Slow Pitch

by Amy Lane

  Tenner poked at that with his brain and could find no holes. “Yes.”

  “Did interaction occur?” Pat waggled his eyebrows, and Tenner’s face heated.

  “Yes.”

  “Was it good interaction?” Pat prodded.

  “Why is that important?” Tenner’s face was on fire, and he didn’t even have the cover of Indian food to explain it away.

  “No reason. I’m just curious.”

  Jesus. “You suck.”

  “No, no, I don’t. But Ross does, and excuse me, I’m curious if he does it well.”

  Tenner’s mouth went dry as memories of that second round drifted behind his eyes—his pliancy, the utter sensual saturation of every moment he spent in Ross McTierney’s arms.

  “Zero complaints,” he managed to say, and he could swear his ears were sweating. “None. None at all.”

  “That is good to know,” Pat said as if they were discussing the weather. “His sister will be so proud.”

  “You are not telling his sister!” Tenner snapped. “No sister needs to know that about their family!”

  “I beg to differ,” Pat said, then scooped a fry in ketchup and ate it with bliss. “See, if she knows, then she can give him sound life advice. Like, you know… ‘Yes, Ross, you should come back to Folsom when you’re done saving the world this time because Tenner will wither away and die without your magic penis!’”

  Tenner set his veggie burger down and gave up. “You two are terrible, terrible people. My only consolation is that you have children, and they will be just like you.”

  Patrick dropped his next fry. “You take that back.”

  “Oh no,” Tenner told him smugly. “No. You’d better spoil those kids rotten, or when it’s time for an old age home, forget about it. You’ll be in some sort of basement with nonstop SpongeBob on the television and cheap butter noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

  “After we sent those little so-and-sos to Stanford,” Pat said, indignant.

  “Allison isn’t even in high school yet,” Tenner argued.

  “No, but I’ve set her up nicely in the college department. She could go to Stanford if she ever stops fucking around and does her homework.”

  “She’ll go to art school, and you’ll love it. All I’m saying is, you go ahead and meddle however you want—they’re waiting. You put your cheaters in the freezer one too many times and you’re going to end up in Silver Corners, rocking your retirement away and forgoing all those cruises Desi’s been planning.”

  Pat narrowed his eyes. “You’ve got a real mean streak, Ten-Spot. I’m thinking I should have a long talk with Ross about why you might be the worst idea since Astroturf.”

  “You do that.” Tenner regarded his veggie burger with hope. It really wasn’t bad. “I’m sure Ross will tell me all about it, and I can assure him there are no bodies in the basement.”

  “What about between the walls or behind the washer.”

  Tenner winked, feeling Ross’s optimism, his chutzpah, infusing him from the inside out. “Well, we won’t tell him about those.”

  “Of course not.”

  Veggie burgers. Good for him and tasty. Change wasn’t always the worst thing that could happen, right?

  TENNER PICKED Ross up as they’d planned—or as Ross had ordered—and took him home to cook dinner.

  “Think I’ll be able to run this off?” Ross asked, looking at the pasta primavera Tenner was working on in the kitchen.

  “We can try in the morning, if you want. I usually go running before work.”

  Ross laughed softly. “I’m going to hazard a guess that we’ll be too tired tomorrow.”

  Tenner shrugged and remembered Patrick’s boundless optimism. “I mean… we don’t have to do it all… you know, tonight. There’s, uh, next week, right?”

  Ross moved behind him, doing that thing he did, with his hands on Tenner’s hips and his breath in Tenner’s ear. It turned Tenner on, that’s what it did.

  “Yeah,” he murmured. “You set the rules here, Ten. You’ve got the kid and the involvement and the complications.”

  “You’ve got the plane ticket,” Tenner replied. “I… I’m not sure how involved you want to get.”

  “I loved having dinner here last Sunday,” Ross said, surprising him. “No sex—I get it. Kid in the house, you didn’t want her to get attached. I don’t even know if you’re out yet to her. That is entirely your call. But spending time with you makes me happy. I’ll let you know if it gets too hard.”

