Pitch + 12, 23 pleaseee
I adjusted #23 a little to “Is that my sweater?” instead of “Is that my shirt?”
This got away from me a little in the middle and I wanted more of happy tone, so I hope the ending isn’t too abrupt or out of place.
Let me know what you think.
Read on Ao3.
He looked…sweet. Almost. In sleep the semi-permanent scowl was gone leaving the muscles of Mike’s face relaxed and accentuating his round, apple cheeks, which were red from spending the day in the sun playing with Gabe, Marcus, and the other Padres’ kids.
Ginny couldn’t say why she’d chosen to stay behind after Mike dozed off and everyone else decided it was time to leave his house. She knew what she told them, he needed someone to wake him up and make sure he dragged his old bones back to bed so he’d be ready for their flight to DC the next day.
Livan had muttered something unflattering under his breath, even after he spent a good portion of his day tossing their teammates’ kids across the pool with Mike, but it was the sad, puppy dog look from Robles and Evelyn’s manic grin that kept running through her head.
What did they think was going to happen? Passionate coupling in his backyard after a day spent tossing around 50lb kids? Even if they did have the secret relationship going that Evelyn wanted to believe they did, she doubted that Mike had the flexibility left in his joints to do much more than climb up the stairs and into his bed.
Though as she looked down at his wide, expansive thighs (covered with adorable freckles) and muscular six pack that some - who clearly hadn’t seen him up close or been thrown around a pool by him - said had run to fat, she suspected that given the right motivation he could rise to the occasion. So to speak.
And she couldn’t indulge in this…this fantasy. She was just hard-up, at least that’s what Ginny told herself. It had been nearly two months since she had anyone other than herself to get her off and even then it was a one night stand with a guy who was more fan than fantasy, and the responding orgasm had been a quick release with no real finesse or feelings involved. Not exactly her thing.
But she could see Mike being her thing.
She cocked her head to the side, her curls falling in her eyes as she watched him stretch out in his sleep. His thigh muscles bunched and tightened and the sweet look on his face transformed into a grimace as he grunted and shifted, his weight teetering on the edge of the couch. Without thinking she reached out to push him back over.
And she was fucked.
The moment her skin made contact with his she knew she should pull back, but he was so warm. That was one of the many reasons she liked sitting next to him when they traveled. Where her body absorbed and stored cold, his was all emanating heat and shared warmth. He constantly complained that he could feel her sapping the energy from his body, but neither of them ever considered moving, even at the height of the awkward Noah/Rachel/Boardner’s debacle. Even after she dumped Noah two weeks after Mike separated from Rachel again and everyone was sure the two things were connected, while ignoring that they both also happened to take place right before the start of spring training.
But what she was feeling now was more than just his normal warmth.
She let her fingertips to play along the ridges of his stomach and work their way up to the freckles at his chest and neck - they were like constellations. The myths of Mike Lawson written all over his body.
And who would he be, she wondered. Zeus, who fucked everything that moved; Hades, condemned to spend his life locked in darkness and regret. Or maybe not a god at all. Maybe Icarus who flew to close to the sun, or Atlas, sentenced to spend his life holding up the sky.
Or maybe she’d had one too many drinks and she needed to step away from the situation before she did something she couldn’t take back.
One last touch though, that was all she wanted as she reached for his lips, the tan tint of her skin contrasting with the peach of his lips and the dark hair of his mustache and beard. They’d look good together, she figured, as she traced the line of his mouth under his thick mustache.
“You know sexual harassment is a thing women can get in trouble for too, right?” He laughed as she jerked back and smacked herself in the face trying to pull away. She sputtered for a moment and then pinned him with that adorable pissed off look she only pulled when she was trying to cover for something. The one where her nose scrunched in her dimples popped, and he mostly let her get away with the shit she pulled just because it meant that he got to see that particular look.
“Jesus! What is wrong with you?”
“Me?” He sat up and threw his legs over the side of the couch so he could lean back into it and study her. “I’m not the one molesting people in their sleep.”
