Kia Ora...

I can't believe it's been almost two months since I moved to the other end of the country...though honestly it feels like longer and I love it. Well, it'd be nice to not be sleeping on my friend's couch, but it is comfy and she's happy for me to be here for as long as I need. So far, my old house is under contract and now it's just a matter of finalising the sale. Okay... it's not that easy either as the rental market isn't the greatest... but hey, I have a roof over my head so I can't complain.

This week my writing soundtrack has been Te Matatini - a kapa haka festival/competition that's been running over the last four days. Though I'm not sure if it was distraction to my writing because damn some of the groups were performing were amazing, or a help because the fast tempo of the haka sections meant my fingers flew over the keys.

Updates

Naomi Aoki

• Devotion (Nagoya Crimes 3) is currently sitting at 34912 words. There's at least another 15k left to write before I send it off to my proofreader.

Mandy Greenwood

• Slowly working my way through the rewrites of my paranormal Mpreg series. All the old editions have now been pulled down from all sale sites and when the second editions are released, it will be along side paperback versions. The series is going from Silverdale Coven & Silverdale Wolves, to all books combined under the one series title Silverdale City, plus a few updates to reflect my current writing style and catching grammar mistakes. There is no change to the overall stories of any of the books.

MJ Green

• I have started working on a novella for anthology being released early next year... yeah, I'm not usually this organised, but also have another short story to be written for different anthology releasing toward the end of this year... and when the characters are talking, you don't argue. The novella will be MMM+, while the short story will be MM.
• I have also added a few more words to the rough draft file for All That Glitters (House of Bolton 7) which is Calvino x Rosa's story.
• I should begin working on Connor's story - Love Unpicked (House of Bolton 6) by the end of March. This will be an MF Second Chances, Secret Baby/Teenager romance.

Bookfunnel Promo

• Why Choose Romance
• Steamy Alpha Romance

Every click on a bookfunnel link not only introduces you to books that you mightn't have discovered yet, but also helps an author build their reputation on the platform.

Blast From the Past

When Jamie headed to Kyoto to teach English, he'd planned to visit temples, not fall in love with the local yakuza boss.

Grab Book One for 99c

Chapter Ten

“Why am I doing this again?” Mike muttered while watching the video being streamed from the Switch Hitters’ bullpen.

Plucking up the courage, he’d managed to reach out to the Switch Hitters’ Head Coach and tentatively enquired about the Pitching Coach position that was now available. Emmet’s enthusiastic response had shocked Mike, despite Jordan mentioning that Emmet was after him for the role. Surprised him too when the man eagerly agreed to let Mike take the job on a casual, short-term contract basis, and then didn’t blink when he spoke of his hesitancy to step back into the stadium that had once been his second home. Emmet had merely shrugged and pointed out that they could work up to that before suggesting that video footage of their current pitchers, either recorded or livestreamed were a viable option.

“Fuck… I’m really not sure this is a good idea.”

“Of course, it is,” Jordan replied with a huff as his face filled the screen. “There is no else I trust more… or who the current pitchers and catchers in the team will listen to.”

Mike snorted and rocked back on his chair. The pitchers, including Jordan, barely listened to him when he’d been the primary damn catcher for the team. Bastards thought nothing of shaking off pitching calls just because they weren’t in the mood for that particular pitch. Nine times out ten, Mike was always proved right…and the tenth was always nothing more than damn luck. The catchers weren’t much better, often making calls for pitches that they’d not spent enough time catching in practice. He really didn’t see how any of that would’ve changed in the last two years, or now that he was expected to coach them…albeit from a distance.

“You’d better have warmed up properly.”

