“Your former boss?” His shock is about as extreme as mine was last night.
“Yes. I guess he was involved in the contract negotiations for Sports24 and mentioned me.” I let out a huff of a laugh and shake my head, still not quite believing it even now.
“So… what does this all mean?”
“It means,” I say, stepping closer until I’m in his space. The smell of his cologne washes over me and my entire body relaxes for the first time since we split. I reach out to pull his hand into mine. “It means, Ryan, that you’ll be seeing a whole lot more of me next season. If that’s okay with you?” I tilt my head in question, and he nods, mouth agape. “I was thinking for all the home games I work, we can keep up our In-N-Out tradition with the occasional sleepover. And when you’re on an away series, we’ll have to rely on good old fashioned FaceTime sex to get us through. How does that sound?” I give his hand a gentle squeeze.
He lets out a shaky breath and closes his eyes. It’s only for a few moments, but the longer it stretches on causes tension to seep back into me. What if I completely misread this? Misread him? What if he doesn’t want to get back together? Oh god.
All that tension and uncertainty bleeds back out the second he opens his eyes, rimmed with unshed tears and all the love in them. In a flash he wraps his arms around my waist and lifts me into his arms. I let out a less than attractive squeal of surprise before wrapping my arms around his neck to secure myself to his body.
“How does that sound? I think that sounds like a fucking dream come true, firecracker.” He buries his face in my neck and inhales deeply. “God, I’ve missed you so much. You have no idea.”
“I think I might have the slightest idea. I watched the game last night. Well, that’s a lie. I’ve watched all the games. But I cried every time you were up at bat for the home ones.” I squeeze myself closer to him. “Never thought blink-182 would make me cry, but here we are I guess.” I chuckle softly.
“I was hoping you’d be watching. I just needed you to know I was still thinking about you. Even if we weren’t talking and I couldn’t see you. I would’ve used that song for the rest of my career,” he says, sounding so sincere that I bet he would’ve. “Oh,shit,” he says, dropping me back to the ground.
“What’s wrong?”
“I need to change it for tonight!”
“You could always go back to good ol’ Dre,” I say with a smirk.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I retired Dre the second I started using them to talk to you.” He lifts his hand to my cheek, brushing his thumb over my cheekbone.
“Okay, well is that something you need to figure out right now, or will you kiss me first?”
He doesn’t even give me an answer, just brings his other hand up to my cheek and crushes his lips to mine in the most searing kiss. One that makes up for the weeks we’ve been apart.
My toes curl in my shoes and my arms loop around his neck. He tugs my body closer, pressing every inch against his. I wish I never had to leave this spot, but we’re once again making out in the middle of our place of employment, and while we have sign off for our relationship, I feel like it would still be frowned upon to have excessive public displays of affection like this.
I reluctantly pull myself away and gaze up into his crystalline eyes. “I love you, Ryan. I’m sorry I didn’t say it before. But I do. God, I’ve probably been in love with you for longer than I even know.”
The smile that spreads across his face can only be described as megawatt. “Don’t apologize.” He drops a quick kiss to my lips before pulling back. “I love you so fucking much. So much that it hurt being apart.”
I huff a breath. “Yeah, I’m familiar with the feeling.”
“Say it again,” he whispers.
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“You want it in Italian too?Ti amo.” I laugh as I grip his face with both hands. “Ryan Fletcher, I’m in love with you.”
“Thank fucking god.” He sweeps me up in his arms again and swings me around before dropping me back to my feet. “This won’t be a problem with your job, right?”
I shake my head with a wide smile plastered on my face. “No. It was one of the first things I made clear with them in the meeting when they told me they wanted me to join the organization.”
“Fuck. I can’t believe it,” he breathes out.
“Well, you’d better start. You have a game to get ready for. And a walk-up song to change.” I shove at his shoulder, pushing him back in the direction of the locker rooms. “In bocca al lupo.”
“I love when you talk dirty to me,” he says with a wink as he scoops up his bag and jogs off.
THIRTY-FIVE
GRAND SLAM
