by Grant, Pippa
I shouldn’t have been in his apartment at all, except I’d misplaced my phone, and that was the last place I remembered having it. He’d forgotten his gym bag, but also had a meeting with management, so I offered to get both.
And instead, I got a show.
I pretended I didn’t see a thing. You don’t screw around with your teammates’ girlfriends, and if she was in his apartment alone, she was clearly involved with him somehow.
But when she showed up again a few hours later at Duggan Field, pretended she didn’t see him and gave Cooper a hug, I asked if she was sleeping with everyone on the team.
And that’s when everything went to hell. When I discovered the wet dream from Schwartz’s apartment was off-limits for so many more reasons than I thought.
But forgetting how she looked writhing under those sheets?
Hard as I try, I can never quite do it.
And living next door to her? Seeing her almost every day, aware of her coming and going even when I don’t think she realizes I’m close by?
Hearing people talk about her and all the little things she does every day to spread some happiness here in Shipwreck?
Reminding myself of all those reasons I hate her?
I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to do it anymore.
Fuck, I wish she wasn’t Cooper’s sister.
“You shouldn’t smile at me like that,” she whispers.
“I shouldn’t.” Hell, my voice is hoarse, and it’s not the cold air causing it.
“We can only be friends if you don’t smile at me.”
“Then we can only be friends if you go back to being annoying.”
She smiles, and I want to kiss her. I want to kiss her again, this time in the snow. I want to feel the heat of her lips contrasting with the ice of the world around us, stroke her skin, embrace her curves, taste her mouth, make her moan, and soak in that feeling of being around the simple joy that is Tillie Jean.
I know it’s a bad idea, but I don’t care.
I feel happy.
Cold and alive and happy.
I want to be happy.
What was it she said the other day? I had to find what made me happy, not what other people thought would make me happy.
I’ve been avoiding what I think would make other people unhappy. Like, I can’t be the kind of man who deserves a woman like Tillie Jean, even if Cooper could forgive me for trying.
I’m not the kind of man who’ll ever deserve any woman.
Not long-term.
But god, it would make me happy right now.
I dip my head. Angle in. Watch her quick intake of breath.
Feel her hand still on my face.
I’m doing this.
I’m kissing Tillie Jean.
Consequences be damned.
But just before my lips brush hers, she ducks.
I blink.
And more snow rains down on my head.
“Ooh, gotcha!” Tillie Jean calls, but she’s not backpedaling like a woman afraid of revenge.
She’s backpedaling like a woman afraid of what we almost just did.
Again.
I should thank her.
Instead, I turn around, trip over my shovel, recover, and head inside.
Must not kiss Tillie Jean Rock.
It’s a rule.
And I need to remember it.
14
Tillie Jean
Max almost kissed me.
Again.
And I almost let him.
Again.
And since I can’t stop thinking about the way he was looking at me, like he’d just emerged from living in an Armageddon bunker for thirty years to discover there’s still sunshine and flowers and snow and mountains, I’m not paying attention to the massive pot of sweet potatoes in Dad’s kitchen at Crusty Nut.
“I think you got them all, hon,” Dad says behind me.
I jump, then look down at the pot.
Our sweet potato casserole is never lumpy, but I do believe I’ve taken smooth to the next level here. Have I induced decomposition? Are they runny now? Gah. “Getting my exercise in with the potato masher,” I tell him. “I’m earning all of that turkey I’m planning on eating later.”
“I thought you did that with a snowball fight in your front yard.”
The kitchen’s always hot, but not usually face-flaming hot. “Meh. It wasn’t the best snowball fight. My yard still has untouched snow. You know that wouldn’t have happened if Cooper and Grady were there. We would’ve used all the snow on the entire block before calling a truce.”
He grins at me.
It’s a classic Dad grin. The someone has a crush and I’m going to tease you incessantly about it grin.
