by Pippa Grant
We do it missionary-style. Doggy-style. Twisted pretzel. Trapeze artist-style.
That last one didn’t go so well, but at least we didn’t get hurt. Also, her breasts are gorgeous when they’re jiggling as she laughs until she can’t breathe.
I should have every Monday off. And so should she.
Tuesday morning, I’m a mass of satisfied nerve endings serving my beautiful date fresh bacon-Nutella pancake sandwiches too early in the morning, but she has to get to work early to make up yesterday’s hours so she can get to the game tonight.
After delaying her longer than I should to kiss her simply because I can, I go back to sleep for a few hours after she’s gone, with Coco Puff snoozing next to me, basking in the scent of Mackenzie all over my sheets.
Crazy woman.
And I say that in the good way, for the record.
She’s the one.
She’s my one.
My game won’t suffer for falling for her. I won’t let it. I refuse to continue to be that guy letting superstitions rule my life.
Not when I can have Mackenzie in my life.
She’s choosing me over her team. Over her own superstitions. Over her own beliefs.
She’s choosing me.
And so I’m going to put both our superstitions to rest tonight.
Once and for all.
My puppysitter arrives on time, and I get to the ballpark around two. Do my normal stretches and warm-ups with Luca and Cooper. Trade insults about who does the worst Robert DeNiro impersonation, because it’s fun.
Talk Torres off a ledge when he hears Santiago’s not putting him in the starting rotation tonight.
Have a few interviews with the media, who want to talk about yesterday’s pick-up game in the park, what pranks are going on in the locker room, and how I’m feeling about heading back to New York later this week for my first time in the stadium up there wearing another team’s uniform.
“Good,” I answer. “Gonna feel even better when I hit a home run for the Fireballs.”
“How’s your family feel about that?”
“Dunno. You’d have to ask Sammy Rogers. Ma’s calling him Sammy Rogers-Elliott now. Had him over for dinner last week to interview him for the open position of youngest son.”
The roomful of reporters gapes at me.
I snicker, because there’s no way my family’s adopting the guy the Fireballs traded me for just because he took my spot on New York’s roster, and then they all start laughing with me.
“Cooper Rock know his position as funniest guy on the team’s in danger?” one of them calls.
“There’s never too much funny in a team family.”
We have a team meeting where Lila hands out our new Fireballs pajamas and orders us to make sure they fit right before we wear them on the plane to New York Friday morning.
They’re fucking awesome.
Footies and all.
But the best part?
The best part is the shock that turns to laughter that turns to trash-talking who’s gonna look best sporting Fireballs mascot pajamas when we saunter out of Duggan Field to board the bus to the airport Friday morning.
“This is gonna get me laid!” Robinson crows while he models his pajamas over his warm-up gear.
“It’s gonna get Elliott cock-blocked,” Stafford calls back.
Nah.
We’re done with that.
Even if I show up at Mackenzie’s place with a giant Meaty on my crotch, which is, appropriately, exactly where the Meaty mascot landed on my pajamas.
I watch videos of San Francisco’s starters and talk with Addie about what sort of pitches I’m likely to see today. I take batting practice and hit the ever-loving fuck out of the ball, including one memorable shot into center field that nearly wipes out Glow the Firefly.
He shakes his big round butt at me.
I line up and hit the next practice pitch at him again, and Santiago yanks me out of batting practice. “Think you got this, Elliott, and I’m not losing a player to an interrogation over a mascot death.”
I check my phone. Send Mackenzie a few texts.
Send my family a few texts, because Parker’s phone is a thing of beauty and even when I’m in a good mood, it makes me happier.
I corner Tripp and Lila and tell them they owe it to Mackenzie to get her in here to toss out the first pitch one of these days, because she’s single-handedly brought half of Copper Valley back to baseball with her Fiery Forever campaign.
They give me a lecture about the fact that there are thousands of Fiery Forever T-shirts being handed out on the corners like they’re official Fireballs giveaways.
I pretend innocence.
They don’t believe me, but they also don’t fire me.
We all know they’re only lecturing because it could’ve been a safety hazard. Like I didn’t call Rhett first to get some of his SEAL buddies mulling around in plain clothes to make sure nothing got out of hand.
The crowd starts arriving. I catch sight of Mackenzie in her regular seat with Sarah by her side right before the national anthem, and when we lock eyes, she smiles and blows me a kiss.
Home. Fucking. Run.
The game starts.
Second batter steps up for San Francisco and smacks a grounder. I can’t turn around the ball I snag deep in the pocket between shortstop and third fast enough, and a runner gets on base, but we take him down with a double play and don’t let anyone score.
We head into the dugout for the bottom of the first. Darren leads off with a single. Luca follows him with a walk.
I step up to bat.
And that’s when everything goes to shit.
35
Mackenzie
That did not just happen.
I grope for Sarah’s hand in the darkness. “Tell me the lights didn’t go out the minute Brooks stepped up to the plate. Tell me I went spontaneously blind, and everything in the game is completely and totally fine.”
