Real Fake Love

by Pippa Grant

  Jerry tries to hide behind me, which doesn’t work. I’m not a wall, and there’s not enough space in here.

  “Jerry?” The bride’s eyebrows crease. “This isn’t…you’re not…oh, god. You are. I heard you and I thought you were talking in metaphors about seeing your cousins, but you were talking about…leaving me.”

  “I’m sorry, Henri.” His voice is muffled. “It’s not you. It’s me. I—I—I have a crush on Luca’s mom!”

  “What?” Yeah, that was me and Mom, together.

  “It’s true,” he says. “I’ve had a crush on Morgan for years. I’m sorry, Luca, but I don’t call you because I like you. I call you because I like your mom. I just—she’s so out of my league—and so much older—but god, I love older women. They’re so experienced. And they don’t have hang-ups about their bodies because once they hit forty, they don’t give a damn and that’s so effing sexy.”

  I’m gaping.

  Mom’s gaping.

  The bride’s stuttering.

  Pretty sure we’re not all just shocked he used the word effing in a sentence, either.

  Jerry shoves me at the bride, then thrusts his fingers into my mom’s short hair, goes up on his tiptoes since she has him by two inches even without the heels, and slams his mouth against hers.

  I choke.

  The bride—Henri—gasps.

  Mom goes completely rigid, but only for a second before her hands drift to his waist, and—

  And I cannot watch this.

  I turn, and the bride and I accidentally lock eyes.

  Her cheek is twitching like she’s trying to hold in the tears, and there’s a broken desolation haunting every speck of her face. Her chest heaves, and dammit.

  If people want to be idiots and buy into all of this love crap, that’s their problem.

  But this scene?

  It’s all too familiar.

  And I still have regrets about the day I was in Jerry’s shoes.

  I sincerely doubt any part of his story is identical to mine, but the end result is the same.

  “He’s not going to marry me,” she whispers.

  “Fuck him.” Fuck him?

  Probably fuck me.

  Because while I did a lot wrong on the day that I was in Jerry’s shoes, it’s taught me one thing.

  And that’s how to temporarily do something right. “C’mon. Let’s go get you drunk.”

  2

  Henrietta Leonora Bacon, aka a jilted bride finally facing that she has an unfortunate addiction to love

  Of all the injustices in the world, being allergic to alcohol has to be the biggest.

  Hey, Henri, you’ve just been left at the altar again! What are you going to do to drown your misery at knowing you’re not the marrying kind?

  Well, Bob, maybe I’ll do three shots of vodka and end it all right here!

  Except I can’t.

  My cat needs me. My readers need me, or so I like to think. And possibly I need me, but since I can’t get drunk, I don’t know if I’d reach a point of enlightenment where I’d begin to understand why I continually do this to myself.

  I shove another handful of my wedding cake into my mouth on the bank of Harmony Lake behind the country club where I was supposed to be dancing at my reception right now.

  “Got any weed?” I ask Luca Rossi, who’s appointed himself my broken heart guard.

  It’s like a bodyguard, except he’s protecting me from seeing people like my parents—Oh, Henrietta, AGAIN?—and my bridesmaids—she should’ve seen this coming. We TOLD her to get dresses that we could wear to the club this time, but did she listen? No. She’s bought FORTY BRIDESMAID DRESSES, and for what?—and also random people who keep asking him about how often he’s at weddings that don’t happen, which makes him scowl in a way that sends them running away.

  He’s also protecting me from my perfect sister with her perfect husband and her perfect four children—that’s the three she’s given birth to, and the two she’s currently incubating, who each count as a half until they’re born and they become a family of nine, since they have the perfect dog and the perfect cat as well.

  Wait. Ten.

  I forgot about the bird.

  Luca’s peering at me with she’s gone mad written in his green eyes. “She sounds annoying.”

  I shove another handful of cake into my mouth as I realize I was muttering all of that out loud.

