by Pippa Grant
“Who hurt you?”
She jerks her attention to me at the question, and then we both glance at her hand.
As if that’s what I meant.
She’s not wearing bandages anymore, but she clenches it like she doesn’t want me to see. “No one hurt me. I just haven’t found anyone who appreciates my unique outlook on life.”
“Seeing the world as a happy place and having hope and belief in something makes you unique?”
“I’m obsessive, I’m overprotective of my dads, and Sarah is literally the only friend I have outside of Periwinkles who’s stuck with me for more than two years.”
“You know you’re the Fireballs’ favorite fan.”
“And I couldn’t even talk to any of you until spring training. That’s not normal.”
“I share genetics with people who do things like marry guys named Randy Pickle and decorate like they’re seventies porn stars. Normal and I haven’t ever shared a glance. We might’ve passed on the street once, but we pretended like we didn’t see each other. It was awkward. For everyone.”
She stops playing with the fringe. “Randy Pickle?”
“Repeat that to Parker, and my brothers and I will have to carry you up the side of a building to burn your eyebrows off one hair at a time while we make you repeat good things about her.” Dammit. There I go again. I swipe a hand over my mouth. “Kidding.”
Her eyes narrow. “No, you’re not. I know about some of the things you guys did to Knox.”
“You’ve never defended your dads?”
“Not with—” She stops and turns that adorable pink. “You need to go home. Get your slugger sleep. Out. Go.”
“Mackenzie.”
“I’m serious. Coco Puff needs you to spoil him rotten, and you need to take advantage of every minute you have to rest up before the game on Tuesday. And meditate. You should meditate. Actively picture yourself hitting a home run thirty minutes a day.”
“What did you do to defend your dads?”
“What wouldn’t you do to defend Parker?”
“Nothing.” Not that she needs me to anymore—she has Knox, and he’s a good dude, especially with how tolerant he’s been of all the tests my brothers and I have put him through.
But who does Mackenzie have to help her?
No one like my brothers, that’s for sure.
“That’s the same as I’d do for any of my family at Periwinkles.” She points to the door. “Now go. I’m serious. You need your rest, and you could tell me that you got a full-body tattoo of Fiery, and I’d still kick you out even if I wanted to lick it all over.”
“You’d lick me all over if I got a full-body Fiery tattoo?”
A blue flame glows in her eyes, but she quickly squeezes them shut and points. “Out.”
“You’re pointing to the kitchen. Do you want me to make you a sandwich, or do you want me to leave? Or I could paint Fiery on you with Nutella.”
I need to shut up, because watching her skin flush is making me want to kiss her again.
Could I talk her into it?
Damn right.
Would I feel like an ass afterward, because I know how hard she’s trying to resist in the name of the game?
Yep.
“Thanks for watching Coco Puff. He likes it here.”
She pries one eye open and watches me while I pick up my puppy and the monster dragon squeaky toy that he won’t release.
She points again, this time to the door. “His bag’s there.”
“I see it.”
Now she’s watching with both eyes, and she’s biting her lip again. “Are you mad at me?”
I grin. “Not a fucking chance. I love a good chase. And you can’t stop me from stepping up to the plate with the memory of you with your fingers up your pussy, so I’ll hold onto that for as long as it takes for you to realize you’re my good luck charm.”
I blow her a kiss on my way out the door.
She’s standing there, her pink lips round, her eyes dark, her cheeks that perfect rosy blush.
Yeah.
That’s one for the memories too.
29
Mackenzie
Brooks doesn’t call when he gets home.
He doesn’t text.
I have zero idea what he thinks of what we did to his apartment, and the silence is making me nervous.
Did we mis-read him? Does he truly like browns and yellows? Did we ruin everything? Does he hate me now?
I sleep like crap, partly because I’m now obsessing about potentially destroying his season by destroying his apartment, and partly because giving myself an orgasm while playing his words over and over in my head basically only makes me hornier.
He didn’t really mean it when he said he thought about me and us and what we did when he steps up to the plate…did he?
Work Monday morning is full of status meetings that give me a headache, and wrong calls on my office line, and a stack of new EPA regulations that I need to review for compliance.
I know my job is important for the environment, and usually that gives me a similar kind of high to how I feel when the Fireballs win, but I’m on the struggle bus today with being excited to be here.
Why hasn’t Brooks called?
It’s not like he’d suspect someone else gutted and renovated his apartment last week.
Would he?
I actually gasp out loud in the middle of a meeting as it strikes me that he could have other friends that I don’t know about that he’d suspect of ruining his seventies porn haven.
I cover the gasp with a yawn and apologize for not going to bed earlier last night, which is totally lame and awkward, because who cares what time your coworkers went to bed?
By eleven, I’m debating if I can take the afternoon off and make up the rest of my hours later this week.
Brooks is off today. And I know from listening to the guys talk the last couple years that they love their days off during the season. What’s he doing? Is he running errands? Is he washing his car? Did he check himself into the hospital thinking he was hallucinating when he got to his apartment with no warning that when the seventies called, we sent his décor back?