I frown at him the same way he used to frown at me when he caught me after I’d tell him I cleaned my room but actually shoved everything on my floor into my closet. “Dad. He’s Cooper’s teammate. Winning before sinning, okay?”
He laughs, but it’s an awkward, wincing kind of laugh. “Sinning? Tillie Jean. I don’t want to know what you do on a date, but I don’t want you to feel ashamed of yourself either. Some things are, ah, natural, and, ah—”
“Dad, I know grown-up activities aren’t a sin. But interfering with the team’s vibe is.”
More wincing, which better not be the theme of this year’s Thanksgiving. “I suppose I can see that.”
Mom pops into the kitchen. “How’re the turkeys coming?”
“Right on schedule.”
“Good. Glory’s on track too, Grady’s reporting he’s ready, and Pop’s been working with Vinnie to get the roads cleared.”
That’s worth smiling about. We’ve never done a progressive dinner for Thanksgiving before, but considering how tight we all are, it makes sense, and I’m excited.
And so, so glad for the distraction from thinking about Max.
We’ll have turkey and sweet potato casserole here at Crusty Nut. Salad and green bean casserole at Anchovies, the local pizza joint. Grady’s covering dinner rolls at Crow’s Nest, Aunt Glory has the stuffing—dressing, whatever you call it—and cranberry sauce, and Mom’s café, The Muted Parrot—and yes, we all do wish Long Beak Silver would stop talking so much—is handling pie.
Anyone without other plans in town is invited to start wherever they want along Blackbeard Avenue and enjoy Thanksgiving dinner on us.
And I’m tied up in knots hoping Max shows up.
So I need to not think about him. Enjoy the day. See all of my favorite people and play peek-a-boo with the babies and talk strategy with my teammates on our summer softball team—never too early to start planning to win against Sarcasm’s team—and help run the cookie decorating tables that Mom’s setting up at each location to keep any of the kids, teenagers, and adults busy if they don’t want to watch football or plot shopping trips in the city.
“How was your snowball fight with Max this morning, sweetie?” Mom asks.
Argh. “He bowed out of battle after realizing that even his pitcher’s arm is no match for me with a snowball in hand.” I sigh dramatically and put my hand to my forehead, alas-style. “Woe is me—I’ll never find a worthy snowball fight competitor.”
“Probably would’ve helped if he’d been wearing clothes,” Dad says.
“Oh my god, right? I asked him why he was shoveling practically naked and he said he got hot. Probably Doc should check him to see if he has a fever.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Mom leans in next to me and peers at the sweet potatoes as I dump in brown sugar and cinnamon and start whipping it all together. “Cooper’s always hot too. I think it’s all that muscle mass. It just keeps a body warmer.”
I know she’s talking scientifically, but I’m getting warmer thinking about Max’s muscles.
Hi, I’m Tillie Jean, and I’m into buff athletes.
“You’re really mad at those potatoes today, aren’t you, hon?” Dad says.
The potatoes aren’t the problem.
A
limited dating pool and a guy who’s not supposed to be as attractive as he’s always been is the problem.
And knowing how much he’s overcome to be the man he is today? And that he likes me, but doesn’t want to mess up his friendship with my brother, which I totally understand?
Also knowing he probably has hang-ups about relationships that I can’t solve, because he has to do that work himself if it’s going to stick?
But I still want to make him smile. I still want to joke around with him. I want to spend time around the uninhibited, funny Max that he was at Scuttle Putt, but I don’t know if that’s the real Max Cole.
“Tillie Jean?” Mom says.
I jump.
Crap. Did it again. Disappeared into my own head.
Or my own libido.
Whatever.
“Shh. Grady talks to his dough, but I use telekinesis to communicate with the potatoes.”
“Telepathy?” Dad corrects.
Dammit. Now I’m mixing my words and not the potatoes. “Shh.”
“Yoohoo, did someone order a lonely former city girl to help in the kitchens?” Sloane calls.