“Oh, were you sleeping? I thought maybe you’d slipped into a coma so I was trying to wake you up. Do you know your guests are gone?”
“You’re still here.” He pointed out as she huffed and crossed her arms over her chest defensively. “How were you planning to wake me up? By violating my mouth?”
“I was checking to see if you were still breathing, Lawson. You know old people die and their sleep sometimes.”
His eyebrows shot up and the force of his laugh sent shivers up her spine…she wanted to say it was shock, but the answering clinch of her thighs told her it was definitely something else.
“You’re full of it, Rookie. You were totally copping a feel. Just admit it.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Then why’d you start with my stomach and work your way up? I guess I should be happy you didn’t work your way down instead.” He obviously shifted his legs and gave her a quick wink.
“Get over yourself, and if you were awake all that time why didn’t you stop me?”
“Curiosity.”
“My dad used to tell me that curiosity killed the cat.”
“My mom always told me satisfaction brought it back.”
She let loose that ridiculous thundering laugh and he’d be damned if it didn’t make him want to kiss the answering smirk off her lips, but she must have noticed him staring because she straightened and starting pulling at the Padres sweater that was falling off her right shoulder at the neck and skimming just below her knees at the bottom.
He started to ask her where she’d been keeping that since all he remembered her wearing when she showed up at his door was jean shorts that had to have been two sizes too small as he could see the pockets hanging out the front and a sleeveless tank, but then he caught the small white spot on the bottom where - if he was right about who the sweater belonged to - his cleaning lady had accidentally spilled bleach.
“Is that my sweater, Rookie?”
“Oh. Um.” Ginny shifted from one foot to the other and absently tugged at her bottom lip. “Yeah. Livan threw my clothes in the pool and I was cold. This was hanging up by the door. I can..” She unzipped it and started to pull it off, but stopped short when he shook his head and reached out for her.
Mike played with the zipper of the sweater to keep his hands occupied as she carefully stepped towards him. His mind was doing enough wandering on its own and if he started adding other body parts to the mix then things were going to get even more awkward than they already were. But damn, the last thing he wanted after spending the day with her wet and playful was to see her in his clothes. Of course now that he’d seen her in the sweater he figured the one thing he might want less was to see her take it off.
“Nah.” He reached up and pulled the top back over her shoulders. “Looks good on you.”
She didn’t know what to do with her hands. His seemed comfortable enough toying with the bottom of the sweater, but the longer he held on the more sure she was that she didn’t want him to let go. She had to do something though, say something. “Mike, I…”
“Don’t.” His voice sounded desperate, even to his own ears. “It’s…we’re not talking about this, right?”
“Yeah, but.”
“Ginny, we’re either talking about this or we’re not. I can’t…” He closed his eyes, leaned into her close enough for the whiskers of his beard to ghost over the tender skin of her stomach. “I don’t want to half-ass this. So we can talk about it now, like adults, or we can not talk about it like teammates. I can’t do both.”
And truth be told, she couldn’t either. Not talking about it had gotten them here, again. Too close for comfort and still too far away to be able to act on what they were feeling, but talking about it. That could be worse. So much worse. “I’m gonna say something. The therapist says I’m supposed to speak my mind and stop holding things in…she says that’s when I get in trouble.” She laughed humorlessly, “That’s when I end up in a stranger’s bathtub crying like an idiot child.”
“What?”
He seemed genuinely baffled and that was the first time it occurred to her that he hadn’t been fully briefed on the debacle that was the Nike party. Huh. “Nothing, just. I’m supposed to say what I’m feeling now, that’s all.”
“Well then, carry on.”
He was still leaning into her, close enough that she could feels his lips move into a smile when she reached down to run her hands through his hair. She couldn’t see his face, and maybe that was for the best, because it probably would have stopped her from carrying on.
