by Pippa Grant
I stifle a yawn. “And we’re doing this again.”
“Yes.”
Coco Puff whimpers.
We both crack up.
And then the banging starts. “Hey! Out of the car. You’re under arrest.”
31
Mackenzie
“Oh, god. Oh, god. Where are my panties?” I’m twisting around the trunk of the Land Rover, because getting arrested is not a good sign.
Especially getting arrested without pants.
Brooks grunts, and I squeak as I turn horrified eyes on him. “Oh, god, did I knee you in the nuts? Tell me I didn’t knee you in the nuts.”
“Just the gut.” He’s pulling his legs away and twisting too while the banging continues on the window.
The windows are tinted. And—whoa.
And super steamed up.
There’s no way the cops can see in, but I guess the shaking car was a pretty good indication.
My dads are never going to let me live this down. Neither will Sarah.
I can see the police blotter now.
The Fireballs most rabid fan arrested for public indecency and for deflowering the team’s newest power slugger. Charges pending for ruining the season.
I thought I was okay. I thought I could do this.
But I’m getting Brooks arrested because I jumped his bones.
This cannot be good for his game.
“Mackenzie. Breathe. It’s okay.”
“I said get out,” the voice says outside.
Brooks hands me my panties as the cops bang on the window again, and I shimmy into them faster than a cheetah leaping on a hunk of fresh meat.
Which is basically also what I did to Brooks.
I jumped him like a hunk of fresh meat because he stole me a meatball costume.
He’s pulling his T-shirt back on as I scramble into my pants. Coco Puff’s whimpering, which his collar translates to mean Life is a bowl of cherries!
Cherries.
Oh my god.
I took Brooks’s cherry.
“Mackenzie.” He cups my cheeks and makes me look him in the eye. And then he starts grinning.
Then he grins bigger.
And suddenly he’s laughing.
“What? Oh, no, my makeup. Is it running? Do I have lipstick smeared everywhere? You have—”
I reach out and try to scrub the pink marks off his sandpaper cheeks, but before I can finish the job, he’s kissing me again.
And okay, yes, it’s a little hard to panic when the man I’m worried I destroyed is so damn happy, and so remarkably adept at figuring out how I like to be kissed, and also smells like a very good roll in the hay, if you substitute black plastic body bags of meatballs for hay.
This kiss though—I mean, if I’m going to get arrested, maybe I should really get arrested?
Brooks pulls back like he knows what I’m thinking while the banging comes yet again.
And not the good kind of banging.
“You dressed?”
I nod.
He hits a button, and the tailgate lifts.
My heart’s basically in my throat, but dammit, I’m going to own this.
My mistake.
Mine to make up for.
I lift my head, prepared to face the consequences like the kick-ass, mascot-saving woman that I am, and— “You’re not the police!”
Luca Rossi, Darren Greene, Francisco Lopez, Robinson Simmons, and Trevor Stafford are all watching us climb out of the back of the Land Rover with varying degrees of amusement to horror.
And that’s not all.
They’ve brought friends.
My friends.
Sarah’s eyes are as round as I’ve ever seen them. Beck’s face is an entire production of I don’t know what sort of face I’m supposed to be making right now.
Rossi does one of those man-punch things to Brooks’s bicep. “Nice, dude. Next time, tell us to get here twenty minutes later though.”
I cover my eyes with my hands, suck in a deep breath of spring air, and pretend I’m in my happy place, which is usually Sarah’s house, with my Fireballs banner hanging from her curtain rod, and pumpkin spice candles burning everywhere, but for some strange reason, that’s not helping right now.
“Is the, ah, costume defiled?” Trevor asks.
“Oh, for the love of baseball, quit being such idiots.” Sarah marches around all of them, pats my hair down, and links her arm in mine. “Beck, the costume’s back here. Luca, give me the camera. If you all lose the baseball diamond because you’re standing here making a big deal out of what’s clearly none of your business, then Brooks basically stole this thing for no good reason.”
