by Pippa Grant
I risk a glance with one eye, and phew.
She’s wearing a shirt with the duck mascot on it under her button-down. “Firequacker will win.”
Parker pulls open her button-down. “Meaty the Meatball’s better. And Lila knows about your hacking problem, so don’t even try to rig the voting. She’ll know it’s you, and she’ll disqualify your favorite mascot if she senses cheating.”
“None of it matters. Fiery’s coming back.” Mackenzie pushes her breasts up, and I can’t look away.
I need to so I can pummel every one of my teammates who have also turned to stare, but god, she has great breasts.
“Mac’s right,” Cooper says. He unbuttons his jersey—our invitations dictated jerseys over mascot shirts and jeans tonight for all the camera crews grabbing PR footage around the backyard—and he, too, is wearing a Fiery T-shirt.
Along with a Fiery Forever button.
It’s like they planned this.
My temper is rising in direct proportion to my dick’s interest in Mackenzie.
Maybe that fucking meatball was right, and the problem isn’t sex, but sex with the wrong person. I should kiss Mackenzie and see if that helps.
Yeah.
I like this plan.
“Meatballs,” Rhett says. He rips his shirt off to display two giant flaming meatballs tattooed to his chest in the middle of the rest of his ink. It doesn’t fit. At all.
So it’s probably temporary, but it’s still horrifying.
Eloise strokes him. “Your balls give me a lady boner.”
“This is exactly what’s going to happen if you let that meatball win,” Mackenzie says. “Ball jokes all the time.”
“And she can get worse,” I offer.
“So much worse.” Without warning, Eloise tackles me with a full-body hug, which means she climbs me like she’s a spider monkey. “Wait till you see the sweet pad we found you in Copper Valley. Start growing your porn ’stache now. I already ordered a collection of lava lamps to match the bedroom.”
Rhett gives me the stink-eye like it’s my fault his wife likes to climb men.
I hold my hands up in plain sight, only smirking because I know there’s no fucking way he let her get away with hooking me up with a place that requires lava lamps, and even if he did, it’s not like I’ll be there that much.
We travel half the season, and despite what my agent says, I give New York two months before they’re negotiating to get me back. “Not my fault I’m hot and climbable. Getting soft, Mr. Retired.”
Yeah, I’m gonna end up with eels in my bed for that.
Worth it.
His eyes turn into nuclear missiles that he aims at my crotch. “You’re lucky you’re her least favorite.”
Parker smacks him behind the head. “Shush. You be nice. Brooks needs to get his bat back, not get picked on.”
“Oh, is it beatings time?” Eloise pats my head and leaps off me.
“No. No beatings.” We all say it.
“Of any kind. And not in public this time,” Parker quickly adds, because it’s necessary with Eloise.
My sister steps around her friends to greet me with a hug that she has to go up on tiptoes for. “Miss you, you little pain in the ass.”
“Miss you more, old lady. How’s my first niece?”
“Niece or nephew. We’re not telling. Have you met Mackenzie? She’s awesome. We spent some time together in Copper Valley back when Lila was dealing with her uncle’s estate last fall. Oh my god, it’s the echidna!”
We all look as she points at the landscaped yard. Tripp’s two little kids are dashing around with their shaggy brown mutt, and now the three remaining mascots are traipsing in through the back gate.
But the mascots aren’t alone.
“Puppies!” Cooper says.
A collective Awww goes up among all my teammates as puppy after puppy dashes into the yard too.
Lila smiles, and she and Tripp clink glasses while the four cameramen turn their view to the baseball players abandoning the veranda to check out the puppies.
And no, I am not immune.
It’s puppies.
Fluffy puppies and big puppies and little puppies. Brown puppies and black puppies and spotted puppies.
A dozen freaking roly-poly, floppy-eared, adorable-as-fuck puppies.
I never had a dog—I was the youngest, so I basically was the dog.
“Smile for the cameras. And jerseys off in ten for mascot shirt photos,” Lila calls.
“Puppies are the fucking bomb,” Eloise declares.
Lila shakes a finger at Rhett as he starts to follow Eloise to the puppies. “Shirt back on, Mr. Elliott.”
“Aw, Lila, let him pose with the echidna first.” Parker grins at all of us. “It would mean so much to Eloise to be near all her favorite penises at once.”
“And now I’m weirdly sad that the new Meaty costume isn’t ready yet,” Lila murmurs.
Mackenzie props a fist on her hip. “Fiery. Forever.”
“Keep it up, Mac. Never give up hope.” Tripp holds out a palm, and she slaps it.
“You can’t use Meaty,” she tells Lila. “The Fireballs are almost winning without him.”
And that much is true.
The team hasn’t been blown out by as many runs this year as they were last year. At least, not in every game. And technically, we’ve even won a game or two more than the Fireballs usually do.
“Dada! Doggy!” Tripp’s little girl launches herself at him, all blond curls and smiles. As soon as he scoops her up, she lunges for Lila, who catches her with a laugh. “Doggy!”
Fuck, I want a family. Something to live for off the field. And it’s not about getting laid.
It’s about needing more.
Nothing like getting traded to the worst team in baseball to remind you how much you don’t even love the game anymore.