The junior catcher who’d been given the job of operating the camera, failed to stifle a laugh before relaying to the message to Jordan who’d already moved to the other end of the bullpen. Mike shook his head, not surprised to see his… husband’s shoulders slump in response. Jordan glanced back at the camera and pursed his lips, an action that he always did right before a lie slipped from his lips. And yeah, a lack of pre-conditioning or warming up wasn’t going to happen on his bloody watch. Mike didn’t let it happen when he was on the damn team, refusing to catch for Jordan until he’d warmed his muscles sufficiently. It irked him now to realise that the previous coach had allowed Jordan to slack off and form bad habits. No wonder Jordan’s shoulder had gotten bloody injured, and why Emmet was desperate for a halfway decent pitching coach.

And Mike still wasn’t convinced that he was that coach.

“Do your bloody stretches, Jordan,” Mike barked, not caring that the person relaying the message would bear the brunt of Jordan’s sulky mood. “That is unless you’re prepared to explain to team management why you’re spending more time on the bench…and less time on the mound during games.”

It amused him to watch as Jordan acted more like his sulky teenage self rather the grown man he was, kicking at the dirt floor of the bullpen before doing the stretches Mike requested. Satisfied Jordan wasn’t going to risk another injury, he requested the camera to be moved so he could watch the other pitchers currently in the pen.

Nothing had changed at the training venue since Mike had last stepped foot in the place… well, except for the two new catchers, and one pitcher who’d joined the team. His breath hitched and body trembled as memories slid unbidden through his mind, dragging the all too familiar feeling of anxiousness with it. But today something else lingered underneath it… excitement.

Satisfied with Jordan had warmed up adequately enough to avoid injury, Mike gave him permission to demonstrate the pitch that was causing concern. It wasn’t often that he witnessed Jordan’s pitching action from this angle, Mike had always been the one at the other end of the bullpen catching them. The distance created by the video link made it a little easier to coach Jordan… but not by much. Mike couldn’t absorb the familiar scents, sounds, and sights that were a staple of the bullpen… couldn’t engage in friendly banter with the other members of his team… couldn’t hug Jordan when he perfected a difficult pitch…

Not that it would be appropriate for a coach to interact with a player like that. But Mike guessed if he did manage to work up the confidence to step back into the stadium—into the bullpen—the boundaries that separated him from other members of the team wouldn’t exist between him and Jordan. Professionalism wouldn’t disappear entirely, yet it would be hard to completely forget Jordan was his husband…that’s if Jordan still wanted to him to be. Mike still wasn’t sold that Jordan did.

Shaking the morose thoughts from his head, Mike asked Jordan to repeat the pitch several more times. He focused on a different part of Jordan’s pitching action with every throw, eyes narrowing as he stared hard at the screen and tried to locate what the issue with it was. Did Jordan lift his front leg high enough? Did his arm follow through fully after the ball was released? And when during the pitching action was the ball released? He blew out a harsh breath struggling to figure out where the problem was… and Mike knew there was an issue, more than one.

“Fuck…” Mike heaved a sigh and rubbed at his jaw. “Call Jordan and Ito over,” he barked at the junior catcher operating the camera.

The team’s current crop of catchers were also a problem that he’d need to discuss with Emmet. None of their current catchers had the necessary skill or experience to handle a pitcher of Jordan’s caliber…and some of the blame for that could be laid at the feet of their previous Pitching Coach, but Mike knew some of it fell with him and Jordan too. It might’ve served the team well at the time when their top pitchers worked almost exclusively with Mike, but it had ultimately meant that none of the other catchers on the team had opportunity to gain the experience working with the likes of Jordan. And honestly, it was a miracle that there weren’t more injuries amongst the teams pitchers.

“What did you think?” Jordan asked, only slightly out of breath.

“Yeah, something’s not right. Can’t tell though if it’s do with the positioning of your leg as you pitch the ball or if the release point on this particular pitch is all wrong.”

Jordan nodded, appearing to take Mike’s criticisms on board. “Okay… I’ll try it again.”

