they have to go play in a wildcard series against Philadelphia.
“Good point. We should probably just go right to bed.” Though Asher says it with a smirk like bed doesn’t mean sleep.
We walk to the player parking lot, Brayden’s arm slung casually around my shoulders, Asher at my other side. They talk about the move—Asher’s lease is up in a few days and we’re already making plans to ship the stuff from his place in Chicago.
“We’ll need new art,” he says, more than once, and Brayden rolls his eyes at him in fake exasperation, even as he lets go of my shoulders briefly to tap Asher’s hand with his.
We don’t stop touching on the drive home, Brayden with one hand on the steering wheel, the other stroking my thigh like he’s been waiting months to touch me just like that.
I wore a skirt to the game, something short enough to show off occasional flashes of the anti-chafing bands on my thighs.
Brayden plays with the elastic of one, sliding his finger under it, before he pulls it and snaps it, enough to lightly sting my skin.
I yelp, and Asher, who’s been sitting in the back with his knees spread wide, leans forward enough to hook his chin over my seatback. “She likes that,” he says low.
“Oh yeah?” Brayden doesn’t ask how he knows, but he doesn’t seem pissed about it either. He pulls at the band again, letting it snap a little harder, then soothes the sting away with his fingers.
“She likes that,” Asher says, again, “but she’d like it more if she was touching herself.”
I go red. It’s evening—the Peaches played an afternoon game—and the road we’re on is zipping with traffic.
Brayden’s truck has tinted windows. Even so, I feel like I did at the stadium when the camera turned toward me, like everyone in the entire city will know.
But that doesn’t stop me from sliding the hem of my skirt upward, past the black bands circling my thighs until the sheer fabric of my panties is just visible.
“That’s it, princess,” Asher growls. “Show your husband just how you need to be touched.”
“Husbands,” Brayden corrects.
I press my fingers to my clit, the fabric of my panties already wet. My nipples harden; my skin starts to feel like it’s on too tight.
“Just like that,” Asher says. “Get yourself ready for us.”
“Ready for what?” My question comes out as a moan.
“You’ll see.” Brayden slides his hand up to cover mine, increasing my pace, until I’m practically writhing against the leather of the seat. I’m close, keyed up from both of them, and just as I’m about to tip over the edge, Brayden pulls his hand back. “Not yet,” he says, and laughs when I whine.