by Pippa Grant
“I don’t dislike you,” she tells the three of us.
“But you’re campaigning to bring back the old mascot.”
I put my mascot hands to my face and shake my mascot head like I’m disappointed. Robinson’s smacking the firefly in the face. And Cooper—in the duck costume—does a dance move.
Actually—what is that? It’s like a cross between the lawn mower and the MC Hammer dance, and he might be a genius, because no one could ever vote for a duck that dances that badly.
Mackenzie’s fighting another smile. “I think you three haven’t found the right team yet.”
“What about Meaty?” Stafford asks. “Would you take him back to the Fireballs?”
“If Meaty wanted to be part of the Fireballs, he wouldn’t have run away, would he?”
“Fiery left.”
“Fiery had to go to the hospital. That’s completely different than voluntarily running away.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. You know Fiery wanted to stay with the Fireballs forever. He’s a dragon. He shoots fireballs. And he has way bigger muscles than Glow here.”
I poke Robinson, and he belatedly lifts a costumed arm like he’s showing off his non-existent biceps.
Then he hangs his head in shame.
Who says none of us will have careers in baseball once our playing days are over?
Cooper tests the muscles on Glow’s extra arms.
Glow punches the duck and then feels his muscles, which are even smaller.
“Okay, guys, break up the muscle contest.” Stafford reaches into his back pocket with his free hand and pulls out a smashed packet wrapped in foil. “We’re here to bring Mackenzie a peace offering, remember?”
She eyes the packet.
Looks at the duck, who flosses. Then at the firefly, who launches into the Macarena. And then at me.
I mean, the echidna, but if she doesn’t know it’s me, then she’s not as bright as I think she is.
I can do the worm, but probably not in mascot costume, so I settle for making a bunch of hand gestures that would probably be rude in certain European countries.
They’re pretty similar to the third base coach’s gestures for don’t fucking steal second until I tell you to.
Mackenzie stifles another smile while she takes the packet I fixed this morning. “Is this poisoned?”
Stafford jerks a thumb at me. “Spike thinks he can cook.”
“That must be hard with those claws in the way.”
“He uses them to flip pancakes.”
“Fiery once made me eggs. He cooked them by breathing fire over them.”
“Dude, I can’t compete with that,” Cooper says.
I punch him, because mascots aren’t supposed to talk.
Robinson cracks up.
I punch him too.
Mackenzie curtsies to us. “Thank you, kind mascots, for breakfast. I hope we can still be friends after Fiery comes back. You’re all very good mascots, but you’re not quite right for the Fireballs.”
“I hope you’re right, Mac.” Stafford gives her the thumbs-up. “We have to run. More breakfasts to deliver to the voodoo queen who’s been stabbing her echidna doll.”
I fake a sudden twinge in my back.
Mackenzie stifles a laugh, and has to try three times to make her face go straight. “Best of luck. Tell the Fireballs to win today.”
She waves and steps back into her apartment, shutting the door on all of us.
Stafford lowers the camera. “What would management do if we didn’t bring back these costumes?”
“Fire us,” the duck says. “They’d fire us.”
No, they won’t. They’re getting too much free publicity over all the mascot antics. “You know they have six extra versions of every one of these back in storage after the meatball incident.”
We all look at each other.
I mean, as much as three mascots and a relief pitcher who’s sliding a release form under an apartment door can look at each other.
“It’s three hours before Stafford has to get to the park,” Cooper says.
I look back at Mackenzie’s door.
It’s not opening. And no small part of me wants to circle back here as soon as I ditch these guys.
But when’s the next time I get to semi-anonymously wreak havoc all over a city?
Back when Rhett was in the Navy, anytime he came home during the off-season, he, Jack, Gavin, and I would find a way to get into trouble in New York.
There was that time we glued little green army men to the backs of random benches in Central Park. Then that time we talked the maintenance crew at the Empire State Building into lighting up the windows in the shape of a giant penis. That time we kidnapped Knox after he and Parker hooked up and accidentally lit his pants on fire and singed his pubes when we were merely trying to prove a point about how he’d better not hurt our sister.
What better way to fit in with my new team than to participate in some harmless mischief?
And four hours later, when we all get to the ballpark late, with the mascot costumes returned to headquarters unapologetically stained and a little worse for the wear, having treated half of the city to an even better show than a ball game, I almost feel like I’m at home.
Being a Fireball might not be such a bad thing after all.
23
Mackenzie
Brooks has made me breakfast every day since The Bacon Incident. I am officially living in an alternate dimension, and I don’t like it.
First, because it’s been good luck for the Fireballs. We’ve won four of our five home games since, which means we need to do this every day until it quits working, but we can’t, because the team has an away series starting tomorrow, and it’s not like I’m going on the road with them.
Which means that not only do I get breakfast companions in the form of Sexy McBaseball Pants and Super Adorable Dog—yes, Coco Puff has a superhero nickname, and yes, as soon as I nicknamed him, Brooks went out and got him a freaking cape and shared photos all over Instagram of Coco Puff in his cape at Duggan Field—but I also have to video chat with Brooks while I eat breakfast for the next week.
