“We live together now, Murphy,” Birdie reminds him, craning her neck to look up and back where Murphy is sitting above us in the bleachers next to Tess and Bodhi. “You can’t vomit every time you see us kiss.”
Murphy mutters under his breath, shoveling a handful of popcorn in his mouth before shouting down to the ump that a blind man could have seen that was a strike and not a ball.
Birdie tips her head back to look at me upside down with a smile, and I lean forward and kiss her forehead before she brings her head up again to watch the game, clapping and cheering for Owen playing short stop.
Just like Birdie said, we live together now as of the day we got back from San Francisco. Since Birdie’s flight had been delayed twice and she had nothing to do but sit around in the airport and wait, my good friend Bodhi made sure she wasn’t bored by giving her plenty to read and blowing up her phone with texts, telling her everything I hadn’t before I left for the tournament. About how I was broke, about how I was playing in the tournament to buy her a bigger cottage and put some money back into the bank because I didn’t want her to think I was a loser, and about how I had made up my mind that day in the storm that I was going to semi-retire and spend the rest of my life on this island with her.
The day we got home, Birdie called Stefanie at Sandbar Cottages and cancelled my lease for me, saying it was ridiculous for me to pay rent on it every month when I practically lived at her place anyway. She was more than a little pissed at me about the money thing and my ridiculous need to keep it from her because I was embarrassed. And she ripped me a new one about the upgraded cottage and how if I wasn’t so hot, wasn’t so good in bed, and she didn’t love me so much, she would slit my throat. She actually went for the knife drawer when she said that, and I had to wrap my arms around her from behind, pick her up, and move her far, far away from the kitchen and any sharp objects.
After my win in San Francisco, she stood by my side through every interview and press conference. I told her as soon as we got up to my hotel room the only thing Bodhi left out for me to fess up to – That I had been in love with her just as long as she’d been in love with me, and we called ourselves all kinds of dumbasses for all the years we wasted being miserable. Then we celebrated in the hotel room with me burying myself inside her until the sun came up and we had to leave for the airport, and after we got home and she cancelled my lease and we moved my stuff in, I was grounded for the next five days.
Yep. Grounded. No sweet Birdie ass cheeks, no sweet Birdie kisses, no blowjobs during Caddyshack, and definitely no desk screwing. Birdie’s body was off limits, because she was so pissed at me she couldn’t even think straight, let alone have sex with me. I took it like a champ, only crying in the shower twice while I tried to sloppily jerk off and could never finish, since my hand paled in comparison to being inside of Birdie.
My initial grounding was supposed to last two weeks or more. Thankfully, Birdie barely made it through day five, and she’s the reason I got off early for good behavior. Pun intended. I came home from the grocery store to find her pacing back and forth in the living room, hands in her hair, pulling it out by the roots while she muttered and cursed. As soon as I walked in the door with arms full of brown paper sacks of groceries and stopped by her small island in the kitchen, Birdie stopped pacing to glare at me. And then through a whole bunch more muttered curses, she yanked off her T-shirt and shorts until she was standing in front of me wearing nothing but a red lace thong with no bra. The groceries fell right out my arms and oranges rolled across the floor as Birdie huffed.
“You’re picking all that up after you give me cookies, because this shit is ridiculous, but I’m still pissed at you, so this is going to be angry-fucking, got it?”
I just nodded, stepped over the box of pasta, head of lettuce, and oranges, bent my knees when I got to her, and pushed my shoulder into her stomach without a word. Standing back up, I easily lifted her up and over my shoulder while she yelled at me, naked down over my back, telling me I couldn’t just always pick her up and put her where I wanted her, as I whistled while I walked us back to our bedroom.