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megaphonemonday · 7 years

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I didn't know if you were still taking prompts but something under the idea of Mike and Ginny getting close during spring training and close to opening day one of them has the line, "I can't keep doing this with you."

those who wait | ao3

“Hey, Lawson?”

Mike looked up from slicing tomatoes when Ginny came in, an inquisitive tilt to his head.

She practically skipped through the kitchen, freshly showered and grinning. No question was forthcoming as she slid onto a stool at the island to watch him prep dinner. Most likely, she’d been summoned by the smell of sizzling bacon and wanted to know when food would be ready. There were days that he thought he should regret inviting Ginny—and Blip, who’d declined, and Livan, who hadn’t—to stay in his Arizona house, but he never quite managed to do it. Then of course, she’d do something like grin so openly at him, happy and healthy and on her way to the top, and regret was the least of his worries.

“Back to San Diego next week,” she observed, sneaking a piece of bacon from the paper towel where it was draining and crunching into it. “You excited?”

It hardly mattered whether or not Mike was excited, not with the giddy energy rolling off Ginny. Ever since she’d cemented her spot as a starter again, having made her comeback from last season’s injury, she’d been irrepressible, practically floating everywhere she went. It didn’t dull her competitive edge, but off the field, her enthusiasm and energy were hard to resist.

Well. That was easier to think than the alternative.

(That she was hard to resist.)

“It’ll be good to get back home, get you and Livan outta my hair.”

She wrinkled her nose at him and he laughed automatically. How had she managed to condition him to laugh like that? Maybe because she always smiled, even when she didn’t want to, when he laughed. He’d do worse things for that smile pointed his way.

“Don’t lie, Lawson. You’re gonna miss us.”

“Nope.”

“You will!”

“Will not,” he replied, grabbing a loaf of bread. He shot Ginny a questioning look and she nodded eagerly, just like he knew she would. The woman happened to love his grilled BCTs—bacon, cheese, and tomato sandwich. If anything, she’d be the one missing him. Him and his ability to feed himself and others from more than frozen dinners.

“You will,” she repeated, firm. “Who else is going to keep you from turning into even more of an old man?”

“Who says I want to stop? Maybe I’m looking forward to getting my live-in nurse. Sponge baths whenever I want ‘em.”

Her jaw dropped open and she gagged, though Mike was more distracted by the sight of her tongue than he should have been given the circumstances.

“You are disgusting,” Ginny said, but the laugh running through the words told Mike she wasn’t that serious.

“That’s me,” he agreed, placing both assembled sandwiches on the hot griddle. He looked at the spread of ingredients. “Should I assume wonder boy is feeding himself?”

She nodded. “I think he’s trying to convince that restaurant he found to freeze their food and ship it to San Diego. And probably go home with the owner while he’s at it.”

“Sounds about right,” Mike grumbled.

Even though there was a guest room in the house set up just for the Cuban catcher, Mike was sure he’d spent more of his nights sleeping somewhere else. Probably with his choice of company, if his habits from last season held true. Mike wasn’t jealous, though. He had all the company he wanted.

Ginny grinned mischievously, but let Mike finish cooking in peace. She collected plates and silverware and a couple beers and waters from the fridge. Everything got set up on the patio table because she loved the unimpeded view of the desert and hadn’t quite gotten over the fact that Mike even had a patio. Between her apartment back in El Paso and the suite that was still hers at the Omni, Ginny hadn’t exactly been rolling in amenities like patios or rain showers or homemade dinners—though the Omni did have a pretty good room service menu.

She came back to the kitchen to start tossing together a salad. It was the one culinary undertaking that Mike allowed her, and only because it involved “nothing that could set the house on fire.” Ginny was the first to admit that she wasn’t the most skilled cook, but even she had yet to actually burn a house down. Set off the smoke detectors, sure, but she’d wanted her burger well done, anyway.

In companionable silence, having completed this ritual nearly every night of the past six weeks, they finished cooking. Well, Mike cooked and Ginny assembled.

The salad was done just as Mike lifted the warm, crisp grilled cheeses from the griddle and laid them on a platter.

“Outside again?” he double checked, though he wasn’t sure why he bothered. Ginny always ate outside.

She nodded anyway, leading the way with her creation and Mike following along with his.

Once they were settled in, tucking into dinner, they allowed themselves to start talking. Go over their day together. Mike tried to tell himself that it wasn’t all disgustingly domestic, and he even believed it. If only because there wasn’t a single part of him that was disgusted by this.

