by Pippa Grant
I watch the sun come up over New York City and the ballpark that Brooks called home for so many years from the balcony of his condo. He’s still sleeping—poor guy was a mess last night, and yes, I enjoyed every last minute of sloppy, drunk-high Brooks being a complete and total goofball until the minute he looked at his bed, said hi, old bed, are you real too? and collapsed fast asleep without even taking off his clothes.
He’s so damn perfect.
And he’s been through so much.
The least I can do is to be here for him today.
I confess, I’m not only watching the sun come up.
I’m also texting with his family.
Eloise: Okay, Meatball Thief. You need to spill all the details on knowing ALL OF THE BRO CODE GUYS immediately, or I’m calling a guy I know who knows a guy who can slip penis-shrinker into Bazookarooka’s Gatorade, and I don’t think you can afford for his weewee to shrink any more.
Parker: Cabana pubic hair nightmare.
Jack: Dammit, Parker, you just ruined the beach for all of us.
Eloise: Dude, if you’re afraid of pubic hair, you have more problems than I thought. Also, thanks for the Christmas present idea.
Knox: Bro Code. Mackenzie. Please, for the love of I LIKE LICKING PICKLES, tell us about Bro Code.
Knox: I LIKE LICKING PICKLES.
Gavin: Shit. Our Parker translator broke.
Rhett: Bugs are contagious. Especially during phone sex. Wash your hands. Private Montana, if you don’t tell my wife what she wants to know, I’ll come over there and torture it out of you.
Mackenzie: I’ll tell you everything I know about the Bro Code guys if you send me pictures of Brooks as a baby.
Eloise: Lame. What if I send you his sex tape?
Parker: *knife emoji* *Eloise emoji*
Rhett: 1. Don’t threaten my wife. 2. Where’d you get that tatted up awesomeness? I NEED THAT EMOJI NOW.
Jack: We need to go back to Brooks’s sex tape. I thought he was a virgin.
Gavin: NO SEX TAPE.
Knox: Hot Crazy Pants did it in the back door.
Parker: *gif of woman covering her eyes and ears*
Gavin: *laughing crying emoji*
Jack: I never thought I’d say this, but I think Knox is my new hero.
Rhett: Babe…I think you screwed up in programming Knox’s phone. Or you screwed up in downloading porn at the library. Not sure which.
Parker: *picture of a note reading “Eloise downloaded porn at the library and then did a bad paste job of Brooks’s face into the video. It’s awful. But also really amazing.”*
Mackenzie: I legit think I’m in love with all of you.
Brooks: Not the wake-up I expected. Come back to bed?
I drop my phone and look into the bedroom.
Brooks is sitting up in his bed, shirtless—he pulled it off in the middle of the night before rolling over and cuddling me—with the covers pooled around his waist.
He gives me a hesitant, lopsided smile, and my heart swells at the uncertainty in his eyes.
This poor man.
I made him think he’s nothing more than a baseball-hitting machine, when I know he’s so much more.
“Morning.” I slide onto the bed next to him, practically in his lap, and wrap my arms around him while I kiss his cheek. “Feeling okay?”
“You’re here.”
“I left Coco Puff with my dads. He wanted to come, but I could get here faster without him.”
“You didn’t have to come. I was going to be home tonight.”
I heave an exaggerated sigh and shift to straddle him, then cup his cheeks. “Brooks Elliott, I am not letting you sit here, alone, when you need me.”
He winces.
But I don’t let him look away. “The Fireballs won. Two games in a row. They’ve won. And do you know why?”
“Because everyone else on the team is awesome?”
“Because you’re a team. So you didn’t get a hit. So what? Are you in the dugout telling people it’s hopeless, or are you in there daring them to look better in their footy pajamas than you do? Are you telling Robinson his glove has a hole in it, or are you smacking him on the butt and telling him he’ll get the next fly ball?”
“Kenz—”
“I’m a damn good baseball player, and I’m a damn good teammate. Say it.”
He mumbles it under his breath.
“Say it louder, or I’m going to take my shirt off and seduce you with my breasts.”
His gaze snaps back to mine.
“Okay, yes, I’m also going to seduce you when you say it.” I can steal a meatball costume, but I can’t lie to him.
“You…you’re not mad?”
“I’m only mad at me for everything I’ve done to make you think that I’d be mad.”
“The Fireballs are your team.”
“And you’re the man I love.”
It slips out, but I don’t want to take it back, because I love him.
I do.
My eyes go damp as he studies me like he’s not so sure he’s not still hallucinating, and the memory of him telling “not-real-Mackenzie” that he loves her makes me smile as I say it again. “Brooks Elliott, I am hopelessly, irresistibly in love with you. And it’s not because you can hit a baseball. And it’s not because you wear my favorite team’s uniform. And it’s not because you let me take your virginity in the back of your car. It’s because this heart—” I brush a hand over his chest “—this heart right here speaks to the gigantic mess of a superstitious dork who lives in my heart and who knows how it feels to want to be loved for the weirdo that she is under all the makeup and Fireballs clothing.”
