Real Fake Love

by Pippa Grant

  Also, Winston Randolph? Is that his first and last name, or his actual full first name that he goes by every day?

  And where does Henri find guys like this?

  And what does it mean about me that she found me next?

  I shake my head. “What about your parents? Don’t they send release day stuff?”

  She winces.

  “Or your sister?”

  “Writing books is hardly saving the world, and Elsa saves the world every—”

  I need to quit silencing her with kisses, but right now, I can’t help myself, because how does a woman find herself engaged to five different men and related to an entire family of people who don’t give a shit about the important days in her life?

  It would be like my mother not calling after a game where I hit a walk-off home run. Or like Nonna not emailing after my team sweeps a series.

  Or like none of my cousins showing up for the playoffs that year that I was playing for Colorado when we clinched the division pennant.

  My family drives me insane, but most of them are also there for the important days. And the everyday days too, like a random Wednesday when they read a Buzzfeed article that they think I’d enjoy, rather than a random Wednesday when they need me to talk to their pet bird and make everything about them and never about me.

  So yeah, I’m kissing Henri.

  I’m kissing her to make up for every damn book release she’s ever had that the rest of her family forgot.

  I’m kissing her because she needs to know that she matters as a person with her own hopes and dreams and purpose, which isn’t to be there for everyone else.

  I’m kissing her because I like her books. They’re hundreds of pages of laughter and joy and the best kind of utter ridiculousness.

  I’m kissing her because she tastes like dessert and she feels like home and kissing her makes me see an entire new side of the world that I never would’ve known existed if she hadn’t come into my life.

  And the longer I kiss her, the more I want her.

  Not as the woman who’s easy and here.

  But as the woman who’s been the ray of light that showed me how dark my life has been up until this exact moment.

  She’s not my forever. She’s my first step toward a new tomorrow.

  And I don’t know if that makes me one more asshole using her, but I know I don’t want to think about tomorrow when she’s here, kissing me like I’m the last man on earth and the fate of our very existence depends on the two of us getting it on right now.

  I claw my shirt off as she’s tossing hers across the room. She dives for the button on my jeans while I reach for the clasp of her bra.

  God, her breasts are magnificent.

  And if my junk did shrink at any point in this Eye-ing process, it’s not having any problems growing back to its normal size today.

  And then some?

  Yeah.

  Definitely and then some.

  I shuck my jeans and boxer-briefs.

  Henri wiggles out of her pajama pants.

  “Condom!” she shrieks.

  I grab the spare from my wallet, and then we’re rolling on the bed again, kissing and touching and petting and exploring until I’m on my back with tangled sheets making a weird lump under my back and my head hanging over the edge of the bed while she centers herself over what’s quite possibly the proudest woody I’ve ever had in my life.

  “Oh, god, Luca, tell me to stop,” she pants as we both stare at the tree trunk growing out of my pelvis.

  “Have you ever had release day sex?”

  “Not for release day sex’s sake.”

  “Then no way I’m telling you to stop.”

  “But—”

  “Henri, I swear to fuck, if you don’t ride me right now, I’ll never forgive you.”

  Her eyes go wide, and then she’s laughing as she lowers herself, taking me deep inside her while her eyes cross and my body shudders with the otherworldly, intoxicating sensation of being squeezed by Henri in the most intimate way.

  “Oh, god, Luca,” she whispers.

  I grip her hips while she pumps them and I thrust up into her, both of us shaking the bed and making me slide more off the edge, shoulders first, with every roll of her hips, until I’m on the verge of coming inside her while clenching my abs to keep myself from falling off the bed, and I don’t know if it’s the precarious position making my cock harder and more primed than I’ve ever felt it, or if it’s Henri yelling at my family for me, or if it’s pre-game jitters, but every time she gasps my name or tells me I’m so big or that I feel so good inside her, all the sensations from the pit of my stomach to the tip of my dick are so intense, I believe this could make me go blind.

