Home Field Advantage Read online

  “No, really, it’s on me. Congratulations.”

  Caleb’s reluctance remained clear, but he didn’t say anything else as Toby signed off on their dinner. They stood and headed into the lobby in silence, but before they got far, Caleb stopped Toby with a hand on his arm. Toby looked up at Caleb’s face and saw the same gleam in his eye that had given Toby pause a few minutes earlier.

  “Come up for a drink?”

  All the warning bells in Toby’s mind went off at once, but none of them were enough to stop him from doing what he did next. He followed Caleb into the elevator, rode up to the sixteenth floor beside him in silence, and then followed him down the hall to his room.

  Once inside, Caleb dropped his duffel on the dresser and moved toward the minibar, like he was actually going to make good on his nightcap offer. “Not sure what they have in here, but—”

  Toby didn’t let him get any further. He took three long steps, reached up to wrap one hand behind Caleb’s neck, and kissed the words right out of his mouth.

  Caleb’s lips were soft and dry, yielding easily to Toby’s insistent pressure and soon parting to allow Toby’s tongue inside. Caleb tasted like the mint he’d popped as they left the table downstairs, with a hint of sweetness from the tea he’d had with dinner and a deeper flavor of pure Caleb.

  Toby wondered if he tasted like that everywhere.

  Eager to find out, Toby slid his hands under the hem of Caleb’s T-shirt and pushed it up until it bunched under Caleb’s arms. Breaking reluctantly away from Caleb’s mouth, Toby bent to lick his nipple instead, hearing the hiss from above at the intimate touch. Caleb’s skin was saltier here, the remains of a long day of travel clinging to his body, and Toby took another, longer taste, wrapping his lips around the pebbling skin and sucking gently.

  “Holy shit, Toby.”

  Caleb shifted, and Toby saw his T-shirt go flying a second before Caleb grabbed Toby’s arms and turned them both, shoved Toby against the wall, and fell against him. Caleb sealed his mouth over Toby’s even as he worked his fingers under Toby’s shirt and let them roam across his skin. Toby kissed him back desperately, kneading at the strong muscles of Caleb’s back, muscles honed from years as an athlete who used his body well. Toby was no slouch, physically speaking, but he relished the few inches and couple dozen pounds Caleb had on him. Toby felt surrounded by Caleb but not overwhelmed, the give and take between them perfectly balanced.

  After breaking the kiss, Caleb pushed at Toby’s shirt, and Toby raised his arms to let Caleb strip it away like he’d done with his own. Caleb wrapped one arm around Toby’s body to pull their chests together and used his free hand to cup Toby’s ass so he could grind his pelvis into Toby’s. Toby groaned as Caleb licked across his jaw to his ear, where Caleb breathed out, “Jesus fuck, you’re hot.”

  Toby let out a strangled sound something like a laugh. “Nothing on you,” he managed, turning his head to capture Caleb’s mouth with his.

  They stumbled toward the bed, kicking off shoes and fighting with buckles and zippers, hands exploring every new inch of skin they exposed. When Toby got his hands into the back of Caleb’s jeans and realized he was wearing a jockstrap, he took full advantage, grabbing a double handful of muscular ass and squeezing a moan right out of Caleb’s mouth.

  Toby pulled away long enough to slide onto the mattress and draw Caleb down on top of him, groaning at the weight pressing him into the mattress. Caleb cupped Toby’s face in his big hands and kissed him hard, driving his tongue in deep, and Toby opened his mouth and let Caleb all the way inside.

  He opened his legs, too, lifting his knees to bracket Caleb’s hips, the shift in position bringing their hard cocks together with just two thin layers of cotton left between them. Toby moaned into Caleb’s mouth, the sound echoed back to him as Caleb slid one hand down to cup Toby’s leg and pulled it tighter against Caleb’s body. Toby took the hint, bringing his other leg up to wrap behind Caleb’s thighs and lifting his pelvis to grind up into him.

  Toby lost track of how long they stayed like that, kissing and grinding against each other, before Caleb wrenched himself away. “God,” Caleb growled. “I want to be inside you, like, yesterday.”