Have I mentioned that I hate away games?
And that I really, really hate that every morning Brooks shows up with that notebook, demanding that I grab him by the scruffy cheeks, stare deep into those hazel eyes, and tell him I believe in him and I believe in the team.
You know what?
Never mind.
I don’t want to talk about what this new little ritual is doing to me.
Fiery Forever. Fireballs forever. And sometimes true fans have to make sacrifices.
Mine happens to be falling hopelessly head-over-heels in love with a baseball player who can never get laid if we want him to help our team to win.
Not that it’s love-love.
I’m pretty sure this is merely an overly developed crush that I have no frame of reference to deal with, because two months ago, I couldn’t even talk to baseball players, much less voluntarily get up thirty minutes earlier so that I could walk into their apartments for breakfast.
Yes.
Yes, I’m doing this to myself. I’m not waiting in my own apartment for him to come over.
I’m voluntarily going to his for this ritual he’s declared is good for his team.
His team. Because he’s not sexy enough already. Now he’s all-in with being a Fireball.
It’s a Sunday, and the game’s early, and Brooks has to be packed for the trip, and so it made more sense for me to go to him while he’s running around like a headless chicken finishing up last-minute things.
Probably we’ll find out this isn’t effective when we do our ritual at his apartment, and then—
I sigh while I knock on the door, because if this doesn’t work, then I’ll be hosting him in my apartment every home game for the rest of the season.
It’s torture.
Even if I can convince myself that these happy butterflies in my stomac
h are hero worship, and not me actually falling in love with Brooks, they’re still there, and I can’t ignore them. I feel like my hormones and emotions have reverted to the stage they were at when I fell in love the first time.
With a cartoon character.
Tarzan was hot.
The door swings open, and speaking of hot, did he just get out of the shower?
He smells like he just got out of the shower, and his hair’s still damp, and now I’m having flashbacks to walking around this apartment with him while he was naked as a jaybird, and yep, there’s a hot flash.
“Whoa, you okay?” He puts a warm hand to my forehead, frowning, and gah.
This overbearing caretaker thing isn’t helping the crush thing.
I leap past him into the apartment, where Coco Puff is playing on the brown shag carpet and attacking a dildo that’s as long as he is.
You’d think it wouldn’t stop me in my tracks after growing up with my dads, but I’m not at my dads’ club where sex toys are stage props, and that dildo is completely out of place in Brooks’s apartment.
He follows my gaze. “Eloise.”
Ah. That makes sense. “And you kept it?”
“If I don’t, she’d send a box of replacements addressed to me at Fireballs headquarters. All that mail gets pre-screened. You hungry? Or are you sick? You don’t look so good. I mean, you look great, but in a the flu’s winning kind of way. Not that you look like death warmed over. You really do look great, other than the whole—never mind. Shutting up now.”
And then there’s that.
Brooks Elliott is not only a baseball god.
He’s also an actual man, with real problems, interesting family, and moments where his mouth starts going and he can’t shut it up.
He’s this magic combination of hot and adorable, and he doesn’t blush or get weird about grabbing the thick pink dildo and teasing Coco Puff with it, and then this giant of a man gets down on the floor to roll around with his growing, floppy-eared, floppy-tongued puppy, and yep.
This is definitely more than a Tarzan crush.
I lift my Fireballs commemorative 50th anniversary tote bag—the one I got off eBay for a dollar-sixty-two from an equally superstitious fan who was sure that her being at the game where they were handed out was what caused the team’s epic twenty-nine-game losing streak last year—and I jerk my head toward the kitchen. “Brought a few things. I’ll put them in there.”
He grins from the floor. “You brought me presents.”
I did, and they don’t belong in the kitchen, but there’s no way I’m setting foot in his bedroom. “Aren’t you supposed to be packing?”
“I won’t see my dog for seven days. This is more important.”
“Fair enough. My dads sent good luck charms.”
“Should I be excited or nervous?”
“Excited. Definitely excited.”
He rolls to his feet and follows me into the kitchen, which smells like bacon, and where there’s flour and eggs and baking powder sitting on the counter and a griddle warming on the stove top.
Like he’s going to make me fresh pancakes.
Us.
Make us fresh pancakes.
For the ritual. Nothing more.
I thought he had frozen pancakes. I very distinctly remember frozen pancakes being involved the last time I was here, because he opened the freezer—and he has one of those refrigerators with the freezer on bottom, which meant his hard-on was dangling inches from ice, and it didn’t shrink at all.
Which I very much need to not think about right now.
I set the bag on the only open counter space I can find in the olive green kitchen, and when Brooks crowds into me, I tug it open for him to see.
“What is that?”
“A Fireballs superhero costume.”
“Tell me it doesn’t involve…” He gestures to his crotch.
“Superhero panties?”
“Yes.”
“It definitely involves superhero panties.”
He pinches his lips shut and looks up at the echidna dick on the ceiling, but after the normal eye twitch at having a dick on his ceiling, his lips quirk like he’s suppressing a smile.
I poke him in the ribs. “Are you a team player or not?”
