by Grant, Pippa
Cooper laughs. “What, you’re gonna tie your own shoelaces together?”
“Not telling. But you are going down, my dear brother. So, so down.”
“You’re going down.”
They need to stop talking about going down. And yeah, that’s one more reason I hate Tillie Jean Rock.
“If you’d been the one to walk through your front door like you were supposed to be, you’d be glittering, and Max would still be secretly in love with me.”
They both look at me, Cooper like dude, I’m sorry I have a sister, Tillie Jean like c’mon, Max, what’s it take to get a reaction out of you?
I jerk my head toward the bathroom. “Back in a minute,” I tell Stafford.
I’m not coming back. I’m slipping out the back door. The bar’s too crowded, the people too happy, and I’m on edge.
Happens sometimes.
Shouldn’t be here. I’m in a mood. Need to get back to the house I rented for the winter, read a little, write some shit down, breathe, and start fresh in the morning.
But I need to take a leak first, and when I walk out of the john, I bump into Cooper’s dad.
He smiles, just like he always does, and once again, I’m reminded of all the reasons I hate Tillie Jean.
She has no idea how good she has it with a father like hers.
“Hey, Max. Good to have you here.” He claps me on the shoulder. “I know you kids are planning on working hard, but don’t let the pressure get to you. Already proved yourselves this year, and you know baseball. Never know what’ll happen.”
Relax relax relax. “That’s half of why we love the game.”
He chuckles. “No matter what next season brings, you boys made us all proud.”
Hello, sucker punch number two.
It’s not that I didn’t play my heart out on the field.
I did.
It’s more that it’s always someone else’s dad telling me they’re proud. Not sure why that one hurts tonight—I let it go a long time ago—but there it is.
It’s one more cosmic smack in the junk on a night that I should’ve stayed home.
I nod to him, step around him, and head toward the party room and the back door to freedom, but I barely get inside before I bump into someone again.
And this time the bump comes with a hint of rum and a subconscious twitch between my shoulders, followed immediately by a cold splash of something all down my shirt and jeans.
“Oh, crap!” Tillie Jean leaps back, looks up at me, and makes a face that would be hilarious on any other woman in the world. Lips pursed out in an O, eyes bulging under wonky eyebrows, you’re gonna kill me now, aren’t you? replacing her usual hey, big guy, what’s up? swagger. “Oh, crap crap crap, I did not just do this again.”
“TJ, give the guy a break.” Cooper rises from his spot halfway across the room as Tillie Jean grabs a napkin and attacks me with it.
“I know, I know, you’re gonna start thinking I’m doing this on purpose,” she mutters while she swipes my shirt.
My favorite Boring Distillery T-shirt that’s been washed the exact right number of times to make it soft as butter, and that they discontinued a year ago, is now coated in brown paint water.
Ruined.
Fucking. Ruined.
“You—” I cut myself off with a grunt as she goes south of the border with the napkins, and I leap back. “I got this. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
I’m not fine.
My pulse is kicking up and my muscles are clenching and there’s that itchy spot between my shoulder blades that I can never reach, getting itchier by the minute.
Bar’s too crowded.
I know they’re all good people. I know they mean well. I know tomorrow is a new day and everything will be fucking fine, but I’m not into it tonight.
“Hey, Aunt Glory, send me a bill, yeah?” Cooper calls to the bartender as he nudges Tillie Jean out of the way. He makes eye contact—panic attack, man? I got you—and jerks his head at the back door. “C’mon. Let’s go goat-tipping.”
“Stay,” I mutter to him. I’m not having a damn panic attack. I refuse. I’m just pissed. “Just need clean pants and a new favorite shirt.”
“Sure. Then—”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He holds my gaze, and I want to punch him. Again.
Not because he’s an asshole.
More because I am.
After an eternity that’s probably only half a second, he nods. “Nine at my house. Mountain sprints, baby.”
“Can’t wait.”
I wave to Trevor and Robinson, nod to the bartender, and escape as fast as I can without looking like I’m trying to escape.
The cold post-season air hits me as soon as I step outside, and I suck in a full breath that doesn’t quite quell the agitation. Ripping my shirt off and basking in the chill doesn’t help either. I’m still too hot.
I’m always too hot, but tonight, it’s worse. I’d rip my pants off too if I thought that would help, but it wouldn’t.
No sense asking what’s wrong with me.
It’s always the same.
Fucking anxiety.
Usually I have it under control. But since we made the post-season, it’s been sneaking up and hitting me worse.
Not hard to figure out why.
Play for a team that finishes with the worst record in baseball nine years out of ten, people don’t expect much of you. You still work hard, but you get to play hard too without much thought. Even before I was with the Fireballs, I played for a team that underperformed.
But you play for a team that goes from zero to hero in under a year, with more press than the team that won the whole damn thing, all of us getting near-daily calls from our agents with sponsorship and endorsement offers, interview inquiries, and discussions of next year’s salary negotiations, and there’s pressure.
Get stronger. Faster. Throw harder. Every day counts. Your body is a machine. Rest. Lift. Run. Stronger. Faster. Harder.
