Kia Ora...

The last fortnight has been filled with birthdays in my house with my youngest child turning nineteen, while the middle child turned twenty-one.And with none of them living close by, it was also a lot of making sure parcels got posted on time to ensure their presents arrived in time. Thankfully...they all did.

Updates

• Ream Subscription is quickly beginning to take shape. Hopefully this will go live soon... There will be several different tiers available, including a free follower tier, but of course it'll be on the higher tiers where all the fun stuff will be.
• Have been playing around with new graphic designs... and I need to create a few more reels.

Mandy Greenwood

• Love You Forever, Drayce (Silverdale City 2) has about 10k left on the rewrite and then I can show you the new covers for the first three books,and get them re-released, along with their first ever paperback editions.
• Bishop (Crime Lords 5) is currently sitting at 18k. New characters - and minor ones at that - have decided that they want to have a greater impact on the plot than what I had originally planned. Time will tell if letting them get their way was a wise decision or not...

MJ Green

• Ave F*cking Maria (House of Bolton Short) has been edited and just needs a short blurb written for it and then I can submit it for this year's O Deadly Night Anthology!
• My attention will be returning to Defrocked (House of Bolton Novella) shortly. I really want to release this by the end of the year.

Bookfunnel Promo

Mafia Obsessed

Dark Romance August

Historical Romance

Bad Boys in Suits

O Deadly Night Anthology Vol.02

O Deadly Night is back, and this time the happiest season of all is hiding even more secrets.

So you better watch out. I’ll tell you why. The lights don’t twinkle as bright where the villains hide. And there’s no comfort and joy to be found in the darkness, even if it is the holiday season.

Cover by Amai Designs

Release Date: November 14, 2023

Special Preorder Price: $4.99 https://mybook.to/ODN2

Add to TBR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/181185145-o-deadly-night

Blogger signup: https://bit.ly/3Qq9q8J

Join several dark MM authors as they once again explore the darker half of the holidays while also spreading cheer and support to LGBTQ youth.

*O Deadly Night Volume 2 is a Dark MM anthology with all proceeds to be donated to The Trevor Project and featuring stories by:

Alex J. Adams - Sean Azinsalt - Bey Deckard - Abrianna Denae - Elouise R East

MJ Green - K.L. Hiers - Alexis Jane - Abigail Kade - Briar Kearney - Leigh Kenzie - Davidson King - Reese Knightley - Duckie Mack - R. Phoenix & Adara Wolf - Jack L. Pyke - Faith Ryan - Remi Varlow

Chapter Twenty

Jordan thought he was being so clever sneaking away from the practice session Mike had set up before meeting with the team’s catchers. Thought he’d gotten away with it too. Except his husband wasn’t clever as he thought. Mike had noticed him creeping across the rear of the bullpen toward the equipment shed, and even if he had missed seeing Jordan, his husband hadn’t closed the door particularly quietly. Even the catchers had needed to stifle their laughter at Jordan’s antics.

“Does Jordan really think we wouldn’t notice where he’s chosen to hide?” Ito said with a shake of his head and wry smile. “It wasn’t even worth placing bets on… everyone knows he’d sneak out of the weight room the moment your back was turned Mike.”

“No one ever said that Jordan was smart…nor lacking in determination either.” His husband had two great talents—at least ones that could be spoken of in public—pitching and avoiding any form of practice that wasn’t…well, pitching. “Conditioning has never been his favourite activity.”

Though he had to give Jordan some credit for his choice of hiding place. No one would’ve expected that he’d step foot inside of the equipment shed…and if Mike hadn’t watched his husband disappear inside of it, he wouldn’t have thought to look for Jordan there. Jordan only ever stepped willingly inside the storage unit to fetch balls, allergic to any form of clean up especially in that involved cleaning the balls that he’d used for practice or mock games.

Mike glanced at the shed and winced at the barely muffled sound of balls connecting with the metal sheet walls. It didn’t take much to figure out what Jordan had done in order to practice as desired in the small space. Shaking his head Mike turned his attention back to the catchers. There was a game on this weekend, and Mike needed to understand the dynamics between the current pitchers and the catchers in the team.

Jordan… Mike could deal with him later.

After an hour spent talking with the catchers, Mike was confident he had a handle on each one’s strengths and weaknesses. There were definitely a few weaknesses amongst the newer catchers that shouldn’t exist…bad habits that a halfway decent pitching coach would’ve drummed out of them quickly. But unfortunately for the Switch Hitters, they hadn’t even had that, and with Mike disappearing into the blackness of his PTSD, he hadn’t been here to protect them from the incompetence of the man he’d now replaced. It also meant that out of the catchers on the team, only Ito had the necessary experience to catch for Jordan.

And it wasn’t necessarily the skills of the other catchers that had seen Mike decide they weren’t up to the job of catching for Jordan. No other than bad habits that he’d identified, the newer catchers were deserving of their place on the team. What had him worried was their experience in working with Jordan… their lack of confidence in standing their ground when a pitcher challenged a call. Jordan especially enjoyed arguing calls and it wouldn’t do to for the team’s star pitcher to get too used to steamrolling over a catcher who wasn’t Ito. A quick review of game footage had pointed out that dangerous flaw. Fumbled catches at homeplate weren’t supposed to happen at this level…and from relief pitchers who were too damn green to understand what pitches shouldn’t be thrown at the opposing batsman.