“I like winning. I don’t like having dicks on my ceiling, but I like winning.”
The man keeps getting sexier and sexier. “My dads say you have to wear this to batting practice at every away game to cleanse your aura of what’s left of that Ashley chick from spring training.”
They didn’t, but it’s fun to watch Brooks go pink in the cheeks. “That wasn’t my finest moment.”
“And this is your final apology to the universe. How much would all of your teammates love seeing you walk out onto the field in a Fireballs superhero costume instead of your uniform? How many of them are going to want their own Fireballs superhero costume? You’re going to be the original Fireball Man.”
“Fireball Man makes it sound like my nuts are burning.”
“Considering what I heard you guys do to one another’s personal equipment in the locker room…”
He’s smiling when he pulls the cape out of the bag. “Look, Coco Puff. We’re twins.”
Coco Puff barks, and his collar translates. “Fuckin’ A!”
He digs into the bag for the spandex Fireballs shirt that’s intentionally two sizes too small. “Where’s yours?”
“I can’t wear anything besides my Cooper Rock jersey. Anything else is bad luck.”
“Is that the same jersey you wore the last three years?”
“It’s going to work better this year. We’re already winning more than we did last year.”
“You started last year with twelve straight losses. Doesn’t take much to be better. Maybe it’s the Fiery Forever button and not the jersey.”
He lifts the Fireball Man superhero panties, and we both stare at them.
“Mackenzie?”
“Shh.”
“These aren’t panties.”
“The universe picked your punishment. My dads were merely the vehicle for delivering what you needed.”
“This wouldn’t even fit my dog.”
“I’m sure it stretches fine.”
I either have the coolest dads in existence, or the very, very worst. It’s a toss-up right now.
When they said superhero costume, I should’ve known they’d take the opportunity to switch out superhero panties for an itty-bitty superhero thong.
I gesture to the little pouch of fabric with Fiery the Dragon screen-printed onto it. “He’ll look really cool stretched out over your cup.”
He tests the elastic waistband, and huh.
It probably doesn’t stretch enough to go around his dog.
But I’m not thinking about his dog.
I’m thinking about his modeling that for me. In his bedroom. Surrounded by lava lamps.
Is it hot in here, or is it just my clit? “Bacon! I’ll check the bacon.”
He’s looking at me, and it’s a calculating kind of look that could either mean he’s also thinking about modeling the Fireballs Man thong for me, or it could mean he’s mentally picturing stabbing me with a broken baseball bat.
“Which one of your dads wears sequins?”
My shoulders twitch back involuntarily. “Why?”
“Because a gift this thoughtful demands a proper thank-you.”
“You mean payback?”
“That’ll depend on if being Fireball Man helps the team win.”
I blink. “You—you’ll wear it?”
“Won’t hurt.” He squints one eye at the thong again. “I mean, cosmically. Physically might be another story.”
My brains flee my body, dragging along my superstitions with it, and the next thing I know, I’m leaping onto him and peppering his face with kisses until my clumsy attempt at a thank you turns into a full-body kiss with me sandwiched between Brooks and the fridge, my fingers running through his
hair and his very eager hard-on pressing against my clit.
He rocks his pelvis into mine, and pleasure rockets through every nerve in my body.
In this moment, he’s not a baseball player, and I’m not a Fireballs fan.
I’m a woman falling more and more for this man who shouldn’t want anything to do with me, but who keeps surprising me at every turn.
He knows I’m a little off-center, and he likes it.
This little ritual where he has to see me for Nutella-bacon pancake sandwiches?
I don’t think it’s superstition.
I think it’s something else entirely.
And I don’t know if that something is good or bad, but there’s no way I’m breaking this kiss right now to find out.
Whatever happens, happens.
Now?
Now, I’m kissing the hell out of a man I can’t resist another minute.
24
Brooks
I can’t get enough of Mackenzie.
Her smile.
Her devious side.
Her belief in the team.
Her belief in me.
The hot, slick caress of her tongue on mine.
Her legs wrapped tight around me and her sweet pussy cradling my dick.
Fuck me, I want this woman like I’ve never wanted anything else in my life, but if I don’t stop kissing her, and we lose the game today, I’ll lose her forever.
I wrench myself out of the kiss. “I want to strip you naked and lick you from head to toe.”
Smooth, Elliott.
That’ll help the don’t lose her forever situation.
But her eyes cross and she tilts her pelvis into me, rubbing me with her body. “Oh my god, yes.”
“I mean—shit. Mackenzie.”
“I don’t care.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I know I should, but I don’t.”
She smells like Cracker Jacks, and she’s wearing a Fiery Forever T-shirt, and I want to make love to her until I can’t feel my cock anymore, but she needs me to keep my hands to myself.
But—
I slide her to the floor and make myself step away, reaching back and yanking my shirt over my head. “Take your clothes off.”
Her cheeks are roses. Her lipstick is all smeared off, which means I’m probably wearing it, and fuck if that’s not turning me on more. Her eyes are glittering jewels of pure blue lust complementing the rapid rise and fall of her chest.