  Panting, Toby nodded. “You got stuff?”

  “Shit. I hope so.”

  Caleb levered himself away from Toby and off the bed, then dove into his discarded duffel bag. Toby used the break to get rid of his underwear and brought one hand up to stroke his hard-as-nails dick while he watched Caleb’s ass and thigh muscles bunch under his smooth, pale skin. With a few moments to look his fill, Toby could see the tan line at Caleb’s waist and a lighter one halfway down his thigh, evidence of shirtless workouts and off days in shorts. Central Mississippi was even more hot and humid than Atlanta, so Toby imagined Caleb didn’t bother with more clothing than he had to.

  Toby had no objections to that idea. At all.

  When Caleb turned back around, condoms in one hand and lube in the other, Toby let his gaze roam over his front side, and he liked what he saw. A lot. Caleb had almost no hair on his chest, but a riot of reddish-brown curls sprung to life just below his navel—he had an outie—and surrounded a long, slender cock that curved slightly at the end. Toby’s brain did the geometry quickly, and his body clenched at the thought of how that curve would fit inside, the pressure it would exert against his prostate.

  He barely had time for a groan before Caleb was back, dropping his jock on the floor and the supplies on the bed before sprawling on top of Toby. “Beautiful,” Toby managed, and Caleb smiled for a split second before kissing him again.

  Kissing melted into caresses, and in what felt like no time at all, Caleb had Toby prepared and his cock in place, ready to breach his body. Toby lifted his legs to wrap around Caleb’s hips again and pulled, encouraging him to move. “C’mon,” he murmured. “Get in me.”

  Caleb was smiling as he eased inside, and Toby had to smile too, even as the stretch and burn made his eyes flutter shut. Oh God, he’d missed this feeling; missed being filled, the weight of a man on top of him, the smell and slick slide of sweat and lube.

  Caleb didn’t stop moving even when he was in deep, just pulled back and pushed forward again and again and again, each stroke a little longer, with a little more force behind it. By the time he was pulling almost all the way out and slamming back in, Toby was riding a wave of white-hot sensation, skin buzzing all over, cock and balls tight with tension.

  Just as Toby suspected, every one of Caleb’s thrusts pushed the head of his dick across Toby’s gland at exactly the right angle, each pass shooting paroxysms of pleasure through Toby’s body. Caleb was going to milk an orgasm right out of Toby without a single touch to his cock, just the sweet pressure from their bodies rubbing together.

  “Toby.” His name, whispered against his ear in that sexy, raspy voice, shot Toby’s desire into the redline. He moaned and reached for Caleb’s head with both hands to slam their mouths together in a dirty, messy kiss. It didn’t last long, Caleb’s thrusts growing suddenly even harder and more erratic, and Toby lasted only a few more seconds before his body and cock jerked hard and he spilled between them.

  “Fuck!” The barely coherent word came from Caleb, as Toby could manage no more than a gasp and deep groan of satisfaction as his orgasm ripped through him. As if at a distance, he felt Caleb shudder against him in his own climax.

  Caleb collapsed on top of Toby, and even though it made breathing harder, Toby couldn’t bring himself to care. Two hundred pounds of warm, sweaty man pressed him into the mattress, and despite feeling completely wrung out, Toby managed to sling arms and legs around him, holding him in place.

  “Crushing you,” Caleb muttered into the pillow near Toby’s ear, and Toby shook his head.

  “Like it. Stay,” he murmured back.

  Caleb did, even as his shrinking cock slipped out of Toby’s body and the cum and lube grew cold and sticky on their skin. Eventually, Caleb rolled onto his side, taking Toby with him,
and gave him a slow, deep kiss. Toby made a sound of satisfaction deep in his throat, and Caleb pulled away with a smile.

  “Let me grab a washcloth or something so we don’t—”

  “No.” Toby tightened his grip around Caleb’s body. “Clean up later. Sleep now.”

  Caleb hesitated, but then he relaxed back against the mattress. They shifted until both were comfortable, bodies tangled together, and Toby drifted toward sleep, satiated and content.