“It’s probably a prank.” She squeezes my hand back, but she’s moving strangely, and a second later, the flashlight lights up on her phone.
The ambient light from the rest of the city makes the whole field gray, not black, and I can make out Brooks’s outline at the plate, stepping back while the umpires all rush to home to discuss the situation.
Santiago’s heading out too, and so is San Francisco’s manager.
Phone flashlights pop on all over the stadium, but the lights don’t come back on.
“Is Beck up in the owners’ suite?”
“Yes, but I doubt they have any more of a clue what’s going on than we do,” she replies.
The video screen is black. There’s no announcer coming over the speakers to ask everyone to stay calm, so ushers are making their way down the stairs asking people to hold tight for a minute, please.
“Mackenzie.”
I look at Sarah.
I don’t have to see her to know what she’s thinking.
Do not let this go to your head.
My phone buzzes with a text message from Papa.
Mackenzie Renee Montana, DO NOT LET THIS GO TO YOUR HEAD.
It’s like he and Sarah are sharing a single mind.
She grips my hand harder. “You know this field needs lots of work still. A mouse probably chewed through the wrong wire. Or the plumbing leaked into the main circuit breaker.”
“Sarah.”
“Coincidence. Do not make me beat you with this Fiery Forever T-shirt that we both know that man out there at the plate arranged to have given away today for you. Do you know how many people in this entire world would do something like that?”
“Six?”
The lights flicker back on at half-strength as Sarah’s glaring at me like she’s considering strangling me with the shirt, which is probably fair, since there’s actually only one person in the world who would order forty thousand Fiery Forever T-shirts so everyone in attendance at Duggan Field today could get one.
I whip
my head around to look at the field to check on him, and there he is, whipping his head around to look straight at me.
Like Brooks, too, knows what I’m thinking.
Of course he does.
He knows me. So he knows what I’m thinking.
So I will myself to think something different.
Don’t be crazy, Mackenzie. Don’t be crazy. Don’t be crazy.
I give him a little finger wave, then lift the shirt and mouth thank you.
Even from halfway across the baseball field, I can see the worry fade from his eyes. His shoulders relax, and he grins before turning back to talking to the guys who’ve come out of the dugout with him.
He’s fine.
He’s happy.
He’s in his element.
So the lights went out? So what? They came back on, and they’re getting brighter by the minute.
Sarah’s phone buzzes, and we both look down at the message from Beck.
Backup generators running. Game’ll be back in a few. You two okay?
She texts him back that we’re fine while the umpires talk to the managers on the field, and people flip their phone lights off.
And three minutes later, Brooks steps back to the plate.
I cover my eyes.
My heart’s about to pound out of my chest.
He has to hit the ball.
He has to.
“Mackenzie. He’s going to hit the ball.” Sarah squeezes me. “Do you want me to stay here, or do you want me to go to the bathroom?”
“Bathroom! Go to the bathroom!”
The crack of a bat rings out, and I wrench my hands away from my eyes in time to see a long line drive drop into foul territory not thirty feet from my seat.
“Go.” I flap my hands at Sarah. “Go!”
She’s sitting on the aisle for just such an emergency—you know, the superstitious kind of emergency—so she leaps up and dashes up the stairs.
Meaty and Glow poke their heads up over the visitors’ dugout while Brooks squats in his batting position again.
Meaty.
Meaty’s back.
The pitcher winds up.
I hold my breath.
Brooks tips the pitch. Another foul ball. Two strikes.
Now I’m crossing my fingers. And holding my breath. And going a little light-headed.
“You’d think he’d hit better with what they’re paying him,” someone grouses behind me.
I turn and glare at him and the popcorn dribbled all over his lap.
The umpire makes that noise that sounds like he took a fist to the gut, which means Brooks isn’t out yet—that pitch was ball one, so he still has a chance.
Thank Babe Ruth.
All is not lost.
Seven pitches later, I really am on the verge of hyperventilating. He’s hit nine foul balls.
Nine.
I mean, good on him for wearing the pitcher down this early in the game, but why can’t he hit the ball straight?
I broke him.
I did.
“Sweetie, you okay?” a very kind gentleman to my right asks.
“None of us are okay with what we’re paying for this dingbat who can’t hit,” the jerk behind me mutters.
I spin around. “Do. Not. Talk. Shit. About. My. Boyfriend.”
Holy crap.
My boyfriend.
Brooks is my boyfriend.
The fair-weather asshole behind me smirks. “Right. Your boyfriend. At least pick someone who can hit a ball if you’re going to play pretend.”
I see red.
But it’s worse than seeing red.
It’s seeing red accompanied by the loud, “EE-RIGHT!” from down the third base line that means the ump called a strike, which means Brooks is out.
He stands at the plate and gives the ump the are you shitting me? look that I’ve seen on a thousand Fireballs players before, and I don’t have to look at the video screen to know what’s being replayed.
Fastball. Barely inside the strike zone.