And I’m saved. “Yoohoo?” I call back.
She leans over the bar and peers in the kitchen door at us with a grin. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to be a city girl turned country girl who calls yoohoo?”
“Tillie Jean, let the girl yoohoo if she wants to yoohoo.” Mom waves Sloane back. “Put on a hairnet and come help with the sweet potato casserole. Tillie Jean’s turning it into a murder scene.”
“Ah. Didn’t get enough snowball fight with your naked neighbor?”
“Gah.” I shove the spoon at Mom. “You finish. I’m gonna go climb the mountain and have a real snowball fight with Cooper.”
“No can do, little sister.” Cooper swings in the back door, stomps his boots off, and grins at me. “But if you’d care to join me in the square, we’ll have a snowball fight to work up an appetite.”
“Cooper! You made it.” Mom switches course in hugging Sloane to cross the kitchen and attack her baby.
“How’s the snowmobile?” Dad asks. “She start on the first try?”
They talk man-toy maintenance while Sloane joins me at the sweet potato pot. “Neighbor trouble?” she whispers.
“If he weren’t you-know-what with you-know-who, and I was visiting the city for a weekend, we would so have a fling,” I whisper back.
“We’re talking about him being teammates with SB, right?”
I assume SB means Stinky Booty, aka Cooper, so I nod.
“So pretend he’s not off-limits and see what happens.”
“Nope. Not a chance.”
“You like him. He likes you. How often does that happen?”
I almost drop the sweet potato pot as I’m lifting it to dump it into the industrial-size casserole dish.
And yeah, I’m completely blaming it on the pot being heavy and not on Sloane suggesting Max Cole likes me.
“He does not like me,” I mutter as she grips the other handle on the pan and helps me tip it over.
“He tries too hard to not like you because he knows what someone will do, given his reputation. But you know what’s interesting? He’s aware of his reputation, and he’s aware of the potential consequences to him, you, and his position if he misreads the situation and you end up wanting something more than a casual fling. Which means that if he’s willing to risk it, he thinks you’re worth the potential shit that would come if he fucks up.”
Crap.
If she can see that, who else can?
I shoot a look at my family.
Cooper’s saying something that has Dad laughing, and Mom’s shaking her head like she’d bop him with a wooden spoon for giving her a heart attack, which means he probably almost wiped out riding his snowmobile down off the mountain.
“I’d let them all down, Sloane,” I whisper.
Somehow, my parents have managed that magic trick of morphing from parental overlords to friends. Crusty Nut isn’t just the restaurant where I slave away my days, it’s part of my family too. Grady’s awesome and just down the street, and him marrying Annika brought another layer of fabulous to town. Cooper’s still one of my best friends, and it’s not only the prank wars that make me happy to see him when he comes home for the winter.
And then there’s everyone else. Old-timers and newcomers alike.
We’re family.
We’re safe.
We’re happy.
And I work my ass off to make sure we stay that way. If I treated Yiannis like competition instead of like a neighbor, one, I never would’ve had the joy of being able to have his dolma any day of the week, and two, the magic of Shipwreck would break under the tension the rivalry would bring in.
Rivalry with Sarcasm? Yes. Rivalry within Shipwreck itself? No.
If I was here out of obligation instead of joy, my parents would know they were holding me back, and they’d feel bad, and we’d have a level of resentment to our relationship that I don’t want, and neither do they.
So when I say I’d let my family down?
That’s not guilt or obligation. That’s real fear that the people I love would be hurt by my actions.
If Max and I had an actual future? Yeah. My family would rally.
But he’s not the settling down type, and he clearly has walls up keeping him from winning over whatever demons he’s fighting. I don’t have a magic vagina, the world’s best personality, or whatever else it is that would convince a playboy pitcher like Max to quit hooking up with one-night stands in the city, and honestly?
I’m not ready to settle down either. I still have more things I want to do first. Things I need to quit pushing off, honestly. It just always feels like it’s not the right time.
