Real Fake Love

by Pippa Grant

  “Nonna,” I whisper.

  This has Nonna written all over it.

  But that’s not the worst view of the pre-game show.

  Nope.

  The worst view comes when the cameras pan to the fathers.

  Nonna’s sitting with them, naturally.

  But it’s when the cameras switch and identify an arguing couple in another part of the stands that I leap to my feet.

  Should I go to Boston?

  Not if I want to keep up this whole charade for Luca that I’m not falling for him.

  But am I going to Boston?

  You’re damn right I am.

  24

  Luca

  Losing sucks.

  We’re not out of the playoff race—far from it—but we haven’t clinched our spot yet either.

  “Shouldn’t have rushed the dye job,” Robinson grumbles as we climb off the bus and file into the hotel after the game, all of us in matching rainbow hair.

  “Shouldn’t have brought the fathers,” Max mutters even more softly to me. “Fucked with the routine.”

  He’s starting tomorrow.

  This isn’t a good headspace.

  “Forget it,” I mutter back. “You know how to pitch a ball. Just do it.”

  “Do it despite the universe being a dick,” Brooks agrees on his other side.

  “Elliott’s right, man,” Cooper agrees. “And if there’s anyone you should listen to about superstitions, it’s the guy who waited until he was thirty to get laid but can still hit a baseball despite giving the universe the middle finger.”

  “Get some sleep,” I tell them all. “We’ll get ’em tomorrow.”

  We’re sneaking in a back entrance, because sleep—not groupies—are what we all need.

  But I still don’t relax until I’m in the elevator, because I know my father’s lurking somewhere.

  Lurking. Waiting. Wanting to be someone again by proximity.

  Is it weird that I want to call Henri?

  It is.

  It’s weird. I should want to hit something, but I want to call Henri, because I know exactly what she’d do.

  She’d start rattling about the time Confucius thought he was a goner because he was facing down a horde of angry elves with cursed vampire stakes ready to hex them all and send them through his heart, and instead, he gathered the strength he needed to overcome being cursed by his nemesis to shift into a bat—instead of a turtle—one last time and pull some bat ninja moves, because that’s what heroes do when their backs are against the wall.

  And now I feel better, because we’re fucking heroes.

  Baseball heroes, not vampire heroes, but still heroes.

  And I still want to talk to Henri.

  She has this brightness that she spreads everywhere she goes, and I’m struggling—hard—to understand how five different men could walk away from her.

  I swipe my keycard over the lock to my room, push inside, and pull out my phone, ready to make that call—her book will be live in Europe by now, based on how she was explaining the timing of books going live the other day—when I smell it.

  Eau du hatred.

  The official smell of my family when the two sides clash.

  “Luca. There you are. Tell your grandmother to get out of the bathroom before I piss all over the carpet.”

  “This is a hotel room for two, not three, and you can pay for your own damn room in another damn city,” Nonna yells from inside the bathroom.

  My mother points at the bathroom door. “Are you going to let her talk to me like that?”

  I look at the door.

  Back at my mom, who’s one more person who’s not supposed to be here.

  Over at my bed, where there’s enough luggage for a king’s three-week safari tour piled exactly where I’d like my tired body to be.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I was mother and father to you, so I’m here for my official role to support you for fathers’ week.”

  “I’m filling in for his father,” Nonna yells from inside the bathroom.

  “You failed to make his father leave.”

  “Don’t you start with me. You know I did everything I could for Luca growing up—”

  “Yes, he noticed all the times you had to leave to fly around the world.”

  “I was a pilot! That was my job! The one that kept him in baseball cleats, if you recall.”

  Mom ignores her, naturally, because she always does. “And now you think you can interfere with his love life, because that’s always gone so well for him? And look what you did to his hair. If you ruin his endorsement deal—”

  “He’s living his best life, and you’re trying to squash his spirit!”

  “You’re ruining his financial prospects and his self-respect by disfiguring parts of his body.”

  “It’s hair dye.”

  I turn, grab the door handle, and leave the two of them to rip each other to shreds without me.

  I still want to call Henri, but leaving my phone on means endless calls from my mother and grandmother to settle their disputes, so as soon as Brooks opens his hotel room door with the what the hell? expression of every man ever interrupted during phone sex, I power off my own phone.

  I shrug at him. “Sorry, man. My room got invaded. My mother and grandmother are doing the Italian Eye version of the next world war.”

  He glances at the ceiling, and you can tell he’s doing the same mental gymnastics I did before heading to his room. Who else on the team would make a good roommate?

  On a normal trip, he’s it. Everyone else either has family or a significant other traveling with them, they’re junior enough with crappy enough contracts that they already have a roommate, or else they’re out hitting the bars looking for action.

  If they even have to leave the hotel lobby.

  No idea if having the dads along is impacting anyone’s post-game game, but I know I’m going for the safe bet.

  Especially since his father is rooming with Cooper’s father.

  Plus, the fact that Brooks’s fiancée loves the team as much as she loves him means he can’t turn me away without risking her wrath, and while I’ve never seen Mackenzie’s wrath, I’ve lived long enough to know it’s the happy ones you need to worry most about.