  Tenner smiled briefly. “So, the safe words are please stop, too much, and let me go. I get it.”

  “Good,” Ross murmured. “Can I come to your Sunday practice and come home with your kid again?”

  Tenner closed his eyes. Family time, and the sweet little fantasy that Ross was part of his. Even if Ross slept in the guest room again, it would be worth it to have a friend there with Piper, someone to make him feel like he wasn’t in the parenthood thing alone.

  “I’d love that,” he said. And then, because that conversation with Pat had been light and fun but it had held a kernel of truth, he revealed one of his bodies. One that Ross had guessed at. “And I don’t know what Nina has told Piper, but together, our story was that we still loved her but that living together didn’t make us happy anymore.”

  He sighed, a vision of Ross doing this, holding him, being tender to him after work while Piper did her homework at the table, taunted him.

  “I… until recently, it had not occurred to me how much I wish I could tell her and make it normal.”

  “Recently?” Ross goaded.

  “Don’t make me say it. I’ll want things I can’t have.”

  “It’s good to want things,” Ross told him. “You just have to do something about it.”

  Tenner wasn’t stupid. “Like telling my daughter who I am?”

  “Mm… however you want to do it.” Ross kissed the side of his neck. “We’re not going to sort it now.”

  Tenner tilted his head for better access. “No. But we’re not going to have sex now either.”

  “Dinner ready?”

  Tenner had to—he turned in Ross’s arms and caught his mouth. “Yes,” he said, after a brief taste. “Apparently we’re dating now, so feeding you is important.”

  Ross grinned. “Dating? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

  “That’s what Patrick’s calling it these days. He’s my boss and my friend, and I’ve learned not to question him. Set the table. We have work to do before the sex.”

  “Is there at least dessert?” Ross asked, all indignant.

  “Does gelato count?”

  “Salted caramel?”

  “Or dark chocolate raspberry,” Tenner confirmed. “Not just dessert—dessert for people with champagne taste.”

  “Fine. I may tolerate the presex ritual of dating. If I have to.”

  Tenner kissed the corner of his mouth. “You’re very patient. Now set the table.”

  CONTRARY TO their play-whining, Ross was a charming dinner companion once again. Tenner could spar with him for hours. Even when silences fell, they were contemplative rather than awkward. It was funny how the two of them could wander off independently on a subject, come to a conclusion, and then restart the conversation as if they’d never left it.

  By the time they’d wrapped up the dishes and dessert, Tenner was relaxed and happy to the point that he’d almost forgotten what his endgame was.

  He went to sit in front of the television, thinking they could watch a movie or something, and Ross said, “Really?”

  Tenner blinked up at him. “We… I mean, it doesn’t have to be about sex all the time, does it?”

  “No,” Ross said, frowning. “But you liked the sex, right?”

  “It was amazing.” There was no question. “I just….” Tenner sighed and stood up. “Sorry, wrong fantasy, I guess.”

  “Wait, you mean, your fantasy had us watching television on the couch?”


  Tenner shrugged, embarrassed. “You know… like a couple. People dating. Never mind. I guess you’ve got an agenda and—”

  “Sit,” Ross said. “And give me the remote. I’m driving.”

  “My house, my remote,” Tenner returned, so happy it was like his stomach was flying.

  “No, if I’m passing up sex—”

  “Nobody said we were passing it up. We don’t need bells and whistles and clowns and a trapeze,” Tenner returned smartly.

  “I didn’t even get to the whistles, and the clowns aren’t until next week.”

  “No clowns.”

  “But me and the clowns got a schtick!”

  Tenner shuddered. “If I give you the remote, can there be no talk about clowns again?”

  “Fine. I’ll call out the strippers!”

  “No! Just you! It’s fine! Jesus, the hoops a guy has to jump through to watch TV with a good-looking guy in his own house.”

  Ross gave a long-suffering sigh and sat down, then crooked his finger for Tenner to come lean on him. “Fine, but only if we watch something dumb with explosions.”

  “Thoughtful with serial killers,” Tenner countered.

  “Dumb with serial killing explosions.”