Win more.
It hasn’t been a full week since we got here for winter training, and the pressure’s solid. People think the season makes you.
They’re wrong.
The off-season training makes you. And I’m starting it wrong.
Fuck.
I’m a block away when I realize I’m going the wrong direction, and when I turn, there she is.
Again.
“Go away, Tillie Jean.”
Her brows are furrowed as she stands there right outside the bar. “You heading back the long way?”
“Yes.”
“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to glitter you. Or throw the paint water all over you. Or—no, wait, okay, I did mean to flirt incessantly with you to annoy you and Cooper.” She smiles.
It’s a friendly smile. An olive branch smile. The kind that promises she’ll quit trying to annoy me if I quit making it so easy for her to succeed.
She glances at my bare chest, then starts to shrug out of her Fireballs hoodie. “Do you want my—”
I cut her off with a grunt and cross the street. No idea if she drove or not, but I discovered two seconds after I unpacked my suitcase that she lives next door to the house I’m renting here for the winter, which means if she’s done for the night, she’s probably going the same way.
And yeah, if she’s going the same way, I’m taking the long way.
The very long way.
My pants will dry eventually, and then they’re going in the trash too, right next to my favorite shirt.
Dammit.
“We could call a truce, you know.”
“Go away, Tillie Jean.” Not sure why I think that’ll work the second time I say it, but it’s all I have in me.
Her footsteps sound on the empty street as she jogs along behind me. “I’m not saying I don’t deserve having my house toilet papered. Or something way more creative than that. It’s a rule. I get it. I glittered you. You get to pay me back. I wouldn’t even arg
ue if you got me back for the dirty paint water, even though that really was an accident. But maybe it’s time we call a truce on the other thing.”
And she just went there.
Of every memory I have in my adult life, the memory of the first time I met Tillie Jean is one that I have apparently not actively scrubbed hard enough out of my brain. And there it is again, popping up in technicolor glory, with all of the complicated shit that went with it. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of the two of us, I’d be giving more here.”
It’s forty degrees, I’m shirtless, in soaked jeans, and I’m breaking out in a sweat. “Go back to the bar.”
“Max.”
I swing around and glare at her. She’s three inches from me, all blue eyes and dark hair and tight shirt over breasts that I regularly pretend I’ve never seen while she holds her hoodie between us.
“What?” I snap.
“Can we please call a truce?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re here all winter and it’s frankly exhausting pretending to like you all the time. Also, if we call a truce, you might not growl and glower every time you see me, and then Cooper might start wondering if there’s something going on between us, and what’s better than torturing Cooper?”
She smiles again, eyes lighting up with mischief and an offer of friendship, which is something she gives so damn freely without having a clue how much of a privilege it is for her to be safe and happy and loved in this adorkable little town where she can offer that friendship without hesitation.
Reason number three hundred seventy-six why I hate Tillie Jean Rock.
“Fine. Truce. Whatever.”
Her lips purse. They’re painted a deep rose, and I should not be looking at Tillie Jean Rock’s lips when I’m on edge. I don’t do smart things when I’m on edge.
I don’t date. I screw around.
And if Tillie Jean wasn’t Cooper’s sister, I would’ve screwed around with her a long, long time ago.
She’s living, breathing temptation when she’s not talking, which, thank god, she does all the time.
Reason seven hundred forty-four and reason sixty-two.
She crosses her arms over her shirt—her clean pink Anchovies Pizza T-shirt that’s so tight I can see the outline of her bra under the streetlamp, and fuck me, it looks lacy.
I rip my gaze to the sky, turn, and stroll away again.
And again, she chases after me. “I grew up as the baby after Grady and Cooper. I know when I’m being told something just to shut me up.”
“It’d go a long way toward a truce, then, if you shut up, wouldn’t it?”
“Chicken versus egg. Are you cranky because I flirt with you, or do I flirt with you because you’re cranky? And why’s it only me? You flirt back with everyone, but not me.”
My fingers twitch. My palms are getting clammy. And I can’t slow my heart rate. “I’m cranky because you flirt with me.”
She jogs along beside me. “So if I quit flirting, you’ll quit being cranky?”
“No.”
“That’s not how truces work.”
“We don’t need a truce. We need you to shut up.” And I need to get home. Shower. Breathe.
Quit being such an asshole.
But she laughs.
She laughs, and it’s pure joy and uninhibited happiness dancing through the night and leaving dents when it bounces off my personal bubble.
Reason five hundred.
“If you only knew the number of times my brothers told me to shut up,” she muses. “Pro tip: that doesn’t work on me.”
Of course it doesn’t.
“Now, if you’d—mmph!”
I’m possessed.
Possessed by the anxiety devil that wants peace and needs quiet and sees only one possible way to make a woman stop talking for three damn seconds.
You kiss her.
You kiss her, because she can’t talk when her mouth is busy, and she’s been flirting with me for four damn years, and yeah, there’s no small part of me hoping she’ll realize this is a bad idea and rack me in the nuts.
Nothing distracts a guy from worrying about stupid shit months down the road like immediate pain.
But this is Tillie Jean Rock.