He didn’t swing, but he’s still out.
Shit.
My phone dings sixteen times in rapid succession, and I don’t have to look at those either.
It’ll be everyone who loves me, plus all the people who love them, texting me to remind me that one strike-out after he hit the ball nine times does not mean he’s in a slump.
Sarah comes jogging back down the steps. “That was such a bullshit call. It was below his knees and not over the plate at all.”
The guy next to me is still studying me. “You’re the Fiery Forever lady.”
“Yeah.”
“You really dating Elliott?”
“Yes, she is,” Sarah answers for me before I can fumble it myself.
“Tell him I said that was a bullshit call too. Still watching that dive he made to snag that screamer against Atlanta on Sunday on replay all week. Really liking what the new management’s doing for the team this year. Nice to see some hope back in the ballpark.”
I fist-bump him.
He’s right. The bigger point is that the whole team has hope.
Not that Brooks struck out once.
Baseball players strike out all the time. It’s part of the game.
This doesn’t mean anything at all.
I hope.
36
Brooks
I don’t bother texting Mackenzie after the game. I dash home, grab Coco Puff, and head through downtown to get to her apartment.
She’s probably flipping out. I need Sarah’s number. Her dads’ numbers. Hell, I’ll take her boss’s number too.
I bang on the door, and it opens within four seconds, and there she is.
My girl.
With big, worried blue eyes, her white Fiery Forever T-shirt—huh, it’s kinda see-through—and a bag slung over one shoulder.
She opens the door wider. “I was coming to see you. To make sure you’re okay.”
That stops me short.
For all the shit I’ve put her through with being an idiot this season, she’s worried how I feel.
This passionate, optimistic ray of sunshine is worried about me when I’ve gone and done the one thing I thought she’d hate me for, and broke my bat to sleep with a woman.
And the weirdest part is, we’ve become such good friends under all the attraction, I honestly think she’d ask the same if it had been another woman.
Which it won’t be.
Ever.
I study her worried eyes, and I nod. “I—yeah. I’m okay. Are you okay?”
Was it fun going oh-for-four tonight at bat? No. Especially when the ump called me out twice on questionable strikes.
But there’s more to baseball than batting, and I was a fucking rock star in the field, plus I helped give Jarvis some excellent relationship advice.
Don’t mistake me being a virgin for so long for me being a clueless idiot, and dude was headed to idiot-land.
She threads her fingers through mine. “I’m okay if you’re okay. I was worried you’d think—you know.”
Yeah. I know. I step into her apartment and pull her into my body. “I’m awesome. Hazard of being me.”
Coco Puff barks. “You’re a rock star! It’s your birthday! Happy birthday! You’re a rock star!”
That’d be a lot funnier if she wasn’t wrapping her arms around me and squeezing like she’s afraid I’m going to bolt. “My dads dropped off my old umpire voodoo doll. We can put pins in his back and knees.”
Coco Puff growls.
I start snickering, and soon we’re both laughing while my puppy watches us like we’re insane.
She tugs us farther into her apartment. “What the hell was up with the lights? Tripp and Lila won’t answer my texts and Beck swears he didn’t get any answers out of them either.”
“Cooper says the stadium’s too old.”
“Ugh. Sarah said the same. Why did Lopez get caught on camera spitting out his drink the fourth inning?”
�
�Dunno.”
She shoves me on the couch and straddles me. “You were standing right there with that look.”
“What look?” Better question, who cares? I have a lady who smells like Cracker Jacks stroking my chest with one hand and petting my puppy with the other.
“That look. You said something funny to him and made him choke on his Gatorade.”
“What happens in the dugout stays in the dugout.”
“Are you serious right now?”
“I have a very sensitive heart, and I need to know you’d still like me even if I didn’t have all the inside dugout scoop.”
Truth? I’ll tell her anything she wants to know. Even filed away about a dozen stories about my day that I’m dying to share, because I know they’ll make her laugh.
She grimaces. “This would be so much easier if you weren’t a baseball player.”
And that’s easily the sweetest thing she’s ever said to me, because of all the people in the world who should want to date a baseball player, it’s Mackenzie, but she likes me for all the other reasons besides me being a baseball player.
I think I just got complicated.
But my heart’s glowing and I can’t stop smiling, and this isn’t because she was the first woman I’ve ever gone all the way with.
It’s because she throws herself headfirst into everything she does with the kind of passion you don’t find every day. It’s because she has so much heart her body can barely contain it. It’s because I know how easy it would be for a heart like that to hurt, and I will move heaven and earth to make sure that she doesn’t hurt.
Ever.
She has more belief in her pinky finger than most people have in themselves and all their relatives combined.
I want her to be my first, last, and only.
Her frowny face is getting frownier. “That wasn’t supposed to be funny.”
“You’re so fucking perfect.”
Where I expect her to roll her eyes and tell me she’s not, instead, all those frownies disappear behind a soft smile that says it doesn’t matter that I didn’t get a single hit tonight.
Because I hit a home run with her.