  “Done!” Tenner had been saving the series on Netflix for weeks. He grinned at Ross like the man had saved his day. “One episode, and then we can go ring some bells and blow some whistles.”

  Ross lowered his head and captured his mouth in a surprisingly sweet kiss.

  “As long as you want. And if I fall asleep, wake me.” He yawned then, in a way that was no bullshit, and Tenner realized they might really be making a choice here. But God, Ross’s chest was solid and warm, and his thighs around Tenner’s were so reassuring.

  “Me too,” he said, snuggling back. He started the episode and thought if they could squeeze sex in on top of gelato and grown-up television with another grown-up, it could be the best date in the history of ever.

  Quiet Surprises

  THEY MADE it through one episode before they both had to admit they were nodding off, and Ross helped him lock up and feed the cat before they went upstairs together. This time they both undressed to their briefs, and while Tenner used the hamper, Ross used his duffel. They crawled into bed, and Tenner reached to turn off the light before rolling over in Ross’s arms and surprising him with a kiss.

  Passionate.

  A passionate kiss.

  Not a “sweet boring couple who are too complacent to have sex” kiss, but a passionate kiss. Ross responded, a tiny corner of his universe setting itself right again.

  He’d been sort of afraid he’d done something wrong.

  Tenner had been his usual irascible self during dinner, but in a happy way—the two of them had maintained playful banter for most of the meal, and then, when Ross was thinking, “Showtime!” Tenner had dragged him to the couch.

  Ross had been wondering what was wrong with him that after one night—okay, two—Tenner wanted to chill in front of the TV for an hour, but now, tasting him as Tenner aggressively pinned him to the bed with kisses, he realized that wasn’t the thing at all.

  She stopped touching me. Stopped smiling. Stopped being my companion.

  Ross allowed himself to be pinned, opening his mouth in surrender. Tenner hadn’t just been looking for two days of balls-out sex. He’d been looking for companionship, and he apparently enjoyed Ross for his company as well as for his prowess.

  The thought was humbling.

  Ross had sold this idea of a relationship based on the sexual connection alone. Tenner had done him one better. He’d been rooting for a human connection, and by God, he’d made one, one that Ross wouldn’t risk by breaking out the clown cars or the trapeze.

  Or ending this kiss, the sweet, passionate, sensual kiss that involved tongues and hands, undulating bodies and bare skin.

  Tenner swept palms and fingertips down Ross’s chest, along his stomach, along his hip, and suddenly those places—which had never ranked very high on Ross’s erogenous zone list—became sensitized in ways not even he had imagined.

  When Tenner broke the kiss to move his lips down Ross’s chest, Ross actually whimpered in protest, pulling Tenner’s head back up and claiming his mouth again.

  They’d cuddled during that movie, Tenner leaning into his chest, their body heat making up for the mild chill of the spring night and the overhead fans. Ross got it now, that need for connection, the way their mouths were more intimate together than on each other’s bodies. And Tenner wasn’t reluctant. He slid to the side and pulled at Ross’s shoulder until they were facing each other. Ross felt his hand, shoving at the waistband of Ross’s boxers, and suddenly wanted that. Wanted this kiss to continue, and the urgency it was building up to be relieved in the throes of the kiss.

  He tugged at Tenner’s shorts and found his erection thick and long, as he’d tasted the night before. He moaned as Tenner’s hand closed around him, their bodies so close, his nerve endings firing so powerfully, differentiating his touch on Tenner’s cock from Tenner’s touch on his became a blurry sort of thing.

  They were one.

  They didn’t have to penetrate or fuck to be one—they were one, mouth to mouth, hand to cock, and he squeezed Tenner’s length exactly as hard as he liked his squeezed, shuddering when Tenner’s moan shook them both.

  And then Tenner’s thumb skated across Ross’s cockhead, not gently, the slightly callused pad sending his arousal into the stratosphere.

  “Keep that up,” he managed to gasp. “I’m going to come.”

  “Wanna taste,” Tenner insisted.

  “Me too.”

  They had to break the kiss off, but God, they were both so desperate. Their shorts practically disappeared, and Tenner moved so his head was at Ross’s erection, and his erection was tantalizingly near Ross’s mouth.

