24. Elliot
24
ELLIOT
“I need to talk to you about something.”
Hoax looks up from his phone, a bright smile lingering from whatever video he’d been watching. When he sees the look on my face, the smile dies instantly. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, definitely, I just,” I look around, making sure no one is close enough to overhear us. We’re in the hotel gym, where a few guys are getting in a last-minute workout before tonight’s game against the Mariners. We had just finished Grady’s PT session when I saw Hoax sitting alone on the opposite end of the gym and decided to bite the bullet. “I did something that you may or may not appreciate.”
“May or may not?”
“It’s not bad,” I rub a hand across the back of my neck, giving him an apologetic smile. “Actually, it can wait until after the game if you want.”
Hoax sighs, dropping his phone into the open bag at his feet. “It will bother me all night if I don’t know now.”
I flop onto the bench at his side, taking a deep breath as I decide how to tell him this. “So, I talked to Adam Shelby the other day.”
“I thought you said this wasn’t a bad thing?”
“It isn’t,” I bite back a laugh at the disbelieving look he gives me. “I asked if he would be willing to practice with you in the off-season.”
Hoax frowns at me, his eyes darting around the gym to make sure no one is listening to us. “I practice with Miller in the off season.”
“I know, but you need to start expanding your horizons.”
“But Mills won’t like Shelby hanging around our practices.”
“Well, this isn’t about Miller,” I remind him, nudging his shoulder with mine in an attempt to soften the blow of my next words. “It’s about you getting comfortable with the other catchers so you can stay in the Majors after Mills retires.”
His shoulders sag at my words, but he gives me a small smile. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, man.”
“Of course,” I return his smile, but my attention drifts to a group of guys near the door. I see Shelby amongst them and elbow Hoax before pointing in their direction. “You should go say hi.”
“Absolutely the fuck not.”
“Hoaxley,” I chide, but he shakes his head vigorously to cut me off.
“Dude, don’t make me do that.”
“I’m not making you do anything, but,” I hesitate, hating myself for even thinking these words, much less saying them out loud. “If you want something you’ve never had, you must do something you’ve never done.”
Hoax gives me a narrow-eyed glare. “You sound like a motivational speaker.”
“It’s from that terrible poster your boyfriend gave me,” I chuckle, leaning into his side until he smiles. “And as awful as it is, I stand by that statement. You need to branch out, Hoax. Mills can’t play forever.”
“I know,” he sighs, eyeing the guys near the door again. “I can’t wait until Shelby’s on his own?”
“You could, but I don’t advise it. He’s...difficult to talk to one on one.”
“Difficult how?”
“Yes, Elliot,” a deep voice comes from directly behind me, and I nearly fall off the bench with how quickly I turn around. “What’s so difficult about talking to Shelby?”
Grady’s eyes are shadowed behind the brim of his hat, but I can see a muscle ticking in his jaw from how hard he’s clamping his teeth together. He’s mad, and I have no idea why. “Uh, nothing. I mean, I don’t know. I wouldn’t know because I don’t talk to him.”
There’s an amused smile on Hoax’s face as he looks between me and Grady, and I want to flick him between the eyes for it. “I’m gonna go talk to Shelby.”
If that weren’t the exact thing I was trying to achieve, I would grab his arm to keep him next to me. I watch Hoax walk across the room, seeing the moment he nearly chickens out before awkwardly waving at Shelby. The catcher returns his wave, stepping away from the others to start a conversation with Hoax.
“That was easier than?—”
“No,” Grady straddles the bench, turning my face toward him with two fingers pressed to the underside of my chin. “We’re not going to talk about Adam fucking Shelby right now.”
“Okay,” I breathe, melting into his touch. He doesn’t sound angry anymore, and I latch onto that with both hands. “Are we going to talk about why you’re not in the shower right now?”
“I was on my way to the shower when a much more appealing thought came to me.”
“A thought about what?”
“Your little voice memo.”
“Oh,” I feel my cheeks flush, but Grady stops me from looking away. “What, uh, what about it?”
Grady doesn’t say anything for a long time, and I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. When he finally speaks, his words are soft. “You’re very smart, Princess.”
I want to say thank you, but I don’t want to interrupt him if there’s more he intends to say. “Meeting me in the middle on something I wanted to do that you were unsure about was very good,” he shifts toward me, leaning so far into my space that he might as well be caging me in on all sides. “You’re always so fucking good for me, Elliot. Do you know that? Do you know how happy you make me?”
