Page 129 of Hot Streak

“How’s it feel? Being in the majors?” she asked.

Connor didn’t know how to answer, and part of him thought maybe he should lie, but he didn’t want to do that, not to Maya. “Like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, and also someplace I can’t possibly understand.”

She was quiet for a moment. “I meant it, you know? You don’t have to do this, Connor. Only if you want to.”

“I want to,” Connor said and realized, then, that he actually did.

When he thought about never taking the field again, dread completely swamped the anxiety he felt over his next start.

When he never thought about pitching, and Jackson catching him again, it felt even worse.

“Alright,” she said. “And don’t be a stranger, alright?”

“I won’t,” Connor promised.

He hung up and scrolled through the site, picking a few pairs, and while most of them were the beige color he was fairly sure would disappear under his baseball pants, his fingers might have slipped and he put another few pairs in, in brighter colors.

Jackson had said he didn’t know when they’d be together next, but surely there was no harm in planning ahead—or being optimistic?

Because Connor already knew that the only person he’d want to wear them for was Jackson.

Order complete, the website promising that his order would be sent to him ASAP, hopefully in enough time for his next start, he sent a text to Jackson. You’d better be right about this, or else I’m gonna have a lot of underwear I don’t know what to do with.

It was late morning, and if Connor knew Jackson’s routine as well as he thought he did, he’d be returning to the room to shower and get ready for batting practice and then a game later in the day.

Sure enough, he got a response back almost immediately.

I think we could come up with something.

Connor grinned at the screen. He was sure Jackson thought he was being subtle—but he was not. He might as well have written, I thought about it too, and the next time we see each other, you’d better be wearing them.

I’m thinking about that something right now.

And on cue, his phone rang, and he set it on his stomach, on speaker.

“You’re thirty-three, not a hundred and three. You can text,” he teased.

“Hello to you too,” Jackson retorted. “And I’m not old.”

“Then don’t act like it. You didn’t want to sext?”

“That why you think I called you?” Jackson grumbled.

“Oh, so you do want to have phone sex?”

Connor sure did. He was already hard, just hearing Jackson’s voice. Knowing he’d been thinking about him, wrapped up in pretty lace. Could already imagine the prickly roughness of it against his cock, and the admiration and the awe in Jackson’s eyes when he looked at Connor.

“You’re ridiculous,” Jackson said.

“And you’re horny. You think I can’t tell. Your voice gets all dark and grumbly when you’re losing the fight with your own stupid self-control.”

“It’s not stupid.”

“It kinda is, especially when you could be telling me how to touch myself, right now.”

Connor heard the catch in Jackson’s breath.

“You’re playing unfair,” Jackson said in a low voice.

---