  I’ve also seen the lengths she’ll go to in the name of the Fireballs winning.

  She’s hardcore.

  In the best way.

  “I don’t know where my father is either right now, but if he finds me, I’m gonna play like shit tomorrow.”

  Brooks grunts. “Get in here. You need to deal with your family issues, man. Also, you get the rollaway. And go stand in the bathroom with the water running in the shower until I tell you it’s safe to come out.”

  “Deal.”

  I sleep like crap for the next seven hours or so, which will be no excuse for a shit game tonight, because baseball is life.

  It’s also my job.

  I’m visualizing myself hitting a grand slam at my first at-bat today as I head back to my own room to kick out Mom and Nonna so I can take a shower in peace first thing in the morning, but as soon as I open the door, I realize something’s different.

  It’s the smell.

  Gone is the doom coupled with the scents of hell and arguments, replaced by peach ice cream and sheets dried in the wind and a hint of a hurricane.

  Considering the new voice added to the mix, I’m not surprised.

  Am I smiling?

  I do believe I’m smiling.

  Until I wonder if she brought my father into the mix.

  “Morgan. Now it’s your turn. I want you to look at Irene and tell her you’re sorry.”

  “I will not apologize to—”

  “Ah-ah-ah. She told you she’s sorry for raising the crap bag who left you for another woman, and that took strength of character. Do you want me to think that Luca got all of his charm from his grandmother, or do you want to be the bigger person and own up to what yo
u’ve done wrong in your relationship with her too?”

  “I raised him all by myself while she pretended to help two days a month, at most, when she’d tell him stories about her fabulous life and make me look like an even bigger loser, and now she thinks she can force him to marry you when look what’s happened to both of you when people interfere.”

  “Life sucks sometimes, but it’s never too late for a fresh start. Do you like this cloud of bitterness hanging around? Jerry doesn’t. My sunshine was the one thing he loved most about me. So either he was a liar and he’s playing you too, or you should try adjusting your worldview to freaking get along with your son’s grandmother and quit giving him heartburn.”

  My jaw hits the floor.

  Nonna cackles.

  Henri’s angled so she can’t see me as she lectures my family, whom I can’t see because the bathroom wall is blocking my view of the bed, but I’m positive she knows I’m here.

  Not like it’s easy to sneak into a hotel room.

  “I am not the one who gives him heartburn,” my mother declares.

  Henri stomps a foot. “Listen. Both of you. I don’t like to be rude. I might have a heart attack and die in a minute here, because I’m on the verge of hyperventilating over some of these things coming out of my mouth, but Luca’s a good man, and he deserves to be able to dream of whatever life he wants, with or without a companion by his side, without all the baggage you’ve all thrown on him. That’s completely unfair of both of you, and if there’s one thing I hate more than rudeness, it’s unfairness. Now, apologize to each other and promise to be friends, for Luca’s sake, before I name my next witch Morgan Irene and hex her with a mushroom infection under her armpits and a habit of exploding acid out of her vagina every time she sneezes. And then you’re going to tell me where I can find the man known as his father so that he and I can have a heart-to-whatever-he-has too.”

  She jams her fists onto her hips.

  I could never live with myself if Henri had a heart attack while defending my honor, so I stride down the short hallway, bend and wrap my arms around her waist, and kiss her cheek. “Hey, sugarplum.”

  She sags against me, and holy crap. Her heart is racing, which I can feel through her back, and she’s shaking like I did at my first major league at-bat. “Hi, honey,” she says faintly.

  Nonna’s smiling like a freaking Angel of Chaos whose work is done. Mom’s glaring at her. If I listen closely enough, I’ll be able to hear the moment when her molars all crack, which is understandable, since she would’ve gone Bringer of Death on the last person who manipulated me into a relationship if I hadn’t threatened to never talk to her again if she was imprisoned for murder when me firing my agent would be enough.

  “Go away,” I tell them both while I tighten my grip on Henri.

  Nonna’s rubbing her hands in glee. “Are you gonna throw her on the bed and strip her and forget a condom?”

  “Don’t be crass, Irene. He’s only dating her to get out of your stupid fake curse. And what kind of a grandmother does that to her grandson?”

  “The kind who’s protecting him from a mother like you.”

  “Or maybe you’re both afraid Luca’s going to choose one of you over the other when if you’d freaking get along, he wouldn’t have to choose at all? How about what the fuck are you both doing to him? Oh, god. Oh, god, I’m going to have a stroke too. And you made me say the fuck word. I hate when people make me say the fuck word.”

  “Shh,” I murmur. “It’s okay. Here. Come sit down. Then I’ll open the window and take care of the problems.”

  “Promise?”

  “I’ve wanted to throw them both off a tall building for a few years now. And we’re only six stories up. That should do significant damage without resulting in murder charges.”

  “We can hear you,” Mom says dryly.

  Pretty sure she knows I’m not serious, but I still give her the go away look. “Good. Leave.” I sweep Henri up into my arms and carry her the two steps to deposit her on top of the disaster of a bed.

