The Grumpy Player Next Door: Copper Valley Fireballs #3

by Grant, Pippa

  He stares at me for a second, then ducks his head with a rough laugh. “You’re like this all the time, aren’t you?”

  “Fabulous?” I croak as I realize my head needs me to hold it together before it splits open. I press my hands to my head just above my ears and try to push it back together, but this isn’t helping.

  He cracks a snicker again. “Yes. Completely uninhibited.”

  “Fearlessly me.” I snag another piece of bread and slowly lower my head back to my pillow. “You should try it.”

  “Being fearlessly you? No thank you.”

  “Who would you be if you weren’t afraid of who you think you are?”

  His eyes snap to mine like it’s the most profound question he’s ever been asked.

  I get it.

  It’s the same question my therapist asked me seven years ago, and yeah, it rocked my world too.

  His Adam’s apple bobs, and after a moment of holding my gaze, he rubs his chin. “I’d be a guy who’d risk asking a woman out for something more than a one-time-only thing.”

  Good morning, nipples. Lovely to see you made it through yesterday’s drunken escapades. You too, Ms. Clit. “Why’s that a risk?”

  “You know why.”

  “You’re not Chance Schwartz, Max. You’re Max Fucking Cole, and you wouldn’t be here if Cooper didn’t think you were a decent guy.”

  “He invited the whole team.”

  “And you don’t think he would’ve figured out how to subtly suggest somewhere else for you to go, with or without the help of other people, if he didn’t want you here?”

  “Your brother. Cooper Rock. The guy who went out of his way to ask Darren and Luca to sign a ball for a dude he hated more than life itself in high school, and not because the guy was dying or because his life imploded or for any reason other than that it made it through the grapevine that the asshole wanted a signed ball?”

  He has a point.

  Cooper wouldn’t have tried to keep Max from coming out here any more than he would’ve tried to keep any other guy on the team from coming out for team workouts. He has this belief that all people are inherently good, even if they’re annoying from time to time, and as someone who’s been fortunate in every aspect of his life, he owes a karmic debt of kindness to the world.

  He was the guy who came home in late October slobber-crying in Mom’s kitchen. It wasn’t that he was broken over the Fireballs getting eliminated from the play-offs.

  Nope.

  Those tears were because he was so overjoyed that he’d been a part of making his lovable losers get as far as they did.

  “Fine. But you’re still Max Fucking Cole.”

  Ah, there’s the growly bear stare.

  It’s so familiar and perfect, I can’t resist smiling. “Take me to breakfast.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then let me take you to breakfast.”

  “No.”

  “In Sarcasm. It’ll make everyone talk. So much gossip. But you haven’t lived until you’ve had a bubble waffle with ice cream for breakfast to get over a hangover, and Annika’s family’s bakery makes the best bubble waffle sundaes ever.”

  “I’m not hungover.”

  “That’s okay. I’m hungover enough for both of us.”

  He goes quiet again, and I mentally cringe, which makes my head ache a little more.

  Is he sensitive about other people drinking? No one’s making him go out to The Grog, and I know he goes out to bars while the guys are on the road during the season. I’ve seen the pictures and heard the stories. So I don’t think he’s hung up over watching other people enjoy alcohol responsibly, but what do I really know about him?

  I’m lost in my head wondering what’s going on in his when he speaks again. “Coffee?”

  I wink. It’s habit, I swear. “Are you asking me out for coffee?”

  “Yes.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  “In public?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you pretending you’re my sister again?”

  “Backwards, TJ. I’m no one’s sister. But no. I’m not pretending I’m your brother. I’m asking you out to coffee because I know it’ll make you feel better, Ms. Coffeeholic.”

  Okay.

  Did not see that coming.

  “Can I go dressed like this?”

  “Wrapped in a sheet with hair that looks like you fought a rabid Shar-pei and lost last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t care. But do you want your cousin to give you another citation for disturbing the peace by looking like that?”

