Real Fake Love

by Pippa Grant

  “I ordered you a tomato juice,” I blurt.

  Oh, god, the grin.

  He’s giving me the grin.

  “I’d be disappointed if you’d been less unpredictable.”

  “If you want my Shirley Temple instead, I’ll drink the tomato juice. It’s like living in Confucius’s body, since Burrito always gets his blood and his tomato juice mixed up.”

  “Burrito is an awful bartender.”

  “Right?”

  “The Bat Cave should fire him.”

  “I know, but it wouldn’t be a Nora Dawn book if a bartender was good at his—wait. You’ve read my books?”

  Now he’s blushing.

  Luca Rossi blushing is not the parachute that I need for this long fall I’m on. I need something more than a parachute, because this cliff face that I’m next to is so rocky, I should be wrapped up with mattresses or bubble wrap or something.

  “He won’t quit,” Cooper says. “I had to pry his phone out of his hands so he wouldn’t miss batting practice yesterday.”

  “You did not.”

  “Okay, I didn’t, but I did sit behind you and mouth all the words to Lopez and Stafford while you were reading that brown-chicken-chocolate-cow part.”

  Francisco nods and wiggles his eyebrows.

  The last man—Stafford, I gather—pulls a face. “I was with him until he started pantomiming what was going on, using the special magic meatball hat. After that—let’s just say I’d rather have a nightmare than watch Cooper demonstrate what happens in dirty books.”

  “You were mocking my books?” I frown at Cooper. “I know what that means. It means you’re bummed Tillie Jean doesn’t write romance novels, because we all know you’d want to read them and get turned on by your sister.”

  “Oh, snap,” Brooks says. “Rock, you got owned by Rossi’s girlfriend.”

  Tillie Jean’s bent double and nearly falling out of her seat. Mackenzie’s laughing so hard every other breath comes out as a snort. Tanesha’s baby gives another horrified cry as he accidentally unlatches, but she gets him hooked back up and happy.

  The entire table is rolling, and yeah, it feels good.

  Except for the part where I was a total asshole to Cooper.

  But he grins at me and holds out a fist. “Nice one, Ms. Dawn. I bow to the master.”

  I bump. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, no. Thank you. As Mackenzie’s reminded me numerous times, I’m basically a god. So it’s good to have someone who can balance my ego.”

  Our drinks arrive. We order food, and then spend the next two hours joking and laughing, all while Luca keeps one arm wrapped around the back of my chair, and I tell myself that it’s for show, but my heart can’t help believing what it wants to believe.

  That I’m growing on him.

  That he likes me.

  That maybe our fake love story could be real.

  To the best of my knowledge, none of the men I’ve been engaged to have ever read one of my books.

  But Luca has.

  Learning how to not fall in love wasn’t supposed to hurt.

  Which means one of two things. Either this isn’t working.

  Or it’s working entirely too well.

  I’m drifting deeper into my thoughts when Tanesha says something about indoctrinating grandpa the right way with the baby by sharing a hotel room with him for the players’ father’s trip, and my gaze instantly snaps to Luca.

  He’s poker-faced, except for a tiny tick in his jaw.

  “Is—” I start.

  “No.”

  I squint at him. I’ve been writing hard again, and yeah, I do need to get to an eye doctor, but maybe next month.

  He lifts a brow, then follows it by lifting a corner of his lips, and gah.

  I’m rapidly becoming fluent in Luca Rossi, and that corner lift tells me two things:

  One, his father is not going on the dad’s trip with the Fireballs, and two, if I don’t drop it, he’ll kiss me again.

  I should drop it.

  I should definitely drop it.

  But if I drop it, I’ll never get the right moment to ask again. If life isn’t about seizing moments, what is it about?

  My hand drifts to his thigh as I lean into him and lower my voice like I’m talking dirty to him. We do have appearances to keep up. “Is that because he’s not invited, or because you told him not to come?”