No, that’s something I would do. Brooks has his head much more firmly in reality, plus, Meaty left him a note.
So maybe he feels violated now, and he doesn’t know what to say, and I’ve completely ruined his life.
I thunk my head against my desk three times before sitting straight and getting back to work. Happy thoughts, Mackenzie. Happy thoughts.
Maybe he and Coco Puff took his motorcycle out for a ride in the mountains, because it’s a flipping day off.
Now I’m picturing Coco Puff in a sidecar, his silly little tongue hanging out, Brooks all in leather, meandering through the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I want to be behind him with my arms wrapped around his waist and the crisp spring air blowing through my hair.
Except this fantasy only works if he’s a normal guy whose state of mind—or virginity—doesn’t influence how the Fireballs play on any given day.
My phone rings, and I drop the coffee cup I forgot I was holding.
Hot mess, level eleven today.
“Hello?”
“Mackenzie? This is Mona at reception. You have a visitor.” She lowers her voice. “And if I were you, I would definitely not come back after lunch.”
I cringe, because that probably means my dads showed up in drag.
For the most part, people here are cool about them. But there are a few who’ll stop by my desk and want to ask inappropriate questions like if their boobs are disposable or reusable, and how tuck panties work.
Because clearly, that’s what defines my dads as people. Massive. Eye. Roll.
I grab my purse and head through cubicle land to the elevators.
When I step off at the ground level, the first thing I hear is a bark, followed by a happy mechanical voice. “When you smile, the world smiles with you!”
Awesome.
>
My dads are here trying to sell those collars to my co-workers. And while the collar is definitely something that needs to go mainstream, time and place.
My workplace is not the time and place.
Except—that is not either of my dads’ voices talking and making Mona do her high-pitched oh my god, you’re so funny giggle.
I turn the corner and freeze.
There’s Brooks, in black athletic shorts, an orange Fireballs hoodie, and sneakers, teasing Coco Puff with a dog treat to make him bark so that the puppy’s collar spews happiness and sunshine throughout the lobby.
The poor man has no idea what he’s training that dog for. Someone needs to help him out.
Probably me.
Mostly because there’s no way I could resist him, which makes getting closer to him basically the worst thing I could do.
Also, I’m more than a little concerned that he’s had absolutely no reaction at all to his apartment, unless showing up here at my workplace is his reaction.
At least he’s not mad.
Or is he?
He lifts the puppy to his face while he whips out his phone. “Coco Puff want his picture taken?”
Coco Puff licks his nose while he snaps a selfie, and I. Am. In. So. Much. Trouble.
Pretty sure I’ve fallen the rest of the way in love with the man.
“Oh, hey, Mackenzie. You wanna grab some lunch?” He grins at me like he knows there’s no way I can turn him down while more and more of the Copper Valley sanitation department employees gather around, peering curiously at me, but more so at him.
“She knows him? For real?” someone whispers.
“Man, if I’d known this could happen, I would’ve started that Save Fiery campaign myself.”
“Do you think he’d sign my pocket protector?”
“No, Jerry, but I think he’d sign a baseball. I hope he can keep the team winning. Hasn’t looked so good so far, has he? Not that many millions of dollars worth of good.”
“Shut up, Steve. You couldn’t even hit a stationary yoga ball with a two-by-four.”
Yeah, that last one was me, and Steve glares at me for pointing out the truth.
I glare right back. I have zero tolerance for fair-weather fans who can’t even give my team a basic level of belief.
“I missed a stationary watermelon with a croquet mallet at a picnic once,” Brooks offers. “’Course, I was swinging from a hotel in Toronto while my family was with the watermelon at the picnic in the Bronx, but they said they felt the breeze.”
Oh my god.
I do. I love him.
I love his sense of humor. I love that he keeps coming back. I love that he lets me puppysit. I love that he’s not mad that we fixed his apartment, even if he hasn’t said so in so many words.
He wiggles his brows at me. “Lunch?”
“Pancakes?”
“Nah, I have something better in mind.”
Yep.
I’m in for better.
I mean, not sex better. I still need him to hit a ball. But gah, am I tempted, because he did hit the ball after we masturbated together.
So tempted.
He takes my hand as we head to the door, and my whole body flushes.
Brooks Elliott just told my entire office building that we’re dating.
Not with words, but when he inclines his head to mine and whispers, “Coco Puff misses you,” then follows it with nudging his dog to lick my cheek, it’s like a flashing neon sign.
These two people are intimately acquainted, and now they’re going on a lunch date.
He’s parked his Land Rover in the fire lane, and I give him a look.
A very specific look that my dads have aimed at me more than once, usually when I blew off homework or wore intentionally clashing colors during my rebellious years.
But once again, I get a lopsided smile. “Needed to be ready for a fast getaway. Trust me. It’s better this way.”
“Brooks! Brooks, wait!” some guy I recognize from the accounting department calls.
Brooks lifts a brow at me—see? Fast getaways are important—while the guy thrusts a crumpled paper bag at him. “That’s my good luck cheesus butter sandwich. I want you to have it. For the Fireballs.”
