Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(10)

Not that I can blame him. I did lay it all out there, and it’s probably not every day someone’s willing to do that.

Or maybe it is. I don’t know what people say to famous athletes.

He shakes his head like he’s trying to wake up from a bad dream. “Where are your writer friends?”

“They were all from a group in South Carolina, so they’re on their way home.” I have other writer friends, but they’re all over the world and unable to drop everything at a moment’s notice to stop me from doing something stupid.

“Your hotel?”

“I didn’t know which one to pick, and I forgot to ask for a recommendation before I left the ballpark. Do you have one you like?”

“Your parents?”

“Mom’s glad I’m not crying in her pool house anymore, and Dad’s probably re-allocating funds in case I decide to throw another pre-wedding. It’s what he’s started calling the expense of my weddings, since they never happen even though I start planning them immediately after the proposal, though in my defense, at least two were called off before we got into five-figure spending.”

He mutters something else that I don’t understand, which is probably best for my questionable ego, and then looks down at Dogzilla again. “What is that?”

“She’s my cat.”

“I can see that, but what’s she wearing?”

“She felt like a unicorn today.”

More mutters.

He thrusts his hands through his hair, then points at the door. “Get inside.”

Yes! “You’ll help me?”

“Yes. I’ll help you not get murdered by wandering lost in the city after midnight, looking for a hotel where you won’t propose to the clerk on sight, and tomorrow, I’ll help you by getting you on your way back to your mother’s pool house, and then I’m going to help myself by getting very, very drunk and forgetting any of this happened.”

I beam at him.

Because while this is currently a no for everything I’m asking, he’s not kicking me out yet.

I still have a chance. I also make some mean breakfast waffles, which may be exactly the reason two of my proposals happened.

Not that I’m looking for a proposal.

The exact opposite, actually. And I’m willing to be ruthless in making him waffles to get what I need to have a happy rest of my life, if need be.

I’m also not falling madly in love with him, despite what those initial tingles made me fear, so maybe I need to soak up some of these grumpy vibes, and then everything will be absolutely perfect.

All I need is an excuse to stay a smidge longer.

And probably to figure out what I can do to pay him back for the favor.

Watch out, world. Henri Bacon has a plan.





5





Luca



The next morning, I swim into consciousness to the smell of tomatoes, oregano, sausage, cheese, and doom.

It takes me a few minutes of staring up at my wobbly ceiling fan and listening to the birds outside my open window before full understanding of the doom part registers, and when it hits, it hits hard.

I leap up, dance into my boxer briefs, and fly out of the room after opening my door.

Why is my door closed?

Better question—how long has doom been here cooking if the smell has invaded my room despite the lack of airflow?

I thunder down the stairs, leaping past the bottom step by instinct after living in this house long enough to have tripped on the sag in it six times already, spin, and dart through the torn-apart living room and into the shithole known as the kitchen.

And fuuuuuuuuuck.

It’s true.

She’s here.

“Don’t think words like that around me, young man.” Nonna shakes a tomato sauce-covered spoon at me. “And what in the hell is wrong with this stove? I had to use a damn match to get the burner to light, and that oven’s so small it won’t fit a potato, let alone a casserole dish. But at least you put clothes on. Minimal as they may be. Thank you.”

I stand there, staring dumbly at my grandmother at the stovetop, trying to not think more curse words.

Even the ones she taught me.

My Nonna isn’t tall, but what she lacks in stature, she makes up in being an Italian grandmother.

And on any day when she’s not baking ziti for breakfast in my kitchen, she’s the coolest grandmother on the planet.

But that casserole dish—and yes, I mean her casserole dish, the special casserole dish, the one that’s been in the family for generations, and will be passed on to whoever can master the eye as effectively as my grandmother, and her grandmother before her, and her grandmother before her—that casserole dish says that she’s about to bury me in a Nonna mess unlike any I’ve ever seen.

I am so fucked.

She gives me the eye again. I mean, not The Eye, but the I heard that fuck in your head, young man eye. “You didn’t take my calls.”

“I was working.”

“You play for a living.”

“I get paid. It’s work.”

“You don’t play twenty-four hours a day. If I didn’t have the television set with that sports package, I’d think you were dead. What kind of grandmother has to wait for a baseball game to start to make sure her grandson isn’t dead? What if you didn’t play that day? Then how would I know if you were dead?”