Page 91 of The Battery
I dropped my head into the cushioned seat back and put my focus on Cody’s body heat.
Turbulence carried us all the way to Boston.
*
I slapped the button to close the garage door as Cody moved cautiously down the hallway of our house. I fidgeted for the light switch inside and flicked it on. Cody let out a little hiss and scrunched his eyes closed. We dropped our bags in the kitchen and shuffled upstairs, half asleep already and yawning. We could catch a few hours of Zs, then wake up and enjoy a day off before diving back into the game.
At the top of the stairs, Cody came to a halt. I bumped into him, one step down.
“Are we officially living together?” he asked without any preamble. The sleep had vanished from his voice. He was clear as a bell with his question.
My brow went up, caught by surprise.
“We kinda already have been,” I answered earnestly.
Cody shook his head. “No. That was my recovery. That doesn’t count. I meant in the past week or so. I’ve had every opportunity to go back to Freddie’s. A lot of my stuff is still there.”
I shifted my weight and leaned against the banister. “Do youwantto go back there?”
“No.”
I pushed off from the railing and walked past Cody. “Then we’re officially living together. Simple as that.”
Cody scoffed and chased after me. “I feel like that’s a big milestone. Should we be so dismissive of it?”
I shrugged as I ambled down the hallway. “The house is about twenty grand a month. How about you pay half?”
He let out a chortle that cut through the quiet of the house. He started to speak but I stopped just shy of the doorway to ourbedroom. I spun and said, “This would be a good conversation for the morning, don’t you think?”
“I dunno. I kinda want to talk about it now.”
There was clarity in his eyes. Where he had been sleepy since we left Austin, I now saw a wide-awake Cody. I glanced longingly at the bed. “You couldn’t have brought this up on the plane ride? Or the car ride back to the house?”
“Tell you what,” he said. I was becoming more awake by the second, which stoked a flicker of annoyance in me. “We have a serious conversation now, and tomorrow I’ll let you do whatever you want to me.”
Well. Now I was more awake for a different reason.
“I already have that privilege,” I said as a test. He liked my confidence. It turned me on that he did.
“I thought of that,” he said. “Which is why I, um, bought a few things.”
I stood a little straighter. “What kind ofthings?”
“Conversation first, remember?”
I closed the single-step gap between us and forced him against the wall. I planted a delicate kiss on his lips and held his face in my hands. “I’m in love with you and I want the world for us. My home is now yours, just like my heart. We’ll take every new step together toward a future that will be filled with more love and joy than I can fathom. I’m yours, Cody, in every sense that those words could possibly mean. Call me your boyfriend, partner, whatever. Tell the world. I really don’t care. So long as you’re still in it and I belong to you.”
I stepped back. His mouth had dropped open.
“That what you were looking for? Good.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him into the bedroom. “Because I’m awake now and only you know the best way to get me back to sleep.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Cody
On October eighteenth,we won. On the nineteenth, we won again. In a six-game series, that put us up at three wins to Austin’s one. We needed four to secure the pennant.
Now, on October twentieth, and still at home in Lexington, we entered what could be the game that clinched the league win. It was a cool autumn evening, the sun having already set, the stadium lights replacing the golden majesty with harsh blue-white hue. As with the other games, there wasn’t a single empty seat in the entire stadium. A few pockets of Austin fans, splashes of yellow amongst bronze and blue, marked the stands, but the uproarious cheering from the locals drown them out. The other relief pitchers and I tossed what seemed like endless buckets of balls up into the stands from the bullpen. We were surrounded by fans, many of them kids begging for signed balls. Feeling the general spirit of the crowd and our potential win, we had no problem wearing out the ink in the Sharpies.