She tugs me toward the path that leads to the ball diamonds, and I whisper a quick, “Thank you,” before glancing behind us to see the baseball players falling in line.
Including Brooks, who meets my gaze after he sets a leashed Coco Puff on the ground, then breaks out in another smile that’s impossible to not smile back at.
Sarah leans into me. “You okay?”
“On the verge of hyperventilating in fear that I’ve done something I really can’t ever take back with lasting repercussions for the Fireballs, but otherwise, I’m pretty damn fantastic.”
“Ride the fantastic high, and trust the universe. Whatever Brooks did to be a big enough dick to get himself cursed with having to stay a virgin to hit a ball, I’m sure he’s making up for with putting that goofy grin on your face.”
I touch my lips and discover I am, in fact, grinning.
I might even be glowing.
“He hasn’t been home,” I whisper.
“No!”
“I’m serious.”
“So that wasn’t a thank you?”
I shake my head. “He…he stole the meatball for me. And I…”
She bursts out laughing, because I don’t have to finish that sentence. She knows.
We wind around the path and arrive at the ball fields to find Rocky Jarvis—the Fireballs’ catcher—signing autographs and chasing away anyone who tries to steal the field.
Actually—nearly the whole team’s here. Plus Darren’s pregnant wife, who was super sweet and kind and welcoming while I was at spring training, even though I’m a total dork, and Jarvis’s girlfriend and their dog, and— “Is that one of the ushers from Duggan Field?”
“Cooper texted Beck that Brooks was planning something, and they were gathering all the troops.”
She’s not kidding about all the troops.
Santiago’s out there too. Rubbing a ball on the mound.
Our head coach is in on the meatball theft.
He points to me. “Montana. Get your uniform on and get out here.”
I gasp.
Brooks stops beside Sarah and me, and he hands her the dog’s leash. “You mind?”
“That’s what I’m here for. Don’t hurt Beck. He has to look pretty in Milan next week.”
“I’m indestructible, babe,” Meaty says.
He slaps her on the ass with his big foam hands, and Coco Puff growls.
“It’s never too late to turn over a new leaf!” his collar announces.
Brooks grabs my hand. “C’mon.”
“What is this?”
“Mascot ball.”
“Mackenzie, I’ve got your shirt.” Tanesha Greene waves a Fiery Forever T-shirt at me.
Max Cole brushes past and slides a sly grin at Brooks. “Not as good as all of us in thongs.”
“Dude, shut up.”
“Afraid my Fiery crotch is gonna make yours look like a toddler Fiery crotch?”
“That’s really not possible,” I interject.
And then my brain catches up. “Are you—”
Brooks clamps a hand over my mouth. “Shh. Santiago’s birthday is next week. It’s a surprise.”
I stare at him for a minute, and then once again, I’m attacking him like I need a twelve-step program to break my addiction to him.
He’s bringing the team
together.
He’s stepping up.
He’s having fun.
And that’s what the Fireballs have been missing.
“Elliott, if you don’t keep your mouth to yourself on this field, you’re benched,” Santiago yells.
I make myself pull back from kissing him, and then I make myself put seventeen feet of distance between us.
At least.
“Can you hit?” he calls while I take my T-shirt from Tanesha.
“Not at all,” I call back.
“Great. You can be on the mascots’ team.”
That smile.
That smile, and the mischief in those eyes, and the underlying promise that everything’s going to be fine—better than fine.
“Of course I’m on the mascots’ team,” I call back. “I’m representing Fiery, but I’m more like the distant, chess-playing cousin standing in in his place. Because Fiery would kill it in this game, and I’m pretty sure I won’t.”
“Yes, you will.”
I need to call in and let my boss know I’m not coming back today. And then I need to call my dads and tell them to get out here to watch me play baseball for the first time in my life.
And then I need to figure out how to talk Brooks into going up to his apartment, because he really should see what we’ve done with it.