It’s a job.
The thing I do because I don’t know what the fuck I’d do if I wasn’t doing it, and also the thing I do because I’m usually damn good at it.
Or maybe that’s the sexual frustration and lack of team spirit talking.
Out in the sandy yard, Cooper’s rolling around with a golden retriever puppy. Trevor Stafford is tossing a baseball to a puppy that’s barely bigger than the ball. Robinson’s making a wiggly thing with floppy ears kiss Glow the Firefly, who gets so excited he shakes his ass and knocks over Francisco Lopez, who’s probably hamming it up for the camera crew that’s capturing everything.
But Mackenzie’s sticking to the veranda.
“You don’t like dogs?” I ask her.
Her brows knit together. She slides me a quick look, then glances away like I’m still not one of the players she can talk to.
And that pisses me off too.
She is sleeping with Cooper. He talked her out of her pants, and now he’s talked her into talking to him and only him.
Three billion women in the world, and I’m seeing green over one who’s quirkier than half my family put together.
I have issues. And it’s not only that I can’t hit a damn baseball.
I shake my head and turn to join the rest of the team, hoping the puppies can lift some of my funk, when she inhales softly.
“I used to foster puppies. But it got hard having to let them go when they found their forever homes, and even harder when I couldn’t foster them all, and I had to give it up. You should go play with them. Maybe they’ll pull you out of your slump.”
Rhett slips to my side. I thought he was out in the yard with Eloise, but he still has those stealthy SEAL moves. Dude can climb buildings. Used to climb into Parker’s apartment whenever we thought she had a guy over to scare the piss out of him.
Still does sometimes, because we like to keep Knox on his toes. Just because he’s married to Parker now doesn’t mean we’re not checking in to make sure he keeps being good enough for her.
“This a normal kind of slump?” Rhett asks.
I shift a glare to h
im. “I don’t have slumps.”
“Used to.”
He’s not smirking. If I were him, I’d be smirking.
But I’m getting the SEAL face. The one that says he knows there’s a problem. He knows what it is. And he doesn’t know how to fix it, but he’s going to figure it out no matter how many buildings have to burn.
Mackenzie’s squinting at my brother. “When did he have slumps?”
“Whenever—”
I cut him off by punching him in the arm, which does more damage to me than it does to him since he has boulders where his biceps go.
“C’mon, Bazookarooka. You want help getting out of the slump, you gotta be honest.”
“And you need to shut your fucking trap when you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He knows. He fucking knows I’m a virgin.
Anyone who tells you being the baby of a family is the best clearly doesn’t have three older brothers and a Parker.
Though I’ll never regret that her phone once called me Bazookarooka.
“Brooks, if there’s something we can do—” Lila starts, but Tripp clears his throat weird, and she blushes and looks away.
I look at Rhett.
Then Mackenzie, who’s also turning red.
Lila.
And Tripp.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Do they all know?
“I’m fine. Just getting warmed up.” I fake a cough. “Florida allergies.”
“Daddy, Jupiter finded a lizard!” Tripp’s son, the older of his two preschoolers, dashes up onto the veranda with a wiggling green thing in his hand and a tiny brown puffball bouncing along behind him. But where James stops at Tripp, the puppy lunges for my boot like it’s a Big Bad to be defeated.
I squat and pick it up, because it’s the best kind of distraction from a conversation I’m not having.
Its fur is wiry brown curls, and as soon as I get him up to my face, he licks my nose.
Eloise jogs back over and punches me in the arm. “Now that’s the kind of action you need.”
Rhett slips an arm around her shoulders and clamps his hand over her mouth.
“We’re thinking Glow, Firequacker, and Spike should go on a mission to find Meaty,” Lila announces.
“But only under direct supervision,” Tripp adds quickly.
“Or you drop the mascot contest and bring back Fiery.” Mackenzie’s watching me, and I’m trying to pretend I don’t know it.
What’s worse?
Standing here having everyone not-subtly change the conversation from discussing my virginity in relation to my hitting slump, or suspecting it’s not the first time they’ve had this conversation?
If they know—if they all know—then who else knows?
And how?
Was it Lila? Did she steal that meatball costume for publicity? It didn’t sound like her. It sounded like—
Fuck.
Me.
I suck in a surprised breath and look at Mackenzie.
“You’ve met Parker before.”
“She has the b-best phone.”
“Say you’ll never be able to hit a ball again.”
Her face instantly goes redder than the amount of blood I’d like to shed. “Why would I ever say that to you?”
“Pretty damn sure you know why.”
The puppy squeaks and pisses on my shirt. Shit. I’m squeezing a dog because I’ve realized the nutcase I can’t stop thinking about is the same fucking nutcase who cock-blocked me in a damn meatball costume.
I scratch him behind the ears and cradle him gently to my face. “Sorry, Coco Puff.”
The name just comes out, and when he licks my nose again, I’m a goner.
He’s a squirmy, happy little runt, wiggling in my palm and smiling as he pants, and I named him.
He’s as good as mine.
I look past Mackenzie, because as far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t exist anymore. Jesus. The closet. The humming.
