Rounding the Bases by Jaqueline Snowe
Chapter Fifteen
Sarah
Ethan hadn’t been this quiet, for this long, for years. It unnerved me. The constant chatter of his was one of the reasons I adored him, but the silence grated on my fragile nerves the longer he stared at the plan. Blue Bells Boarding plan. Megan propped herself up on one of the stools with her arms wrapped around her knees as she too waited to hear Ethan’s thoughts.
My poor fingernail bled from the nibbling, but I couldn’t just not do something while we waited and waited.
Finally, after fifteen minutes of silence, Ethan clapped loudly. “We can do it.”
“You’re sure, sure?”
“Yup. The ten thousand can go toward the down payment for the location, and the funds from the GoFundMe—which, brilliant idea from the baseball dude—has ten thousand that can go toward converting the back rooms to large kennels for the rescues. We need to get the right licenses, but leave that up to me.” He held up his now-warm beer and cheered me and Megan. “We’re doing this thing!”
“Oh my god.” I hugged him hard, and my eyes stung as tears formed. “What about paying people? I need a groomer and to pay you two.”
“When you receive the next ten, you’ll need to put it into a payroll account. Luckily, that woman, Vee, came through by providing us funds for the website so we don’t need to worry about that. But besides payroll, we’ll need to carve out a budget for utilities, internet, that sort of stuff. If the event goes well with your athlete friends, then maybe we’ll get more donations to help get this thing running.”
“Ethan, you are a godsend.” I smacked a kiss right on his cheek and turned to Megan for a huge hug. “I don’t know how I would survive without you both.”
“It’s true. We rock,” Megan said, patting my head while I cuddled into her chest. “We talked about it, Blue, and we’re okay not getting paid for our part.”
“Um, no. Not acceptable.”
“We can put it on our resume as helping get a business up and running. This is the perfect opportunity for me to build my skills in marketing. Better than any internship I could find. And Ethan makes enough playing video games.”
He shrugged. “I do. We’d rather the money go toward finding other employees and getting benefits.”
“But…you deserve money.”
“And you deserve to put every penny toward making your dream come true. We’re with you until the end. How about this?” She pulled away from our hug. “Once we graduate next year, when the business has been open for a bit, if we work there full-time, then we can talk money.”
“But that’s a year of free work. I can’t do that.”
“Blue, you beautiful idiot. This isn’t up to you. Ethan is doing your payroll, so he’ll do it no matter what you say.”
I stuck my tongue out at them before a full sob came over me. It was surreal to think that I could really do this without my parents’ help. It took a good ten minutes for me to settle down before I went back and hugged Ethan in a full-body embrace. He tried to get me off him, but I refused. “Ethan, I swear to god, let me hold you.”
“You’re so weird.”
“I don’t care.”
He laughed just as someone knocked on the door, and Ethan waddled to it with me still attached to him. He opened the door. “Uh, hi?”
“Ms. Blue,” Fernie said, standing outside the apartment with an uptight expression and an empty plate. “I am returning your dish, if you wouldn’t mind climbing off this man.”
“Right.” I let go and smoothed my outfit down, smiling at the empty plate. “Is it washed and polished?”
“As you demanded.”
“Excellent.” I took it and pointed over my shoulder. “I have puppy chow.”
His lip curled up on the side in disgust. “Are you offering me food of a dog?” He eyed Pico, who wagged his tail so hard his entire body shook. I reached down and petted his head.
“No. It’s a dessert, you baboon. Come try it.” I walked toward the kitchen and pointed to Megan and Ethan, introducing them by name. “This is Fernie, the doorman who I absolutely loathe.”
“The feeling is mutual,” he replied, keeping his tone curt, even though he stood in the kitchen eyeing the red bowl. “Puppy chow.”
“It’s rice Chex Mix covered in butter and chocolate and powdered sugar. It is incredibly bad for you and just the thing you need to loosen you up, Fern.” I got a small Tupperware dish and put some puppy chow in it. “Here, take this.”
He picked up one white square, put it in his mouth and his eyes widened. “Oh, I was not expecting that.”
“They are good. Terrible for you, but so good.” I studied him just as my phone pinged with an alert that another amount had been donated. “Do you like dogs?”
“Uh, not particularly.” He walked toward the door and made sure to stay out of Pico’s way. “Why?”
“We’re working on an event with one of the rescue shelters in the valley. It’ll be the second Saturday in August, if you want to stop by. Brigham and his sports friends will be there, too.”
“Hm.”
“I’ll drop off a flyer on your desk.”
“I can’t make it,” he said, leaving the apartment, but not before sneaking in one last comment. “I’m sure you poisoned this puppy food, but it is outstanding.”
“Tons of poison. Don’t eat it all in one sitting.”
He left and I had a huge smile on my face just as Brigham appeared at the door. Pico ran up to him and he bent down to greet him, melting my heart even more. “Hey, Blue Bell. Did Fernie come visit you?”
“Yes, he returned my plate and got more snacks.” I walked up to him and couldn’t stop smiling. He wore faded jeans and a white shirt and, my god, I wanted to roll around naked with him. His eyes warmed at my approach and he bent down and kissed the hell out of me before Megan cleared her throat. He stilled and kept his hands on my hips, but looked over my shoulder and grinned. “Oh, hey.”
