“Hey, Teller.”
“Yeah, Atlas?” I doubted he got the reference to the maps or the connection to the Titans, still, it fit, and I liked it.
“Mark my words. I will claim you. It might not be this week. Or even this month. But I’ll wait as long as you see fit to make you mine.” Without giving me time to respond, he got in his truck and drove away.
Just as I got ready to climb into bed, my phone chimed with a text. I expected it to be Coby. Instead, I found a message from Ryan.
Ryan: I don’t carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, but I will always help you find your way.
Ryan and I spent the rest of the semester dancing around a relationship. He went to all of Coby’s home games that didn’t interfere with his own, and I rotated friends I brought with me. My parents and Mr. Kyler even came to a few to cheer on their son. Choosing between attending Coby’s games and Ryan’s was never easy, but in the end, Ryan knew I refused to miss seeing the Titans at home. That alone proved to me I wasn’t ready to commit to an exclusive relationship, even though I wasn’t dating anyone else. With Coby’s busy schedule and his constant travel, I hadn’t even told him about the kiss or Ryan’s proclamation on opening night.
He was aware we hung out all the time and that I’d become a fixture amongst the UAT baseball team, but he had no idea I had a romantic interest in one of the players. It wasn’t like I needed his permission, although Coby still expected me to move in after finals, and I still planned to do it. Except, I hadn’t had that conversation with Ryan since before Thanksgiving break, either. I didn’t want my decision to be based on another man’s opinion of my living arrangements.
I adored Melinda, yet I hated the dorms. There was never any privacy—not that I needed it, but it made studying difficult—and I was used to a much slower-paced life. Something was always going on inside those walls—it felt more like Vegas than college. Ryan had mentioned his plans to stay in town this summer, so it made sense to move in with Coby. I could still be here to hang out and lounge around by the pool. Going back to DeArmanville wasn’t a possibility.
For now, I needed to make it through finals. Once I accomplished that, I’d face the discussion with Ryan, but not before I talked to Coby. I just hadn’t realized how fast it would all happen. Less than two weeks later, I sold my textbooks back to the campus store and packed all my things.
“Hey, babe.” The voice that made my thighs quiver came from the doorway to my room.
“Hey. How’d your last exam go?”
“Good, I think. Do you need help getting this stuff over to Coby’s house?”
I fumbled over my thoughts as they came out of my mouth. “I’m not—do you mind—well, shit.” I plopped my butt down on my bed. “Are you mad?”
He assumed the seat at my desk and turned the base to face me. Rolling closer, he took my hand in his. “Why would I be mad? If you go home, I won’t be able to see you until fall.”
“I wasn’t sure how you’d take my moving in with another guy.”
Raising my hand to his mouth, he kissed the knuckles. “It isn’t my first choice, but it’s not like Coby’s going to be there much. And the two of you are just friends, right?”
“You know we are.”
“So I don’t have to worry about you having some fantasy of wild, monkey sex with him, correct?”
Ryan hadn’t ever asked any questions about my relationship with Coby. He’d heard me defend myself vehemently to people who doubted our friendship, but not once had he directly asked if anything had ever happened between us.
“No, you don’t have to worry about wild, monkey sex. That’s not something I care to repeat.” I let the words seep from my mouth, fully aware there would be a reaction. I didn’t like keeping anything from him, yet at the same time, I had no idea how to casually offer such information. Anything was better than, “I like your shirt. Oh, and…I had sex with Coby a year ago.”
His head jerked back. “You’ve had sex with Coby?”
I shrugged. “Just once.”
The way his brow furrowed caused his forehead to crinkle in confusion. “Did you not like it?”
“Does anyone like their first time?”
He scoffed, but I wasn’t sure what that really meant.
“It was the night of the draft. We were both virgins. I don’t know what to tell you. It happened, although nothing physical has ever taken place again, not so much as a kiss.”
His head cocked to the side in disbelief.
“We didn’t do it because we had a burning desire to be intimate with each other. It was more like getting drunk with your best friend because you’d never done it before and didn’t want to go off to college never knowing what it felt like. That was it—a safety net of sorts, experiencing it with someone I trusted. Nothing more, nothing less. I never wanted to regret my first time, and I wouldn’t with Coby. Come on, it’s not like you’re a virgin.”
He pursed his lips and raised his brows.
“Get out!” I smacked his chest. This guy was incredibly hot, girls flocked to him, and he wanted me to believe he’d never had sex. “You’ve never gotten your willy wet?”
His head moved slowly from side to side. “Not intercourse, no. Although technically, I have gotten my willy wet.” He smirked as he repeated my words. “My dad’s a minister. My brother got a girl pregnant in high school, and after that nightmare, I swore I wouldn’t take the chance until I was out of college. It should probably be a religious thing, and I guess it was when I was younger, but now it’s a selfish thing. I’m not interested in getting strapped with a baby I’m not ready for, and I don’t want to ruin my future.”
“So your brother has a baby?”
“No, she had a miscarriage in her first trimester, but the scare alone was enough to keep me celibate. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll play the field, I’m just not sliding into home plate.”
