Page 56 of Fly

Epilogue

CAM

Finally.

Finally, I was at the airport about to pick up my man.

Jari was free from hockey for a whole week while the league held its All-Star weekend, and the Railers enjoyed a bye week. I was about to hold my lover in my arms, kiss him all over, and show him the joy of Florida and spring training.

Finally.

I picked him out of the crowds disembarking his flight into St. Pete-Clearwater from Harrisburg International. Back in Pennsylvania, it was snowing. Here in the Sunshine State, it was seventy-two degrees and sunny. I couldn’t wait any longer. As soon as our eyes met, we made a dash for each other. He was out now. Fully and openly out of the closet. So, I swooped down on him like a hawk to plaster my mouth over his. Two weeks felt like a long time without Jari.

“I missed you so much,” I whispered over his lips before stealing another kiss. This one a bit less frantic.

“I missed you, too,” he replied, giving my sides a rub before we broke apart. He hefted his carry-on higher on his shoulder.

“You need to get your luggage?” I asked, taking his hand in mine.

“Nope. I only brought a few things. I plan on being naked a lot.”

My dick liked the sound of that. “Okay, we need to hurry home.” With a laugh that made people turn to look at us, we bolted outside.

Jari hit the sidewalk then paused. “Oh my god, it is so humid,” he gasped.

“This is nothing. Come down here in August.” I tugged him to my car in short-term parking, mouth going a mile a minute as I filled him in on the subtropical climate down here. “Most of the guys share a place, and that’s cool and all, but I was never big on roommates. Unless they’re sexy Finnish hockey players.”

“Okay, I was starting to get worried that I was being politely told I had to move out after I just moved my stuff into the Biltmore Estate.”

“My house isn’t all that large,” I replied with a chuckle. He cocked a dark brow as we rolled along US -19N to pass the Iron Horse Spring Training HQ to where my second home was located. “Okay, maybe it’s a little big. So is this one, so be warned.”

“Oh great, so I’ll need breadcrumbs from the bedroom to the bath again?” he teased as he plucked my hand from the shifting lever to cradle it in his warm hands.

“Nope, I plan on never letting you leave the bedroom.” I gave him a saucy wink.

“No Disney?” His lower lip fell out. As if I could resist that pout.

“Fine, a day at Disney, then back to bed with you.” He nodded with enthusiasm before lifting my knuckles to his lips. We arrived at my place in the rather swanky gated community of Prescott Shores. Jari sat silently at my side as Ignacio waved us in at the gate. The homes were magnificent, owned by scores of ball players and other people with tons of cash to invest. Mine was down a winding road called Spoonbill Street. “All the streets here are named after indigenous birds of Florida. My camp is the last one. Stupidly private.”

“I like private.” His dark eyes grew wider as we made our way up my drive to my home. “You call this a camp?”

“That’s kind of a baseball term for the whole spring training camp experience.” We parked in front of the Italian-themed house. Jari exited my Jag with a low whistle for the estate. “I bought it off an older player who retired from Philly about ten years ago. It’s kind of ostentatious, I know, but the price was right, and it's close to camp, so…”

“It’s beautiful,” he said as we took a moment to drink in the manicured grounds.

“Come on inside, I had the place opened up last week and have been bumbling around here for days stocking up on food and lube.”

That made him laugh. I led him inside, dropping his bag in the foyer, then gave him a quick tour of the five-bedroom, four-bath home. There were plenty of covered terraces and balconies to relax on in the evening when the sun sank below the horizon.

“And this is the rec room,” I said as I led him back downstairs to the glass-walled room where I spent a lot of my downtime when not at the ballpark. He padded over in his new sneakers to the sliding glass door to gaze out at the rich green grass and small pond. The pool sat off to the left, crystal blue water calling to me from behind a high, chain-link fence. My property was very secure with very few visits from the rich neighbors. We all loved our privacy and were not impressed with star athletes in the least.

“Oh, that’s a pond. Cam, we should go swimming there.” I walked over to stand beside him, linking my fingers with his. He gave me a warm smile, then glanced back out to the pond. “We should do what they did in that gay hockey show where they swim and smooch by the water. We could race to that log floating in the middle of the pond, then race back with the loser sucking the winner’s dick as a prize.”

“Okay, I love the idea of sucking your dick even without a prize attached, but I feel that I need to point out that the thing in the middle of my pond is not a log.” His brow crinkled as he leaned closer to the glass. The log began to move, swimming lazily to the edge of the pond, then hauling itself out to sun itself a bit in my yard. “It’s an alligator.”

When he looked from the gator to me, his eyes were the size of dinner plates. “What the hell kind of thing is that to have in a pond?!”

“I didn’t put him there; he just showed up one day. They do that. He’s been here for about a year. I call him Bert Snoutman. He’s not become a nuisance, so we just kind of coexist peacefully.”