“I think…I think this is probably a bad idea and that we shouldn’t do it.” She latched onto his hair a little tighter to hold him in place when he tried to pull away. “But I thought not talking about it was a good idea too and here we are again so maybe I’ve got shit judgement. Although you probably do too so I don’t know where that leaves us. Either way this isn’t going away and I think maybe not talking about it is going to be worse than talking about it, and I don’t want that to happen either. So.”
“So.”
He finally looked up at her, humor shining in his eyes and a small smile on his lips, and she hated and loved that look in equal measure. She hated it because it meant that he thought he knew something that she didn’t, but she loved it because he was usually right and the learning experience was almost always worth listening to him gloat for a few hours. So… “What? Spit it out, Lawson.”
“I like this swimming suit.” His arms were up and around her waist before she knew what was happening and, damn, she forgot how strong he was until he held her tight to him and leaned back so she had to stand between his legs. “It’s a good suit.”
“Agreed. That’s why I’m wearing it, what do this have to do with–”
“Don’t interrupt, Rookie.” He wanted to tell her that if she knew just what the scowl did to him, she probably wouldn’t use it so often, but figured that was probably counterintuitive to his current goal. “Want to know what I like best about it?”
“Not really, but you’re probably going to tell me anyway.”
“I am.” He ran his hands over the smooth, soft skin of her hips and delighted in the tremble he felt run through her body. He moved higher and higher to trace the design of peaches covering the bikini top. “This. I really love this. I mean the whole thing works, the razor back, the black bottoms resting low on your hips, but this part really works.”
Ginny let her head fall back as he traced the outline of one of the peaches under her arm. It shouldn’t have felt so intimate. It wasn’t like he was running those damn clever fingers over her nipples or anything, but still she felt her inner walls clench down on nothing and the breath left her lungs in a strong, steady stream. “Mike…”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Well, fuck. “We’re, um, we’re supposed to be talking.”
“Nope. I decided that tonight’s not for talking.”
“We’re not having sex.” And she was firm on that…mostly…probably. As long as he didn’t touch her anywhere else or, really, do anything else. At all.
“You’re right. We’re not.”
“Right, we’re not.” She shook her head when she meant to nod in agreement and it took a full ten seconds for her to catch on to what he said. “We’re not?”
“No.” He let his hands trace down her sides and fall off at her hips as he levered himself up and his knees cracked and his back popped. “Definitely not, but we are going to bed.”
“But…” Ginny sputtered for a moment and then she took a step back and immediately felt the loss of his warmth. “I don’t…why?”
“First, and I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly working at optimal capacity here.” He gestured to his knees and turned to the side so she could hear his back pop again. “Gotta be able to participate for it to be good.”
“And second.”
“Second, we’re not there yet.” He zipped the sweater she was wearing back up and then took a step back to examine her. “You’re always all or nothing, Baker. And it occurs to me that you need to learn to do things halfway sometimes. Some things, and I know this is going to sound crazy coming from me, but some things really are better after you wait for them.”
“But you didn’t want to wait.”
“I didn’t want to wait to admit this was happening. I didn’t want you to pull away every time we get close, but - and it really kills me to say this - that doesn’t mean I have to do everything I’ve been dreaming about doing for months right now. We can admit this is happening and still go slow.”
Ginny thought about that for a second, thought about having sex with Trevor in his truck after that first date and about Noah offering to take her on a trip around the world after their first night together. “So I stay here tonight and we sleep and then tomorrow…” She shrugged thoughtfully as the pieces all fell into place in her head. “Tomorrow we just get up and get ready and that’s all?”
“That’s all. We’ve got time to fight about this and discuss it and break it into little pieces and examine it later. Tonight, we just sleep. Okay?”
She thought about it for a second and then stepped forward to grab his hand to pull him towards the door. “Yeah. Okay.”
“One thing though,” he wrapped his arms around her neck and angled his legs so his was stepping outside of hers as they made their way in the house. “The left side of the bed is mine.”
“Which side is closer to the door?”
“Left.”
“Fine. If one of your groupies breaks into your glass house to kill you then you’ll be closer to the door.”
“Cold, Rookie. Stone cold.”