Only letting a pitcher throw their favoured pitches led to predictability.

And predictability didn’t win games.

Mike sighed and pushed his hands through his hair, clasping them behind his head. He ignored the way they trembled and focused his attention on the men crouched on the dirt floor in front of him. There were only a few more minutes left in this meeting and then he could dismiss them to the weight room to follow the training regime he’d already laid out for them. A few more minutes of him trying not to remember how his place in the bullpen had changed long before he’d been ready… anxiety teased at the edges of his brain, threatening to overwhelm him, but Mike wasn’t ready to surrender to it yet.

“For the next game… Ito will remain the starting catcher and will remain at the plate for as long as Jordan is on the mound… and for that reason, I won’t be letting Jordan pitch the full nine innings.” He laughed at the ‘bags not me’ contest that suddenly sprung up in front of him. “Don’t worry, I will be the one who informs Jordan. Which relief pitcher/catcher combination I suggest to the Coach will depend on the next few days at practice as I get to know the new pitchers in the squad, and see which combinations work better together.

“You all need to work on your confidence… remember that on the field, you are the playmaker…the one decides the pitches and the placement of the fielders. The coaches back in the dugout are going to give you suggestions too, but the one who shouldn’t be arguing with you at all—unless they’re concerned that they can’t pitch it—is the damn pitcher on the mound. If you let them make all the calls, then all we are going to end up with is a lot of lost games.”

*

Mike stood in the bullpen long after the catchers had left him. Breath coming in ragged gasps that threatened to turn into something more, hands twitching at his sides while the rest of his body trembled like a leaf. But it was only the rhythmic sound of a ball bouncing off the metal walls of the equipment shed that kept Mike tethered to the present… And fuck, Jordan shouldn’t have even been in there. Pitching practice wasn’t what he’d asked the teams pitchers to do, yet right now Mike was glad for his husband’s wilfully stubborn ways.

Clenching his hands hard enough for his nails to dig into his flesh, Mike focused on everything around him that weren’t memories of him playing. Sharp pain of nails burrowing into his skin… the squawk of birds wheeling high above the stadium… and the scent of freshly mown grass. Breathed in, and then out. Repeated it until his limbs trembled less and his body didn’t feel rooted in place. He slowly opened his eyes and glanced about, sighing with relief when he realised no one had witnessed his battle to maintain his composure. It didn’t matter that he’d made it clear to everyone in upper management that his returning to the team wouldn’t cure him of his trauma, Mike still didn’t like people witnessing it.

Shaking out his hands, Mike took a less than steady step toward the equipment shed where Jordan continued to throw balls at one of the pitching nets. Practicing within the small confines of the shed sorely limited what pitches Jordan was able to throw at the net…and honestly, the nets weren’t the ideal form of practice for Jordan either. Ball control wasn’t an issue that his husband had ever had, even as a gangly teenager chasing after Mike and Hunter, Jordan had never failed to send the ball to whatever spot Mike requested with damn good accuracy. It was breaking balls that Jordan needed to practice more…develop a greater repertoire of reliable pitching styles outside of his favourite fastball and curveball. From the footage Mike had watched had shown that his husband’s pitching had started to become far too predictable…and that in part was because Ito was the only one who could catch a ball that Jordan pitched that wasn’t a fastball straight down the middle.

By the time he reached the door of the equipment shed, his body had stopped shaking and the anxiousness that had surged through his veins had faded into an annoying buzz. Mike took another steadying breath before throwing open the door and leaning on the doorjamb while staring at his husband… chuckled as Jordan yelped in surprise and fumbled the ball he’d been about to pitch. Maybe he needed to rethink his belief in Jordan’s ball control.

“This wasn’t what I’d asked you to do while I was meeting with the catchers,” he growled, shoving his hands into the pocket of his pants to stop himself from reaching for Jordan.

Jordan shrugged his shoulders in a nonchalant fashion and dropped the ball he’d been holding into the nearby bucket. “Did you really think I’d stay in the gym once you’d left?”

Sighing heavily, Mike shook his head. “I had thought you might have at least tried to stick to the training regime I’d set out for you…for all the pitchers in the team.” He straightened up and dodged Jordan’s attempt to hug him. “I thought that you might have considered what your disobedience might mean for me as coach… how it might be perceived.”

“Come on… everyone knows that I do my damnedest to avoid any kind of training that isn’t here in the bullpen pitching.” Jordan held his hands out wide. “That’s how it was when you were my catcher…it hasn’t changed in the last two years since you’ve been gone… and your being coach won’t change it either.”

“But that’s just it…Jordan… I am the coach now. Here in the bullpen at least…and what you do—or don’t do—reflects back on me.”

********

Tailored Heart (House of Bolton 1)

Where the Mafia meets the world of Fashion

Buy it Now