Page 100 of November

“So are you,” India replied.

Maisie leaned back in for more then, and India wasn’t sure when it happened, but her back was now pressed against her door, and she was trapped betweenitand Maisie’s body, which felt so good pressed up against her own.

“Okay. I should go, because if we do that again, I won’twant to leave,” Maisie said as she pulled back again, seeming a little out of breath, which was good because India was out of breath, too.

“I don’t want you to leave,” she confessed as she pulled on the hem of Maisie’s pants to get her to come back. “I can make us coffee. We can sit by the fire and talk for a while.”

India moved her hands up and rubbed them over Maisie’s upper chest, not daring to go near Maisie’s breasts despite every part of her wanting to cup them.

“That sounds really nice,” Maisie replied.

“Come in, babe. I promise, just coffee and fire. Maybe some more kissing, but I’ll keep my hands to myself. Well, mostly.” India winked at her.

“Fine. But I’m not touching that milk steamer again.”

CHAPTER 25

“You look cute,” she said, placing her hands on India’s hips, her new favorite place to touch her.

“I do?”

“Yes. I like you in my sweater,” Maisie replied, tugging on the gray sweater that said, ‘Dinah Shores,’ on the front of it with a softball and bat logo under it.

“I can’t believe youhaveteam sweaters,” India replied, looking down.

“It’s part of the prize if you win the end-of-season tournament,” she explained. “We won the spring tournament this year, so they made us sweaters with our team name on them.”

“What else did you get?”

“Well, there are hats with the league name on them, and you get bragging rights.”

“Oh, bragging rights?” India laughed. “How much did you have to pay for those bragging rights?”

“It’s sixty dollars a person per season,andyou pay to get into the park.”

“You have to pay to get in, too?”

“Yeah, but it’s five bucks a game, so no big deal.”

“Hold on. I chose the wrong profession.” India looked around. “You each pay sixty dollars, and there are about ten of you?”

“Twelve,” she said.

“That’s seven hundred and twenty dollars a season. And how many teams?”

“In my league, there are ten, and there are seven leagues. We each get a night of the week to play.”

“That’s over fifty thousand dollars a season. How many seasons?”

“We play three, but there are at least six. They offset.”

Maisie watched and smiled at India as she calculated in her head.

“More than three hundred thousand dollars. And then, there’s the guaranteed five per game per person. How many games?”

“Twelve plus the end-of-season tournament, but you pay for the day for that, and it’s three days. Can you really do all that math in your head? That’s pretty sexy.”

“Well, you’re throwing me a little with the pay-per-day thing, but if we assume that all the leagues have the same number of games and team members and add in the fact that people show up to watch these games, too, they’re easily bringing in well over a million a year just on softball. And I saw on the sign that they have soccer, baseball, volleyball, and some other stuff, too, right?”