Real Fake Love

by Pippa Grant

  And then there’s Glow.

  As Henri pulls her pie back in a wind-up, Glow swings his big bubble-fart-butt around, clearly planning on running away, but my girl’s quick.

  She ducks his wing, then slides under the table to avoid the butt, crawls out from the other side, leaps onto the table, and yells, “Hey, Fire-butt! Eat this!”

  He looks over his shoulder as much as a massive mascot without a real neck can and knocks his butt into Spike, who clearly can’t see, but goes down into Meaty, who falls on Tanesha, which makes Darren jump like he’s going to climb over the dugout and charge the screen in the outfield.

  Mackenzie lunges for Tanesha.

  Marisol takes advantage of the distraction to grab the can of Reddi-wip and spray it in Firequacker’s face.

  And Henri makes a Braveheart cry as she leaps onto Glow’s back, reaches around him with her pie, and rubs it into his bug eyes.

  Every last fan at Duggan Field—even the fans who came to cheer on San Francisco, the visiting team—are on their feet whooping and hollering louder than I’ve ever heard.

  We’re a week away from September, which is crunch time, with the Fireballs four games from securing at least a wild card spot in the playoffs.

  These fans have had a lot to cheer for this year, so saying they’re louder than I’ve ever heard means something.

  “Oh, boy. Oh, boy.” Grover, the announcer, is wiping his face with a Fireballs handkerchief. He looks into the camera like he’s trying to play that he has everything under control, but there’s no mistaking his horror. “That was…unexpected. We’ll be back at the top of the inning with the winner!”

  Henri pumps a fist, and that’s when I realize what’s different.

  “She did her hair.”

  The six men closest to me all give me dude, you are so fucked looks, but Brooks cracks almost immediately, ducking his head and snorting with laughter.

  “Word to the wise, bro. Always look to the hair first.” Darren claps me on the shoulder and heads to the nearest coach, undoubtedly demanding that they make a call up to the press room to verify Tanesha and the baby are okay. If Lopez gets a hit, Darren will be up to bat this inning, so we need him in smacking-the-shit-out-of-the-ball shape.

  Not worried-about-his-wife-and-baby shape.

  “You know they planned that,” Brooks murmurs to me. “Mackenzie told me Tanesha would be wearing a baby doll. Someone else is holding the real baby.”

  “Are you shitting me?” Darren barks behind us on the phone. “Warn a guy. Damn.”

  Brooks grins. “Yeah. Told you. Also, my soon-to-be fathers-in-law heard about Henri’s hair. They ambushed her lunch with Mackenzie today and took her to their favorite salon.”

  “Looks good.”

  “You expected anything less from Mackenzie’s dads?”

  Of course not. But I can’t say a thing without leading myself down a path where Brooks gives me increasingly more shit, so I change the subject. “I should see if she wants to come to Boston.”

  Dammit. Where did that come from?

  But no worries—Brooks is giving me the don’t be a psychopathic idiot glare. “You know the rules. If they started traveling with us, they stay traveling with us. If they didn’t, we don’t fucking mess with what’s working.”

  “I thought you gave up all your superstitions.”

  He punches me in the arm and stalks off as Cooper doubles over laughing. “His face—your face—you two are like bromance goals.”

  “Plus, you don’t want your dad and your girlfriend sharing your hotel room,” Emilio points out.

  I freeze. “What are you talking about?”

  “Papa trip. You miss the news?” Francisco takes his batting helmet from the bat girl in the dugout today, flips it twice, and grins at me. “Ah, you were thinking of Henri naked when you were supposed to be paying attention during the team meeting.”

  Guilty. “Our dads…are invited…on the road trip to Boston?”

  “Yeah. Newest promo push from management.”

  Dammit.

  Dammit.

  Maybe he won’t come. Maybe they couldn’t find him.

  And maybe if stars were wishes that can come true, they’re still so far out of reach it’s not even worth wishing. “Why are we messing with who travels with us? We’re on fire. Why are we risking this?”