  “Henrietta…”

  “A woman always wants to help her boyfriend deal with issues that cause him pain. I can’t fix your problems for you—that’s not the healthy route to lasting relationships, it turns out—but I can hold your hand if you want to work through them.”

  I slide my fingers higher on the thick muscle in his leg, and he shoots to his feet so abruptly that the chair topples over backward and clatters to the ground. “Gotta call it a night. Young love.”

  He wrenches me to my feet and nods at Max. “Remember LA?”

  The pitcher gives him a knowing grin. “Calling in those drinks I owe you? Dunno, Rossi, that Shirley Temple might break me.”

  Luca waves bye with his middle finger and pulls me out of the bar. We make it four steps past the door when he turns on me, loosely trapping me against the brick building. “You want to play games, Henrietta?”

  “You’re helping me with my baggage. I should help you with yours.”

  His hand trails down my hip and he leans closer. A passer-by would think we were planning on getting busy right here against the building.

  And I wouldn’t object to that, because I know what he can do with his tongue. He smells like nighttime at the ballpark with a hint of danger added to the mix. And he’s watching me with lowered lids over darkened eyes like he, too, could easily forget where we are because I’m his favorite aphrodisiac.

  Hello, party in my panties.

  He nips my ear. “I don’t have baggage.”

  “If that were true—” I cut myself off with a gasp of pleasure as he licks my neck beneath my earlobe.

  Must. Resist.

  I grit my teeth. “If that were true, you’d talk about your issues with your father and about why your mom and Nonna hate each other, and Nonna wouldn’t have—mmph!”

  Okay, yes.

  I talked until he had to kiss me to shut me up, and I’d do it again.

  Because Luca Rossi is kissing me.

  He’s kissing me when his teammates aren’t watching, when his Nonna isn’t here either, and when he’s digging his fingers into my hips and holding me tight against his body, which is fully on board with the let’s go find a dark corner and do this the right way plan if that hard ridge poking my belly is any indication.

  It’s not forever, Henrietta, I remind myself.

  As if I’m going to listen to that kind of negativity when my entire body is in absolute bliss.

  A camera flashes, and Luca pulls back abruptly.

  “Hey! Hey, it’s Luca Rossi!”

  He blinks three times, like he’s re-centering himself and not entirely certain what happened, then the camera flashes again.

  “Gossips,” he mutters. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

  Oh, god. He knew.

  He knew they were there.

  He’s not attracted to me. He’s still playing the part.

  And I still haven’t learned.

  Which means I probably never will.

  22

  Luca

  Two days later, right at seven in the evening, mere hours after getting one game closer to the playoffs, the team strolls out of Duggan Field to board the bus that’ll take us to the airport for our flight to Boston, riding blow-up animals like the biggest, baddest cowboy team to ever exist.

  Francisco’s on a triceratops. Robinson’s riding an alligator. Cooper’s on a giraffe with a neck that doesn’t fit into the bus’s doorway. Brooks is shouting giddyup! to a blow-up bulldog with a mailman biting its ass.

  I’m on a rooster, because Henri bet me I wouldn’t.

  She loses, s
o now she has to name a vampire after me.

  We’re both pretending Chester Green’s didn’t happen. That she doesn’t know everyone else’s dads are along for this trip, or that thinking about my father bothers me.

  We’ve also gone back to pretending we don’t kiss.

  Best that way, since I’m supposed to protect her, not be the next guy to break her heart, no matter what she thinks she wants from me.

  Part of me wishes she was coming with us, because it would be fun to watch her freak out on her book launch day in two days, but the other part of me is glad she’s staying home.

  It’s easier to not get attached if she’s not here.

  That’s the deal. She pretends to be my girlfriend through the end of the season, and I become a guy she doesn’t fall in love with.

  Realizing all the little, unexpected ways she’s attractive wasn’t supposed to be part of the package. And I have bigger things I need to worry about.

  Namely, my job.

  If we can sweep Boston, and if Toronto gets shut out in Seattle, we’ll be within one spot of securing ourselves a trip to the playoffs.