  Ross could feel the breath they both took shuddering through them. His mouth on Tenner’s cockhead happened exactly when Tenner’s mouth took his in, and after that….

  There was no rational thought.

  There was only the thing in his mouth—the hard, salty, explicitly male thing in his mouth—and the exquisite touch of Tenner’s hands, his mouth, his tongue, on his own.

  Concentrating on what he was doing grew harder and harder and harder, and stars washed behind his eyes as he fought orgasm because he wanted Tenner’s spend flooding his senses first.

  Tenner’s finger, spit-slick, tapping at his entrance tipped the scales, and Ross was not nearly as delicate with his two fingers shoving in the same place.

  Their muffled moans filled the bedroom, and Tenner bucked hard, filling Ross’s mouth with come just as Ross lost all of his senses when climax unleashed his hold on his mind.

  God! So good! Ross swallowed, the taste bitter and salty and earthy and good. Tenner did the same, both of them cleaning up until the other one let out a sound of protest. Tenner rested his head against Ross’s thighs, and Ross did the same.

  “Ten, honey, you have to move your head up here. That’s no way to sleep.”

  With a heave and a less-than-graceful set of scooting movements, Tenner eventually righted himself and the covers and the pillows, and they were face-to-face again.

  Tenner had closed the drapes this time, but there was a nightlight in the bathroom, and Ross had enough glow to see that Tenner looked utterly debauched, his hair in spikes, and trails of come running from the corner of his mouth down his cheeks.

  So beautiful.

  Ross kissed him, licked him like a cat, cleaned him off, and then pulled back from the kiss and smiled drowsily.

  “That was… spectacular.”

  “No clown car necessary,” Tenner mumbled smugly.

  “We’ll bring it out next week.”

  “‘Kay. I’ll be ready to get it up again by then.”

  Ross’s laugh was sleepy and filthy. “Oh, baby. You need to up your stamina.”

  “Mm… you coming to practice Sunday?”

/>   “To see your adorable and preternaturally well-behaved child again and have hot dogs? Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Don’t forget Mario Kart.”

  “Do I have to let her win?” And wow—last Sunday’s quiet domesticity next to the last two night’s sensuality—such a toss-up. Suddenly Ross wanted it all.

  “Naw. Maybe Piper can have a tantrum, just to make you feel more at home.” Tenner had a smile on his face, and his eyes closed, like he would reply to Ross’s foolishness in his sleep.

  “I like your home. Maybe I’ll get used to it. Start freeloading off your beer and Wi-Fi.”

  Tenner chuckled. “You could always pay for dinner.”

  “I would love to take you out to dinner.”

  The sudden thought of Tenner, dressed nicely, sitting across from him at a restaurant, at a concert or a baseball game, passed behind Ross’s eyes, and he almost gasped, he wanted it so badly.

  “Not in Folsom,” Tenner mumbled. “Not now. But I’m trying.”

  Ross blinked. “What do you mean you’re trying?”

  “Asked Nina to think about it. Asked her why we shouldn’t both be happy. Asked her how she thought I should date. She didn’t get mad. It’s a first.”

  Ross’s eyes burned. “God, Tenner—”

  “Gotta keep you coming back without the clown car,” Tenner said, and suddenly his eyes glinted in the glow from the bathroom again. “I don’t care if it is only eight weeks. I want it to be the best eight weeks.”

  “Me too.”

  Tenner kissed him softly and then rolled over, probably to his most comfortable side, since he’d put the end table there, and backed into Ross’s embrace, letting him be the big spoon.

  Ross tightened his arm around Tenner’s waist and kissed his shoulder, eyes still burning.

  The best eight weeks. Sounded like a plan.

  Except it was after midnight, so now it was only seven weeks and two days.

  And that didn’t sound like enough.

  ROSS WAS careful to clean up the next morning, making sure his dirty clothes were in the duffel with his toothbrush and shaving kit, and his clean clothes were on his back, and his softball uniform was on top. They were both changing clothes at work so the games could start on time.