“Uh, I-I don’t?—”
“I came back here to tell you that—to thank you for being so very good for me,” he brushes our noses together before suddenly pulling back. “Hey, Colton.”
“Hey,” my roommate’s smug voice pours ice over the arousal flooding through my body. There’s no way he didn’t hear what Grady was saying, but there’s a slight chance he might take it as Grady thanking me for helping with his PT. I turn just enough to catch Colton’s wicked grin in my peripheral, and I know he took it exactly as intended. “How’s it going, puppy ?”
I groan, facing forward so I don’t have to look at the men on either side of me. “It’s going great.”
“Looks like it.”
“Did you need something?”
“Nope,” he steps into my line of sight, raising a meaningful brow. “Just wanted to let you know I’ll be in the room every night while we’re here.”
I refuse to look at Grady, forcing my voice to stay unaffected as I say, “Okay? Why do you think that’s something I need to know?”
“Well, I just,” Colton’s eyes drift to my left, and I know he’s making eye contact with Grady when he winks. “Wouldn’t want to walk in on anything.”
His gaze snaps back to mine, and I’m surprised to see he looks almost sincere. “I’m not commenting on any potential relationships you may be having; I’m just giving you a heads up that you won’t be having them in our room.”
“Why aren’t you going out?” I don’t mean to ask the question; it’s certainly not my main question, but it comes out of my mouth all the same.
“I don’t fuck this close to home.”
“We’re thousands of miles from Cadence.”
“Different home, kid,” he snorts, turning to walk away. “And don’t ask questions because I won’t answer them.”
He’s halfway across the room before Grady finally speaks. “He’s fucking weird.”
“Yeah, he is,” I agree, but the meaning of his words finally begins to sink in. “I guess that means we won’t be experimenting in the next few days.”
Grady chuckles deep in his chest, leaning forward as he stands from the bench. “We’ll see about that.”
We don’t see about it that night or the next. However, Grady doesn’t seem all that frustrated by our lack of time in the bedroom. We’re too busy between games to do much more than wave hello as we pass in the halls of the hotel, but tonight, we have a dedicated PT session together.
A PT session that Grady is taking very seriously.
“What’s gotten into you?”
“Just keeping it tight, Princess,” he winks at me over his shoulder as he does another perfect lateral raise.
My suspicions rise again when he finishes the final set without a single comment about having enough energy to keep going. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What can I say?” He smirks, moving into his first cool-down exercise. “I’m just ready for a nice long hot shower.”
He’s officially up to something, but I’m none the wiser by the time we’re stepping off the elevator on my floor. Or, I should say, by the time I step off the elevator because Grady doesn’t follow me. “You’re not walking me to my room?”
“Not tonight, Princess,” he grins, pulling me back toward him by the front of my shirt. “Tonight, I’m going to get straight into the shower. I suggest you do the same.”
“Are you saying I stink, Matthew?”
His deep laughter fills the air between us as he gently pushes me away. “I’m saying to get in the shower, Bennett .”
I’m halfway down the hall when my phone vibrates with a text from Grady.
GRADY
And don’t forget your phone.
I’m through the door and across the room before Colton even looks up from his phone. He’s wearing headphones, and I give him a curt nod in greeting as I grab a handful of clothes and my toiletries bag. The moment I’m in the bathroom, I look down at my phone.
Am I supposed to do something? Should I let him know I’m in the bathroom? Grady specifically said shower, but I don’t know if that was supposed to be code for something else. Before I can panic too much, a text notification pops up.
GRADY
Text me when you’re in the shower. There’s a little shelf on the wall opposite the showerhead where you can put your phone.
I scramble out of my clothes, nearly tripping over my pant leg in my haste to get to the shower. I’m half hard by the time the water is warm enough to step under the spray, but I resist the urge to touch myself. Grady didn’t say I could do that.
The shelf he’s talking about is easy enough to spot, and I send him a quick text saying I’m ready before dropping my phone on the ledge and waiting for his next instructions.
My phone screen lights up, but it isn’t a text. The incoming FaceTime call nearly stops my heart, but that’s nothing compared to what I see when I swipe my thumb across the screen. I stare at my phone for a long time, my brain trying and failing to connect the dots.
