Real Fake Love

by Pippa Grant

  He sweeps me up in a hug and twirls. “And you’re going to enjoy the hell out of this party.”

  When he sets me down, he frowns, then he lifts the bandana and captures my lips in the sweetest kiss ever. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  And dammit if that doesn’t make me tear up. “Me too.”

  “Henri—”

  He cuts himself off as he gazes at me, his green eyes searching for something while his grip tightens on my hips.

  I must look crazy, like a cross between a mad scientist and a train bandit, whereas he’s in his baseball pants that make his butt look amazing, wearing his hat backwards, which is stupidly adorable, but he’s gazing at me like I’m the most beautiful, precious sight he’s ever seen.

  This man.

  He sees me.

  He sees me, and he’s still here, not despite who I am, but maybe, possibly, because of who I am?

  “Marry me,” he says suddenly.

  I momentarily freeze—my toes, my fingers, my face, my heart—and then I suck in a surprised breath so hard that I get the tip of the bandana caught up in my mouth and have to spit it out, because I forgot how my hands work.

  His grip tightens. “Henri—”

  “No,” I gasp, because I’m seeing my future so clearly. Me, in another fancy dress. Luca, sweating profusely next to the minister. His nonna cackling. His father crashing the ceremony. His mother whispering the question about if he wants to do this to make his grandmother happy, and then he’d be running, and this time, it wouldn’t be a wedding ruining my dream of what I think love should look like.

  This time, it would be a wedding ruining something that feels more real than any love I’ve ever experienced.

  This isn’t I could settle with you and be happy love.

  This is I don’t ever want to live without you love.

  This is you’ve set the bar for what love should be love.

  “We’re perfect.” He leans down to eye level, and he’s a little blurry between the tears and the goggles fogging up, but I can still feel his gaze. “You don’t want to have another wedding, and I don’t want to go through all of this ridiculousness again with Nonna, so we’ll have a quiet little thing at the courthouse, and we can both escape the whole dating scene and be good friends who have amazing sex and laugh and—”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “Do you love me?”

  “Henri—”

  “Do you? Do you love me, or do you simply like me enough to settle?”

  “I—” He stops, and with all of his teammates cheering and celebrating and spraying champagne and kissing and hugging their loved ones around us, he chokes.

  He can’t say he loves me.

  He can’t say he loves me.

  “I asked you to help me learn to not fall in love, Luca Rossi. And you did one better. You helped me realize what love is. What I deserve. What every human being deserves. But this? This? I never would’ve expected this from you. Not even when we first met.”

  I don’t wait for him to try again to say something he doesn’t feel, and instead, I hand my hat, my goggles, and my bandana to the security guy on the way out the door.

  I thought being left at the altar was the worst thing that could ever happen.

  Turns out, I was wrong.

  I was so very, very wrong.

  33

  Luca

  I can’t get to Henri fast enough. People keep getting in my way.

  Nonna wants to hug me. Mom wants to hug me. My teammates and their wives and girlfriends want to hug me.

  And I want to catch up to the light in my life that’s slipping away.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Mom asks as I try to dodge her. “This is what you’ve been working for since you were so little you couldn’t even hold a bat.”

  “Henri—”

  She lifts a brow.

  Nonna cackles behind me, and I spin on her. “This is your fault. You and your fucking meddling and your Eye and your ziti—you made me fall for Henri.”

  And now she’s leaving, because I fucked up.

  I got swept up in the moment, asked her the one thing I promised I’d never ask her, and then I choked.

  Mom rubs my back. “Let her go. She’ll realize her mistake soon enough.”

  “The good ones always do,” Nonna agrees. “She’s a good one. I like her.”

  “She didn’t—”

  Fuck.

  I duck and dodge and finally reach the hallway, but when I race to the parking garage, she’s gone from there too. So I leap into Fluffy Maple and crank her engine, and—nothing.

  She doesn’t start.

  My damn car won’t start.

  I’m still in my cleats. I’m soaked with alcohol. I’m using my spare key that I hide under the wheel well because my wallet and driver’s license are back in the locker room, and the one woman who’s come to mean the entire world to me thinks I don’t love her because I can’t say the words, and if I can’t say the words, do I truly love her?

  Do I?

  Do I love her, or am I taking the chicken way out? Offering to keep her from getting hurt by anyone else, while making sure I won’t be either?

  We fit.

  We fucking fit, but I said the wrong two words, and now she’s gone, and not only is she gone, but I can’t get my damn car to start.

  Why won’t my car start?

  “You need a jump, Mr. Rossi?” The parking lot security guard jogs over. “Your lady tried, but—”

  I whip my head up. “Henri tried to use my car?”

  “Yes, sir. Flipped the hood open, tinkered a little…oh. Huh. Hm. You want me to check your battery cables, sir?”

  I thunk my head against the wheel, but only once, because time’s wasting. “You know anything about distributor caps?”

  His face lights up. “Sure do. You must’a pissed her off good if Miss Henri broke your car. She’s one of the good ones. Brought me a box of chocolates last week. Said everyone deserves a thank you.”