Was that chick with the “boyfriend” at the restaurant last week her doing too? Is this all one giant set-up to make sure I don’t get laid?
I pin Lila with a don’t fuck with me and don’t tell me no look. “I want this dog.”
“They’re all from a local shelter. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“He matches your carpet,” Eloise says behind Rhett’s hand.
“She means the shag carpet in your bedroom.” Rhett’s brows knit together. “That still sounds like I’m talking about your pubes, doesn’t it?”
“Daddy, what is pubes?” Tripp’s son asks.
“Picture time!” Lila announces. “And maybe we get a little pickier about which family you bring next time, Brooks?”
Fine with me.
And Coco Puff.
He’s my only family now. I’m disowning the rest of the cock-blocking, secret-telling, back-stabbing traitors.
10
Mackenzie
Opening day should be a federal holiday, especially when opening day happens at home.
But since it’s not, I’m using one of my valuable remaining vacation days to lead protests against the new mascot options at Duggan Field.
A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
Sarah joins me at eight in the morning. We’re both in Fiery hoodies, because it’s chilly, and while I thought maybe we’d get eight people to join us, it’s closer to eighty and growing by the minute.
“I’m so proud of you,” Sarah says as we march down Luzeman Lane, the street between Duggan Field and Fireballs headquarters, named after the greatest Fireballs player to ever play the game.
He was in his fifties when I went mute at meeting him the one and only time my dads tried to take me to a fan event. They have the picture framed at home—Andre Luzeman giving me a side eye while I stood there doing a guppy impersonation when I was sixteen. My hair was fabulous and my jersey was stylin’, but I was totally dorktastic.
Learning to talk to the players last month for spring training was weird.
But they won more games than they lost in Florida, so you’re dang right I need to keep talking to them.
It’s working, even if Brooks Elliott has done nothing but glare at me the two times I’ve seen him since the team got back to Copper Valley a few days ago.
But he’s hitting the ball again, even if it’s mostly pop-outs and foul balls. And he started an Instagram account for Coco Puff, which is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, and it’s also making me miss my old foster dogs.
Not the heartache—never the heartache—but the joy of having a dog around.
I wonder if he’s bringing Coco Puff to the game today.
Probably not.
A puppy would probably make a ton of messes in the clubhouse, and it’s newly renovated. Plus, who’s going to watch him while the players are playing?
We’re marching both through the front courtyard and around the block and past the players’ entrance in case any of them want to join us. It doesn’t hurt that I really want to see the team. Cooper’s been texting regularly—mostly funny baseball memes every few days and occasionally a random mention that Brooks isn’t seeing anyone—and he tells me that all the players fully support my efforts to bring back Fiery.
I had to send another case of buttons for the teams’ friends and family members to wear.
I still haven’t confessed to anyone that I have the meatball costume. And don’t ask how I got it through airport security. You don’t want to know.
My dads know though. I’m hiding the costume at their place, because Sarah never goes there, because why would she? I wouldn’t go to her parents’ place randomly and unannounced either.
Plus, my dads have been helping me take the new videos that I’m feeding to Tripp through a burner phone often enough to discourage the Fireballs’ video and marketing team from putting their new mascot costume to use.
“We’re gonna win this year.” I link my arm with Sarah’s and lean in for a shoul
der-bump. I’m freaking proud of her too.
Two years ago, we were both uber-shy dorks hiding from the world in our own ways. Now, she’s dating a superstar, no longer paranoid about the paparazzi who captured every gloriously awful moment of her awkward childhood—her parents are Hollywood royalty—and she’s balancing time with Beck with running her science blog and working part-time for an environmental engineering firm.
And I can talk to baseball players.
We reach the corner and turn to start the march back, only to bump into two massive guys who completely block the sidewalk.
Block?
More like overflow.
I have to look so high up to see their faces that my neck hurts, and recognition makes me sputter in surprise.
Copper Valley’s two most well-known pro hockey players—identical twin beasts—are standing there in Fiery the Dragon T-shirts and Fiery Forever buttons, one with a protest sign that reads Fiery is Best, Bring Back the Dragon Mascot, Meatballs Taste Yummy.
Oh my god.
They’re protesting in haiku.
“You’re Mackenzie?” one asks.
I nod.
“The Thrusters believe in you, lady. We’ll get that dragon back.” He holds out a meaty fist.
I bump.
The other twin grunts and bumps my fist too.
“You call if you need anything.” The first one hands me a slip of paper with his number on it, and the entire Thrusters hockey team files past us, all of them wearing my buttons and bumping my fist while they loop back to continue the protest route.
Their goaltender even brought along his pet cow, who drops a patty while the cops overseeing the protest watch.
“Your friend is totally badass, Sarah,” the team’s captain says when I don’t immediately reply to his hey, Mackenzie, nice job.
I can talk to hockey players. They’re not baseball gods.
But the unexpected support of their entire team has me a little choked up.
We’re starting the second hour of the protest, with news crews showing up because the street and the courtyard are overflowing, when I catch sight of Brooks pulling into the team’s parking lot.
He climbs out of his Land Rover behind the fence, and even though he’s wearing sunglasses, I swear he looks straight at me.