Water?
Skin?
Green?
Dick?
That’s Grady’s dick. And his thigh. And...
Grady steps back from the phone, and I’m gifted with the full picture. He’s rested the phone on the shelf, which explains why I was at dick level, but now he’s standing beneath the showerhead, and my heart stops.
The green turns out to be a bottle of lube, which my brain only manages to register when Grady turns to brace himself against the shower wall. I’m still struggling to understand why he needs lube in the shower when I’m here and he’s there, when all brain function stops again.
Grady is fingering himself.
Grady is fingering himself.
My dick is so hard I think it might burst if I so much as breathe wrong. I watch as he preps himself, wishing I could hear the sounds he’s making over the relentless hammering of water against tile.
I don’t know how long I stand there watching him, but eventually, he seems satisfied with how stretched he is. Grady moves toward the camera again, and I’m so distracted by his cock I nearly miss the beautiful smile on his face.
“You’re not going to leave me hanging, are you, Princess?”
The words take too long to register, but after a moment, I realize he must want to see me, too. I flush a deep shade of red at the realization that he’s been giving me a show, and I’ve just been heavy-breathing directly into my phone screen. He must have been looking at a close-up of my forehead this entire time. Smooth, Elliot.
I shift, placing the phone on the same shelf Grady has his on before stepping back so he can see me. I don’t go far, knowing I won’t be able to see him without my glasses if I’m more than a foot away, but it’s enough to make him smile at me.
“Are you ready?”
“For what?”
My voice echoes around me, and I nearly jump at the sound. Grady beams at me, stepping back under the showerhead. I tell myself I won’t drift toward the phone again, but the moment I see what’s in his hand, I drop to my knees, snatching the device off its shelf.
“Grady?”
His laughter rumbles through his chest, and I decide I’m no longer a fan of spicy FaceTime calls. “Yeah, Princess?”
I can’t speak when my mind is overrun with the image of Grady holding a jet-black dildo. He chuckles again, but it quickly turns to a moan when he lines the dildo up with his asshole. Grady mumbles something I can’t hear, or maybe I just can’t understand it through the static in my brain before bending forward another inch and pressing the toy in.
I’m dead. I’m, at the very least, dying. This is too much and not enough, and—fuck me into the ground—he’s shaking .
“Breathe.”
I’m not sure which one of us I’m talking to, but Grady gives me a lopsided smile as he sucks in a breath. He moans again, and my hand drops to my dick in an attempt to ease some of the ache building in my gut.
Grady moves the toy slowly at first, but it doesn’t take long before he’s pressing back to meet his hand on each thrust.
“Elliot, please.”
“What?” I breathe directly into the phone. “What do you need?”
“I want to see you,” he groans against his forearm before turning his face toward the camera. “I want to see you touch that pretty cock for me, Princess.”
I’ve never moved faster in my life. It takes two seconds to get the phone positioned to where Grady can see me kneeling on the floor of the shower, then my hand wraps around my dick as I give him exactly what he asked for.
“I’m not going to last,” I sheepishly admit.
Grady groans, and I see his free hand wrap around his cock. “Then don’t try,” he pants, jerking himself in time with the movements of the toy in and out of his ass. “Come for me, little slut.”
It’s embarrassing how quickly I do just that, but I’m not alone. Grady follows me over the edge in moments, his cum painting the shower wall as he groans out a sound that is surprisingly close to my name.
We’re both quiet for a long moment before Grady moves off-screen. He reappears, picking up the phone before sinking onto the floor in the same spot I’m sitting in my shower.
“Spicy FaceTime, on a scale of one to ten?”
“Six point eight,” I say with as straight a face as I can manage.
“What?” Grady pretends to be outraged, dramatically throwing his free hand into the air. “That was some of my best work.”
“I know,” I agree, biting my lip to hold back my laughter. “But it turns out I prefer being able to touch you.”
Grady gets quiet, seeming to think that over for a moment. When he finally meets my gaze again, something has changed. “I always want to touch you, Elliot.”
I try to hide how those words make me feel, but I don’t think I’m successful. “Then it’s a good thing we’re heading home tomorrow.”
Grady’s loud laugh echoes through the shower, and I realize there’s no way Colton hasn’t heard what we’re doing, but for some reason, I really don’t care.
“Unlimited touching, here we come.”