  When Toby woke a few hours later, his mind had caught up with his actions, and he was up and off the bed before he even realized he was moving.

  “Wha….”

  Caleb’s groggy voice came from somewhere behind him as Toby pulled on his underwear and reached for his jeans.

  “This was a mistake.” Even as the words left his mouth, Toby knew they were wrong, but what else could he say? He’d broken every possible rule: sleeping with someone from work was bad enough, but sleeping with a player? If his grandfather found out, he’d hit the roof. Three times over, since said player was also, of course, a man.

  “Toby—”

  Toby didn’t stop dressing, even though his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “I can’t do this. I can’t…. I just can’t. You’re a great guy, but this ends now.”

  He shoved his feet into his sneakers, tied them quickly, and stood, patting his pockets to check for phone and wallet. Only one thing left to do….

  He looked up, at Caleb, sitting in the middle of the bed, hair a mess, torso bare, sheets tangled around his lower body. His blue eyes were barely half open, sleep still hanging heavy over him, and Toby’s resolve wavered.

  No, he ordered himself. You had your fun. Now get the hell out before you make it worse.

  He gave Caleb one last look, committing that gorgeous view to memory, and then he was out the door.

  It took a good twenty minutes in the shower before Toby could no longer smell Caleb on his skin, though the sense memory remained. His skin raw and his fingers wrinkled, he kept his gaze safely away from the mirror while he dried off.

  He walked out of the bathroom as dawn lightened the horizon. The day stretched out endlessly ahead of him. Tomorrow, the clubhouse crew would hit the ground running, spending the rest of the All-Star break getting the place set up for the second half of the season. Today, though, the whole place was getting an intense cleaning from top to bottom. Athlete’s foot in the showers was the least of their worries, what with nastiness like norovirus and MRSA lurking in every crevice.

  That left Toby at loose ends. With nothing else to fill his time, he dove into cleaning his own place, pulling out bottles of chemicals and the box of worn-out towels from under the kitchen sink. He scrubbed and wiped until his arms ached, his bathroom and kitchen shone, and his eyes and sinuses burned. After tossing the last bottle and rag into the kitchen sink, he collapsed onto the sofa and closed his eyes.

  From somewhere nearby, his phone rang.

  Groaning, Toby opened his eyes and looked around, spying the phone lying on the coffee table, just beyond arm’s reach. Levering himself up, he stretched for it, not bothering to check the display before he answered.

  Mistake. His “yeah?” was answered with a simple “Toby” in Caleb’s raspy, sexy voice, and every nerve in Toby’s unprepared body shot to high alert. He’d completely forgotten they’d exchanged numbers at dinner the night before.

  “Hey.” It was all his brain could come up with.

  “I heard everything you said this morning,” Caleb said. “And I get it. I really do. I just wanted to say, for the record, that I disagree, and I hope you’ll change your mind. Because I like you a lot, and the sex was hot as hell, and I would really, really like to do it all again. Soon, and as often as possible.”

  Toby’s mind had checked out entirely right about the point where Caleb mentioned the hot-as-hell sex, and there was absolutely nothing he could say to counter any of that.

  “So that’s why I called, and I don’t expect you to answer, but I do want you to think about it. Think about me. And when you’re ready, call me. I’ll be waiting.”

  There was a click, and Toby was left with nothing but dead air.

  And a hard cock.

  Shit.

  The next three days at work passed in a blur. Toby did his job and helped get everything restocked and shined up and the clubhouse in tip-top shape for the second half of the season. But every time the door opened, Toby tensed, even though he knew there was no way Caleb would come down there. In spite of Caleb’s little speech on the phone Monday afternoon, both of them knew exactly what it would mean if their tryst became public knowledge. Yes, the atmosphere surrounding sports had gotten much more open-minded in the past few years, but there still were no openly out active major league ballplayers. A career minor-league catcher who hadn’t even played a game in the big leagues yet was not in any position to try to cross that line.

  And Toby? He could survive coming out. He planned to, someday. But knowing his grandfather’s conservative nature, and considering his precarious position, without even an official piece of the team until his twenty-first birthday in another couple of weeks, Toby wasn’t ready to take that kind of risk.