  If I didn’t know my mother was having hot flashes and my grandmother never got over hers, I’d think they had some kind of fling in here last night for the way the bedclothes are all tangled and twisted.

  Shit.

  I can’t make out with Henri on this bed. It has my mother’s sweat in it. And my grandmother’s.

  “You’re adorable when your whole face twitches like that,” Henri whispers.

  Mine might be twitching, but hers is as white as the chalk lines before a game, and it doesn’t matter that my dick is hard as steel for the first time in weeks, and that I want to make out with Henri despite my mother and grandmother being here, and all of their cooties being all over everything.

  There’s something bigger taking control of my body.

  It’s an organ in my chest that rarely gets the kind of metaphysical workout everyone thinks it’s supposed to be for.

  I touch her cheek. “Are you okay?”

  She opens her mouth, and a full, loud, whiney meow comes from beside the bed, accompanied by the sound of claws on canvas.

  She brought her cat.

  Of course she did.

  Dogzilla meows again, which is the freakiest thing I’ve ever heard. That cat’s too lazy to meow, and now she’s done it twice in a row. She’d be too lazy to breathe if it wasn’t an automatic body function.

  I shoot my family another look while I bend over to rescue the cat from its carrier prison.

  Nonna shoves Mom. “C’mon, then, Morgan. Let’s go hit on some of Luca’s friends and get you a personality transplant.”

  “While we’re at it, I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “Arsenic won’t kill me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  I hand the cat to Henri, and they blow out matching sighs of relief as Henri hugs Dogzilla to her chest.

  There’s no costume on the cat today, but it’s weird enough seeing Dogzilla alert and putting a paw to Henri’s cheek like she’s asking if Henri’s okay.

  “Is that a shapeshifting cat?” I ask. “Or a cursed former lover?

  And then I realize how far gone I am if I believed for a minute that either of those things could be real.

  “Somebody’s been reading too many books.” Henri grins at me as the door slams shut behind my bickering relatives.

  Her color’s coming back, but that little divot in her throat where her pulse is fluttering is still operating at warp speed.

  “You told off my family for me.”

  “I know. I’ve never done that before. For anyone’s family. I don’t get it. Families love me, but yours…yours doesn’t. Not at all.”

  “Nonna likes you. And my mother would, but she’s highly suspicious.”

  “I saw your mom and dad fighting at the game last night,” she whispers.

  My shoulders bunch, and I force myself to let them loose. “They do that on occasion.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She peers up at me, and fuck.

  There is something real about this.

  Something clogs my throat, and I can’t get it to go away. “You flew all the way here to ask if I’m okay.”

  “That’s what friends do, right?”

  This is fine. It is.

  I won’t propose, so I won’t be one more guy to break her heart. I’ll pretend like this is fake for another month—or more, if we can get to the playoffs and keep going—and then when we hit the off-season, I’ll thank her and give her whatever she needs to be on her way.

  Hell.

  I might even try actually dating.

  It’s been unexpectedly nice having someone I can tell the weird shit.

  But I’m having a hard time reconciling the word dating with the image of anyone other than Henri.

  She ducks her face into her cat. “I overstepped, didn’t I? Sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. You can handle this. Of course you’re not going to have a massive meltdown and need me to hold your ha
nd and give you a pep talk so you can get back in the game today, and you didn’t need me to tell off your mom and grandma for bickering, and you don’t need me to stand guard to tell your father what I think of him and his ugly absent butt either, if I were to happen to run into him in the lobby, which I didn’t, no matter what you might hear otherwise. You’ve got this. You’re strong. You’ve been doing this all your life.”

  I stare at her while she drifts into silence and continues to hide her face in her cat. Her hair’s a crazy mop of curls again, but it’s not making the devil horns thanks to whatever Mackenzie’s dads had their stylist do to her short cut, and she looks so vulnerable hunched over like that.

  Like maybe she needs me to need her.

  Like maybe Nonna’s curse is working.

  And if it’s working, is it working because this is right, or is it working because Nonna’s a witch and this isn’t as real as it feels?

  Witches.

  Devils.

  Shapeshifting cats.

  “Oh, shit. It’s your release day. I sent flowers. You’re not there to get them.”

  She jerks her head up. “You sent me flowers?”

  Heat floods my face. “I heard it’s a thing you’re supposed to do.”

  “You sent me flowers.” Either she has something in her eye, or sending flowers was the exact wrong thing and it’s making her cry.

  Hello, panic mode.

  “You sent me flowers,” she whispers again, and then she flings herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck and peppering my cheeks with kisses. “Luca! That’s the sweetest—thing—anyone’s ever—done—for me.”

  I grab her and hold her back, because that can’t be right.

  It can’t.

  “Your fiancés never sent you flowers on your release days?”

  “Winston Randolph was super busy with the family business, and Kyle and Lyle were both, well, not that into my career, and Barry had this calendar blindness thing where he didn’t know Sundays from Thursdays, and by the time I met Jerry, I’d accepted that I only date men who aren’t…the type.”

  It’s a good thing I wouldn’t recognize four of her five previous fiancés, because my baseball bat and I would probably have something to say to them, and then my career would be over.