His arms slip around me while he blinks away the shine in his eyes. “Do you have any idea how amazing you are?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Good.” He laughs, and suddenly I’m pinned beneath him on his mattress in this very comfortable, very modern bedroom that he used to call home.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he informs me.
“I’m going to kiss you back.”
“I’m not doing it for luck.”
“I left all my luck behind in Copper Valley, so I couldn’t give you any even if I wanted to.”
“Did you bring your belief?”
“Brooks.” I comb my fingers through his messy bedhead, smiling because I can’t help myself. “I will always bring my belief, and it’s not about what happens in a ballpark. It’s about what happens in here.”
I touch his heart again, and he lowers his lips to mine.
A relieved shudder passes through my whole body as our mouths connect, because honestly?
It was a little terrifying to find him drunk and high and talking about how he broke my favorite team.
I was afraid I broke him.
“I’m never putting baseball ahead of you ever again,” I whisper against his lips.
“I love you,” he whispers back.
Those words soak into my soul, and all the chaotic parts inside me still.
This is what I’ve wanted.
It’s not about winning and losing. It’s about being accepted for who I am.
It’s what I’ve offered my favorite team my entire life, and with three little words, this man who doesn’t have to love me, who could’ve—and probably should’ve—walked away from me and never looked back two months ago, it’s what he’s offering me in my whole life.
He kisses the tears wetting my cheeks, and then he kisses my jaw.
My neck.
My breasts.
He pauses and looks up at me. “I wasn’t born to win baseball games, Kenz. I was born to win you.”
“Maybe you can do both?”
His eyes flare wide, and I break into laughter.
“So that’s how this is going to be,” he says as his own smile comes back. “You giving me trouble for the rest of my life.”
I push his shoulder, and he obliges and rolls over so I can straddle him. “Brooks Elliott,
I’m going to give you everything for the rest of your life.”
A wicked grin lights his features. “Bring it, Montana.”
I do.
And then I do again.
And once more, for good luck.
Epilogue
Mackenzie
I never expected I’d be a Fireballs girlfriend, but here I am, at a meeting for the Lady Fireballs, discussing the auctions we’re starting up again during home series to raise money for the new children’s outreach foundation Tripp and Lila are starting to bring more outdoor opportunities to kids across the metro area.
We’re going to fund everything from upgraded playground equipment to baseball and softball teams.
And I know exactly how to do it.
“We need to auction off the mascots,” I announce.
Lila’s eyes cross.
Tanesha Greene cracks up and accidentally pulls her boob out of the baby’s mouth, and he erupts in the cutest wail you’ve ever heard.
Sarah, who’s an honorary Lady Fireball because she’s awesome, ducks her head under the table because while Tanesha can laugh openly, Sarah’s still trying to maintain an air of neutrality in the ongoing debate over the mascots.
We’re almost at the All-Star break, and they still haven’t canceled the mascot voting.
It’s getting ridiculous.
“Fine, fine.” I wave a hand magnanimously, which was a good word from Cooper’s word-of-the-day calendar. “We can wait to auction them off until after they all lose to write-in votes for Fiery this fall.”
The door swings open, and Tripp sticks his head in before Lila can beat me with a foam finger. “Mackenzie. Got a minute?”
“For the sake of my ability to keep breathing, yes.”
Sarah laughs openly at that.
Tripp takes one look at Lila, grins, and then quickly sobers back to Mr. Serious Team Co-Owner. “Ah, carry on without Ms. Montana here,” he tells the room.
“Fiery forever,” I whisper with a side eye at Lila.
They love me.
They really do, even if they pretend they don’t.
Out in the concrete hallway beneath the stands at Duggan Field, I smile brightly at Tripp. “What’s up, boss?”
“For the last time, stop calling me that.”
“I thought you liked to pretend that I work for the Fireballs.”
He suppresses a smile, and you can’t tell me that’s not what his contorting facial muscles are doing. I refuse to believe anything other than a smile is going on there.
It helps that he mutters, “You and Elliott really are made for each other.”
Highest. Compliment. Ever.
I turn so he can see my jersey. Brooks brought it home last night, and it has his number, along with Brooks Elliott’s Girlfriend, #1 Fireballs Fan stitched on the back.
It’s a little hard to read, because that’s a lot of letters on the back of a jersey, but Brooks made it work.
Tripp really does smile now. “C’mon. We need you on the field.”
“We—wait. What?”
The Lady Fireballs meeting was on the verge of wrapping up, because the game starts in like seven minutes, so I’m certain I misunderstood him.
But he guides me to the tunnel heading out onto the field, and huh.
So this is what it looks like.
It’s been four months since Brooks and I started dating. He’s brought me out to the field many, many times, but never when the stands were full and both teams were out getting ready, and oooh, there’s that stupid umpire who doesn’t know where Brooks’s strike zone is.
I glance at the Fireballs dugout, find Brooks, and frown.
He ducks his head, but I saw the grin, and I know he knows why I’m frowning.
I’m possibly still ridiculously fanatical about expressing my anger with wrong calls.
