Outfield assist, p.1
Outfield Assist, page 1
Outfield Assist
Dominating the Diamond #2
Cat Giraldo
Copyright © 2023 by Cat Giraldo
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact [include publisher/author contact info].
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Book Cover by Cat Giraldo
Contents
Content Notes
1. CHAPTER 1
2. CHAPTER 2
3. CHAPTER 3
4. CHAPTER 4
5. CHAPTER 5
6. CHAPTER 6
7. CHAPTER 7
8. CHAPTER 8
9. CHAPTER 9
10. CHAPTER 10
11. CHAPTER 11
12. CHAPTER 12
13. CHAPTER 13
14. CHAPTER 14
15. CHAPTER 15
16. CHAPTER 16
17. CHAPTER 17
18. CHAPTER 18
19. CHAPTER 19
20. CHAPTER 20
21. CHAPTER 21
22. CHAPTER 22
23. EPILOGUE
Thank You!
Also By
About Author
Content Notes
Outfield Assist is a polyamorous sports romance with depictions of mature content between consenting adults. All three main characters and most of the side characters are LGBTQ+. The polyamorous MMF triad consists of a gay, biromantic cis man, a bisexual cis man, and a bisexual cis woman. All main characters are above 21, and there is an age gap between the oldest character (34) and the youngest character (25).
One of the main characters deals with housing insecurity and anxiety after a single incident of sexual harassment from a side character, which takes place off page prior to the start of the story, but is recounted to another side character. One of the main characters has anxiety and experiences panic attacks on page (not trauma-based). A main character dealing with chronic pain receives a diagnosis of early-onset osteoarthritis. Content warning for sexual assault—details with potential spoilers included as a footnote.1 Content warning for social drinking.
Though these stories do their best to portray safe, consensual, risk-aware kink, with good communication between partners, it is in no way a guide or substitute for kink education. Depictions of kink and on-page sex include:
orgasm denial, edging, overstimulation, begging, exhibitionism, voyeurism, public sex (kink club), nipple play, predicament bondage, anal sex, rimming, vibrating toys, pegging, oral sex, vaginal sex, (light) choking, bondage, collaring, fetish wear (including latex, body harnesses, lingerie), blindfold (not during sex), impact play (side character), cockwarming, spit, sex with condoms, unprotected sex in a committed partnership, frotting, playroom, foreplay, aftercare, interrupted aftercare, sub and dom drop, D/s dynamics within a closed triad
Outfield Assist ends in an HEA for all main characters. It does not contain or end with conception, reproduction, children, fertility, or any discussions thereof. This can be read as a standalone with no spoilers for Wild Pitch, though many characters from Wild Pitch make cameos in this book.
Want to listen along to the commuting playlist Kitt makes for Gideon and Jules while you read? Follow Cat Giraldo Romance and the Outfield Assist Playlist on Spotify.
1. Content Warning (spoiler): Characters are recorded performing sexual acts without their consent by a side character who threatens to leak the footage unless paid off. The recording device is confiscated, and no footage of sexual acts is leaked
CHAPTER 1
Kitt
Perfectly manicured grass is soft beneath me as I bounce on the balls of my feet, but my right knee still twinges with that familiar pain that always seems to worsen right before a storm. I glance from the scoreboard to clouds that darken the late-October sky above us and pray to whatever gods rule the game of baseball that the weather holds a few more innings. We’ve come too far and played too many games to be ushered off the diamond for a weather delay just when we’ve finally gained the momentum that will determine who leaves this field as champions and who spends the offseason rehashing every mistake of this World Series.
Thousands of feet pounding in the stands draw my attention to the man approaching the batter’s box. I flex my glove and soften my knees. For months, I’ve been ignoring the pain; pushing it out of my mind now is second nature while I watch Ramirez wind up for the next pitch.
The second the bat makes contact, I’m on the move. Right foot crossing hard over the left to gain as much speed as possible, no matter how I feel the twist in my knee. Eyes tracking the ball as my body moves toward the fence by muscle memory. Glove ready and my left arm already itching as I calculate my next move.
I’m ready for the impact when I jump, but the wall still knocks the breath out of me. It’s worth it as my glove closes around the ball and the crowd goes wild. My eyes are searching the infield before I’ve landed, but the moment my feet hit the ground, my body betrays me.
Sharp pain shoots up both legs, and it’s all I can do not to crumple at the knees. I took the impact with the wall in stride, but landing makes stars flash in my line of sight even as the edges of my vision begin to darken. I want to give in. To lie down in the grass until the burning pain shooting through my kneecaps subsides, and I can breathe again.
Not yet. We didn’t come this far, only to come this far. I haven’t worked this hard to let my team down now.
Sweat dots my brow and my stomach flips with the effort to stay on my feet. Still my body moves the way nearly three decades and countless hours have trained it to. Maybe I black out a little, because the next thing I know, my glove is empty, my teammates are cheering, and I’m the only one not jogging in toward the dugout.