Cheesus butter sandwich?
And I thought I had bad superstitions.
I get another hazel eye of I told you so aimed at me briefly before Brooks turns his smile on…what’s his name? I have no idea. “Hey, thanks, man. How about I sign the bag instead? Then we get to share the luck.”
Accounting guy—who’d be a fairly normal dad-type if it wasn’t for the cheesus butter sandwich—reaches for the bag, drops his hands, and pats his pockets. “Oh, yeah, that would be—wow. That would be awesome. But I don’t have a pen.”
Brooks hands me Coco Puff, who tries to lick my chin off, then pulls a Sharpie out of his back pocket, mutters something that sounds like, “Thanks for the tip, Zeus,” which makes sense if you know the hockey players that Brooks knows.
He makes quick work of sending Accounting Guy back on his way, then hustles me into his Land Rover. “Tacos?”
I mock gasp. “And again, stop talking dirty to me.”
That earns me a peck on the cheek and the honor of holding onto his puppy while he dashes around to the driver’s seat.
“I poked around, asking about Robinson’s foundation.” He glances at me as he steers out of the parking lot. “He knows what he wants to do, but he’s too young and doesn’t have the name or the connections to pull it off. We’re hooking him up.”
I lift Coco Puff as a shield. “I know what you’re trying to do, and you should know that you’re going to have to do something harder than the easy stuff if it’s going to work.”
He laughs. “What am I trying to do?”
“Buy your way back into the baseball gods’ good graces. You want the good karma, you have to figure out something that the average Fireballs fan couldn’t tell you.”
“The average Fireballs fan couldn’t have told me that. Or that Darren hums ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ to himself before he goes up to bat every time.”
“No!”
“He does. I got the rest of the team to hum it with him too, fourth inning Saturday.”
“Is that why he was smiling when he stepped up to the plate?”
“Yeah. Pitcher should’ve known not to try to sneak a fastball past that smile. Best home run of the season.”
“That’s exactly what I said!”
He squeezes my thigh, and my vagina winds up for a home run.
It’s not like we didn’t talk while he was out of town. We texted a ton. I sent him regular picture updates of Coco Puff, and a few of them made it onto the puppy’s Instagram page.
Like the one of Coco Puff staring longingly out the window of the Fireballs Mobile, and the one of him sleeping on his back, legs akimbo, with his tongue hanging out while he snored softly.
But while he was out of town, I could tell myself he was checking up on his dog, and pretend that the inquiries about everything from how was work today? to what are you wearing right now? were things he’d ask anyone who was petsitting for him.
I mean, my dads ask what I’m wearing all the time. That’s a normal, not-hitting-on-you question.
And yes, I totally know I’m lying to myself.
Also, he still hasn’t said a thing about his apartment.
So I don’t either.
He parks illegally outside a popular taco restaurant downtown, and then sits there.
My blood pressure starts to rise. “Tell me you know you’re breaking traffic laws.”
“Yes, meatball thief.”
“Hey!”
Coco Puff barks, and some song about everyone in a big family loving each other plays on his collar.
Brooks blinks. “Is that the Barney theme song?”
“You like the big purple dinosaur?”
“Parker used to use it as my babysitter.”
There’s a knock at my window. A college student in a bright yellow uniform lifts a bag and pretends like she’s not gaping at Brooks. “I got your order, Mr. Elliott.”
“Thanks, Tina.” He reaches across me, trades two hundred-dollar bills for the bag of tacos, and winks at her. “Call me Brooks, okay? Mr. Elliott’s my oldest brother. He’s a pain in the ass.”
She faints dead away. So do the pigeons within line of sight of that wink.
Okay, not really. But she does make a muffled squeak when he hits the button to roll my window back up, and there’s a solid chance that the barking chihuahua walking past is going to try to steal her tip and get away with it.
He looks like the miserly type who’d bury it in a hole somewhere.
Coco Puff thinks so too, because he starts barking right back, with his collar desperately trying to translate quickly.
“I love you!”
“Smiling cures everything!”
“You’re a winner to me!”
“Are you tired? Because you’ve been running through my mind all day!”
We both crack up while Brooks pulls away from the curb and swings around the corner to—oh, boy—his apartment complex.
“There’s a park down the street, but I need to drop off my laundry before the maids get here,” he says. “It’ll barely take a minute.”
He mistakes my gawking for—well, for I don’t know what, and adds quickly, “Or you can come up. If you want. I thought—I mean, it’s a nice day, and I didn’t want to imply—”
“You haven’t been home?”
“I know. It’s a sign. I need to look for a new place. Lopez invited a bunch of us over for a party after I left your place, and Jarvis brought his dog, so I had to prove my dog’s better, and we all passed out before we could agree. I need to—ah, there he is. Two seconds.”
He hops out of the car and grabs two bags, which he hands over to the doorman, like it’s normal for a guy’s doorman to deliver his laundry to the cleaning service.
But more importantly—
He hasn’t been home.
All morning—all night—I’ve been fretting, and he hasn’t even seen it.
I really need to learn to not be so neurotic.
Maybe next week.
30
