by Pippa Grant
I have a team to win back.
And you’re damn right I’m gonna do it.
Why, you ask?
Something about being reminded that no matter what team I’m playing for, there are kids who look up to me like I’m a hero. Hell, there are adults who look up to me like I’m a hero. Baseball—the game I fell in love with when I was four years old—is bigger than I am.
I can mourn my old team, and I can still text my old teammates.
But baseball?
Baseball’s about the game.
Not the player.
It means different things to different people, but that doesn’t change the fact that I owe the fans my all.
Doesn’t hurt that Mackenzie came over and made me bacon again this morning.
She took off before I could kiss her again, but she was there. She rubbed Coco Puff’s belly. I almost asked her to stop in and play with my dog while I’m out of town.
It’s because she bakes good bacon.
Yep. That’s my story.
Cooper sits, and I take the seat in front of him. Luca Rossi drops into the row next to me, then turns to look at Cooper. “Hey, Rock, you really getting your brother to bring his goat down for a de-cursing?”
I tuck my phone in the seat pocket and shake my head at both of them while I dig into my travel bag for my noise-canceling headphones. “I thought the ducks already did that. And…the other stuff.”
“There’s no such thing as too much de-cursing,” Darren chimes in from the row ahead of us.
He’s probably right.
Mackenzie implied the same thing this morning. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s working, so keep doing it.”
“Like kissing you?”
“Your dog just peed on the carpet.”
I smile to myself. She’s damn fast when she’s on a mission to leave my apartment.
And I might’ve had too much fun torturing her this morning.
Once the team and staff are all on board, the plane takes off, and I switch on Wi-Fi for one last check of messages before kicking back to get some rest.
Yeah, I’m lying.
I’m texting Meaty.
Eloise did her computer woowoo magic and got me the burner number that Mackenzie’s using to send videos to the Fireballs’ front office.
Brooks: If you really want to bring Fiery back, you need to commit some heinous crimes. And stay away from the Berger twins and the Thrusters. They’re trouble.
Meaty: Who is this?
Brooks: Spike. The Echidna. Remember me?
Meaty: If you’re really Spike, you can tell me what’s the last thing we did together before I ran away.
Brooks: We admired that drawing of my penis on the ceiling.
Meaty: WRONG. We gave Firequacker a flushie, but only because YOU made me do it. It’s YOUR fault I had to run away. I know I was next on the flushie rotation.
Brooks: You have quite the imagination.
Meaty: I’m a meatball. I have ground sausage for brains.
Brooks: Do the Thrusters know you’re made of the remains of their mascot?
Meaty: That’s exactly why I had to run away. I love the Fireballs too much to let their mascot be the remains of another team’s mascot.
Brooks: Wow. This just got sad.
Meaty: It’s BEEN sad. Who’s watching your puppy, by the way?
Brooks: I’m an echidna. I don’t have a puppy.
Mackenzie responds with a picture of me.
Sitting on this very plane.
Texting with her.
I jerk my head around. Rossi’s got his eyes closed and his seat leaned back. Darren’s smiling at his laptop and talking quietly, earphones on, video chatting with his pregnant wife.
And Cooper Rock is snoring with his phone loosely clutched in his hand.
I turn around in my seat, reach over the headrest, and smack his knee.
He pretends to startle awake. “Huh? What? Dude. Elliott. Some of us are trying to sleep.”
I know he took my picture.
But if I tell him Meaty sent it to me, and he doesn’t know Mackenzie stole the costume, will he rat her out?
If he does know it’s her, then he knows I’m texting her too.
Fuck it. I don’t care what he knows. I only care that he tells me. Right now. “Mackenzie Montana. Talk.”
He grins. “Aw, Elliott’s got a crush.”
“She’s a nutjob.”
“She’s good people.”
I arch my brows.
He crosses his arms. “She is good people. She volunteers to help clean up parks all over the city. She’s the one who convinced management to hire Addie for our batting coach. And she talked her dads into doing a Fireballs day at their club. It’s good luck to have the drag queens on your side.”
My brows furrow. I’m not tracking.
Cooper leans toward me like he’s ready to grab me by the collar and shake. “Don’t you dare be a dick about Mackenzie’s dads.”
“Why would I be a dick about—whoa. Wait.” That’s why Mackenzie was at Periwinkles? “Mackenzie’s dads are drag queens?”
“Yeah. Duh. Queen Bijou and Lady Lucille.”
“Some people are dicks about that,” Rossi says without opening his eyes, and it pisses me off that he knew about her dads when he hasn’t been with the Fireballs that much longer than I have.
Wasn’t she basically mute around all of us a month ago?
“We kick those people’s asses.” Darren’s shut his laptop on his video call with his wife, and he, too, is watching me.
Like I’m going to be a dick about anyone’s family. “Did you all meet my sister-in-law? Have you forgotten who wins the award for weirdest relatives?”
“Just so we’re clear.” Cooper leans back and grabs his phone again. “I’d hate to have to make my brother’s goat bite your ass before a game. You play mostly okay.”
I sink back into my seat.
Queen Bijou and Lady Lucille.
The headliners at Periwinkles. Owners of the club.