“How’s your arm feeling? This was the closest Skip’s let you get to your pitch count, wasn’t it?”

Ginny shrugged. “I’m a little sore, but made sure to check in with the trainer after the game. Nothing felt wrong, not like it used to, at least.”

Mike frowned, though he took a bite of the sandwich to keep from saying anything. Apparently, he’d become something of a mother hen since sharing a house with Ginny. He thought it was only natural, having never shared space with an injured athlete who wasn’t himself; of course he was going to make sure she was taking care of her self. Ginny, though, thought it was overbearing.

Still, she grinned, a little indulgent, and said, “If it’s still bad after my massage and flush run tomorrow, you can be the one to tell Skip off.”

He rolled his eyes, but he was definitely gonna hold her to that.

“Yeah, yeah, rookie,” he replied, “I’m a—”

“You know you’re gonna have to come up with a new nick name for me soon, right?”

“How do you figure?”

She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “I’m not a rookie anymore.”

The response that he wanted to give, unthinkingly, was that she’d always be his rookie, but that felt dangerous or condescending. Or both. Instead, he frowned in consideration.

“I’ll tell the guys to get on it,” he finally replied, knowing he’d do no such thing.

“Isn’t that your job? As captain.”

“Nah, I’m big picture. Getting the final say in kangaroo court, delivering inspirational speeches in the eleventh hour, deciding when to let Voorhies drag us all to a karaoke bar. That kinda stuff.”

She grinned, her dimples popping in the fading light. “Karaoke bars? How haven’t I heard about this?”

“It happens very rarely. And only when I’m in a really good mood.”

“So never, then.”

He barked out a laugh, shaking his head. “Not often enough to hear Dusty tell it.”

“And me,” she declared, polishing off the last of her sandwich. “I am amazing at karaoke.”

Mike snorted and Ginny’s jaw dropped in outrage.

“I am! I bring the house down, Lawson!”

“Baker, if your humming is any indicator, you couldn’t carry a tune if you had a bucket.”

She let out a disbelieving little huff of laughter. “That’s rude. You’re rude.”

“You’re just figuring that out now?” he grinned.

Ginny just rolled her eyes and she tried to remember if she’d done that quite so often before meeting Mike, or if his habits were just rubbing off on her. It was hard to tell.

They finished the rest of their dinner as the sun slowly sank into the western horizon.

Ginny allowed herself to bask in the dying glow for a moment, but the restlessness that had defined most of her life caught up with her. It always caught up with her.

“Shoot some hoops?” she asked, nodding out to the detached garage and the lone basketball hoop a previous owner had installed.

Mike nodded, pushing himself to his feet. Technically—contractually—they weren’t allowed to play basketball. Not a real game, anyway. Not that Ginny would put up much of a fight in a one on one game. She was scrappy and naturally athletic, but too much of her childhood had been focused on baseball. Mike doubted that she’d ever picked up a basketball outside of gym class (and ill-advised poolside dunk contests) before this February.

So, they’d contented themselves with games of PIG and then HORSE and finally HIPPOPOTAMUS when Ginny complained the games were too short. For someone whose entire job was throwing a small ball at a small target, she really sucked at getting a larger ball to a larger target.

But it wasn’t like Mike was going to pass up on spending time with her.

Especially not if he got to tease her mercilessly while he did it. It was so much easier to pretend they were just regular friends when he got to tease her. When they were both laughing, trading insults and trying to get the other to miss.

But when Ginny made a shot Mike had been sure she’d miss—an over the shoulder hook shot with her left hand—and she lit up, practically throwing herself into his arms with glee; when he could feel every inch of her toned, perfect body pressed up against his; when her breath ghosted, tantalizing and warm against his neck—

Well, it was much harder to pretend, then.

Mike’s heart thudded heavily against his rib cage. His arms had wrapped around her on instinct, tight enough that his hands gripped her waist. There wasn’t a single cell of him that wanted to let her go. No, he wanted to take his face from where it was buried in her hair, wait for her to look up at him, and finally find out what it would be like to kiss Ginny Baker.

But he couldn’t.

So, he convinced himself to release her, to take a step—a tiny shift of his weight, really—back.

She did look up at him, eyes wide, and lips so close to parting.

“Ginny, I can’t keep doing this with you,” he sighed, his breath gusting against her cheek.

For a moment, the world froze. Ginny couldn’t move, couldn’t complete the circuit by collapsing back into Mike and couldn’t step away to avoid overloading it. She was stuck in the middle ground, hovering too close for comfort, but too far away for it, too.