That certainly put a different spin on things. And it took a lot of pressure off, as well.
“Well, to answer your question, no, you don’t have to worry about Coby and me doing anything. Not that you and I are in a relationship.”
“Not yet.” He winked and pulled me to my feet. With a gentle kiss, he released me. “Come on. I’ll help you take this stuff over there and get it inside. We’ll cross the other bridge when we get there.”
Every time I tried to broach the subject of my interest in Ryan with Coby over the summer, something got in the way. He was almost never home, and when he did come in from the road for a couple of days, he spent half that time recovering. I didn’t want to talk about heavy subjects when I usually only had one night to hang out with him—that time was much better spent watching movies or listening to tales of his trips.
I wasn’t surprised by much of anything he told me. Women threw themselves at these guys, and there were two types of men on the team: those who were single, and those who lied about being single. I didn’t need to know anything more than that. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe Coby wasn’t getting his fill of the ladies in different cities. The pictures in the tabloids painted a pretty clear picture that my best friend wasn’t leading a celibate lifestyle.
But before I knew it, I was back in school, and my sophomore year was half over. I gave up trying to tell Coby about Ryan, and finally just started talking about him like I would anyone else I spent time with. Coby could draw lines to whatever dots he wanted to connect. The only thing he ever cared about was my happiness, and he knew I had that in spades—even if I missed seeing him more frequently. My parents were disappointed neither of us had come home for Thanksgiving, and my mom cried when I opted out of Christmas, but Coby was on the road, and I just couldn’t face Podunk, USA without him. The two of us spent both holidays on FaceTime with me in our kitchen and him in some random hotel room with makeshift family meals. Ryan had begged me to come home to meet his parents, yet I still held fast to the notion we weren’t a couple, we just chose not to see other people. It worked for me
, and Ryan hadn’t pushed the issue.
The only issue the two of us had was my agreement not to have guys in Coby’s house when he was home. I thought it was a minor concession since he paid my tuition plus room and board, although Ryan thought it said more about my friendship with Coby than it did.
“Ugh, Ryan, all it says is he wants to come home to an empty house. He doesn’t bring women here, either.”
If we’d had that discussion once, we’d had it a thousand times. But since the deed to the house wasn’t in my name, there wasn’t anything I could do except abide by Coby’s wishes. Truth be told, it didn’t bother me. I wasn’t interested in seeing him parade random girls around any more than he wanted to see my companions—not that they were plural.
By the start of Coby’s second season, I’d gotten into the swing of managing school, Ryan’s baseball games, the Titans’ games, and a relationship…even if I still refused to admit I was in one. I declared my major in secondary education and began to map out what the rest of my college career looked like. Living twenty minutes away, I’d pulled back from the social scene on campus a bit. Melinda and I had been really close when I lived in the dorm, but since I’d moved in with Coby and she’d attached herself to Shea’s hip, the frequency with which we saw each other had dwindled.
I didn’t know what the next two years would bring with Coby’s career, or my own. Ryan would graduate a year before I did, which added another layer to the puzzle. As it stood, my life revolved around the two men who occupied my heart and the baseball fields they played on. With each day that passed, Ryan and I got closer. Not just emotionally, but physically. I never thought I’d be bothered by a man’s desire to wait to do the deed. To never go past third base with a guy I’d been seeing for over a year, even though we weren’t in an exclusive relationship, had frustrating moments.
Chapter 5
Coby
“How were the negotiations?” Ellie asked over the phone. We hadn’t seen each other much over the last few months with my second season coming to a close. I thought after the first year, everything would get easier, but that wasn’t the case.
Ellie had started to date Ryan, and after a couple of years of them being friends, it seemed like it was pretty serious. Funny enough, they probably would’ve never met if it hadn’t been for me. She’d spent most of her time with him while I was away, which had been the majority of the summer. So the only times we could really talk was over the phone, although our conversations never lasted too long. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to speak to each other, or that we had nothing to say, yet when you take two people with full lives and schedules, the overlapping availability in which they could both sit and chat narrowed.
“Good. They offered me ten years.” Even saying that out loud didn’t make it feel real. After my initial two-year contract had neared the end, I’d expected another five at the most. After all, I was the player who went straight from the draft into the Majors, skipping the Minors. It was almost unheard of. So I’d just assumed they’d offer me another short-term contract until I had proven myself a valuable asset.
“That’s amazing, Coby!” The excitement in her voice embedded itself into my chest, pulling a smile to my lips. “What about the guarantee? The pay? Are you happy with that, too?”
I had no reason to keep anything from her. Even if it wouldn’t be public information soon, I’d still tell her. Because that’s what we did. We talked to each other about everything—no matter how long we went without physically seeing one another. “I was blown away, E.T. I’m not even going to lie. I expected far less. My agent thought he could get more, but I didn’t care about that.”
“Why wouldn’t you want more money?”
I had to laugh. Even though I couldn’t see her face, I could picture exactly what it looked like. By her tone alone, I could vividly picture her brows pinched together and her lip curled the way it always did when she found something absurd. “I don’t play for the paycheck, Ellie. You know this. I’m just happy to be part of the club and get my time on the mound with the ball in my hand.”