Growing up with non-traditional parents couldn’t have been easy. Is that why she was bullied?
I look back at Cooper. “Quit texting people my picture.”
He smirks in his fake sleep.
And I pick up my phone again, because this is suddenly more than teasing an annoying—and annoyingly attractive—woman who’s cock-blocking me.
Brooks: You need help burying a body? I have a teammate volunteering to be fake-murdered so that we can get you locked up and bring Fiery back.
Meaty: I can’t get locked up until I’ve secured the top vote and the other mascots have been sent to Mascot Heaven.
Brooks: Wait. You WANT to win?
Meaty: No. I want NONE of the mascots to be good options so that the original mascot can come back, but to do that, I have to eliminate all the competition first. By beating them.
Brooks: That’s crazy devious and brilliant for someone with sausage for brains.
Meaty: I have layers.
Brooks: So you’re also part ground beef?
Meaty: And onion and oregano. I’m delicious.
Brooks: Maybe I’ll get to eat you one day.
The text string goes silent.
I wait a full ten minutes, and when she doesn’t text back again, I send her a GIF and sign off.
Season’s barely gotten started, and you know what else?
That fucking meatball was spot on.
I should wait to have sex with a woman I’m interested in.
I’m not going anywhere. She’s not going anywhere.
I have plenty of time to get to know Mackenzie Montana and all of her layers.
16
Mackenzie
The Fireballs are gone for a full week. I’d be upset that they’re starting the season with back-to-back away series, except they’re playing in California, where the weather is much nicer, which is easier on the players, even if the game times are so late that I get a dirty look from
my boss a few times for rolling into work exhausted.
I have a normal weekend partially hanging out with my dads, partially hanging out with Sarah, and partially sneaking the meatball costume out to Cooper Rock’s hometown in the Blue Ridge mountains for a stroll into his brother’s bakery.
It’s well worth the hour-long drive outside the city to visit with the Rocks—yes, I can talk to Cooper’s whole family, who owns half the town, even though it’s only recently that I can talk to him—and I load up with take-out for bingeing on at home all week. The Crow’s Nest’s donuts are second to none. The banana pudding at The Crusty Nut is the stuff of fantasies, and Anchovies, the pizza place, does something magical with their sauce.
Even better, Desmond—aka Dame Delilah—is driving us in his hybrid SUV since I can’t walk as Meaty and also take video of myself, and also since my peapod-size car is a little recognizable, so there’s plenty of space for all the goodies that I bring back.
While he drives us home, I pull out my burner phone to text video footage to Tripp and Lila. But before I can upload the video, I realize there’s a message waiting for me from “Spike the Echidna.”
Exactly like there has been every day this past week.
Today’s is simple.
It’s a picture of the fortune out of a cookie.
Your dog will bring you great joy.
And beneath it, Brooks has added a little message.
In bed.
I crack up, which has Desmond lifting a brow at me as we arrive back at my apartment building.
He’s incognito today, dressed in street clothes, because Dame Delilah stands out in a small town, even a town as friendly and welcoming as Shipwreck, whereas Desmond as a man is nothing more than your average gay black man in an official Fireballs polo accompanying a flaming meatball down the street.
Considering Beck has a weekend house in Shipwreck, there was no reason to make people curious about the man with the meatball. And I couldn’t take my dads, because they’ve come with me a few times and might’ve been recognized.
Desmond puts the SUV in park and points to my burner phone. “They’re going to trace that phone back to you one day.”
“And when they do, I’ll point out how much good I’ve done for all of the Fireballs’ extended fan family. Plus, you’ve got my back.”
He sighs. “We do, baby girl. That we do.”
My dads are off tonight, so I head to their place to watch the game together. We eat our traditional meal of weenie-mac while the Fireballs lose, and we collectively decide we’re never eating weenie-mac with baseball again.
Overall, though, while the Fireballs are still losing more than they’re winning, there’s definitely more talent on the team, and every shot of the dugout shows them talking to each other, and once, the camera caught Brooks putting sunflower seeds in Cooper’s helmet while Cooper wasn’t looking.
One at a time.
He’d eat a sunflower seed, catch Cooper not watching, and then he’d slide Lopez a grin and drop a seed into Cooper’s upside-down helmet.
The whole bench knew it.
And every one of them kept a straight face like they had no idea what Cooper was talking about when he grabbed his helmet and got a rain shower of sunflower seeds.
Epic. Perfection.
I might’ve teared up at the idea that Brooks is warming up to being a team player.
Monday morning, I head down to my car at a normal, healthy hour—thank you, afternoon games on the west coast—and as I step off the elevator, someone’s checking out my car.
Not unusual—it’s basically the coolest car in existence. I drive a SmartCar, and it’s completely decked out in Fireballs colors, with the logo splashed on the side, and a Fiery hood ornament.
That’s right. I found a place for a hood ornament on a SmartCar.
The curious onlooker turns, and I lose my breath.
Brooks Elliott is stalking me. And oh, god, he has a baby sling for Coco Puff. This tall, broad, thick-muscled, corded-forearmed, fine-assed baseball player is carrying his teeny tiny puppy in a baby sling, and my vagina has jumped ship.