  Not bad for a team that set a record for the worst losing streak ever in baseball last year.

  And with so many of the guys’ dads along for the trip, we’re all in good moods, ready to take on the world.

  Until we hit the hotel in Boston.

  Everything’s normal at first—road manager handing out hotel keys so we can head in through the back entrance and straight upstairs, all of us grabbing our bags, giving each other shit, texting or calling home if we need to for the “I’m here” check-in—but then I walk through the door.

  And come face-to-face with Nonna.

  “What—”

  “I’m your dad,” she announces.

  Jesus on fettuccine.

  This time last year, her announcement would’ve been met with utter joy and relief.

  This year? With her putting The Eye on me?

  I’m in for three straight days of Nonna badgering me about when I’m gonna put a ring on it, without Henri as a buffer, and yes, Henri’s a damn good buffer.

  I fold my arms. “We’re not talking about my love life. We’re pretending this is my first trip to the Little League World Series.”

  Her grin grows. “Of course.”

  “Henri got left at the altar two months ago. No rushing it.”

  “Luca Antonio Rossi, it’s like you don’t know me at all. And by the way, there was a mix-up with my hotel room. I’m gonna need to stay in yours.”

  “TikTok Nonna’s in the house!” Cooper descends on us, bends to hug my grandmother, and lifts her in a spin-hug that has her rainbow hair flying behind her. “You gonna make us famous, Nonna?”

  He winks at me while he puts her down.

  Code for I’ll distract her, you play ball.

  I love that guy. Sometimes I wonder, but not today.

  He can’t distract her while we’re sleeping, though, and I wake up nearly positive she’s shrunk my junk again. I briefly consider texting Henri a dick pic to ask if she can confirm that, except we haven’t had sex.

  But the good news is, thinking of having sex with Henri gives me the hard-on to end all hard-ons, so maybe she didn’t shrink my junk after all.

  Wait.

  Fuck.

  None of this is good.

  Neither is calling to check in on Henri, because she sounds distressed.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “I can’t find my lucky Confucius shirt. I always wear it on release days, even when it’s not a release day for a Confucius book, and I can’t find it. It’s not in the laundry. It’s not in my luggage. It’s not under a bed, or in a cabinet, or mixed up with Dogzilla’s costumes. Except it probably is, and I’m overlooking it because I’m being a dodo and not looking clearly. And it’s just a shirt. It’s not like shirts have magic powers that can influence whether a completely different thing will go over well with my fan base.”

  She blows out a few breaths that make me think of those medical TV dramas that occasionally feature pregnant women, and then Nonna walks out of the bathroom.

  Wearing Henri’s Confucius shirt.

  “Nonna.”

  “She’s not here,” Henri says.

  “I know. She’s here. I found your shirt.”

  I glare at my grandmother.

  She smiles back.

  And Henri goes temporarily quiet before pulling a Henri and talking her way into this being okay.

  “Oh. Oh. Wow. That’s—um, I mean, I’m so glad Nonna’s a fan. I’m sure Confucius will be with me in spirit. Do you think she’d do one of her TikTok videos while she’s wearing the shirt? Wait. That’s too much to ask. If she’s read my books and likes them, I’m honored, but I would never ask someone to endorse Confucius like that. I don’t use people.”

  “Henri.”

  “Right. Talking too much.”

  “I’ll overnight the shirt back to you.”

  “No! No. Really. That’s not necessary. You go play baseball, and worry about the playoffs. I can make new traditions on release day. And Dogzilla still has her mouse costume, and I should get a new shirt made with the cover model for How to Train Your Vampire instead. That would be so much more fitting. And I think there’s a local T-shirt shop not far from here.”

  I can’t decide if I adore the way she’s bending and flexing to make new plans, or irritated that she’s not irritated that my grandmother blatantly stole her shirt.

  Both.

  I’m definitely both.

  And it’s not better later that afternoon as we’re hanging out in the visitors’ lounge at the park. Some of the dads have gone sight-seeing or in search of all the lobster they can eat, but some are hanging with us.