  God.

  That’s Henri.

  She notices everyone.

  I glance at the guy’s nametag, because I’ve never done that before, and why haven’t I? Why haven’t I?

  My conscience answers that one for me.

  Because you’re an asshole.

  “Thanks, Phil.”

  He nods. “No trouble.”

  I can’t tip him, because I don’t have my wallet, but I make a mental note to send him a fruit basket.

  Shit.

  A fruit basket?

  I need Henri.

  I need my light, and I need my balance, and I need my Henri.

  But when I get to my house, she’s gone.

  She left a suitcase and her glittery coffee tumbler that spells out exactly what’s wrong and right with her—addicted to love stories—but she took her cat.

  She’s gone.

  I sink to the floor in my bedroom, and all I can see is Henri.

  Henri tangled in my bedsheets. Henri pounding furiously at her laptop keys in the closet. Henri getting stuck under the bed trying to do “research.” Henri contemplating what the ceiling fan would say if it could talk, and then getting freaked out when it broke and had to be replaced a day later.

  Henri sleeping.

  Henri sitting up in bed and yawning with her short, crazy hair all over the place.

  Henri talking to Dogzilla when she thought I wasn’t listening.

  My bedroom is an empty shell without the one voice that used to annoy me and now I can’t imagine going a day without hearing.

  I grab my phone to call her, except I don’t have it.

  I don’t have my phone.

  Jesus.

  Fuck.

  It’s at the ballpark with my wallet and keys.

  I reach for it again to text one of the guys to bring it to me, but I can’t text without my fucking phone.

  Jesus.

  Jesus on a cannoli.

  Where wo
uld she go?

  Where would Henri go?

  Where wouldn’t she go is a better question. The Henri I know is as likely to go sit at a diner and make new best friends with someone who will want to hear her life story as she is to head to the airport and decide that right now, she needs space, and that space will come in the form of heading to Europe for the weekend.

  Or for the next seven months.

  Or until she meets a yodeler in Switzerland whose lederhosen fit just the right way and she decides she’s in love.

  Fuck.

  I’ll find her.

  I will.

  I race back to my car, which starts fine this time, and I head to the usual spots. Her favorite diner. Her favorite ice cream shop. Her second favorite bakery, because it’s closer than her favorite bakery, which I also hit when every other place yields no Henri.

  I cruise hotel parking lots. I check out parks.

  And at three in the morning, I give up and head back home.

  Max is waiting for me in my driveway. “Forgot a few things,” he says dryly, holding out my wallet and phone.

  I lunge for the phone.

  No calls from Henri. No texts. No emails.

  I blink.

  I have a computer.

  I have a computer.

  I could’ve video called her phone from my computer, and instead, I’ve been driving in circles in a giant-ass city, trying to guess which of the four hundred hotels or seven million food establishments she might be at.

  “This gonna affect your game?” Max asks.

  I scrub a hand over my face. “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m a fucking professional and I can fucking compartmentalize, but it won’t be a problem, because I’m getting her back.”

  I am.

  I’ll get her back.

  I’ll take back the proposal. And all the idiotic things that fell out of my mouth next as I was struggling with realizing that she was going to continue saying no, because marry me is the very, very worst thing I could’ve ever said to Henri, even if having Henri by my side for the rest of my life is the only thing I’ve ever wanted as much as I want baseball.

  I fire her a quick text.

  I’m so sorry. I know better. Call me. Please? I’ll make this up to you.

  She doesn’t answer immediately.

  The small message beneath the text doesn’t change from delivered to read either.

  Shit. Shit.

  Max pushes off his Mercedes SUV. “Look, Luca, you need to do whatever will make you happy, but all this shit your family’s putting you through? That’s not love, man. That’s not what anyone needs. You want neutral ground where no one’s giving you shit or trying to tell you how to live your life, you know where I live.”

  “She’ll text me back. She’s probably—”

  “I don’t know shit about love beyond what I see in movies, but even I know you don’t want your live engagement photos to happen when you look like your bride-to-be lost a bet over who could most look like they belong in a mental institution.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth.” I’m slamming him against his car before my brain can process that he’s grinning.

  It’s a dark grin, but it’s a grin. “Yeah. Thought so.”

  “Screw you.”

  “Not enjoying your pain, Luca. Making sure you’re good enough for her.”

  I’m not, and we both know it. “I don’t want another dickhead hurting her by giving her dreams about forever when they don’t deserve a forever with her. Nobody does. She’s too—she’s too good for all of us.”

  “Any woman who’ll send a teddy bear bouquet to a guy’s nuts after he gets racked by a line drive really is.”

  I gape at him.

  He shrugs. “Stafford told me. While he was sitting on an ice pack after that game in Philly. Didn’t want to tell you so you wouldn’t get jealous. Or get her in trouble if she’s using your credit card.”

  “What’d she do for you?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Cole. What did she do for you?”

  He sighs. “You remember the father’s trip?”

  “Do any of us not?”

  “She found my first tee-ball coach. Had him call me. Offer to come next year if I wanted.”

