by Pippa Grant
Mackenzie sighs. She marches to the sink at the small galley kitchen, shoves Cooper out of the way, squats, and pulls an industrial-sized bottle of hand sanitizer out from under it.
Then she strides across the room and points the industrial-size pump at me. “Bathe,” she orders.
I dutifully take six industrial-size squirts and rub the sanitizer all over my hands, up my arms, and over my exposed legs. I still have enough left to take to my junk, which I won’t do. First of all, it would sting. Second, my junk is already in enough danger. And third, if I put my hand down my pants again, Mackenzie will leave, and I don’t know anyone else superstitious enough to help me plot out how to counter Nonna’s Eye.
She pats her cheeks. “Face too. I saw you touch your face.”
I obey, because I know she wants us to win even more badly than we want to win, because that’s Mackenzie.
When I’m properly rubbed down in sanitizer, she bends over, grabs me by the cheeks, and stares straight into my eyes. “Why did your Nonna Eye you?”
“She wants me to get married and have babies.”
“Dude.” Cooper bolts closer to the door while Max and Francisco crack up. “That’s not funny. Warn a guy before he gets that close to that kind of curse.”
“Cooper, shut up,” Mackenzie says. “Luca. You have a girlfriend?”
I swallow.
She frowns.
“It’s complicated,” I grumble.
“You’re an idiot.”
“That too.”
“Get up, Rossi. You have work to do. The only way you have any chance of countering this is by doing as many good deeds as you can think of. Help old ladies cross the street. Pick up your own smelly jockstrap. Sign all the baseballs for all the kids. Donate lunch to the cleaning staff at the park. You get me?”
I nod.
She’s probably screwing with me, but I’ll try anything.
“Also, we’re going to need to meet your girlfriend, because if you took a fake girlfriend to try to counteract The Eye, you’re basically a dead man, and I will be so pissed at you forever, because the Fireballs are going to win this year, and you’re currently helping us get there, but if you screw it up, I’ll have my dads put another Eye on you and they really know how to shrink junk.”
I open my mouth.
Close it again.
And I realize I need to talk to Henri, because I can blurt out she can’t come, she’s writing, but I don’t know the first thing about her writing.
Except that she has a vampire-turtle shifter named Confucius in her books.
“Go easy on him, Kenz.” Brooks pulls her back. “He’s gonna need a few days here. Not every day a guy gets saddled with a girlfriend and The Eye at the same time.”
“If he makes us lose—”
“I know. I know. I’ll put corn flakes in his cup and prank call his room next road trip.”
“Corn flakes?”
“Those fuckers itch for days.”
Mackenzie gives me the I’ll be watching you sign. “Good deeds. We meet your girlfriend. The universe is watching.”
The universe isn’t all that’s watching, and Nonna’s more terrifying than all of the universe.
And possibly Mackenzie’s making this all up.
But good deeds can’t hurt, can they?
“Where’s Jarvis?” I ask.
I get five matching pairs of where do you think? eyeballs.
Naturally.
Because if Jarvis isn’t at the ball field, he’s boinking his girlfriend or walking his dog.
“Do you think he’d care if I borrowed his gear?”
He’s our catcher.
Has the most protective gear of all of us.
“Not with junk-hand,” Cooper says.
“I sanitized.”
Mackenzie clucks her tongue at me.
And I sigh. “Fine. I’ll go talk to the coaches.” They have spare catcher gear somewhere.
It probably smells worse than junk-hand, and undoubtedly has more germs, but if I’m going to be walking old ladies across the street, then I’m wearing as much protective gear as I can find.
Cooper frowns. “You know, the Thrusters’ goaltender lives here year-round. I could see if he has some pads you could borrow too.”
“I love you, man.”
“I’ll love you too, so long as you don’t screw up the best season we’ve had in my entire lifetime. Or touch me again with junk-hand.” He echoes Mackenzie’s I’m watching you gesture. “Go on. Get to work. Can’t afford to be a man down. You get me?”
I get him.
I get him more than I’ve ever gotten anything in my life.
Question is, will this be enough?
Considering the Henri variable, I’m guessing not.
Not by a long shot.
10
Henri
I’m letting the fan I picked up at the store air out my armpits while I sit on the floor of Luca’s seven-hundred-degree bedroom, hiding from his Nonna after listening to the ball game, when he texts to ask if I’ll please pick him up.
With manners like that, how could I refuse?
So Dogzilla and I hop in my CR-V and head down to the ballpark in the darkness that’s more lit than you’d expect, but then, the city and surrounding metro area is home to something like a million people.
This is like a normal relationship, except for the part where I know that Luca Rossi and I are not soulmates and he doesn’t want me to stay.
But he did text me for a ride, so that’s a good sign that he might not kick me out.
If I can soak up even some of his love sucks vibe, that would help.
I beam at him when he swings open the door and attempts to climb into my SUV. “Hey, slugger. Thanks for sending your plumber today to fix the kitchen faucet. Also, nice game.”
“There’s a cat in my seat. And—aah!” He leaps back as he catches sight of me.