Fireballs who? Let’s do him!
Our eyes lock, and his lips tip up in the corners. “You didn’t show up to make me bacon.”
Coco Puff barks. His collar shouts out “Ass-licker!”
Brooks rubs his little head with a single finger. “We won that last home game after you made me bacon.”
Did he just—
He smiles, a real, full smile that brings sunshine into the underground parking garage and makes the concrete smell like roses, and he did.
He used me against myself.
I plant a hand on my waist. “I also petted your dog. Maybe that’s what helped.”
He puffs his chest, putting Coco Puff closer to me. “You can pet my dog anytime you want.”
Gah, that voice is offering me the opportunity to do so much more than pet his dog. “I’m going to be late for work.”
“Two of the three games we won on the road, we had bacon with breakfast.”
I mutter a curse that would make a hockey player blush, but not because I’m upset about being late for work, since of course, I’m going to make Brooks bacon.
It’s more that I’m struggling with the idea of having to actively resist him. Of being near him.
He better not smell like baseball.
“Fine. You can come upstairs and I’ll make you bacon. But only so we can test if it’s good for the team.”
“If we lose today, you can come back to my place tomorrow to see if that makes a difference. Right, Coco Puff?”
The puppy yips and licks his fingers. “I love pussy!”
He smiles down at his dog with the smitten love of every pet owner perfectly matched with his best friend.
Couldn’t he have fallen in love with a snake or something? I could way more easily resist a man with a snake. Or one with a pet lizard.
Instead, he’s in love with a puppy with a cussing collar, and it’s very much working for me. “Why don’t you take that thing off?”
“He won’t let me. He likes being a foul-mouthed creature of destruction beneath the fluffy exterior.”
I could so easily fall for this man.
I climb back into the elevator, this time with Brooks and Coco Puff, and by the time we reach my floor, the scents of leather and pine have invaded my nose and I’ve fallen a little more in love with those little brown puppy dog eyes.
And I do mean the eyes on the puppy, and not the hazel beauties on the man, which might also be working some unfortunate magic on me.
When I unlock my apartment door, I refuse to hold my breath and await judgment. If he says a single thing about my décor, I’m fully prepared to fire back with all the questions about his place.
His lips twitch when he glances around, but he doesn’t say a word, so I let him live, and I head to the kitchen. Coco Puff joins me, leaping at the Fireballs towel hanging from my red oven handle.
Brooks doesn’t appear in the kitchen until I’m putting the remaining half-package of bacon back in the fridge.
He sniffs. “Pizza?”
Yeah. Can’t open the fridge without the whole kitchen smelling like everything I brought back from Shipwreck yesterday. “Nuh-uh, buddy. You said bacon. You want pizza, get your own.”
“You ever worry that your bobbleheads will come to life one night and eat you in your sleep?”
“You ever worry about living to see the rest of the day?”
Coco Puff growls and leaps on a dust bunny under my cabinet. “Fuck-turd!” his collar translates.
Brooks cracks open my fridge, lifts his phone, and snaps a picture of the pizza box.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking notes on pizza to try.”
“You can’t—” I stop myself, because I can’t tell him that he can’t get Anchovies’ pizza here in the city. And as soon as we start talking about where he can get it, he’ll know I went to Sh
ipwreck, and whenever Tripp and Lila decide to broadcast Meaty’s latest adventures around the world, his suspicion will turn into full-blown knowledge.
It’s one thing to banter back and forth on text and know he suspects.
It’s another to give the man I irritate on a regular basis the full knowledge.
“Crow’s Nest? Are those—those are.” He snatches one of the bakery bags from my fridge and peers in it before I can stop him. “You got donuts from Cooper’s brother’s bakery.”
“I go up there with Sarah and Beck all the time. Beck’s weekend house is right next door to Cooper’s house. Have you ever been? There’s this legend about how the town was founded by Cooper’s great-something-grandfather, who was a pirate who loaded up his treasure in a covered wagon and drove out here to hide from the po-po. And they have this pirate festival, and everyone goes digging for the treasure, and—”
“Are you sleeping with Cooper, or are you only talking to him to convince him to help cock-block me?”
Well. Nothing like getting straight to the point, is there? “Cooper’s cock-blocking you? Jeez. I thought there was a code. And were you the same guy who said you were going to sleep with me first, or are you one of those guys who says that to every girl to see who jumps you first?”
His hazel eyes narrow while he lifts a donut out of the bag and bites into it.
My eyes bug out. “That’s my donut!”
Banana pudding oozes out the donut and onto the corner of his mouth. When he licks it off, my stomach bottoms out and my breasts get heavy and my clit tingles.
Eye on the prize, Mackenzie. Eye. On. The. Prize.
And I don’t mean the man eating the donut.
I mean the Fireballs’ winning. I point at him. “Did you eat a donut that morning in spring training? The morning before you couldn’t hit a ball?”
“You really want to blame that on the donut?”
“We have to look at everything, because knowing one thing that stops you from hitting a ball doesn’t mean we’ve identified everything. And don’t think it’s escaped my notice that the Fireballs win every time you get at least a double.”