  No one’s asking Max where his dad is, because we all know his story, and no one’s asking me why my Nonna’s here instead. It’s not exactly an elephant in the room.

  More like Glow the Firefly’s butt. We all know there’s something wrong, but no one’s going to talk about it.

  And why would we, when Nonna’s in the house?

  She’s prancing through the lounge, being TikTok Nonna, the Blow-Up Dinosaur Slayer.

  Seriously.

  She takes out Cooper, who’s riding Francisco’s blow-up triceratops, by lassoing the dinosaur with a rope made of twenty years’ worth of strung together pantyhose.

  I don’t want to know what else she has in her luggage, and for once, I wish the mascots were with us, because Nonna taking out Glow?

  I’d sign up for that.

  Brooks drops into the seat next to me in the kitchenette, where we have a good view of Nonna doing a second take with Cooper and Darren helping her. And yes, she’s wearing Confucius. I refused to let her take him off. “Your nonna needs to meet my brother-in-law’s nana next time we’re in New York. They’d need bail money.”

  “So that’s how I can get rid of her?”

  He shoots me a look. “Hasn’t uncursed your junk yet, huh?”

  “My junk’s fine.” Getting frustrated, but fine.

  “Don’t sound fine.” Francisco claims the seat on my other side and leans in. “Your old lady holding out?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, man, she is.” He cracks up.

  “You won’t be laughing when your abuela puts The Eye on you,” I mutter.

  He thumps himself in the chest. “Gotta think forward. Like me. My abuela? She thinks I’m engaged.”

  Brooks grins. “Ah, you’re both screwed.”

  “Dude. Dating Henri. I’m fine.”

  “And you’re in over your head. How long’s she gonna stay with you if you can’t give her what she wants?”

  “Says the guy who didn’t even know how to give it to a woman until…when was that? Yesterday?”

  “Don’t be ragging on the newly former virgin. His fiancée’s good luck.” Francisco shoves me. “You got your own problems. Don’t make them for the rest of us.”
>
  Brooks tips his chair back. “Luca, if you’re not happy with a woman, forget the curse and get out.”

  “It’s not Henri. It’s…” I jerk my head toward Nonna.

  “No way, man.” Francisco gives me the don’t do it look. “Your grandmama only wants you to be happy. Don’t ever think she doesn’t.” He lowers his voice. “That makes the curse worse.”

  The door opens, and Francisco’s right.

  I should not tempt the fates.

  Because I thought bad thoughts about Nonna, and now my father’s strolling into the room.

  Brooks thumps his chair legs down and shoots me a look.

  My failed wedding wasn’t the only thing he witnessed during that year I spent in New York.

  Let’s just say he knows my relationship with the old man is rocky at best.

  My sperm donor’s bloodshot green eyes settle on me. Lost weight since the last time he came around asking for money. And his gait isn’t entirely steady either.

  Fuck.

  How the hell did he get in here?

  Oh, right.

  Because he’s Giovanni Rossi. Still has the name, even if he doesn’t have anything else.

  Brooks starts to rise. He glances at Francisco. “Get Santiago.”

  I rise too. “No need. I got this.”

  “And we’ve got you, okay? Don’t be a dick about having a team.”

  I cross the carpet straight-faced like my heart isn’t thumping and my fingers aren’t tingling like they want to go numb. I stare down fastballs coming at me at a hundred miles an hour every single day. I’ve moved six times in my professional career, started from the ground up making new friends and learning to fit into the new flow of a new team six times. Been within spitting distance of tornadoes, hurricanes, and got snowed in once without power.

  But facing my father always gets to me like nothing else.

  I open my mouth as I stop next to him, and before I can get a syllable out, Nonna’s hip-checking me out of the way. “Gio! There you are. Come give your mama all the hugs.”

  He winces, but she growls, and Mob Boss Nonna is once again in the house.

  She shoots me another look as she grabs him and tugs—yes, still in her blow-up dinosaur costume—and drags him back out the door.