Dogzilla rolls her eyes as Luca stares at me in horror, his lip curled and one eyebrow raised while the other slants down so severely it could discipline an entire high school even through a double-thick cinderblock wall.
I give him a sorry shrug and ignore the horror-stare. “You two can negotiate for the front.”
“What are you wearing?”
I glance down at my tank and pajama shorts. The shorts have screaming angry vampire unicorns all over them, and the tank features a picture of Confucius with his trademark saying, Confucius says vampires make the best lovers.
I know. Not all that catchy. Not like that Confucius saying about the turnstile and Bangkok. But my readers love him, so that’s what counts.
Also, the air conditioning in my car works, which means I’m nipping out.
Luca points to his hair, which is thick and perfect and how much styling product does he keep in his locker? Because damn.
That’s some good hair.
Coupled with the polo, the jeans, and the swagger, this man has it.
Bet if he flexed one of those baseball forearms, women would walk into streetlamp poles, men would drop their beers in jealousy, and even some birds would gawk and fly into the building across the street.
“Oh!” My hand flies to the towel on my head as it finally clicks why he’s horrified, and I smile bigger at him. “You and your hair inspired me. I’m doing an argan oil treatment to see if I can get the frizz under control. We’ll find out in the morning.”
He opens his mouth.
Closes it.
Does the same with his fists, which he then sticks in his mouth and bites.
Jeez. Is the guy allergic to bad hair on other people? How about some credit for self-improvement? “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had particular standards for your free chauffeuring.”
“We’re going to a party.”
I look down at myself again.
Touch the towel on my head.
Eyeball my cat, who’s also wearing a tank top celebrating Confucius and a shower cap, since a towel wouldn�
�t fit right and while she’s very tolerant, I felt like a monster trying to cover up her ears in the name of matching pajama night.
“Your text didn’t say that,” I tell Luca.
He pinches his nose, takes a deep breath, and then gingerly lifts Dogzilla so he can take the front seat.
She hangs limply in his hand, then settles like a pile of goo in his lap after he pulls the door shut. “Mackenzie needs to meet you.”
“Is that a guy’s last name, or is this a woman? I don’t remember a Mackenzie playing on your team.”
“She’s Elliott’s fiancée.”
“Who’s Elliott?”
“Henri, I’m about to be a dick, and I’ve been working very hard all day to not be a dick, but I need you to sit there and listen and not be you for the next two hours, okay?”
“Is this a lesson in not falling in love?”
“Sure. Let’s go with that. Drive. Left at the end of the road, then a quick right at the first stoplight. Do you have other clothes in here?”
“Nope. I emptied them all into your closet. I told your nonna that our relationship is relatively new, though I was vague enough that we have wiggle room in our story, and that I finally went through my first batch of clothes so I had to bring in my second. She probably thinks I’m homeless, which I guess I technically am, but not because I couldn’t afford a house. And oh my gosh, I was listening to the game while I was working on teasers for How To Train Your Vampire tonight—it’s my new book coming out in a few weeks—and you leapt into the stands to help an old lady up the stairs. That was so adorable. If I’d been not afraid of your nonna, I totally would’ve gone and shown her and been all, that’s my boyfriend.”
I follow his directions as I talk, heading to the end of the road and turning left.
“Left!” he yells. “Your other left!”
“I’m a writer, not a truck driver!” I yell back as I wrench the wheel the other way, cut off a bus, and floor the gas pedal so that we survive.
My heart’s in my throat. My thighs are buzzing like they’re made of bees. The bus is bearing down on us with its headlights lit up like they’re made of demon energy.
“Right!” Luca yells.
“Which one’s right?” I holler back.
“Toward me! Turn toward me!”
I almost take out a street sign as I jump the curb at seventy-million miles an hour, but I make that right turn, dammit, and I get the bus off our back, and I don’t even wet myself.
But I do pull into a driveway with my brakes screeching.
“Jesus, Henri, don’t stop here!”
A car honks, followed by another, and dammit, this isn’t a driveway.
It’s a freaking parking garage exit.
And I don’t care. I slam my car in park and fling open the door. “If you don’t like how I’m driving, then you can fucking drive yourself.”
Oof.
Whoa.
I just said fuck.
It’s not that I’m opposed to the word. It’s more that I try to use it sparingly, and I very much doubt Luca has any appreciation for the fact that I f-bombed him.
The cars keep honking.
Luca keeps sitting there, holding Dogzilla, who hasn’t so much as meowed through this whole ordeal, because she’s the easiest-going cat on the entire planet.
Except in very rare instances where she has to not be.
Cars and trucks are spewing the car-version of profanities at me as I march around the SUV to my passenger seat. I smile and wave at the first people in the line, mouth sorry, even though I feel like collapsing in a vat of non-alcoholic margaritas instead, and wrench open the passenger door.
Luca’s face is twitching again as he deposits Dogzilla in my arms, makes a more gallant and handsome I’m sorry gesture to the cars, which makes the honking stop, and then jogs around to climb into the driver’s seat, where he grunts and grimaces when his knees get stuck against the wheel.
“There’s a button—”
“I know there’s a fucking button.”
