Free Spring Training by Stacey Lynn Rhodes Page A

needle in there! That’s fucked up—what if they poke the baby? No fucking way they’re…” Deke paused. “Wait…who’s that?”
    Aaron smiled at Teri. “That’s Teri.”
    “Teri who?”
    “Sandusky.”
    “Sandusky? Huh. Ain’t your hotshot a bit young to be married?”
    “I’m the hotshot’s mom,” Teri called out.
    “Well hell, man. You don’t have me on speaker phone, do ya?” Deke grumbled. “I hate when you do that shit.”
    Aaron shifted the phone to left hand and held the right back out to Teri, who accepted it. They resumed walking down the path. “I’m always telling you, you have a voice like a foghorn. You aren’t on speaker. You’re just fucking loud.”
    “Bite me.”
    Teri giggled, a light, girlish sound that made Aaron do a pleased double-take, so different was it than her usual low tone of voice.
    “Hey, while I got ya, why don’t you put the hotshot on? I have some words of wisdom for him, one third-baseman to another.”
    Aaron would have known better than that even if Emery had been there. Deke just wanted to lecture him on not fucking around or giving Aaron a hard time. “No can do. Teri and I are out on a walk. He’s back at the condo.”
    Silence from the other end of the line.
    “You there, Deke?”
    “Moonlight stroll? You’re hot for Mom?” His answer was almost a whisper—for him. He obviously didn’t want to risk Teri overhearing. “Dude, you’d better call me tomorrow. I gotta hear this.”
    Aaron ignored that. “Tell Julia congratulations and give her big hug from me.”
    “Ahh…get your ass back here and give her your own damn hug.”
    He was used to Deke’s bluster and knew Julia would be getting his message as soon as they were off the phone, if she wasn’t right there on his lap listening in anyway. Deke was crazy in love with his wife and didn’t let her get too far away when he wasn’t on the road.
    “Fine. Will do. G’night.”
    “Night.”
    Aaron hung up and pocketed his phone. “Sorry for the interruption.”
    “No problem. Friend of yours from the team?” she mused. “Deke…southern accent…third baseman… Must be Deacon Rawlson.”
    Aaron was impressed. “Wow, great job. You do know your baseball, don’t you?” He nodded. “Yeah, Deke’s probably my best friend.”
    “You two played together in college too, right?”
    “Just for a year before I got called up, but yeah. He went into another team’s system, but we stayed in touch, then a couple of trades later, we’re in the same place again. It happens that way. You can be bitter rivals then get traded and suddenly become teammates with the enemy, or vice versa. At the same time, it doesn’t pay to get super close to anyone because you never know when it’ll be over, either because of a trade or injury.” He shrugged. “Deke sticks like a freaking burr, though. I have to give him credit. Julia jokes that Deke can’t go to sleep at night if he hasn’t at least said hi to me once that day. The ‘bromance’, you know.”
    He wasn’t joking either. The media had picked up on their close friendship, especially when they’d been on rival teams, and rumors still flew even now and then that they were boyfriends. Didn’t seem to matter that Deke was married to Julia and now expecting a baby, or that Aaron dated women.
    “Well, I’m pretty convinced that the ‘bromance’ is all in their imaginations. You seem pretty into females to me.”
    “I’m into you,” he corrected and came to a halt to take her in his arms.
    That came out a bit more blunt than he’d wanted, but before he could backpedal, Teri rose up to press a kiss to his mouth, murmuring against his lips, “I’d love to really have you ‘into’ me.”
    He groaned into her mouth at the sexy invitation, but he was fully aware of their public surroundings, though it had been a while since they’d passed anyone. He kept the kiss mostly chaste, then with a parting peck regretfully pulled back. “Want to