  Be still my heart.

  Max Cole is fitting in. Here. In Shipwreck. With me. Joking about Shipwreck things. Understanding how we work.

  And—liking it?

  I’m listening, Universe. I swear I’m listening.

  I push myself up to sitting again, fling back the covers, and don’t bother trying to hide that I’m only wearing a threadbare T-shirt and lace panties.

  His eyes go dark and he visibly swallows again, but he doesn’t move from his spot against my closet door.

  Nor does he move when I slide off the edge of my bed and stand on unsteady legs, putting my crotch more or less at eye level and only a foot or so from him.

  But he’s looking.

  He is definitely looking.

  And not running. Or trying to hide that he’s looking.

  Max Cole is checking me out and asking me out for coffee.

  I don’t know what game it is he’s playing now, but I am in. “Give me five minutes to shapeshift back into a human. And then you’re gonna get the coffee date of your life.”

  25

  Max

  One…two…three…

  No.

  No.

  This is just coffee. In a bright, seashell-themed coffeehouse on Blackbeard Avenue owned by Tillie Jean and Cooper’s mother, who’s not here, but her barista is giving me a knowing look.

  I tell myself it’s because Tillie Jean’s wearing oversize sunglasses and her hair still looks like she might have an echidna nest hiding in it, and while she put on clothes, her sweatpants are close to falling off and I’m nearly positive she doesn’t have a bra on under her hoodie.

  Not that anyone who wears a black hoodie with bright, sparkly purple letters spelling out FABULOUS across her chest needs a bra.

  The hoodie speaks for itself.

  “Oh my god, this coffee is the best,” she moans after downing the whole cup in one gulp.

  My cock leaps to attention and asks if it, too, can have some of what she’s having.

  Preferably with her.

  I lean back, hook my ankle over my knee to hide it, and signal the barista. “Can she get another one of those, but decaf?”

  TJ gasps in horror.

  And it’s so Tillie Jean, and exactly what I thought she’d do, that I’m suddenly laughing, and there’s no amount of holding my own mug to my face that’ll hide it.

  “You.” She points at me, eyes still as round as her pretty pink lips. “You are pranking me before the sun’s up on a Sunday morning.”

  “It’s eleven AM, Trouble Jean. Sun’s been up for hours.”

  She gasps. “And now you’re depriving me of my fantasies. For shame, Max Cole. For. Shame.”

  I am not flirting with Tillie Jean.

  I’m not flirting with Tillie Jean. I don’t have a death wish, and flirting with her in broad daylight, here in Cooper’s mother’s coffee shop, would be a death wish.

  I’m being her friend.

  At least, if anyone asks, that’s what I’m telling them.

  The truth?

  The truth’s hairier.

  The truth is, I’m taking Tillie Jean on a date. In her mother’s coffee shop. Where Cooper will hear about it.

  You don’t do that if you’re not serious about treating your teammate’s sister right.

  “TJ, you want another full-octane caramel macchiato?” the
barista calls.

  “Two, please.” She winces like the sound of her own voice is hurting her head. “This is why I don’t drink,” she mutters to me.

  “Alcohol turns you into a grandma sloth?”

  She pulls her sunglasses down just enough to peer at me with bloodshot eyes. “Have you been saving that one all morning?”

  “Nah. Came up with it on the spot. I’m quick like that.”

  I’m not touching her, but I want to be. I want to rub her temples and feed her more bread and hand her a coffee mug full of water to see if she’d drink it or if her palate will only tolerate coffee.

  I fucking missed her. She snuck in the cracks between all the reasons I’ve sworn I’ve hated her forever, and I fucking missed her.

  “You paint this?” I gesture around the room.

  She nods, then winces as she leans back in her chair, sunglasses back in place. “I was thirteen the first time Mom remodeled. Now, we freshen it up every three or four years. She’ll shut down for a weekend over the winter and Grady and Cooper and Dad stop by and offer exceptionally unhelpful ideas, like you should put an octopus eating a crab on that wall, Tillie Jean, but Cooper always gets us take-out for all of our meals, and Grady bakes us cookies, and all three of them move the tables around while we fight over which music to listen to. It’s glorious.”