  “Henri—” I grit out.

  “Oh, god, Luca, I’m there,” she gasps. “I’m…right…there.”

  Dogzilla yowls in what’s either pain or pleasure, but the noise fades as I pump into Henri once more, and her pussy suddenly squeezes me so tight that everything inside me bursts open, and she screams my name while I groan out hers and Dogzilla yowls again, and the hotel room explodes in a burst of color, and lights dance behind my eyes, and everything’s spinning, and then Henri’s screaming again, except this time, she’s also sliding off my hard-on, and everything’s upside down, and my head’s hitting the floor and she’s skidding over my face, breasts first—glorious, glorious titties—as she shrieks and reaches for something to hold onto while we fall off the bed, and her cat’s yowling and oh, fuck.

  Where is the cat?

  My balls are exposed, and I’m both squished in this weird upside-down position with Henri plastered crooked across my shoulders and face, and also on an orgasm high that’s rapidly crashing into a suddenly very real fear that her cat is the type who likes to play with a stick and balls.

  Henri tumbles off me and rolls to the side, getting stuck momentarily between the bed and the AC unit before she finishes a somersault and comes up on her knees.

  “My dick,” I crow as I cover the family jewels and pull my legs in, which makes me tumble backwards into a yoga pose that’s probably not good for a beginner.

  “Oh my god, did I break it?” she gasps beside me.

  “It’s not a toy!”

  “I thought you wanted me!”

  “I did! It’s not a toy for your cat!”

  “My cat doesn’t like dick!”

  I stop and peer at her, which isn’t easy when I’m contorted like a pretzel and she’s Henri, which means she’s flying over the room to rescue her cat, but I can see her bending over, with her bare ass, and that glimpse of her glistening wet pussy, with her breasts dangling too, and fuck me, I’m getting hard again.

  And not hard, but oak tree hard.

  No, not oak tree. Wrought iron.

  Yeah.

  I’m a wrought iron fence post here.

  “Henri?” I pant, a chuckle growing deep inside me that pauses as I look at her again.

  She peers at me from between her legs, because she’s that kind of flexible, and I swear my cock grows another inch.

  Naked Henri.

  Bent over.

  Looking at me between her legs while she strokes her cat, who’s shuddering like she’s also coming down off a post-orgasm high, but that’s not the weirdest part.

  The weirdest part is how much I want Henri again.

  Right now.

  The woman who was all the insanity and chaos in my life a month ago has somehow become the one woman I desperately need again.

  “Luca?”

  So this is what tongue-tied feels like. A million things want to come out of my mouth at once. Pet the pussy between your legs too for me, baby. You’re so damn hot. Thank you for the most fun sex I’ve ever had. Life isn’t boring with you. Stay. Come sit on my face. Can I fuck you again in the shower?

  And I can’t say any of that to Henri, because I’ve promised her I won’t.

  So instead, I blurt out a grunt that I hope sounds like I’m askin
g if she’s okay, and after she stares at me for a long minute like my body’s been invaded by those yellow cartoon characters that are always yammering nonsense unless they’re talking about bananas, she slowly nods. “Yeah. I’m okay. That was…nice. Are you okay? Are you stuck? Do you need help? That doesn’t look good for your back, and you have to play a game in—oh my gosh, do you need to go? When do you have to be at the ballpark? Are you going to be late? Is there a bus? There’s always a bus, right? Do you need me to leave? I have a room at a hotel down the street, and I—”

  “Henri.”

  She sucks her lips into her mouth like she’s realized she’s talking too much.

  Except she’s not talking too much.

  She’s talking a Henri amount of talking, and it’s exactly right.

  But I can’t say that either. Again, because I’ve promised her I won’t.

  I clear my throat. “You should probably stand up before all that blood running to your head makes you pass out.”

  She blinks twice, then bolts straight up.

  Which means she bangs her head straight into the TV stand.