Mike watched Jordan and the teams current first-string catcher resume their positions at either end of the bullpen. It’d be easy enough to place the blame for Jordan’s weird action on the catcher and simply assume the man didn’t have the skills necessary to play at this high level of the game. And maybe if the catcher had been a youngster who’d been pulled up from the reserve grade, or a recent addition to the team, Mike might have done just that…at first.

Except Ito Kanagawa had started on the team a year after Mike had joined and he’d one of the few catchers who Mike had approved of catching for Jordan… Mike snorted and shook his head, like it had ever been his call who caught Jordan’s pitches. It did however mean that whatever was wrong with Jordan’s pitches, it had nothing to do with Ito.

Ten more pitches sailed into the catcher’s mitt and the heavy thud of the ball hitting leather sent shivers down Mike’s spine. He itched to be the one catching those pitches… to be the one facing Jordan… to see the satisfied glow in his husband’s eyes when the pitch connected perfectly. With each pitch Jordan’s action was better, not perfect, but it didn’t look as awkward as the first ten that he’d pitched. Hard to judge, really, from behind a computer screen.

“Was…that…any better?” Jordan asked, his voice ragged.

“Yeah…” Mike drew in a deep breath and shoved his hands through his hair. “But there’s still something not quite right,” he muttered while wondering if a change in camera angle might help. His only option really when there was no way Mike was heading down to the Switch Hitter’s training facilities to observe it in person. “Is there any way we can move the camera to behind the catcher? I want to see the pitch from straight on.”

Jordan was silent for a beat before quickly agreeing and walking back to the top of the bullpen while Mike’s point-of-view changed little slower. He dropped his hand to his knee and squeezed it tight, wiling the phantom pain that shot through it to disappear before someone noticed the glimmer of panic in his eyes. This angle… the view it gave him of Jordan—albeit a little higher so that he could get a clear view over the Ito’s shoulder—was achingly familiar and it sent waves of grief crashing over him. Mike gulped in air while forcing himself to keep his eyes on the screen…to not run away from Jordan, from this, again.

He never thought he’d see this sight again.

Never thought he’d get to watch Jordan pitch.

Mike had feared it. Being here. Still did…

But if Mike was honest with himself, the same sense of awe that he’d felt while watching Jordan, knowing that he was the one who caught the man’s pitches, remained.

He sucked in a shuddering breath and pushed aside the dark voices threatening to send him into a panic-induced spiral downward, grabbing a hold of the flickering traces of his past joy instead. Maybe the idea of him accepting the role of pitching coach with the Switch Hitters, a team he’d once played for, wasn’t as farfetched as Mike had once thought. But it was that last step he needed to take to make it a reality that Mike wasn’t sure he could do—step foot inside the bullpen.

Jordan, though, was beautiful to watch…even with the flaw in his pitching action that Mike was determined to uncover the cause of. He’d always managed to lift his left leg nice and high before lunging long off the mound, his pitching arm appearing to come from nowhere before it flung the ball at speed toward the batter… the sparkle in his eye that never faded whenever he stood on the mound with the ball in hand… or the way he chewed on his lip when faced with a difficult batter…

And fuck.

Mike had missed this.

Missed it all so damned much.

“Mike!” Jordan called out. “How did that one look?”

“What? Oh, shit… sorry, I wasn’t watching.”

The sniggers coming from Ito and the other members of the team gathered in the bullpen, who’d once played alongside Mike, were well deserved. It wasn’t like him to become distracted by anyone during practice, not even his husband.

“I think Mike forgot what balls he was supposed to be watching,” Ito remarked, causing Mike to blush with embarrassment.

He held his breath and waited for Jordan to say something… a snarky retort that had often flowed freely from his husband’s lips in the past, and ones that were usually laden down with innuendo. But none were forthcoming. Instead, Jordan narrowed his eyes at the camera and stared at Mike with concern.

“Shall I pitch another ten then?”

‘Yeah… yeah that would be good,” Mike mumbled.

*****

Catch up on the first two books before the final book in the trilogy drops!

Grab Them Here!