  “You know how lucky you are to like everyone in your family?”

  A smile touches her lips. “I do. But you know, family comes in all flavors. I’ve never seen the team as tight as you guys seem to have been this year. You’re a family all your own.”

  “Still can’t pick them all ourselves though. If only we’d get rid of that Cooper guy. His feet stink.”

  “That’s the lucky socks.” She frowns. “What’s your lucky charm?”

  “Hard work.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Can’t change luck, but you can change yourself.”

  “Just when I think you can’t possibly get any sexier,” she murmurs.

  It’s not the casual, annoying flirting she used to do. There’s too much sincerity in her words, and it makes every spare drop of blood in my body—and some that are definitely not spare—surge to my dick. “So spying on me naked didn’t do it, but hearing I work hard did?”

  She grins. “It’s stair steps. Whatever will you do tomorrow?”

  I lean back, put my hands behind my head, and casually flex my triceps. “I’ll think of something.”

  “I am so dead if my brother walks in that door,” she whispers.

  “Because a friend who saw you needed a helping hand took you for coffee?”

  “That is not what this is, and you know it.”

  I do.

  But it’s nice to hear she agrees.

  It’s also probably a very good thing I can’t see her eyeballs. If I could, they’d probably be very obviously stripping me out of my clothes and humping me against the windows of the sun porch in here.

  Much like I’m mentally stripping her and bending her over the counter between the cake plate holding scones and the tip jar. “You know that photo shoot I did yesterday?”

  “Yes. You were in the way of the birds I was watching.”

  I wait for my brain to tell me to shut up.

  It doesn’t. “They want a longer interview. Want me to talk about playing with anxiety.”

  Her lips purse for a second before she gulps more coffee. “Do you want to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because you’d have to bare your soul, or because you think there are better guys in the league to open up and talk about the stuff that nobody talks about?”

  I jerk in my seat and look at her closer.

  One corner of her mouth hitches up. “You guys live out of hotels four to six months a year and get asked to do things like star naked in shampoo commercials and strip down for photo shoots on baseball diamonds in January. There’s pressure to always get better. You never know when an injury might derail you or when your contract won’t get picked up or when you’ll hit a rough patch. You’re born to win, but you can’t win every day. You are not the only guy in the league to battle demons, Max. So, do you want to be one more of the few guys talking about it to make other guys feel normal and know it’s okay to struggle, or do you want to be the guy waiting for someone else to talk about it to make you feel better?”

  I reach for my green tea. “Are you sure you’re hungover?”

  She grimaces, then grabs her head. “Very much so. I’ve also been around professional athletes for almost a decade, and it drives me freaking batty that you men are always like, I can handle my problems on my own. I don’t need to talk to anyone. Grunt. Sniff. Scratch. Grunt. Oh my god. Just talk to someone.”

  I shouldn’t be smiling, but she’s fucking adorable.

  And right.

  “I do talk to someone.”

  “High five, studmuffin. You get a gold star.”

  She holds out a palm, and I hit it with mine. “Thanks.”

  “So. You gonna do it? Gonna spill your guts in a national magazine to match all those buff pictures of that new tattoo you still haven’t told me about?”

  “Tillie Jean.” Mrs. Rock—the elder Mrs. Rock that all the kids in town call Nana—bursts through the door before I can answer. “Are you grilling that young man on what kind of oil he put on his body to make it all sparkly and defined and pretty yesterday?”

  She plops down at our table without an invitation, which is only awkward since it’s a two-person table and I don’t leap up fast enough to help her drag over the wooden chair, considering if I do, I’ll show off a very impressive boner.

  Being naked on a baseball field at a high school? Sure.