  “Shit!” I roll and leap to my feet, trip over the sheets that enabled our slide off the bed, and end up on my side next to her while she plops down onto her ass between the bed and the TV stand. “You okay?”

  She’s rubbing the back of her head as she shifts her eyes to look at me.

  Dogzilla leaps onto her knee and balances there, which is impressive for what has to be a fifteen-pound, lazy-ass cat.

  And as I lay there, with a carpet burn starting to make its presence known on the side of my ribcage, my dick torn between wanting to ask for another round and go into hiding in case the cat notices and wants a play toy—and yeah, that’s my excuse, and it has nothing to do with worrying that there’s a connection between my dick and my heart—I start to snicker.

  Henri’s lips twitch.

  And I want to kiss her.

  I don’t care if we screw around again.

  I just want to sit here, laugh with her, and kiss her.

  It’s becoming crystal clear to me why she’s been engaged five times. Because Henri Bacon is the kind of woman who makes it so very easy to fall in love.

  Not that this is love.

  But I’m willing to concede to feelings of affection stronger than I’ve let myself feel in years.

  “You had breakfast?” I ask her.

  She shakes her head, that smile still lighting her pretty brown eyes.

  “Then let’s go celebrate a book launch.”

  25

  Henri

  Wow.

  I had sex. With Luca. And it was fun, and it was good—so good—and I want to do it again, and I also want to ask him to marry me.

  But I am not going to ask him to marry me.

  This was my next test. The logical next step in my training to learn to not ducking fall in love.

  And yes, I mean ducking, because I’ve already used up my quotient of the other word for the week, and—

  No.

  You know what?

  Fuck it.

  That’s right.

  Fuck it.

  Elsa might think that a person shouldn’t use the fuck word, but that doesn’t mean that I, Henrietta Leonora Bacon, have to follow her rules too.

  I write books.

  Words are tools. And if I want to use the fuck word, I will use the fuck word.

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but please stop,” Luca says over omelets at a greasy spoon down the road from the hotel, where we’re having a peaceful breakfast away from all of his family while they work out their own problems. “Whatever it is, it’s not worth hyperventilating over.”

  I square my shoulders, look him in the eye—which is hard when I all want to do is stare at his rainbow hair—and let it all come out.

  Kind of. “I was thinking I should say fuck more often.”

  A woman at the next table gasps and covers her toddler’s ears, and I wince. “Sorry,” I whisper to her.

  She glares at me.

  Luca coughs behind his orange juice.

  Gah, he’s so handsome when his eyes crinkle like that.

  “Maybe we save you saying that lovely word for the next time we’re alone,” he whispers, and I swear he’s whispering at exactly the right decibel level for the lady with the toddler to hear, and I know he’s putting that seductive quality in his voice for the benefit of every woman with ovaries who likes to spontaneously have orgasms in public to enjoy with their eggs and hash browns this morning.

  I fan my face.

  He grabs his phone, which he’s been checking obsessively since we ordered our food. I bat at it. “Put that away.”

  “Nora Dawn has outdone herself. I never thought I could love another vampire as much as I love Confucius, but Adonis is my new book boyfriend forever and ever with beet sauce on top.”

  My cheeks go up in flames and I have to grab my shirt and fan my own armpits with it, because hearing the good reviews always makes me sweat.

  “They’re saying that because—”

  “Because you’re smart and talented and funny and people like your books,” he interrupts. “Say it with me, Henri. I am smart. I am funny. I have jam on my cheek.”

  “Ohmygosh, I’m wearing my jam?”

  He licks his thumb, reaches across the chipped Formica table and swipes it over my cheek. “Not anymore. Now, the other two parts. I am smart. I am funny…”

  “I know I’m smart and funny. I just don’t know if I’m…”

  He lifts a brow, and I realize his brows are still that lovely shade of chestnut rather than rainbow-colored like his hair.

  “Never mind.” I dig back into my omelet, because no good will come of telling Luca that I don’t know if I’m lovable.