“Yes, but do you know exactly where it is, or do you need me to point it out?”
“I need you to stop talking.”
“We’ve been awake and in the same airspace for all of forty-five minutes today and you’ve said that to me seven times.”
“You fucking talk a lot.”
He locates the power seat button, and the gears whine as they slowly start to move his seat backward.
Mold grows faster than his seat is moving.
Dogzilla peers a chill eye up at me. “Mee…”
She doesn’t finish the ow. Let’s be real here. The fact that she even started to meow is sign enough. “Don’t say fuck. It stresses my cat.”
“How did you get yourself engaged five times? Are you always like this?”
I glare at him, because of course I’m not always like this. “You apparently bring out the worst in me.”
“Great. Then there’s lesson number one in not falling in love. Date people who bring out the worst in you, and they’ll never ask you to marry them.” He grabs the wheel with one hand, the gear shift with the other, and we roll out of the way of the garage traffic and into the street again.
Dogzilla lets out a sigh and melts deeper into my lap.
Poor thing’s going to need extra kitty treats to recover from this.
Luca’s breathing through his nose, and he looks every bit the angry, anti-love asshole he was after my wedding when he pinned me to the ground and told me that love sucks.
This is exactly what I want from him. Solid proof that love is the most awful thing in the world and I don’t need it. Real, constant exposure to someone that I could never love and who will never ask me to marry him.
It feels like donkey poop.
Dogzilla sighs in my lap, uses one little paw to lazily knead my thigh twice before giving it up to play the role of a blanket again, and I wish she was a shape-shifter so she could change into a human and be my sister.
“Was Nonna mean to you?” Luca asks gruffly.
“She doesn’t believe I’m dating you for anything other than your money, but it’s okay. I know you’re indebted to loan sharks or something, or possibly that you snort it all up your nose, so you don’t have to worry about me looking for what’s not there.”
“What?”
“That’s why you live in that house and drive that car, right? Because you don’t have any money? What other explanation is there?”
More nose-breathing.
Loud nose-breathing.
And no, I don’t believe he’s on drugs. First of all, he’s wound way too tight, and second of all, there’s testing in professional sports. If he was snorting away all his cash, he would’ve been kicked out long before now.
But you know what?
I like aggravating him.
Your other left, Henri. You’re an idiot.
Yeah.
I’m absolutely going to torture him.
That’ll probably sell this fake relationship thing better to his nonna anyway. What’s she going to believe more, that he tolerates me because we’re in a real relationship where we snip at each other, or Luca, who clearly doesn’t believe in love, suddenly turning into a sap who calls me honeypie?
Also, the writer in me is desperately curious to know the story of why a guy who’s raking in twenty million a year between his various revenue streams is living in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house with a possessed oven, bad plumbing, and a non-existent air conditioner.
Seriously.
The house doesn’t have one.
It did at one point, because there’s connections on the outside for that box thingie part of the air conditioning unit that goes outside, with the fan?
That thing.
There are definitely connections for it. But no unit. Which means I couldn’t even call a repair person, because there’s nothing to repair.
I’d wonder if he was the type of guy who likes to do renovations, but with his ki
nd of cash, surely he could afford to buy a nicer fixer-upper.
Like one that already had air conditioning and didn’t need that plumber who stopped by as I was researching plumbers this morning to fix the broken kitchen faucet.
For the record, I’m not complaining about having a roof over my head. But I am saying that if I were the one paying rent—which I can afford, once I decide if I want to go back to the Chicago area or pick some random place I’ve never lived—I’d pick a place with AC.
“You’re going to meet a few of my teammates,” he says like I didn’t just ask him if he does drugs. “Cooper Rock will hit on you. Don’t flirt back. And do not fall in love with him. He would absolutely leave you at the aisle.”
“Altar.”
“Have you ever made it to the altar?”
And now my face is twitching. “Once. Fine. I cede your point. Though, at least twice, we didn’t even get to the aisle, and I’m going to pretend I didn’t say that, because it also doesn’t disprove your point.”
“Max Cole pitched tonight. He’ll probably hit on you too, since we won. And also because he can be a dick and will think it’s funny. Francisco Lopez would marry you for that cat, so you’re not allowed to talk to him. But the person you need to worry about is Mackenzie Montana. She’s Brooks Elliott’s fiancée, and she’s more superstitious than every baseball player in the world combined. She knows about Nonna’s Eye, and she’s going to help me combat it, but only if she’s convinced I’m not going to be a dick to you.”
“Charm Mackenzie. Got it.”
He eyeballs me.
Grimaces again. “Can you at least take the towel off?”
“Yes, but if you thought my hair was crazy before…”
And now he’s muttering.
“So I can bring Dogzilla in? She loves a good party.”
We turn into a parking garage—the usual way this time—and Luca pulls my SUV into a parking spot, then turns to me. “We’ve been dating for one week.”
“One week.” I nod emphatically. It’s good to have our stories straight.
“My Nonna put The Eye on me.”
“Yes, I was there.”
“This is what I’m telling people. Be quiet and listen.”
I zip my lips and throw away the key.