  “That’s…”

  “The nicest thing anyone could’ve done. And she knew because she listened, and she’s a freak when it comes to finding things out. So, yeah. She’s too good for all of us.”

  I stare at my phone again, where Henri still hasn’t texted back.

  She could be asleep.

  Or she could be hundreds of miles away by now.

  She left an entire house behind once. Why would she worry about a piece or two of luggage and some clothes and a coffee mug, when she has everything she needs—her cat and her computer—already with her?

  Max is right.

  I don’t deserve her.

  34

  Luca

  It’s been eight days.

  It’s been eight days since I saw Henri. I stopped calling, texting, and emailing her four days ago when my mother called me a stalker and my grandmother agreed.

  My grandmother and my mother are new best friends.

  I don’t know what happened, but they’ve both decided to let bygones be bygones, to move in with me and help with my renovations, and to sit up and play cards all hours of the night, and they suddenly agree on everything from which brand of jelly is best to what’s best for my life.

  Fine. I know what happened.

  Henri happened.

  Henri happened, and she left my life better for having been here, which I’m not thinking about, because I need to concentrate on baseball.

  Our first two games of the league championship are in Seattle. We come home with the series tied.

  Every time I run into the Lady Fireballs, Henri’s missing.

  Of course she is.

  She left.

  I spooked her, and she left.

  And every time I see one of the Lady Fireballs, I start to ask if they’ve heard from Henri, and they give me one of those looks, and I walk away.

  I don’t want to know.

  I don’t want to hear that she’s moved on. That she went to a remote cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains for a few days to collect herself, and a shapeshifting bear man stumbled into her cabin and she tended his wounds and got engaged and he left her because he, too, realized he could never be good enough for her.

  I seriously need to get a grip.

  But at least my game’s not suffering.

  Much.

  It’s almost harder being at home, because between innings, we have control of the video screen, and every time a kid starts doing the Gel, I think of Nonna, then I think of Henri.

  When the mascots get up to their antics, I think of Henri smashing a pie in Glow’s face, and then Henri cutting my mascot socks and sewing them into itty-bitty mascot socks for Dogzilla so that the mascots could also be subjected to the litter box.

  When I hit a home run in the bottom of the eighth during game three, I think of coming home to Henri and her excited smile. You hit a home run! You hit a home run and you won!

  And where the baseball stadium has always been my happy place, all I see is what I’ve lost.

  We lose our second home game, and then our third, and then we’re on the road.

  Back to Seattle, one loss away from being kicked out of the playoffs, or two wins away from making it to the final round that could crown us as baseball’s number one team.

  We’re six wins from going from zero to hero in the span of a year, and nothing about this feels anywhere near as good as it should.

  Mackenzie quits her job and comes with us to Seattle. “Win or lose, I’m there,” she informs Francisco as she’s boarding the plane when he asks if she’s afraid of changing the routine. “I was going to quit anyway since clearly it’s good luck for you all to have me in Florida with you for spring training. Just moved
it up a few months.”

  Her gaze lands on me, and she opens her mouth like she wants to add something else, then shakes her head and moves past me to claim a seat two rows back.

  I give Brooks the what the hell was that? look.

  He ignores me. “Hey, Torres. Saw Marisol’s necklace. About time, idiot.”

  I whip my head around, and I’m not alone.

  Emilio’s grinning like an goofball. “She’s my boo. Made her wait long enough, and I don’t wanna—”

  He cuts himself off as his gaze lands on me, and we all know what he’s thinking.

  I don’t wanna fuck it up.

  Marisol didn’t want a diamond engagement ring.

  She wanted a necklace that reminded her of her favorite novel from her teenage years.

  And Henri didn’t want a ring, or a wedding, or a husband at all, but I got so wrapped up in the idea of keeping her forever that I thought proposing a different kind of wedding without all of that love crap would be exactly what she’d like, when in reality, I basically offered to be the next guy to humiliate her.

  Fuck.

  I’d never humiliate Henri. I love her.

  I. Love. Her.

  I lean into the aisle. “Elliott. I need to talk to your wife.”

  “Can’t hear you.”

  I glare.

  He gives me the suck it up shrug.

  And then Glow the Firefly drops into the seat next to me.

  “Smile, Rossi,” our team photographer calls. “Wait, don’t. That was a better expression.”

  “Team yearbook!” someone crows.

  I spend the entire flight from the east to the west coast with Glow sitting next to me, and now I’m wondering why the mascot didn’t need to at least go to the bathroom once.

  Mackenzie spends the next day and a half avoiding me.

  It’s mid-October.

  There are Halloween decorations everywhere you look, and I can’t even run to the corner drugstore for a freaking candy bar without seeing rows of costumes that all make me think of Henri and Dogzilla.

  I’m about to get a cat.

  I’m seriously in danger of walking into a shelter and leaving with a cat.

  I miss the cat.

  I miss Henri’s companionship. I miss her smile. I miss the way her lips move when she’s typing, and the way she gets excited over sweet corn from a farmers market, and the way she sometimes misses her mouth when she tries to take a drink of tea while she’s writing because she’s so into her scene.