Oh my god.
Am I standing in my own way too?
Sloane shakes her head. “I suppose I get it, but…”
I tilt my eyebrows up. “But there isn’t a good but.”
“Maybe Cooper can convince some of the single hockey players in town to do their summer training out here.”
I burst out laughing.
She does too.
And then Dita and LaShonda show up with offers to help, and Annika’s mom, her boyfriend, and little sister pop by, and the day slips away with good food and laughter and hugs and stories and bets over football games and plans for who’s heading into Copper Valley for shopping trips with whom.
The next thing I know, I’m stuffed, the sun’s long gone, and the kitchen at Crusty Nut is clean and ready for tomorrow morning, when we’ll open early with a reinforced wifi signal for everyone who wants to start their holiday shopping online over eggs benedict and mountain man breakfasts.
Max didn’t come out for the festivities.
The roads are finally clear, so I have no idea if he’s still in Shipwreck—Cooper didn’t say anything about him, and I didn’t ask—but I still pack up a box of leftovers when I kill the lights at Crusty Nut, lock up, and head home.
Max’s SUV is in his driveway, and there’s light flickering in the front and side windows, suggesting he’s watching TV.
A wave of melancholy hits me, both in the heart and in the gut. I don’t know a lot about his past beyond the basic, no-details run-down he gave me the other day, but I imagine holidays aren’t for him what they are for me.
I also know odds are high at least a half-dozen people from the block would’ve knocked on his door to invite him to join us for our progressive dinner today.
I’m probably not the first person to think to leave a box of leftovers on his porch, and given his usual strict diet, I don’t even know if he’ll touch most of the food.
But I leave it on his porch anyway, ring the doorbell, and retreat back to my own house before he can answer the door.
A guy doesn’t stay locked inside his house in Shipwreck on a holiday unless he wants to be alone. It’s not my place to make him do anything else.
But at least
he’ll know we were thinking about him.
And that, I’d do for anyone.
Not just Max Cole.
But the one thing I do for him that I wouldn’t do for anyone else?
I think about him long, long after I should.
And for the first time in my life, I wish he wasn’t a pitcher for the Fireballs.
15
Max
My favorite part of baseball has always been the way it makes me feel like one of the guys, like a normal person with normal relationships, and today I’m seeing a few more teammates for the first time since our post-season run ended, and it’s good.
It’s really good.
We’re all up at Cooper’s place—like a dozen of us—plus a camera crew, testing a new card game management had developed to highlight the mascot wars that went down last season at Duggan Field.
They’re technically over, with Ash the Baby Dragon hatching in a surprise reveal after management got the fans all riled up over retiring Fiery the Dragon, the Fireballs’ much-beloved mascot from their losing decades, but management also declared that the four terrible options for replacement mascots were staying on at Duggan Field until they, quote, can find new jobs.
The firefly and the duck have half a chance, but the meatball? No way. And definitely not the echidna either.
No one outside of Australia even knew what an echidna was until the new Fireballs owners insisted on making it a mascot option.
But they knew what they were doing all along. Case in point—the news is still covering Ash’s antics as she travels all over Copper Valley visiting schools and fire stations and the other local pro sports teams’ venues, and all the baby dragon merchandise keeps selling out online.
And the Ashes we painted last month with Tillie Jean just sold for ungodly sums of money for Robinson’s family’s favorite charity.
Ah, hell.
There I go.
Thinking about Tillie Jean again.
It’s been two weeks since she left me a box of Thanksgiving food, and other than putting a glow-in-the-dark golf ball in the box, along with a note that she’s always happy to show her friends and siblings how to get better at Scuttle Putt, she hasn’t tried to get revenge for me throwing snowballs at her, nor has she treated me any differently than Robinson, Cooper, and Trevor the two times we’ve gone into Crusty Nut for lunch while she was working.