“Don’t oh hey me when you come in and maul my girl. I’m Megan.”
“The friend, hm?” He kept his arm around my shoulder as he approached the kitchen, and an irrational part of me wanted my best friends gone. Being alone and naked with Brigham became the most important goal ever. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too,” she said, blushing redder than the puppy chow bowl. “Be good to her. I know I’m small, but I can still hurt you.”
“Megan,” I said, lowering my voice in a super non-scary way. “He’s fine.”
“For now.” She winked and went back to her phone. “I gotta say, I’m impressed you and your teammates are game for this event. It’ll help us out so much.”
“I’m glad. But it’s also helping me out, so I should be thanking you guys.” He held out a fist to Ethan. “Hey, good to see ya again.”
Ethan fist-bumped him before shoving puppy chow into his face and going back to the computer. “Is the team donating any money to the event?”
“No, we don’t get a say in what they sponsor, but me and my buddies are going to donate about ten grand each.”
What. What.My head got fuzzy and I wobbled a bit before Brigham reached over to catch me. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah, we talked about it after you left the other day. We want to donate that to help get everything running. Plus, hello, puppies.” He grinned, but my brain couldn’t compute. Thirty thousand more dollars.
“No. You can’t.”
“Yes, we can. And we will, BB.” He squeezed my hip with his hand and smiled so big, I got lost in his expression. “You’ve gone pale.”
“You shocked her,” Ethan said, chuckling. “The money will help almost every problem we could face. We would’ve been okay with the donations we already have, but this ensures success for at least the first year.”
“Plenty of time for you to grow the business and show all the potential clients why your place would be the best.” He bent down and kissed the top of my head, my mind still not grasping how he could donate that much money. “Why are you frowning?”
“You can’t just… That’s a lot of money.”
“It’s not for me,” he said, so flippantly, it shocked the sense out of me. I grabbed his hand, dragged him into the bedroom and shut the door. “Woah, you want to fool around with your friends out there?”
“Shut up, you.” I pushed him so he sat on the bed while I paced. “Enlighten me about your day job, Monaghan.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“Maybe.” I took a deep breath and stood far enough away that he couldn’t touch me, because when that happened, I lost control. “Why is that much money not a lot for you?”
He winced and ran a hand over his face. “I make a lot being a professional athlete. Between the contract to play, and sponsors, it really brings in money.”
“Like how much?” I asked, bracing myself. “Like a million?”
He hissed. “More.”
“Two million?”
“My contract alone is thirty million for five years.”
Thirty. Million.
Six million a year.
“Shit.” I closed my eyes, spun a little bit and took a deep breath. “Wow.”
“Blue Bell, come here, please.”
“Just, give me a second.” The differences between us were already vast enough, but the money? It carved a huge hole of doubt in everything. “That’s…a lot.”
He reached toward me, grabbed the edge of my shirt and pulled me to him so I straddled his lap on my bed. He kept his hands on my hips and had a pained expression on his face, tight lines around his lips and sad eyes. “Please don’t let it change things between us.”
“It’s just so much.”
“It’s part of being an athlete.” He hung his head and rested his forehead on my shoulder. “I love how I am with you. You don’t care about that part of my life, and I need that. The escape. You’re perfect and odd in the best way. Sarah, I can see the panic in your eyes. How can I make it go away?”
Maybe it was the way his voice shook a little, or the tormented expression in his eyes, or the way his grip tightened like he didn’t want to let go of me. I planted a wet, sloppy kiss on him. “Let me digest it and it’ll be okay.”
“You’re sure?” A line appeared between his eyebrows and I ran a finger over it. “I would hate to end this because of money.”
“Ending it?” I said, arching back a bit. “Who said ending it?”
He laughed and cupped the back of my head. “Thank Christ,” he said before bringing his lips to mine and kissing me hard. He sucked my lip into his mouth to the point my pulse throbbed between my legs. I squirmed against him and he slid one hand from my back to the front of my shorts. “Oh, my girl’s getting turned on, huh?”
“My friends are out there,” I whispered, yanking his mouth back to mine. He slid a finger inside the hem of my shorts and moved my panties to the side. I gasped when he teased me, not quite entering me but damn well getting me right to the edge. “Brigham, you bastard.”
“Will you be wet?”
“Yes,” I said grinding against him, desperate for him to follow through with it. “Please.”
“What if we stop now and see how much we can push each other until your friends leave?”
“What?” I almost cried. “Wait?”
“Yup.” He removed his hand and smiled. The hesitant look from earlier was replaced with a wild grin. “Just think how powerful your orgasm will be later. Hours later.”
I blew out a breath as my pulse pounded with need. “This is torture.”
“No, baby, this is prolonged foreplay.” He stood up, tucked the evidence of his own horniness into his pants and held out a hand. “Let’s go visit with your friends.”
“Bastard.”
“It’s all part of the process, Blue.” He yanked me to him, kissed me quick and patted my ass. “This isn’t a base, per say, but it’s like rounding first.”
“Well, I hate it. I do not like rounding first.”
He barked out a loud laugh as we went back out into the kitchen, where he joked with my friends like he’d known them for years. It made me inexplicably happy to see him fit in with my family, and thoughts of the future crept in. Could we last and make this a real thing? Did I want to?
Yeah. I definitely did.
