Page 1 of Beach Bats

1

Aries

Cackling, Aries grabbed the shiny red apple that Shawn held out to him. Ha! Vin thought he was so smart hiding the apples in the apartment before the game. Aries might ignore sentences that included yucky words like not overindulging but that didn’t mean all the apples needed to be hidden away. It was a good thing that Aries had true friends. The best of friends.

“Thanks, buddy,” Aries said before taking a big giant bite of his juicy apple. Apples were life. The best thing in the whole world. Well, maybe not the best thing. Aries’s boyfriend, teammate, and Daddy was pretty dang awesome. And so were his friends like Shawn, Bane, Matty, Zany, and Robbs. Oh! And Aries loved being a little now that he was exploring that side of himself. And he guessed his brothers were cool even though they were being extra annoying since Aries and the Vegas Vikings were playing in the Iron Cup finals. Crap! And hockey was the best too! Okay, Aries forget his point.

Not that it mattered. He had a yummy, juicy, and⁠—

The apple was yanked out of his hand.

“Hey!” Aries turned and swiped for his treat. He froze, realizing that Vin had come up behind him and stolen the apple. Damn, his Daddy sure could be quiet when he wanted to be. That was sneaky. And mean!

Vin growled.

Uh-oh. This was totally not Aries’s fault. It was an apple. His very favorite thing. Everyone knew that Aries couldn’t resist a juicy, sweet, shiny apple. And that one bite had been so good too.

“Hey, man.” Shawn held his hands up in front of him as he started to back away. “It wasn’t my idea!”

“I specifically said no one was to sneak him apples,” Vin said, shaking said fruit around.

It really had been yummy. Aries followed the apple with his eyes. Vin was holding it up, way up, but if Aries jumped real high, he might be able to reach it.

“Dude, come on, man, he’s so cute when he gets an apple. We couldn’t resist!” Shawn whined.

“We?” Vin repeated.

“Yeah, see, it wasn’t my idea,” Shawn said. “I lost rock, paper, scissors to Robbs who lost to Bane who lost to Matty. I think it was Matty who brought the bag.”

“A bag?” Vin demanded.

A bag! There were more apples? Aries turned toward the locker room.

Vin’s big hand came to rest on Aries’s shoulder. “No.”

Aries looked up at his Daddy. But apples! A whole bag of them. They were just waiting for him. It would be rude to ignore the apples. Aries was a good boy and never rude!

“Look, man,” Shawn said, drawing their attention. “I don’t know anything. I was just told to sneak that one to Aries before the game.”

“Go.” Vin waved Shawn away.

Aries peered up at his big, wonderful, apple-holding boyfriend. “Apple?”

“You had two this morning,” Vin reminded him.

“Only two.” Aries nodded his head sadly. “I’m hungry.”

“You are not hungry,” Vin argued. “You had two pieces of French toast for breakfast with three sausage links and four pieces of bacon in addition to your two apples.”

“That was hours ago!” Aries complained. “I’m hungry now!”

Vin glanced at the apple in his hand.

“I have to finish it,” Aries pointed out. “I already took a bite. If I don’t eat it now, it will get all brown and yucky. We don’t want to waste food, Daddy.”

“That was a very thoughtful argument,” Vin praised.

“Thank you. Nix helped me come up with it,” Aries confessed.