  He’ll either tell me I am, or he won’t, and neither will fix the fact that I need to get over liking him.

  He’s not my forever.

  I snort softly to myself, because no man is my forever.

  Luca’s not eating when I glance up again.

  No, he’s staring at me like I’m a puzzle and he’s going to find my missing piece.

  It’s you, Luca Rossi. You’re my missing piece.

  The thought makes me drop my fork, and dozens of eyeballs turn to stare at us as my fork clatters not once, but four times as I try to grab it—and miss—over and over again until I almost knock over my tea mug too.

  “I should hurry up,” I blurt. “I haven’t spent much time in Boston, and you probably need to get to the ballpark, and I can explore the city. It’s a good thing to do to distract me on release day. Otherwise I’ll obsess over reviews and charts and all kinds of things that I don’t need to obsess about. Oh! And I should see if I can get a ticket to the game, since I’m here. Unless you want me to go back to Copper Valley. I can catch a flight home. It’s no problem. I’ll—”

  “Henri.”

  I can’t look at him as I mumble, “Yes?”

  He doesn’t answer right away, and when I finally look up at him, he’s frowning.

  Of course he is.

  I’m annoying. I talk too much. I’m not pretty like Mackenzie or Tanesha or Marisol—I’m plain, lumpy, weird-haired, boring-eyed Henri with a job that isn’t even a real job.

  But I guess being a baseball player isn’t a real job either, is it?

  I kinda doubt my family would judge Luca for that though.

  “What do you want?” he finally asks.

  You. “Ohmygosh, I forgot to feed Dogzilla.”

  Yeah.

  I’m a big ol’ chicken.

  But this isn’t about avoiding Luca. Not entirely.

  It’s also about avoiding myself.

  26

  Henri

  The next several days are weird. I fly home from Boston with the team, including Nonna, but not including Luca’s parents.

  His dad apparently left town not long after I ran into him in the lobby. I didn’t think I�
�ll put you in a book and make you a deadbeat vampire dad too was a real threat, so it’s likely Nonna or Morgan were responsible for him leaving, but I still feel like I did my part.

  Especially since I doubt either one of them added it’s never too late to have a real relationship with someone, but only if you’re planning on giving more than you receive, because that’s what you owe a child you’ve disappointed for this many years.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have meddled, but considering Luca has lots of pictures of his mom and his nonna and his aunts and uncles and cousins with him in that box I found in the basement when I was looking for duct tape, but none of him with his father, I don’t think I got it wrong.

  Luca and I go back to sleeping in the same bed with our backs to each other and occasionally making noises like we’re having sex, while not touching, though there’s a layer of awkward that wasn’t there before Boston, and I don’t know how to get rid of it.

  Possibly breaking up with him would work, except that thought makes my heart do that thing where it feels like I’m on an out-of-control roller coaster and one of those little hills takes me by surprise when we go over it too fast.

  I don’t want to break up with Luca.

  I’m not ready for that.

  During the day when I’m not hiding in his basement writing and he’s not at the ballpark, we’ve had some fascinating discussions where neither of us touch the flaming elephantasaurus in the room that is this weird tension between us.

  For instance, I’ve learned that he likes to jog through the zoo a few days a week during the off-season to get his animal fix, and that he’s always wanted pets but feels like it’s unfair to them given how much he travels. He spends a few hours a week helping out at food pantries or animal shelters or visiting with kids at the children’s hospital. If he can’t sleep, he’ll binge watch Sherlock. He’s three classes shy of a degree, because he took classes during the winter when he was in the minors but couldn’t decide what he wanted to major in, since he knew he wanted the big league paycheck and needed to put his primary emphasis on continuously improving his body until it was in major-league shape.

  And he’s usually much further along in his fixer-upper projects at this point in a season, but he likes Copper Valley, and he’s stalling on the project for fear that when it’s done, the universe will know it’s time to trade him again.