  Flashing the whole town what I’m packing while I’m having coffee with Cooper’s little sister?

  Make your own luck, and don’t sign your own death warrant.

  Max Cole’s rules of life right there.

  “No, Nana,” Tillie Jean replies with a smile. “I would never talk to Cooper’s teammate about his naked body. That’s against the rules.”

  “Psh. Cooper can eat my lucky socks. If you can score with a hottie, score with a hottie. You only live once. I wish I’d scored with that curling player when I was seventeen. Who knew I’d never see him again? Not that I’d trade your grandfather for anything, but all of us could use a few more good memories, right?” She turns a frown on me. “You’re not the type who thinks you’re too good for my granddaughter, are you?”

  “No, ma’am. Quite the opposite.”

  Mrs. Rock leans on the table, peers into Tillie Jean’s empty coffee cup, then makes a face. “So. What was it? Coconut oil? Or some kind of magic photographer grease?”

  I’m saved from answering by the sound of a coffee machine screaming to life to foam TJ’s milk.

  She cringes and covers her ears.

  I shove a plate of bread toward her. No one blinked when she walked in here with Grady’s sourdough under her arm, and she’s munching on it still.

  Mrs. Rock stares at me expectantly all through the whirring and frothing. I point to my cup and lift my brows at her, a silent get you something to drink?, but when the noise stops, she lifts her brows. “So? What kind of oil was that?”

  “It was sweat, Nana. Pure, testosterone-fueled sweat,” Tillie Jean replies for me.

  “And how do you know, missy?”

  “I licked him while I was drunk yesterday.”

  Fuck me, this boner hurts.

  Also, no she didn’t.

  I’d remember that.

  Mrs. Rock frowns. “He didn’t taste like coconut?”

  “No, he tasted like it’s none of our business what he does when he’s naked.”

  “I heard he’s doing an in-depth interview about the pressure of being a professional athlete.”

  I jerk in my seat again, but then Tillie Jean’s talking.

  Again. “I heard he signed a contract to be a backup dancer in the next Magic Mi
ke movie.”

  Nana’s eyes narrow. “I heard he’s posing for Playgirl.”

  Tillie Jean leans closer to her grandmother. “I heard he’s opening a male strip club.”

  “I heard he’s doing a naked cowboy movie.”

  My dick has whiplash. Tillie Jean makes up something ridiculous about me being naked, and my hard-on surges. Her grandmother tops her, and my balls shrink into my body.

  And this might be the most fun I’ve had since the after-party when we made it to the play-offs.

  “I heard he’s starting a commune and only naked people can join,” I interject.

  “Ooh, can I join?” Mrs. Rock bolts to her feet and rips off her sweater. The barista drops her tray, and Tillie Jean’s two lattes crash to the ground, the mugs landing with a shattering smack.

  Just as Cooper walks in the door.

  “Aaah,” he groans, turning around and walking back out.

  TJ leaps to her feet, shoving the tablecloth at her grandmother and making everything fall off our table in the process too. “Nana. Oh my god. I love your bra, but put your sweater back on.”

  “What? My nips aren’t showing.”

  Good news?

  The boner situation is taken care of, so I can get up and help clean up the coffee on the floor.

  Bad news?

  Pretty sure all of Shipwreck will hear about this before eleven-thirty.

  The door cracks open. “Are you seducing my grandmother?” Cooper demands without looking inside. “And is she dressed now?”

  “She’s hot,” I call back. “Fight me.”

  “Gah.” He makes a face like he got sweet tea when he wanted tequila, turns, and stomps out again.

  “At least you’ll inherit all my money when she leaves your grandfather for me and then kills me with sex,” I yell after him.

  He flips me off through the window.

  And I grin.

  Fuck, this feels good.

  “Max Cole, are you fighting for me?” Tillie Jean whispers as she squats—wincing—to also help pick up the broken pieces of aqua-colored coffee mug.

  I meet her eyes.

  Well, her sunglasses.