  “Because your fathers are your second biggest fans behind your mothers, who are invited for the last away series of the season.” Santiago’s clearly not having the excuses, which is surprising since he keeps the same package of beef jerky in his office that he had in his locker the day he started his own twenty-seven game hitting streak back in the day. Don’t tell me he doesn’t believe in superstitions. “Also, because management said so.”

  “Dude. You eat bad sushi or something?” Cooper tilts his head at me. “Or is this about the thing where we don’t talk about who your dad is?”

  Brooks shoves between us. “Your dad coming, Coop? Rather have your Pop and his parrot. That’d make for some good sound bites. We could mic him up during the game.”

  Cooper peers around him at me. “Can’t be winners if you don’t face your demons. Makes for a better life too.”

  “You got demons?” He grew up an hour outside the city, so we see all of his family regularly. Usually they come bearing food. Except his grandfather, who thinks he’s a pirate and comes with a cursing parrot. And if Cooper Rock has demons, I’ll eat my left cleat.

  He nods seriously. “Can’t grow up a die-hard Fireballs fan without picking up a few demons. Plus, I saw my sister naked once.”

  “You’re ridiculous,” Darren mutters as he strolls past us, pulling on his batting gloves.

  Cooper beams. “Thanks, man. Good to know my hard work’s appreciated. What about you, Elliott? Your old man coming?”

  Brooks nods. “Ma’s making him hit the Boston shops for baby stuff.”

  We’d give him shit about the possibility of Mackenzie being pregnant, except we’ve also all seen the pictures of his two new baby nieces, and in my opinion, it’s completely unfair that Henri’s hair bends weird to make her look like she has devil horns, when Brooks’s younger niece, the one born to his former-SEAL brother and hyperactive, innuendo-spewing hacker sister-in-law, looks like an absolute angel in all the pictures I’ve seen.

  If you’d met his sister-in-law, you’d expect demon-spawn too.

  Mackenzie says the baby’s inhuman adorableness is balance in the universe. Brooks says everything will change when the kid learns to talk.

  “My dad wants a Duck Tour,” Robinson announces.

  Cooper nods. “Mine’s gonna mark another ballpark off his list. He hasn’t been there yet.”

  “We don’t actually have to share rooms with our dads, do we?” Emilio asks.

  “You do, Mr. Gonna-Get-Carpal-Tunnel-From-Whacking-Off-Too-Much-On-Road-Trips.”

  Even I find a laugh before Lopez smacks the shit out of a line drive up the middle, and that’s all it takes for the focus to go back to the game.

  That is, after all, why we’re here.

  To play the hell out of baseball.

  The rest of it doesn’t matter.

  Not yet, anyway.

  21

  Henri

  As I follow my new Lady Fireballs friends into Chester Green’s Sports Bar after the nail-biter game that we barely won, thanks to Cooper’s two-run home run in the eighth inning, I realize I have a girlfriend problem.

  Aside from my long-distance writer friends, I’ve had very few girlfriends in my life that I didn’t meet through a fiancé. Which means I don’t have many girlfriends that I’ve kept past my failed weddings.

  Okay, I have zero.

  I have zero in-person girlfriends that I’ve kept after my failed weddings. I have Elsa, and I have a few cousins, and then I have a long list of girlfriends that I don’t see anymore because my exes always got them in the split. And here I am, with an all-new set of in-person girlfriends�
��courtesy of Luca.

  Tillie Jean Rock, who’s not dating anyone on the team, but who lives close enough to the city that she joined the Lady Fireballs to annoy her brother, nudges me as we take our seats at a long table. “What’s with the frowny face?”

  Well, Tillie Jean, since you asked, I’ve realized I probably won’t know you long. I shake my head. “I went to la-la-land. Thinking about a story problem.”

  “Ooh, with Confucius?” Mackenzie asks.

  “Yes.”

  All four of my new friends stare at me expectantly. To the best of my knowledge, Marisol, Tanesha, and Tillie Jean haven’t read my books, but Mackenzie kept talking about Confucius, and also some of the early reviews on How to Train Your Vampire, while we were cleaning up after the whipped cream mascot fight, so I think they’ve basically picked up on the fact that I write slapstick humor in a paranormal package, and I’m not entirely right in the head, but that I’ve accepted myself for who I am.