“I can’t keep having these almosts with you,” he said, more raw than she’d heard him in a long time. “Because I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make myself stop next time.”

The world thawed. Her heart began beating a jackrabbit’s rhythm against her ribs. But before she could capture his hand or his face or anything, he backed away, hands clenched into fists at his side.

“I mean, you have a code. That’s fine, I— I get it. You’ve already had your exception.”

She started towards him at that, mouth open to say— something, but he barreled on.

“But I don’t want to be something that you come to regret. Not like he was.”

Ginny didn’t say that not acting on whatever this thing between them was might be more regrettable than the alternative, but she thought it. Just as she thought it every time they brushed up against the implications of that almost outside Boardner’s. Which had been happening more and more frequently over the past six weeks.

Apparently, Mike had noticed, too.

Still, she couldn’t let him go on thinking—

“It wouldn’t be you,” she blurted. He rocked back, confusion and more than a little hurt flashing across his face. That was worse. Immediately, Ginny let the words tumble out of her mouth, anything to make him look less wounded. “If I ever regretted something happening between us, it wouldn’t be that it was you. It would be letting it happen too soon or getting caught and all the bullshit we’d manage to stir up. But not you, Mike. Never you.”

Well, he definitely didn’t look wounded anymore. Ginny couldn’t quite identify the look on his face, not before he was sweeping her up into his arms, practically spinning them around.

She half gasped, half laughed, burying her face in his throat as her arms wound around his neck.

When he’d finally set her back on her feet, arms still wrapped tightly around her, he rubbed his cheek against the top of her head.

Quietly, but still certain, he murmured, “I can wait.”

“Really,” she rasped, just enough disbelief in her tone to make him laugh.

“I’m not good at it,” he clarified, pulling away to look her in the eye, “but I can.”

Ginny believed him.

But if she remained cradled so securely in his arms for one more minute, she wasn’t sure she could wait. Reluctantly, she pulled away, her hands trailing across his neck and shoulders and chest before she finally disengaged.

“So what are we, then? While we wait. Friends?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s not that I don’t want to be your friend, that I’m not your friend already, but I don’t know if I can keep myself from wanting to be more, too.”

“You’re not the only one who wants more, you know,” she replied, dry as the desert surrounding them.

“Well, as long as we’re on the same page.”

“Same page, old man,” Ginny affirmed, wanting to reach out and touch him again, but even the small taste she’d already gotten told her that was a dangerous path to tread.

Instead, she stuck out her hand.

Mike eyed her hand for a long moment before letting his gaze trail up to hers.

“Really?”

“C’mon, Lawson. Just shake on it.”

“What am I even shaking on?” he protested. “Waiting? ‘Til when?”

“We’ll know,” she replied, sounding more confident than she felt. At least her hand didn’t quiver, hanging in the air the way it did.

Mike took one more long look at her before finally clasping his (big, warm, callused) hand in hers and shaking to seal the deal. For a moment, neither released the other, their breath shuddering as Mike’s thumb caressed the back of her hand and her fingertips curled against his palm.

Finally, though, he offered her a single nod and pulled away.

Ginny nodded back, resisting the urge to curl her hand against her heart, hold the warmth of his grip against her as long as it was fresh in her memory.

Almost in sync, they both loosed gusty sighs, trading nearly shy smiles.

“Back inside?” he asked, calling attention to the falling dusk, the first stars beginning to twinkle into view overhead.

Ginny agreed easily enough, following him back to the patio to clean up the remnants of their dinner before heading into the kitchen. As they washed dishes side by side, their newfound understanding settled easily between them. It—and the feelings it involved—wasn’t exactly new even if giving voice to them was.

She still blew soap bubbles at him and he still flicked her with the dish towel, the same easy banter that they’d developed filling the air.

They were still Ginny and Mike.

Neither pretended it was anything other than a relief, trading brief, grateful grins.

If this was how waiting was going to be, then maybe it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

It took longer than either of them would’ve liked, with maybe more tension than either would’ve guessed, too, but eventually, the day came.

The day they both knew.

Ginny grinned at Mike and he was already grinning back.

“You ready for this?”

“Been ready for a long time.”

“Good.”

And that didn’t even begin to describe what they were together.

No. That was was nothing short of perfect.

#Anonymous #Bawson #Bawson fic #Pitch #Pitch fic #I wrote something #I could've gone full on angst with this #but no i couldn't've.#not with what i'm supposed to write next

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