  Hazard of the job.

  Oh. My. God.

  How am I going to do my job now?

  “She even got the better name. Elsa. She’s freaking Elsa. How is that fair?”

  “You didn’t have to date a guy named Jerry Butts if you wanted a good name.”

  “I was going to hyphenate.”

  He glances at me.

  Back at the marquee my mom rented, still sitting on the patio, then reaches for a handful of wedding cake himself. “Mmph.”

  I drop my head to my knees, twist a curler wrong, reach up to pull the damn thing out, and get cake in my hair. “Fine. Go on. Say it. Henri Bacon-Butts would’ve been a terrible name. But you know what? I have another name. And I like my other name just fine. Which means it doesn’t matter what my real name is.”

  I pause.

  Try to look at up at my frosted hair, get that weird pain in my eyeball that tells me my sister might not have been wrong all those years that she told me I’d get them stuck like that if I didn’t quit crossing them, and blink hard to get them unstuck. “Do you think frosting can dye hair?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  He’s something of a prick, which I know from listening to Jerry talk about him for the last thirteen months since we met. Yeah, I grew up with Luca Rossi. That baseball player on the billboards for Kangapoo Shampoo? We were best friends. He doesn’t have much time for me anymore, but man, I still remember the good old days…

  I study his hair.

  It is nice. Thick. Long, without being long. No fly-aways. A lovely chestnut brown.

  Whereas I probably look better with the frosting in my hair.

  “Why are you sitting here with me?”

  “Because I didn’t know you were allergic to alcohol when I offered to take you to get drunk, and it would be awkward for me to leave now.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter. It’s not like I haven’t done this before.”

  He winces, then his eyes go flat again. “Been a hot mess in a trash bag and curlers?”

  I’m a nice person. Yes, I torture a character or three over the course of a month when I’m writing, but in real life, I’m a nice person.

  But it’s pure instinct to grab another handful of wedding cake, with its bright purple frosting, and smear it all over that perfect coif of his.

  He jerks away. “What the hell?”

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know what the hell. Elsa and I never wrestled growing up, because she’s freaking perfect Elsa. And I’ve never wrestled with a boyfriend or fiancé, and it would be weird to wrestle with my girlfriends, because we don’t have that kind of relationship, and also, nearly all of them are virtual friends from my online writer circles since most of my other girlfriends are either cousins who have to be nice to me or my former fiancés’ friends, but dammit, I want to take him down.

  And so as he jerks away, I double down, grabbing more cake and lunging. I get him in a headlock and smear that cake all over his shiny, perfect, thick mane of hair.

  I swear I wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t called me a hot mess in a trash bag and curlers, because he’s not wrong, except he looks so freaking perfect sitting there next to me, and I can’t take perfect today.

  Not when I’m anything but.

  He scrambles to his feet.

  I wrap my legs around his waist and hang on, rubbing that frosting in so deep that he’s gonna have sugar roots for days after this.

  Also, good god, the man is large.

  “What are you doing?” he hollers.

  “I’m caking you!”
I shriek back.

  “That’s not a thing!”

  “I make things up for a living, so if I say it’s a thing, it’s a thing!”

  He’s twisting, but I’m a damn spider monkey, and I’m not letting go until his entire face is coated in cake, because I hurt.

  I hurt, dammit.

  Jerry didn’t want me badly enough that he decided today was the day to grow a pair and go after Luca’s mom, which is probably the true reason Luca’s sitting here with me—we’ve both been deceived, and it hurts.

  Winston Randolph dumped me four days before our wedding to run away and become a Buddhist monk. We bonded over spiritual enlightenment, and even though we were only together four months, I thought we had the one true path.

  Six months before that, Lyle gave me the heave-ho in the middle of the ceremony because he couldn’t get through his vows without puking.

  And I could go on.

  Love is my superpower.

  It’s my blessing and my curse.

  Because every time I fall in love, I’m not good enough.