Santiago heaves a long-suffering sigh that’s completely at odds with the twinkle in his dark eyes when he agrees to leave the Fireballs in Stafford’s hands, and volunteers to take over coaching duties for the mascots instead.
And sure enough, there are the other three teammates for my team jogging over.
With a scowling Tripp Wilson coming along behind them.
“Uh-oh,” I whisper as Tripp points at Brooks, who’s donning a Fiery Forever T-shirt in red, instead of white like mine.
Brooks looks behind himself, like he’s trying to figure out who Tripp’s pointing to, then makes the universal sign for you talking to me?, pointing to himself and acting so innocent that I have to turn around before I crack up.
He is such a youngest child.
“You getting my third baseman in trouble?” Santiago asks me.
If baseball players are gods, their team manager is like the head of the gods. But I meet his gaze head-on and shake my head. “I’m helping him find all the reasons he needs to love us.”
And me.
Whoa.
I mean, whoa, but also, yeah.
It’s not about falling for a baseball player.
It’s about falling for a guy who’s real. Who turns a little ruddy in the cheeks when he catches himself talking about toilets on a date. Who doesn’t quite fit the way he pretends he does. Who happens to share my passion for Nutella and bacon, and also baseball.
And who’s going to hit a home run for me in the game tomorrow.
That part really doesn’t hurt.
And the doubt rearing its ugly head deep in the recesses of my overly-superstitious head can bite me.
“Mr. Elliott,” Tripp says.
I roll my eyes. “’Scuse me, Skipper. I need to go talk a man off a ledge.”
I get a rare smile out of the team’s manager, and I turn and march my little butt right up to Tripp Wilson, who’s so intent on watching Brooks grin as he makes his own slow march over here, the team’s owner doesn’t see me coming.
“Excuse me, Mr. Wilson, we need a word.”
“Pretty sure this mascot theft wasn’t your doing, Mackenzie.”
“And I’m pretty sure the only way to win the loyal support of your team is for you to put on one of those Fiery Forever T-shirts that I know you want to wear anyway, and come play for the mascots.”
He doesn’t move, but his blue eyes slide sideways to study me for a brief moment.
“You’ve seen all the movies. You know how this works. The team has to unite against the enemy. You don’t want to be that enemy. You know you don’t.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “I’m losing all semblance of control here, aren’t I?”
“I mean, you’re a dad. Losing control is where you shine, right?”
“I’m going to fire you later.”
“I don’t work for people who let their fiancées fire Fiery.”
Brooks stops in front of us, still grinning, and I can totally see the youngest-child thing coming out in him. “Hey, boss. How’s it hangin’?”
Tripp looks at him.
Then at me.
Then at my hair.
Then back at Brooks.
He does another one of those sigh-and-try-to-scrub-the-day-off-my-face things, then throws his hands up. “Yep. I’m on the mascots’ team. Anyone gets hurt here, you’re benched.” He takes my elbow and glares at Brooks. “And no fraternizing with the other team.”
“That won’t be a problem,” I assure Tripp. “I can’t hit a ball for anything.”
“Loser buys dinner, Kenz,” Brooks calls.
Tripp lifts another brow at me.
And I almost manage to keep my pulse steady while I smile back at him. “New year, new superstitions. Trust me. Would I do anything to hurt the team?”
He shakes his head. No question, no hesitation. “No. Not you.”
I really, really hope we’re both right, and that neither of us has misplaced our trust.
32
Brooks
My teammates give me shit through the whole pick-up game against the mascots, Mackenzie, Tripp, and random fans who happen to be in the park at the right place and right time. We’re playing modified back yard rules, which means the pros get three at-bats at the top of the inning, then we let the mascots bat in the bottom of the inning until they score.
And I love every damn minute of it.
