Page 53 of Honey Pot
He turned his head to look at me. “You didn’t grow out of the hobby or you wouldn’t have put the blossom in your pocket. Which means either no one was buying you flowers, orsomeonewas buying you flowers you hate.”
I hated that he wasn’t wrong.
Julienalwayssent red roses. Fickle ugly things, with delicate petals that died in a week.
“You sound jealous,” I deflected with a smirk.
“Until the day I die, Clem,” he grumbled as we got to the empty parking lot of the stadium. I could feel the heat rising on my cheeks from his words but I turned my head up to the sky to let the cool air bite at them as we walked.
I would never get away from how easily flustered he made me. How such simple honesty held such power over my emotions. The wind messed up his hair and forced pieces against his forehead as he turned to look at me over his shoulder.
“Come on, slow poke.” He nodded toward the door which Ella scanned to unlock.
Dean grabbed it from her and held it open for all of us and we made our way through the dim stadium halls. He wandered ahead, saying something quiet to Ella as they rounded the corner toward the players entrance to the diamond.
I wanted to ask Cael what was wrong but it didn’t really seem like the time or place until Dean cleared his throat beside me.
“This time of the year is hard because it’s when she started to get really sick again. Cael has good days and bad days,” he explained as we walked past Coach’s office, the light still on but Ryan hidden behind all the boxes and clutter. “It’s worse this year because he’s sober.”
The words were like a knife to my chest; how I hadn’t noticed that he was sad long before today caused a guilty sensation to bubble up. But I nodded, listening carefully to Dean’s warning, his caution clearly warranted and coming from a place of love.
“Baby gloves,” I said quietly and he turned to nod at me before tapping two fingers to his chest. My whole body tightened at the sight of it but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Just a gesture I hadn’t expected to ever see again. It was warm and fond as the memory cascaded over my shoulders.
“It’s ready.” Jensen came crashing around the corner from the tunnel with a shit-eating grin on his dumb face and his feet tangled together like strings.
All the worry from the day seemed to fade away and Cael’s smile returned to his face, although it was half-hearted and still full of grief, the light shimmered in his ocean eyes.
“Alright Plum.” He turned to me, framed by Ella and Dean. “During the off-season we started having team building nights most of the time, that included us getting absolutely shit faced, until Silas scared all of us straight and demanded that at least one team building exercise was dry.”
“We fought him on it,” Dean added seamlessly.
“What we’re about to show you we take very seriously. There are three rules and under no circumstances are you allowed to break any of them,” Cael explained with a sly grin.
“What is this, Fight Club?” I asked and Ella snorted.
“We wouldn’t be talking about it if it was,” Dean quipped, clearly proud of himself for catching the reference, because Ella leaned over with a tiny enthusiastic thumbs up.
“No filming, you can’t say no, and if ‘Party in the USA’is played you finish your drink.” Cael listed them off and I went to open my mouth about the drinking. “It’s juice.”
“You play drinking games with juice?” I laughed. A few pieces of my hair fell from the half bun it was pulled into and tickled my jaw as I moved my gaze between the three of them.
“One percent pure apple juice with no sugar added,” Dean said, trying to keep a straight face as he crossed his massive arms over his chest.
“Do you agree to the terms, Plum?” Cael asked, extending his hand to me.
“Fine.” I said, shaking it.
“Oh you’re so fucked,” Dean laughed as he and Ella turned on their heels out the tunnel.
CODY
Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumb had collected half the team, a few partners, and even some of the long term staff that hung around the stadium to help facilitate practices. As per usual the outfield had been made comfortable with pillows and blankets we kept in the storage locker on site.
“Wait, is it like a drive-in?” Clementine asked as we walked across the infield and onto the turf.
“Better,” I said, as Jensen popped out from one of the service doors below the big screen used for games. It played replays, crowd reactions and kept the score. But on nights like this we used it for Karaoke.
“Cael,” Clementine whined my name, and off her lips it sounded less like a plea for help and more like sin.