  “That’s all I can say.” I shrug, because it’s a writer’s first line of defense. “Anything else might be a spoiler. Or, I might totally change the storyline, and then you’d be expecting one thing and get another.”

  We pause to order drinks, and when all of my friends order for their significant others—or, in Tillie Jean’s case, her brother—I realize I need to order something for Luca.

  “Can I get a Shirley Temple and a tomato juice?” I ask the server.

  Again, my new friends give me a weird look.

  “Not mixed together,” I add quickly. “I want the Shirley Temple in one glass, and the tomato juice in another. It’s for my boyfriend.”

  Tanesha’s baby makes a horrified sound, so she pulls him out of his sling and shoves a boob in his mouth while I get another round of weird looks.

  “I’m allergic to alcohol,” I blurt.

  “Oh, honey.” Tanesha’s brown eyes go soft and sympathetic. “Have you ever had a Riley Anna?”

  “A what?” Mackenzie sputters.

  “I know you’re not suggesting we eat child actresses,” Marisol adds, which isn’t far off from what I’m thinking, because I’ve secretly watched Riley Anna’s Stacey & Lacey: Twins on a Mission kids’ show more times than I can count. She’s this kid generation’s Hannah Montana.

  Tanesha rolls her eyes. “Y’all need to get with the times on non-alcoholic drinks. Spend nine months not able to have so much as a glass of wine, and you’ll know about piña mama-ladas and Mamaritas too.”

  “Piña mama-llamas?” Tillie Jean asks. “That sounds like something my brother would serve with his donuts.”

  “Cooper makes donuts?” I ask.

  “No, our other brother, Grady. He has a bakery back home. If Cooper made donuts, we’d all die from being forced to eat his crimes against sugar. But Grady would offer his goat as a date for someone with—you know what? Never mind. I’m gonna shut up.”

  “Grady is adorable,” Marisol says with a dreamy sigh. “And you know what else he did? He put a ring on it. That’s a real man.”

  “It took him over ten years to do it.”

  “Never mind. Grady’s not a real man either if it took him that long.” Marisol glances at me. “Can you write me a happy ending, Henri?”

  “Emilio adores, you, Marisol,” Mackenzie interjects. “I’m not saying he shouldn’t have popped the question already, but you’re absolutely number one to him. Brooks says you’re all he talks about in the locker room.”

  “Being his lucky charm isn’t the same thing as being the woman he’s planning to marry.”

  “I’d offer to talk to him, but I don’t exactly have a good track record with seeing men all the way down the aisle,” I say.

  Crap.

  Crap.

  Now they’re giving me the matching looks of you poor thing, and we know how Luca feels about love, so he won’t be the one either.

  Except for Mackenzie, who’s already guessed my secret, even if I keep expanding on the story about how much deeper in love we fall every time we’re together, and then away, and then together to keep up appearances.

  “That’s why Luca and I are so great together!” I blurt. “Because this is for fun. I love it. Honestly. He lives such an interesting life, and I think I’m a good influence on him too. No matter what happens. We could be together forever as long as he doesn’t pop the question. Isn’t that what’s important?”

  Tillie Jean nods solemnly. “That’s such a great attitude. It’s sort of the same reason I flirt with Max Cole all the time. Except not. Because I flirt with Max basically to piss off Cooper, who thinks he can tell me who I can and can’t date. But there’s no doubt I’m a good influence on Max. You can tell by the way his eye twitches when I make duck lips at him.”

  Mackenzie leans over the empty chair between them—reserved for one of the guys whenever they get here—and hugs her. “I’m so glad you’re an honorary Fireball.”

  “I’m so glad you all don’t care that I’m only here to annoy my brother.”

  I don’t believe her for a second, because there are easier ways to annoy a sibling than driving an hour plus in heavy traffic to show support for his dreams and his job.

  But I also know superstitions take many forms, and I’d bet Tillie Jean’s is that if she says out loud that she’s cheering for the Fireballs to support Cooper, they’ll start to lose.

  A familiar face on one of the TVs in the corner catches my eye, and I smile at the familiar sight of Luca in the shower, holding out a bottle of Kangapoo.