Especially since Max took the mound, lobbed a soft one to Meaty that hit the meatball right in the flames—automatic walk right there—and then kept pitching to Mackenzie until she got a dribbler down the third-base line that I fumbled so bad, she got a double off my mis-throw to first.
Totally worth it to watch her pump a fist as she jumped on the bag, then stare at me in horror, like she thought I truly fumbled the ball.
Had to stop play for five minutes while I tried to pick myself up off the ground and failed from laughing so hard.
“You still know how to hit a ball?” Rossi asks before I step up to the plate at the top of the third inning.
I flex my grip on the bat and take an easy practice swing. “Nope. Muscle memory’s gone. Forgot what the ball looks like, so I can’t keep my eye on it. Pitcher’s unpredictable. Maybe I’ll stand there and hope I get a walk.”
Cooper snorts. He was late because he stayed out in Shipwreck last night, so he’s playing coach for us. “Go hit the ball, dumbass. Two points if you nail that duck between the eyes.”
I head to the plate, and Tripp straightens from his spot playing second. “Hold up. Pitcher change.” He points to the third center fielder. “Mackenzie. Get up here.”
Yes, third center fielder.
The mascots have nineteen people on the field instead of the usual nine.
“Not fair to put her in without a warm-up, coach,” I call.
There’s a snort from Spike the Echidna, who’s playing catcher, which really means he’s letting the ball bounce off him and then turns in circles trying to find it while one of the security guards from Duggan Field who came with them jogs over to toss the ball back.
The cameras love it.
“Problem, Spike?”
“Pretty sure you warmed her up plenty, Elliott.” His voice is decidedly feminine, and it sounds like the big boss lady. “Hit her with a line drive, and that’s all on you.”
Oh, shit.
I look back at the infield.
Mackenzie’s arguing with Tripp and the current pitcher, a walk-on fan who played softball through college and brings the heat, and it’s very clear that neither woman wants to switch up.
I swing my bat up onto my shoulders and loop my arms over it, getting
in a good back stretch while I twist back and forth. “C’mon, Kenz. Make him regret it.”
She glares at me. “I’m going to hit you with a ball because I can’t throw.”
“Then it won’t hurt.”
Her you shut your mouth right now glare is adorable, and I duck my head, but I know she can still see me laughing, so I step back from the plate. “Take a warm-up throw. And don’t worry. I have good reflexes.”
Tripp says something else to the two women, and the pitcher nods and hands Mackenzie the baseball.
I know it’s not the first time she’s touched a baseball.
And she’s wrong. She can throw.
Maybe not pitch, but she can throw. She manages to get Spike right in the gut.
“You okay?” I ask Lila, who oofed inside the costume.
“Quit smiling, Elliott.”
“That looked like it hurt. Like maybe you should’ve let Fiery catch today.”
“I’d fire you if this game hadn’t been your idea.”
“Your fiancé’s the one who put Mackenzie on the mound. Take it up with him.”
“Ready,” Mackenzie calls. “Batter up! And if you don’t hit this ball…”
I square up to the plate and dig in, which isn’t as easy without cleats on, but I’m not going to hit this ball.
Not hard, anyway.
She winds up in an impressive imitation of Max’s pitching stance, and when that ball leaves her hands, it’s on a straight trajectory to somewhere at least six feet outside the batter’s box on the other side of home plate.
“Strike one!” Cooper yells.
I look at him. “Dude. Same team.”
“She’s prettier.”
I’d flip him off, but there are three camera crews capturing the game, and also, yeah, we can totally call that a strike.
“Go easier on the next one,” I call to her.
Her nose crinkles.
Ah, that nose. I want to kiss her nose. Her cheeks. The corners of her eyes. That little mole in front of her left ear.
Her left ear.
Her right ear.
Shit, I’m not wearing a cup.
Think about Knox’s nana. Think about Knox’s nana.
Picturing the ancient old bird chatting about alien penises shaped like evergreen trees—complete with pinecones—and vaginas with teeth definitely helps.