The last two years had been some of the best in my life. The other guys on the team were like my brothers, and I actually felt like I belonged somewhere other than with Ellie or our parents. It definitely took a lot of adjusting, most of which I never would’ve been able to get through without my rock, but I’d been able to find my groove and exist comfortably in a world I didn’t belong in.
As if having friends wasn’t enough of a culture shock, I also had to navigate the world of dating—with real women who actually wanted to spend time with me. All I’d ever known was watching movies with a bowl of popcorn shared between my best friend and me, but now…now I had to do more than that. It had taken a while to step out of my comfort zone and actually go on dates with attractive women, although the awkwardness didn’t stop there.
I didn’t think I’d ever stop being uncomfortable where the ladies were concerned.
“But if you could get more money, why not go after it?”
I threw myself onto the hotel bed and dug the back of my head into the stiff pillow, ignoring the tingle that ran down my left arm. “That would be like sitting in the middle of the ocean and asking for more water. Utterly pointless and—in my personal opinion—rather selfish.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Ellie, my precious little flower…” That was my way of lovingly patronizing her. “They offered me eighteen million.” I waited for a gasp to fill my ear before adding, “With a guarantee of ten.”
With a new contract, I wasn’t eligible for a sign-on bonus like last time, which made the guarantee more important. It wasn’t a check I’d get up front, but it ensured I’d make no less than that, regardless of what happened over the life of the contract. I still had the majority of the first bonus, not to mention the salary I’d received over the last two years. Just under two million dollars a year was far more than I’d ever be able to spend, so I didn’t need to take my chances and hold out for more. I’d signed on the dotted line without hesitation.
“Holy crap!” I was glad my fame and fortune hadn’t gone to her head, either. We were still the same two kids who played in the red-clay dirt that colored our hometown. “When you said he thought he could get more, I assumed you were low-balled. How much was he trying to get? Enough to buy a continent?”
I started to laugh, but the burning sensation that ran between my tricep and bicep stifled the humor. I clenched my left hand, hoping to ease the ache, yet it didn’t do anything other than tear my attention away from Ellie on the other end of the call. I hadn’t told her about it, considering she would immediately tell me to see a doctor. I’d put it off, not wanting to chance it affecting my contract renewal. Although now that I’d gotten it, I didn’t care to be that player—the one who got a heavy guarantee only to turn around and collect it within the first year.
“Well, Mr. Moneybags, you’ve got your house, paid off your dad’s mortgage, bought him a fancy new car and one for yourself, and paid for my education. What more could you possibly dream of?”
“The only other thing I could possibly want would be a wife. But since I’m only twenty, I figure that can wait a bit. No need to rush when I don’t have the time to devote to another person. You’re all I can handle right now.”
She giggled, thinking I was joking. I wasn’t. I couldn’t imagine having to share our time with someone else. I had no idea how she managed to give Ryan the attention he needed while keeping up with our regular conversations.
“So you’re planning on buying a wife?” she asked, mirth dancing freely in her voice.
“I hadn’t planned on it, although I guess that would be easier. Considering I have no time to find a woman, and of those I have managed to hang out with, they’ve all split after a few dates. So maybe picking one from a catalog is the best option. Good thinking, E.T.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d said something similar to Ellie about my dating lif
e—or lack thereof. She found it comical and probably assumed I’d over-exaggerated in my storytelling, but if anything, I hadn’t given my pathetic skills with females enough credit. It was bad…really bad. So bad one woman stopped me in the middle to “answer” her phone—it hadn’t rung—and then she said she had an emergency and had to leave. Those were the details I conveniently left out of conversations with Ellie.
“As much as I’ve enjoyed talking to you, I have about ten minutes until Ryan gets here.” That Backstreet Boy was always right on time, too. It totally cramped my style, because that meant she had to hang up with me in order to be ready by the time he showed up…at my house.
Annoyed with myself, I gritted my teeth, said goodbye, and hung up. Ryan wasn’t a bad guy. Ellie deserved to be happy, and he seemed to provide that, but I was used to the two of us flying solo. I wasn’t accustomed to sharing her or having to cut my time short with her. It was yet another adjustment, but I had full confidence it wouldn’t ever come between us. We’d figure it out, and just like with everything else, we’d make it through.
I fisted my left hand once more and dug my thumb into the space above my tricep, hoping to alleviate the burning ache. It started behind my shoulder, yet that wasn’t where the majority of the pain existed. Figuring I’d overworked it and needed an ice bath, I grabbed a towel and began to fill the tub.
Charlene sat across from me in a booth with high backs. The lights in the restaurant were dimmed, and it felt like we had the entire place to ourselves. One of the guys on the team had suggested Dante’s for dinner, telling me how private it was so I wouldn’t have to worry about being interrupted while eating. With this being the third date, I wanted to make it special. Spring Training started up in a week, and I figured it was now or never—and by “never,” I meant months, which for a twenty-year-old was a lifetime.
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