“Do not talk to the umpire, Mackenzie,” Tripp murmurs.
“Like I’d be the first person to offer to have my boyfriend pay for his glasses.”
“I had no idea I’d prefer the days when you couldn’t talk to the players at all, yet here we are…”
I grin at him.
He shakes his head, then grins back, because he adores me, and I’m the best luck the Fireballs have ever had.
Or so Brooks tells me every night after he hits a home run.
Which he does regularly, both on and off the field, because it turns out, he really did just need the right woman in his life.
Or so we surmise.
In any case, he tells me I’m definitely better luck than all those things he and the guys supposedly did in the name of luck at some “secret club” in spring training.
Also?
The Fireballs are only three games back from being in a position to make the play-offs.
“Here.” Tripp hands me a baseball. “Try to aim this time.”
I look at the ball. Then up at him. “I don’t play baseball.”
He’s grinning. “The entire metropolitan area saw the highlights from that game. We know.”
“So what—”
“Ladies and gentlemen, please turn your attention to the field.” The announcer’s voice booms through the ballpark, and all the boys in Fireballs red pop out of the dugout.
I gasp as realization sinks in.
“No,” I whisper.
“Half these people are here because of you, Mackenzie.” Tripp gestures to the stands, which are nearly full. “Your Fiery Forever campaign has done almost as much good as everything else we’ve been doing.”
“Almost?”
“That’s what I said too.” Brooks joins us, glove on, and would it be wrong to sniff his glove here?
It would, wouldn’t it?
The announcer’s voice booms again. “The Fireballs would like to welcome Ms. Mackenzie Montana, who’ll be throwing the first pitch today.”
Brooks slips his arm around my shoulder, and oh my god, I’m going to jump him right here, because he smells like grass and baseball and leather and sweat and it is such a turn-on. “I’m catching for you. Throw it hard like I showed you last weekend.”
“You knew.”
He grins, and I fall in love with him all over again.
“Out to the mound, Mackenzie.” Tripp shoos me, and my home team erupts in cheers as I step over the third base line and head to the pitcher’s mound.
It’s not only the players either.
Sarah and my dads are up in the owners’ suite, which is really easy to see since there’s a camera trained on them and broadcasting their cheers on the video screen over center field.
And a huge, gigantic crowd-roar is circling all around me.
There are whistles. Clapping. Shouting.
Even cameramen following me like I’m some kind of celebrity.
My eyes sting, and while I’ll never understand exactly how it feels to be a world-class baseball player like my boyfriend, I now totally get the thrill of being cheered on by forty thousand screaming fans.
I step up onto the mound where so many of my heroes have played, turn, and look at the man I love, who squats down and snaps his glove at me, his warm grin lighting me up from the inside.
“C’mon, Kenz,” he calls. “Let ’er rip.”
Well.
He asked for it.
I grip the ball.
Pull my arm back.
And then I fling it forward with all my might, letting go at the exact right moment…
To send it flying off toward the visitor’s dugout, where Spike the Echidna drops to the ground as my baseball bounces off his spikey head.
“He’s out!” the announcer crows.
The crowd goes wild.
I’m talking yelling, screaming, we just won the game of the century, hog-wild, won’t have-anything-left-to-cheer-with-during-the-game, full-body celebrating.
Tripp’s on the sidelines, shaking his head. Lopez and Rossi and Stafford are all rolling.
Brooks leaps to his feet, jogs over to retr
ieve the ball and help Spike to his feet while I take a curtsey.
I know what I’m supposed to do, because I’ve seen this play out a million times before. I’m supposed to head to home plate, and meet the player who caught my ball. We’ll take pictures, he’ll sign the ball—like he didn’t bring me that home run ball he hit in New York the morning that I told him that I loved him—and then I’ll disappear into the crowd and someone new will throw out the pitch tomorrow.
I glance at Brooks, and yep, here he comes.
And there’s the camera crew.
He’s grinning broadly. “That’s my girl,” he says as he sweeps me up in a hug.
“I threw it exactly like you showed me.”
“That you did.”
He sets me back on the ground, and when he’s supposed to turn for my souvenir photo, instead, he drops to one knee.
Right there.
On the baseball diamond.
In front of forty thousand screaming fans, who are now whooping and hollering even louder.
My eyeballs fall out of my face.
I swallow my tongue.
But my heart—my heart is leaping for joy as he pulls a small box from his back pocket.
“Mackenzie, my love, my joy, the match to my crazy, and the light of my entire world, will you marry me?”
He pops the ring box, and he did not.
Except he did.
He got me a baseball diamond ring.
I can’t talk.
Can’t think.
Can’t breathe.
But oh my god, I can love this man.
I’m nodding so hard my vision wobbles. “Yes. Yes!”
The whole team swarms the infield.
Brooks slips the ring onto my finger, rises to his feet, and I tackle him with a kiss that’s probably not fit to be shown on that big video screen over center field while a mass of big, sweaty baseball players converge on us, making one big happy family.
“I love you,” I tell Brooks through the happy tears streaming down my cheeks. “Baseball or no baseball, winning or losing, I love you.”