Together #4
“I love you too.” Kate’s chest no longer rattled but stung with pining as if she’d discovered a love too full. One not yet gone, but that she already yearned for.
“Are you okay?”
Kate shifted from the safe pillow of Abby’s chest and kissed her answer. Her stomach flipped at tasting herself on her lips. Abby moaned, and her need evolved, no longer for herself, but for Abby. A longing to give her equal pleasure.
She timidly reached, met raw heat and slickness. Abby released an uneven sigh, a smirk lacing her rasp at the shell of Kate’s ear. “See what you do to me?”
Kate worked in careful circles, assessing Abby’s every twitch. The way her hips adjusted to what she liked, a light squeeze of Kate’s breast, eyes and jaw clenched.
“Is this okay?”
“Yes.” Abby breathed.
“Really?”
“Don’t stop.”
Kate would later be embarrassed at how she smiled, pleased with herself. And when Abby gave a final shudder, vibrating into her, grunting, “Kate,” relief washed over her. Relief at not failing at sex. Relief at not just being Abby’s but making Abby hers too.
They threaded together and Kate held tight, kissed Abby’s throat. She knew in the dim light, aroused but content, secure but free, that this was it. She knew Abby felt it too, detected it in her gaze and whisper. “It’s always been you, hasn’t it?”
Kate’s brow pinched with a sob. “And you for me too.”
While the end of Insley and a decision about the future awaited them, this was their new beginning. The start of what would always be theirs.
When Abby broke the college softball home run record, the Eagles celebrated the best way they knew how.
An uproarious night at Sunny’s. And while the endless free drinks, praise, and an excuse to party would’ve normally satisfied Abby, she only wanted Kate.
Just like when she rounded the bases earlier that evening, cracking a rare grin at the feat, she reached for her in the team’s congratulatory dogpile.
They hugged tight when she finally broke free, stopping just short of the kiss they both wanted to give.
At the bar she never lost sight of her. Abby enjoyed many toasts in her honor, accepted more high fives and shoulder slaps from fellow students she’d never met before, but always found her way back for a smile, for a sly glance at her across the crowd.
She smirked at Kate’s tipsiness and hiccups as she leaned into her.
“Want to get out of here?” Abby whispered.
Kate grinned back. “I thought you’d never ask.”
The celebration continued when they reached the blue house.
“Anyone here?” Kate called into the dark hallway.
Abby snorted through the quiet.
With the coast clear they stumbled upstairs, giggling as they helped each other to the bedroom. Kate wasted no time tugging the letterman’s jacket off Abby’s shoulders, the two of them bumping into the wall while they kissed.
“Had to take you home before someone else tried to.” Kate sucked on Abby’s lower lip.
“Oh, please, no one cares that I can hit a stupid ball with a bat.” Abby threw her head back as Kate kissed the spot beneath her chin that made her instantly wet.
“Yes, they do,” she whispered into her ear. “It’s sexy.”
“You’re sexy.”
Kate tugged her to the bed where they wrestled off shoes and clothes, twisting into sloppy, beer-laced kisses. Abby grinded against Kate but then darted back and gasped when her hand hit a tender spot along her thigh.
“I’m sorry.” Kate winced in sympathy.
“It’s okay.” Abby grunted.
While she’d broken the record for home runs, she’d also broken the record for most games hit by a pitch.
It meant constant purple knots and bruises on her shoulders, back, and thighs.
Of course, she didn’t help her own case.
Whenever an opposing team’s catcher stood from their crouch, gesturing outside the strike zone to set four slow, unhittable pitches in motion, Abby tormented the pitcher.
She’d harass them with a “Seriously?” or “Come on, give me one,” or Mick’s favorite, “Don’t be scared, [insert pitcher name here].
” Rather than passively walk her, the pitchers responded by taking aim.
“I’ll get you some ice,” Kate said.
Abby pulled her back down. “No, no don’t go.”
“That’s what you get for goading them into hitting you.”
“I know. I’ve learned my lesson,” Abby said before kissing her.
“No, you haven’t.” Kate laughed, but plunged her tongue in her mouth anyway, sank into her and moaned. She pushed Abby’s chest down and pulled back from her mouth to bring hers lower.
“Kate…” Abby sighed when she trailed her tongue between her thighs. It’d become her favorite thing to say. Kate. Kate. Kate. As if she needed to confirm over and over that she was the one responsible for every aching rise and pleasant fall.
Kate had blossomed far beyond a timid virgin.
Not that Abby wanted her any less during those first uncertain times together.
She should’ve known it wouldn’t last long.
As with everything else, Kate was a fast student in bed.
It was as if she studied Abby, read how to make her come, practiced like she might take a hundred grounders or run a hundred miles, until she made it perfect.
That first time she set her mouth on Abby, tongue roving, she thought her heart might explode.
And Kate, whose appetites were much more insatiable than expected, never shied from new ways of being touched, unafraid of being pinned down or initiating, of connecting deeper.
There was no more endless wanting. They simply went together.
By the time they retired beneath the sheets, Abby already wanted her again, nearly buckled at her wide pupils and skewed hair.
She always thought Kate beautiful, but never imagined she could be this sexy.