  I’m never good enough.

  And it freaking hurts.

  “Jesus. Not the tears. Please not the tears. I know I deserve them, but fuck, I hate the tears. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I called you a hot mess in a trash bag.”

  “I loved him. And he left me.”

  Luca plops to the ground, twists, and suddenly I’m pinned beneath him. “You are not going to cry over a loser like Jerry, do you hear me? Love’s a sham, and I don’t know you, lady, but I know any woman with the courage to attack me with cake isn’t the kind of woman to let something as dumb and useless as love, especially for the wrong man, ruin her life. So buck up. Get over yourself. And fuck love, okay? Fuck love.”

  I gasp. Is he serious?

  He can’t possibly be serious.

  “Love might hurt sometimes, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

  “Doesn’t it? What has love ever done good for you?”

  He shoves up off the ground, leaving me cold and exposed and rocked to my core, because oh my god.

  He’s right.

  Love isn’t the answer. Love has never been the answer.

  In my books, maybe.

  But in real life?

  Maybe I need to give it up.

  For good.

  3

  Luca

  It’s a rough up-and-down month after the all-star break, especially with ten straight away games in three different cities in the last week and a half, but now, the team’s finally back home.

  I love home. Not that home is my house.

  Home is my team. My home stadium. No matter which team I’m playing for.

  This year, though—my first year in Copper Valley, the booming metropolis outside the Blue Ridge mountains in southern Virginia—home feels homier.

  Copper Valley’s Fireballs have been the worst team in baseball for years, but now, under new management, the fans are coming back, and we’re within sight of the play-offs.

  We’re history in the making.

  Today, I’m camped out in the worn-down lounge at the ballpark with a handful of my teammates hours before we’re due here for normal pre-game stuff. While parts of Duggan Field got upgrades over the winter, the players’ clubhouse hasn’t been touched yet. The dingy carpet, the chairs and couches that should’ve been retired ten years ago, the funky smell of years of loss—it’s all evidence of this team’s history.

  We’re putting a new layer on it this year, and there’s not a single guy here whining that we should’ve had an upgrade first.

  We’re earning a nicer lounge.

  In the meantime, we’re flinging plush duck and echidna mascots at each other with thong slingshots—don’t ask—and plotting how to win the whole damn season.

  The de-cursing we did in spring training was merely the start. None of us believe a few rituals suggested by someone’s great-aunt to lift a decades-long hex alone will be all it takes. We have to do the heavy lifting too.

  Some of us—like me—think the heavy lifting is the more important part, but we also can’t deny the power of the other guys’ superstitions, so we’ll do whatever it takes for all of us.

  “Chicken feet.” Brooks Elliott is also a veteran player who’s new to the team this year. He wasn’t initially happy to be playing for the world’s worst team, but he’s come around. Helps that he’s now engaged to the Fireballs’ most dedicated fan and is a sappy pile of mush most days, and no, I’m not going to make any comments about the fact that he’s signing himself up for marriage.

  I’ll even go to his wedding and not bitch about it.

  We’ve played together before—I spent my rookie year in New York with him—and I like having him in our corner. Usually.

  Not now, though, as he’s nodding very seriously and talking nonsense. “We need to all wear chicken feet.”

  Francisco Lopez rolls his eyes. “Did your fiancée make you say that?”

  Brooks grins.

  I shove his face away while I lean closer into the huddle. “Dinosaur costumes.”

  “Ooooohh.”

  Yeah. That’s right, baby. I impressed my teammates.

  Cooper Rock flings a stuffed echidna at Lopez as he grins bigger. “The T-Rex kind, or the kind that makes you look like you’re riding them?”

  “Riding. Definitely riding.” Darren Greene’s face is lit up like a kid running the bases on a pro baseball diamond for the first time. “Can’t show your face if you’re hiding inside a T-Rex. And we need Boston to know we’re coming. Dibs on the cow. I always wanted to ride a cow.”