And I have underestimated her.
She’s not kneeing me in the nads. Nor is she shutting up.
She’s making gaspy little moans as she leans into the kiss, her tongue darting out to swipe at my lips, tasting like coffee and rum and temptation under the stars, her hot, silky hands settling gently on my bare chest like she’s afraid if she touches me, I’ll melt away like cotton candy in the rain, and kissing isn’t enough.
I want to pull her behind the nearest building and rip her shirt and pants off and screw her hard and fast. The only thing better than a solid racking to knock an anxiety attack out of the ballpark is a good hard screw.
My hands are on her hips, ready to lift her and carry her around the corner when a noise breaks through the haze.
Voices.
Fuck.
I’m in Shipwreck.
I’m in Cooper’s hometown.
I’m kissing his sister.
His very off-limits sister.
Reason number eight hundred ninety-nine…
Wrenching away is second nature. The wild look in Tillie Jean’s eyes—half what just happened and half yes, please—sets my teeth on edge and my pulse flying higher than it can handle.
“I said shut up,” I rasp out.
I swipe the back of my hand over my mouth, feel the jitters starting in my fingertips, and take off.
I need to be alone.
I need to be alone right now.
4
Tillie Jean
Max Cole is a terrible kisser.
Not the part where his lips were warm and delicious. Or the part where he took charge and laid it on me. Or the part where he was a solid wall of growly-bear muscle and touching him was like touching summer in the middle of winter.
But definitely the part where other than initiating the kiss, he didn’t work hard at continuing it.
And the part where he jerked back so hard and fast, it was clear he forgot who I was when he decided to kiss me, which I’m pretty sure he did only to make me stop talking.
And also the part where he ran away.
Ran.
I’m talking full-on sprint down Blackbeard Avenue to get away from me.
And now, twelve hours later, I’m exhausted from a restless night of reliving it, and trying to pretend everything’s fine. The only thing worse than having an off-day in Shipwreck is having an off-day in Shipwreck when you’re supposed to be leading morning boot camp aerobics at the senior center after spilling the coffee that you tell everyone is a protein drink because you were supposed to give up coffee—again—weeks ago.
But if I wasn’t supposed to have coffee, it wouldn’t be so readily available, now would it?
“Shake that booty, Nana,” I call.
Pant, really. Possibly I should do this more than once a week.
Or possibly I’m still reeling from that kiss with Max last night.
“That’s right, ladies and gents! Get those legs up and kick!” I stop demonstrating and walk around the class under the guise of making sure everyone else is kicking right.
It has nothing to do with needing a rest myself, or worrying that the kick in my pulse is a reaction to too much caffeine.
And no, I’m not telling the average age of the participants here this morning. Especially since I feel a little older than all of them after tossing and turning all night last night and telling myself lies.
Lie number one: I only liked kissing Max because there are so few other opportunities for kissing in a town this small.
Lie number two: I would totally not kiss him again.
Lie number three: He’s not that attractive.
Lie number four: I don’t like him like that.
Lie numbe
r five: I didn’t look out my window to see if he was up and moving around his house sixteen million times overnight and this morning, since my bedroom windows look directly into what I know are his bedroom windows, which have the shades completely drawn, but which aren’t so solid that I can’t tell when his lights are on.
You get the idea. And let’s not talk about why I signed up to lead senior aerobics when the vacancy came up a year ago.
It has nothing to do with that article I read about Max doing yoga with the senior residents of his building on his off-days at home during the season.
Nope. Nothing at all.
The timing was pure coincidence.
“Nice punch, Mom. Take out those pirates. Kick! Punch! One, two, three, and squat! How low can you go?
“Is she extra chipper today?” Aunt Bea gasps.
“She’s extra not doing it with us,” Mom replies.
“I already ran four miles today, ladies and gents.” More like my body ran four hundred mental laps around analyzing that kiss last night. Technicalities. Doc Adamson will bust my ass if he looks at my FitBit data from the past two days, and not just because I’ve been guzzling coffee like I have a leaking gas tank. “You’ve got this.”
“Maaaah!” Sue, my brother Grady’s goat, replies.
Yes, a goat.
My mother brought her grand-goat to aerobic boot camp while Grady and Annika are off on their honeymoon.
“You too, Sue.” I rub his head. “Kick and punch, little nephew. Kick and punch and squat.”
“We need to see you kicking and punching and squatting, Matilda Jean,” Nana says.
“Lower on that squat, Nana. You want Pops to think you’re going soft? He’ll let his parrot walk all over you if you don’t keep that booty in good shape.”
“Your booty’s never been in good shape, Tillie Jean,” Cooper calls from the doorway. He’s lounging against the frame in his Fireballs track suit, Hydro Flask in hand, his you love me grin out in full force.
“Cooper!”
It’s like a flash mob. All of my aerobics students abandon their mats and charge him.
I pop my fists to my hips and eyeball his water bottle. Yes, with jealousy. I forgot my own and I’m parched after not sleeping, not working out, and not doing senior aerobics. “Hello, workout people. Those glutes aren’t going to shape themselves. And you all saw him just last night.”