We make it to the final inning without any catastrophes. My knees hold up as well as the weather. We run out to the field one final time, and my greatest fear is that I will be the one to let all of us down.
“We’ve got this, Kitt.” Reyes smacks my ass with his glove as I leave him behind at first base.
I clap him on the shoulder, still not used to seeing him without his catcher’s mask. His attention is already turned back to the rookie on the pitcher’s mound, and I wonder if he knows just how bad he is at hiding the fact that he’s head over heels for her. As much as I’ll miss the best wingman the only out gay ballplayer in the league could ask for, rooting for them keeps my mind off my own struggles as I finish my jog out to right field.
Pacing to stay warm, I fight the urge to cheer when Ramirez strikes out two batters in a row. When it comes to jinxing a team, there are few things worse than celebrating too soon, and with this much on the line, I am as superstitious as the best of us.
The crack of the bat is a brutal sound. So simple, yet so complex, that single moment of impact communicates so much to an ear trained by years of practice, and I am running toward the infield in the split-second it takes me to process it.
But there’s no need. The game is over before I can worry how sprinting for the ball will impact my knees. Instead of getting low and guessing which way the ball is going to bounce in the freshly-mowed grass, I find myself running toward the mound with every last one of my teammates as Ramirez holds up her glove and clutches the ribs she caught the game-winning ball against.
“I’m fine,” she wheezes when Reyes is the first to reach her. “It hurts like a bitch, but I’m fine. Better than fine. Holy shit, it doesn’t feel real yet—”
If she keeps talking while the team physician tries to do his due diligence in the middle of our swarming team, I don’t hear it.
“We fucking won!” Castillo shouts while locking his arms around my shoulders, and I think I might need to get my hearing checked alongside my knees. “World Series champions, man!”
I laugh and let myself get swept up in the celebrations. With this much adrenaline coursing through my veins, doctors are an afterthought for another day.
Tonight, we’re all on top of the world.
The whole team has spent the past week painting the town in celebration, and the high of our victory is all that keeps me from swearing like a sailor as the team’s physical therapist pokes and prods at my knees.
“How’s this feel?”
The breath I suck in through my teeth is all the answer Alejandro needs to shake his head and roll his stool away from the table I’m sitting on. I tug at the collar of my hoodie, feeling sweat trickle down my back as the temperature in the physical therapy room seems to rise ten degrees without warning. I know it’s in my head, but knowing doesn’t make me sweat any less as I wait for his prognosis.
“How many times do I have to tell you all that I can’t do my job if you hide everything from me?” Reaching for the nearest roll of athletic tape doesn’t stop Alejandro from fussing over me like a disappointed mother hen. “I finally get Mateo to listen, and now you’re in here running your body into the ground—”
“At least it’s the offseason. I have a few weeks to take things easy—”
“A few weeks?” Alejandro slaps the tape down on the table and leans back with both brows arched in an expression that would be comical if an yone but me were on the receiving end. “You have a doctor’s appointment to make before we even talk about what your offseason training is going to look like. But I’ll tell you right now, it’s not going to be three weeks of playing golf and then right back at it.”
Last year, I probably would have argued with him. But people weren’t lying when they say everything changes after thirty. Especially for athletes. We spend countless hours a week beating our bodies into submission, then turn around and rely on them to support our entire careers. Even if almost blacking out on the diamond hadn’t scared the shit out of me, I’m past denying that my recovery isn’t what it used to be.
“Do you have a doctor you suggest—”
The words are barely out of my mouth before there’s a business card in my lap, and Alejandro’s hands are back to taping my other knee. He makes quick work of the design that circles my kneecap and gestures for me to lift both legs onto the table. I lean back as he shoves a bolster under my legs and swaddles my swollen joints in ice packs.
“She’s expecting your call,” he says, shoving my phone into my hands before tossing the rest of the roll of tape into a bin and heading for the door. “Make it now.”
As much as I’m dreading what a doctor might find, sprawling here overthinking all the worst possibilities isn’t any better. I steel myself and follow Alejandro’s orders. By the time the ice around my knees has started to melt, I’ve got a same-day appointment and just enough time to stop for a snack on my way across town.
I’m not sure what kind of magic Alejandro worked to have a specialist ready to meet me practically as a walk-in, but I’ve never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth. My parents worked too hard for me to take anything for granted, and some days I swear I’m still that gangly teenager doing my homework in the booth by the kitchen in between bussing tables instead of the highest paid right fielder in the league.
Shaking off memories of ABC soup steaming up my glasses and keeping me healthy the years money was tight, I step into my favorite local coffee shop, counting on the strength of a Vietnamese iced coffee to distract me in the LA traffic.