  “Alright. Luca, you’re on point.” Cooper hands me the In-Charge hat, which is unfortunately inspired by the second-worst contender in the Pick A New Mascot voting that management started to get fans re-engaged with the Fireballs this year.

  When you’ve consistently set records as the worst team in baseball—before I was here, naturally—you go to great lengths to get your fan base back.

  In the Fireballs’ case, the new owner retired Fiery the Dragon and has fans voting on a freaky-looking firefly, a duck—don’t ask—an echidna—more don’t ask—and a flaming meatball.

  My hat?

  It features two plush flaming meatballs swinging a curved bat, and it looks…

  Well, it looks like injured male genitalia in need of jock itch spray. And possibly antibiotics.

  I proudly plop it on my head, whip out my phone, bend over, and attack Elliott in the arm with the plush bent bat glued to my hat while snapping selfies for the unofficial team yearbook that Emilio Torres is putting together.

  “That’s right, baby, rub it all over me,” Brooks crows. “Cooper. Get a shot for Mackenzie. With Francisco using the Fiery thong on the meatball in the background. She’ll be so turned on.”

  “And this is the players’ lounge, which I thought would be empty this time of day,” a feminine voice says behind me.

  We all leap to attention, because while we know we’re in no danger of being fired by Lila Valentine, team co-owner and the woman responsible for the Fireballs still existing, we also don’t need her to know about the dick-ball hat.

  She’d probably decide to mass-produce and sell them, which would make the flaming meatball option even more popular, and we’d be stuck with the damn thing forever.

  Elliott’s fiancée is right.

  They need to bring back Fiery the Dragon.

  I whip off the dick-ball hat and hide it behind my back.

  Too late, it seems, because the seven women with her are all gaping at me.

  Including—oh, fuck me.

  Including trouble.

  Trouble with a capital Henri.

  It’s not that I’ve spared many thoughts or have any feelings about the woman jilted a month ago by my mother’s possible new secret boyfriend.

  It’s more that the very sight of her makes me see that giant cake monument with the googly eyes, and remember Jerry asking all those questions ab
out my own wedding disaster, and then remember Jerry kissing my mother, who’s gone radio silent since we both vowed to never discuss anything that happened in that weird little town that I had no idea existed an hour from where I grew up, and that I now can’t un-know.

  “Oh, shit, dude, the romance novelists are here,” Francisco hisses to my left.

  “The what?” I hiss back, and it’s not because I don’t understand his accent. It’s that I don’t want to hear.

  “Romance novelists.” Brooks is also sizing up the seven women ranging in age from twenties to seventies, hair from platinum to purple, skin of all shades, and clothing from yoga pants to pantsuits. “Lila used to run a publishing company. She heard a few writers needed to do research about baseball for books, and…”

  He shrugs.

  Doesn’t need to finish that sentence.

  The thing about the Fireballs being total losers for so long is that their fans abandoned them.

  Brooks’s fiancée excluded, of course. He’s shacking up with the most dedicated Fireballs fan ever put on this earth—including Cooper Rock, who grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains an hour outside of the city and has never wanted to play for another team.

  But Cooper gets paid to be a Fireball, whereas Mackenzie is doing everything for free.

  Right down to stealing the damn meatball costume to screw with the voting on the new mascot contenders.

  Things are working well, and management’s still pulling out all the stops to get as much positive press on the team as they can, and it seems giving behind-the-scenes tours to romance novelists is the next ploy.

  “Which one’s Cooper Rock?” the oldest of the writers asks, peering around the dusty old common room. Granny Romance is a black lady, about four feet tall with chicken legs sticking out from under her jean skirt, mismatched socks with her white sneakers, and a Fireballs visor on her white hair. “I need a selfie with Cooper Rock so my daughter-in-law will believe we got the full tour.”

  Cooper lights up. “You want one with my shirt on, or my shirt off?”