  By the time players started to filter into the clubhouse late Thursday afternoon, Toby was strung so tight he thought he’d snap right in two waiting for Caleb to arrive. When the man finally walked in, though, he was talking and laughing with one of the utility infielders. He never even looked Toby’s way, and Toby was left simultaneously relieved and disappointed.

  He didn’t have time to dwell on it, though. With the team back in the house for the first time in four days, Toby and the rest of the crew were kept running. Guys were taking turns in the whirlpool and on the training tables, or stretching on the floor in front of their lockers, and Toby fetched ice packs, heating pads, towels, and drinks while the players worked.

  For the first time in the nearly six years that he’d worked in the clubhouse, he resented it all. These guys made millions, were waited on hand and foot, and for what? Hit ball, throw ball, catch ball. Not exactly rocket science, and certainly not anything like saving lives or changing the world.

  But then Toby thought of the faces of the kids who would run out on the field before each Sunday home game, picked to stand next to their favorite players while the national anthem was sung. The players would bend to talk to the little boys and girls, and the smiles they’d exchange might not end world hunger or anything lofty like that, but it made the kids happy. Baseball made people happy, and wasn’t that just as important as anything else?

  Okay, yeah, Toby admitted to himself as he dropped off a stack of fresh towels next to the shower. Probably not a half-million-dollar minimum worth of happy, but careers were short, and players gave back, so it probably came out even in the end, in some convoluted karmic-restitution formula.

  The players filtered out of the clubhouse one or two at a time, headed for the dugout, the field, or the bullpen, ready to get things going again. The trainers were the last ones out, leaving Toby and a couple of teenagers behind to straighten up the remnants, as usual.

  A whisper in the back of Toby’s mind wished Caleb would come back, take advantage of the relative quiet to confront Toby in person, maybe even try to kiss him into compliance. Toby didn’t know how he’d react, but he did know how silly the idea was. Caleb liked him, sure. They’d had great (fucking awesome) sex, sure. But Caleb would not take a risk like that at his first game in the big leagues. Hell, even if Toby had been female, he wouldn’t. And either way, Toby wouldn’t let him do it.

  Forcing himself to not think about Caleb anymore, dammit, Toby gathered the last towels and pushed the cart over to the door for the laundry staff to pick up. He walked back through the room, watching the part-timers finish picking up the trash as he went, and retrieved the vacuum cleaner from the storage closet at one end of the room. Normally, he’d leave that until after the game, or let the custodial staff handle it, but he was perfectly
willing to admit—to himself, at least—that he was avoiding heading up to the dugout. He usually spent part of each game watching from the entrance to the ramp that led back toward the clubhouse, occasionally running sweaty towels back or bringing up extra ice packs. And he’d get back to that. He would.

  He’d have to face down Caleb at least once first, though.

  The game dragged on forever. Toby watched some on the clubhouse monitors, but he spent most of his time wandering the room, looking for things to do. He refolded a stack of towels that was less than perfectly symmetrical, checked the ice machine to make sure it was full, made sure the toilet paper in the stalls was stocked.

  He was making avoidance into an art form and he knew it, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

  By the time the home team won and the players poured back into the clubhouse, bringing with them the jokes and teasing that always followed a victory, Toby was about ready to jump out of his skin. He realized he’d been so focused on finding excuses to avoid the game that he didn’t even know if Caleb had played. A sudden need to find out gripped him, and he almost went looking for Caleb among the crowds to ask. But then the usual postgame madness kicked in, and he was kept busy running for ice and towels, picking up discarded uniform parts to send to the laundry, and then cleaning up the mess the players always left behind.

  He never even saw Caleb, much less had a chance to talk to him. Not that he would have known what to say.

  On Friday, fortified by another day of distance, Toby headed to the ballpark determined to talk to Caleb, even if only to say hello. He’d checked the box score and found Caleb hadn’t played Thursday night, and Toby had vowed to pay closer attention tonight. He didn’t want to miss Caleb’s first major league at bat out of a fit of pique.

  He kept an eye out as he worked, and when Caleb arrived, gave him time to get to his locker before heading that way.