“Henry!” The bubbly voice catches my attention, and I turn to the stool where the owner’s daughter sits studying. Anh hops down, homework forgotten, and bounds toward me with her low ponytail swaying and stray sesame seeds falling from her apron. Trembling in her hands is the World Series poster that will soon hang on the wall between paintings by local artists, signed action shots of a few other local Asian athletes, and team pictures from the leagues Anh and her brother play in, and I can count on one hand the times I’ve been this happy to sign an autograph. “I knew you’d win! Quan said the odds weren’t—”
In her excitement, Anh is dancing around telling me exactly what her brother thought of our underdog status; distracted by the poster I’m signing, I don’t see her twirling into the path of a tall East Asian man speedwalking toward the door with a drink in each hand and distracted determination on his handsome face until it’s too late. Thrusting the poster back toward her midsentence, I grab Anh by the shoulders, pivoting her out of his path.
And end up with an iced tea to the chest.
“Fu—” the stranger’s dark brown eyes, upturned and still wide with surprise, dart from the jasmine green tea dripping down my hoodie to the little girl beside us, and the curse falls silent on lips that are full and pale pink.
“Anh, can you go grab the mop and some towels, please?”
My words break the stranger’s horrified trance. I’m already laughing it off, but he sets his remaining coffee on the nearest table and practically lunges back at me with fistfuls of napkins. It takes every ounce of my self-control not to laugh harder as he daubs aggressively at the spreading stain, but he’s so earnest as he mutters half-formed apologies under his breath that I at least try to swallow my amusement.
I grab his wrists before he can leave my chest covered in bruises. I don’t mean to hold onto them. But when he finally looks up at my face and embarrassment flushes his broad cheekbones like pink clouds swept across a sunrise sky, I’m the one to freeze. My fingers tighten around narrow wrists, and his fists clench tea-drenched napkins.
“At least it wasn’t the hot one,” I say.
The man blinks quickly, confusion flitting in eyes of such deep brown, I can barely distinguish where his dilated pupils end. I lift my chin and point with my lips toward the surviving coffee on the table beside us.
His suit is immaculate, perfectly fitted to the lean lines of his body, and his glossy blue-black hair is pulled up in a bun without a single hair out of place. Somehow, the cultivated perfection of his appearance only makes the bright pink that spreads from his sharp collarbones to his simple silver earrings as understanding dawns on his angular face that much more beautiful. The way his tongue darts out to wet his full bottom lip before he swallows makes something flutter in my chest, and it takes wondering if he can feel my heart racing for me to realize I’m still holding the stranger clutched against me.
“I am so sorry,” he says when I finally set him free.
“Don’t be.” It shouldn’t be this hard to take a step back, but I already miss the faint sweetness of honey and citrus on his light-brown skin. Trying to break the hold he has on me—at least until I can do something about it—I reach for the hem of my wet hoodie and pull it over my head. “We’re the ones who stepped in front of you.”
“I should have been paying more attention—”
Dropping the wet garment on the chair while Anh stands by looking guilty and on the verge of tears, I trade his empty cup for the mop in her hands, hoping my smile reassures her. As if on cue, her protective older brother appears to usher her back to her homework in hushed Vietnamese. I barely get a chance to mop the small puddle of green tea before Quan offers a replacement of the spilled drink and disappears back into the kitchen with the mop.
“Really, don’t worry about it,” I say as I pick up the pen Anh must have dropped on the table in the commotion. “Better my old hoodie than your suit. I’m Henry, by the way.”
I keep talking to stall for time and scrawl my name and number across the cup.
“Gideon.”
He offers me his hand, and I’m all too happy for the excuse to touch him one more time.
Gideon
The walls of the coffee shop stop closing in, but my heart continues to race with every bit as much fervor as it did when I crashed into Henry Kitt, if for different reasons. The way he says his name, introducing himself so casually, as if it’s not one I’ve seen flashing across my television for years, should not make my cheeks heat. The way his hand closes around mine should not fill my stomach with butterflies.
The way his shirt sticks to his hoodie as he casts off the wet material, baring smooth golden-brown skin a few shades lighter than his arms and that muscular vee emphasized by low-slung joggers, should absolutely not make me think about licking his tan lines.
Even if I weren’t in the middle of the biggest move of my adult life, throwing myself at the most beautiful fuckboy on the World Series champion team is hardly the way to start my first day as their team’s newest statistician. The café owner’s son appears once more in all his surly teenage glory and saves me from having to figure out how to say something more interesting than my name. Kitt accepts his iced coffee with a quick secret handshake that makes it clear he’s a regular here.
With one last smile—the broad, brilliant kind that could sell stock in teeth-whitening strips—Kitt nods to me and floats toward the door. For a man of his stature, six-foot-and-change and broad with hard-earned muscles that ripple beneath the thin cotton of his t-shirt, he moves with such grace. No one is in danger of spilled coffee when he walks. His mind isn’t in the clouds, and his chin is held up proudly, greeting each person in passing, whether they recognize the star among us or not.
The chimes on the door ring, and I’m still standing rooted to the very same spot as I was the moment Henry Kitt grabbed me by the wrists and held me pressed against his solid chest.