A version that belonged just to her. Kate rubbed into her, still wet on her thigh, when she heaved the word that nearly rolled Abby’s eyes back into her head. “Again?”
She nodded and shifted on top of her when a gasp rippled behind them.
“Oh my God.” Jill peered through the cracked door. Kate and Abby scrambled off each other. “Mick!”
“Shupe, get out of here!” Abby shouted. “Now!”
A buzz of static cut through the shouting and Jill pulled a walkie-talkie from her waistband. “Operation Cruzin’ for Hutch complete. The Eagles have landed. On each other. I repeat, the Eagles have landed in bed. Requesting backup.”
The walkie-talkie beeped back. “Copy, over.”
“Is that T.K.?” Abby asked.
Jill grinned. “Yeah. She has eyes on the back door in case you try to escape.”
Kate peeped out of the sheets. “How long have you been planning this?”
“Weeks.” Mick appeared behind Jill and folded her arms. “Family meeting. Now.”
“No!” Abby flopped back on the pillows.
Kate ducked under the covers. “Mick, please.”
“Family meeting! We can wait downstairs all night, but you’ll have to come down eventually.” Mick smacked the doorframe before departing with Jill.
Abby groaned and joined Kate under the sheets, a useless hiding place for their lewd acts. She thought they’d successfully skirted their seemingly inebriated teammates at the bar, but it’d been their own reckless mix of alcohol and celebration that had them throwing caution to the wind.
“How long do you think we can stay up here?”
Kate sighed. “I think we’re going to have to face this one.”
They pulled on clothes in defeat. When Kate swiped Abby’s UCLA sweatshirt, she raised an eyebrow, but Kate shrugged and slipped it over her head as if she was doubling down on getting caught.
Abby secretly beamed with the adolescent thrill of announcing their relationship.
Something she pretended didn’t matter to her, but that night she realized how deeply it did.
How much it meant to step outside their bubble to see if they could still float.
The living room had transformed into a makeshift courtroom when they arrived. Mick, Jill, and T.K. positioned chairs directly across from the sofa so that when Kate and Abby sat, they confronted them like a judge and jury. Mick leaned forward. “What are your intentions with Hutch?”
Abby’s mouth fell. “Why do I automatically get the third degree?” She glanced at Kate, whose hand rested on her bruised thigh. “What about her? She might just be using me for sex.”
Kate gasped. “I am not.”
T.K. threw her head back and cawed. “I can’t believe you two are having sex.”
“You should’ve seen them going at it upstairs,” Jill said.
Kate gritted her teeth. “We weren’t going at it.”
“I should’ve known. Hutch has had that post-sex glow for weeks now.” T.K. grinned.
“Playing way better too. Took the hitting slump right out of you,” Jill said.
“That’s the power of good sex. I do it for maintenance.”
“Oh, is that what you call it?” Abby scoffed. “How much maintenance does one person require?”
“I don’t know. How much, Hutch?” T.K. asked.
“That’s it. We’re leaving.” Abby grabbed a dumbstruck Kate’s hand and stood.
“Okay, everyone cut the shit. Let’s be adults about this,” Mick said, nudging Abby back to the sofa.
“I think it’s too late for that,” Kate murmured.
Mick theatrically paced in front of them, repeatedly sighed, and didn’t speak for almost a full minute. Abby and Kate exchanged glances before she finally broke into a soliloquy.
“Listen, you two are our best friends and we want you to be happy. You’re cute together, in a weird opposites-attract way.
I mean, I kind of wanted this to happen.
It was obvious to everyone. Except you two.
You’re a genius, Hutch, but also an idiot.
And Cruz, my God, I won’t start on you.” Mick shrugged when Abby flipped her off.
“Anyway, it’s great you two figured it out.
I’m happy if you’re both happy. I—we—just don’t want to see you crash and burn. ”
“Wow, thanks,” Abby said.
“No, I mean, we’re always going to be there for you guys. Granted, this has irrevocably altered the group dynamic.” Mick shook her head. “But it’s not just about me or our weird family. It’s about the season.”
“I know.” Kate nodded. “We were planning to keep this between us. At least until the summer. I don’t need the entire team knowing…”
“That their captain is screwing the third baseman in the middle of a run for a title?”
“We won’t be a distraction, and we won’t let it impact the team,” Abby said.
Kate squeezed Abby’s hand. “It hasn’t so far.”
Their three teammates, lined up on their chairs, goofy and warm as ever, shined with laughter that didn’t come.
Abby furrowed her brow at them. “What?”
“Nothing,” Mick said.
“This just seems right.” Jill grinned. “You two.”
Mick dabbed fake tears. “They grow up so fast.”
Before Abby could snark back, a pile on of hugs swept over her and Kate, arms and elbows flinging, pinched cheeks, ruffled hair, groans, a yelp at a knee meeting her bruise, but mostly smiles, laughter, and the closeness of kin formed in bond instead of blood.
“Be good to each other,” Mick said, one arm around each of them.
“We will,” Abby said, her eyes meeting Kate’s through the group huddle. In her gaze and grin, she felt it. Berkeley and the rest. A future, a plan, that she might reach out and grab. She smiled back. They were going to make it.