  Is it hot in here?

  Or is that just me and my overactive ovaries?

  “There’s my favorite lady,” a voice says nearby, and I jerk my head away from Luca’s commercial to see Brooks making his way toward us, beaming at Mackenzie.

  He’s followed by Cooper, Emilio, Darren, Max, Francisco, Robinson, a player I don’t recognize but whom I think is a pitcher, and finally, Luca himself, fully dressed and dry, unlike his persona on the TV a moment ago.

  Pretty sure he didn’t just catch me drooling.

  Probably.

  Darren fusses over Tanesha and sits, clearly eager to take over holding the baby whenever he’s done eating. Brooks kisses Mackenzie. Emilio kisses Marisol. Cooper pretends he’s going to kiss Tillie Jean, who shoves him away and waves flirty fingers at Max, who grimaces and takes a seat as far as he can get from her.

  “I know he’s secretly in love with me,” she stage-whispers loudly enough for all of us to hear.

  “Quit embarrassing yourself, TJ,” Cooper mutters.

  “You know he’d be all over me if you hadn’t threatened to turn ants loose in his hotel room,” she fires back.

  I can’t decide if she’s yanking Cooper’s chain, or Max’s, or if she does secretly have a crush on Max, but it suddenly doesn’t matter, because a hand settles on my shoulder, and then there’s a face in my face, and Luca’s kissing me so soundly the rest of the sports bar disappears.

  There are no other people.

  No food. No Shirley Temples or Riley Annas.

  There’s simply this man who tastes like mint and whose jaw is rough and scratchy, but whose hair is thick and luscious, and whose tongue is teasing mine like we’ve done way more than lay facing opposite walls and jumping apart every time any parts of our bodies accidentally touch in the middle of the night for the last forever.

  Because that’s exactly how long it feels like I’ve been living in Luca’s room.

  Forever.

  Without any of this.

  I know it’s for show. His Nonna is in town for a few more days at least, and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that she’d show up here too. Plus, I overheard her on the phone working on a plan to do some TikTok videos with the Fireballs, so Luca’s teammates need to think this is real.

  And hoo boy, does this feel real.

  This feels more real than being jilted five times.

  And is that my clit demanding attention, or do I have a sudden growth in my vaginal reg
ion that I should have examined?

  Probably my clit.

  Luca gives good tongue.

  And my clit knows it.

  Is it wrong to wish this was something I need to see a gynecologist for? Because that could be cured with antibiotics, whereas whatever this is will definitely have much longer repercussions.

  Luca Rossi is supposed to teach me how to not fall in love.

  Not be so unexpectedly irresistible that I break every promise I’ve made to myself since my last—and final—attempted wedding.

  “Get a room, Rossi,” someone shouts entirely too closely, and Luca stills, then slowly pulls out of the kiss.

  “Hi,” he says, and poof.

  There I go.

  It’s one step, right over the cliffs of love, and I take it, and now I’m tumbling headfirst into smoky green eyes and a dimpled smile that says sorry, I had to do that because people were watching, but it wasn’t exactly a hardship, was it? and he has no idea how attractive it is for him be all grumpy about The Eye in private, yet also so attentive to the little things like making sure there’s an air conditioning unit installed in the guest room for Nonna, and ordering special soy milk for me in his normal grocery delivery when he notices I like the taste of it better in my tea, and putting the toilet seat down now.

  He even bought an electric tea kettle to replace the rusty kettle that sits on the stove, even though I have yet to see him drink tea or coffee at home.

  “Do you have any idea how sexy you looked leaping onto Glow like that?” he murmurs. “I fucking hate that firefly.”

  I know he wouldn’t say the same in private, but I still can’t help hoping he would. “Fiery forever.”

  He glances down, touches the Fiery Forever button proudly displayed on my left breast, and I should probably make an appointment with a doctor anyway, because a man looking at my boobs shouldn’t cause a mini-orgasm, should it?

  Also, it is hot in here.

  I know hot after living in his house for a couple weeks, and this place shouldn’t be hot, but I’m burning up from my toes to my nose.