Play Along(34)

“Are purples hard for you to see too?”

“Yeah, I thought this was blue.”

His attention lands on my left hand, but he doesn’t touch it.

“That,” he says, referring to his mom’s ring. “That’s purple though, right? I always thought it was purple.”

“Yes.” I examine the amethyst stone. “It’s the prettiest shade of purple I’ve ever seen.”

He smiles at that, nodding towards the cash register. “Come on. Let’s go pay for this.”

Isaiah walks side by side with me as we leave the aisle.

“So do you have a favorite color?” I ask.

The backs of his fingers graze mine.

The movement earns my attention, but I don’t flinch or pull away. The touch is gentle, tentative, but very much purposeful.

“Besides my favorite shade of auburn, no, I don’t have a favorite color.”

Our hands continue to rub against each other as we walk.

“Why not?”

He shrugs, keeping close enough that our hands never lose contact. “I was always nervous that I was going to get it wrong. Like what if I picked a dumb color but thought it was cool, you know?”

I chuckle. “There are no dumb colors.”

We get in line at the cash register just as his fingertips fall in the spaces between mine. He asked me if I wanted him to touch me, and he’s doing just that at a pace I feel comfortable with.

It makes me want to cry.

“Will you pick a favorite color for me?”

I huff a laugh under my breath. I vaguely remember thinking about this answer before. “Yellow.”

“Yellow.” He appraises my answer. “Why yellow?”

“It’s like you. Bright. Happy.”

Reminds me of the sun.

“Yellow,” he repeats. “Good color. My favorite color, in fact.”

His smile is warm as he looks down at me, and maybe that’s exactly what my coldness needs.





Chapter 11


Isaiah


“Kenny,” I whine in my typical way. “Come on. Please.”

“No. I’m busy.”

Trav peeks over his shoulder and smirks at me as he lays on the training table while my wife loosens up his hamstring.

“Ask Sanderson if he’s free.” She nods in his direction.

I find Sanderson on the other side of the visitors’ training room, wrapping an ankle for one of our outfielders. He’s almost done, but I’m not going to tell Kennedy that.

“He’s busy. Really busy.”

She shoots me a look because, as always, she knows when I’m full of shit. Ignoring me, she continues to work on our catcher, so I step closer so only the two of them can hear.

“My shoulder is fucked up because of you, wifey.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You made me sleep on the floor. The least you can do is rub it out.”

“Can you please not say ‘rub it out’ as if you’re trying to proposition me for more than a shoulder massage?”

I don’t hold back my knowing smirk. That’s exactly what I was trying to do.

Travis laughs into the table. “Kennedy, you made him sleep on the floor? You two are getting pretty damn good at acting like a real married couple.”

“I didn’t make him sleep on the floor.” She looks around, lowering her voice. “I offered to sleep on the floor so he could have the bed, and he’s the one who refused.”

“Trav, she was so comfortable. Out like a light. Snoring like you wouldn’t believe. All the while I was just trying to get a couple of hours of sleep on the cold, hard floor.”

“Travis,” she says, ignoring me. “How exactly did you make the very poor decision to become his friend?”

“Probably the same way you decided to become his wife.”

“Too much tequila?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, as fun as it is to hear you two discuss how grateful you are to be in my life, Kenny, I really do need my shoulder worked on.”

She must notice the serious tone in my voice.

“All right. Travis, is that feeling looser?”

He works his leg around before hopping off the table and crouching into his catcher’s stance. “Much better. Thanks, Ken.”

Kennedy pats her now free table. “Take your shirt off.”

“Damn. No foreplay?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve said the same thing to about twelve different guys today.”

I bite back my smile. I like when she’s feeling up to sparring with me. There’s also no part of me that’s jealous her hands were all over my teammates. This is her job and she’s really fucking good at it.

It’s why I always ask her to work on me, even though I was tempted to refrain today. Her words played on a loop as I laid on the ground, trying to catch some sleep. Physical touch is foreign to her. I didn’t want to force her to have to touch me, but when I thought about it, I’ve never once noticed Kennedy being uncomfortable at her job.

And I notice everything about the girl.

This isn’t the physical contact she’s referring to, and I don’t want to treat her any differently after what she told me. So instead, I bugged her until she agreed to work on me. Just as I typically do.