Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(16)

I destroy the fuck out of her flaming ziti.

Undercooked ziti?

We eat it.

Burnt ziti?

We eat it.

Ziti accidentally made with salsa instead of marinara because Nonna refuses to acknowledge that she grabbed an old pair of reading glasses that aren’t strong enough anymore?

We eat it—and then we throw away the reading glasses when she’s not looking and blame it on my cousin Angie’s dog.

Ziti covered in whatever this chemical shit is that comes out of a fire extinguisher?

No way.

Not even for the sake of The Eye.

Heat courses down the back of my neck, and it has nothing to do with the fire I extinguished, and nothing to do with living in a house lacking air conditioning in August, and nothing to do with anything other than the ooooooh, fuuuuuuuck on the tip of my tongue.

I ruined Nonna’s Eye ziti.

I can’t look at her. If I look at her and she’s gone full-mob-boss Nonna, I will be incinerated on the spot. Or, more likely, run over by a firefly mascot in an out-of-control clown car while warming up between innings in center field, because that would be appropriate karma for ruining Nonna’s Eye ziti.

Dead by the only thing I dislike in my happy place.

No, that would be too good for me. Glow the Firefly in the runaway clown car wouldn’t kill me. He’d probably break all my bones—like what happened to Alonzo—and then no team will want me, and where will I find my happy place then?

But worse—

If I look at Nonna and she’s crying over her flaming ziti, I will have confirmed for myself that I am the worst grandson in the history of grandsons, and there are a fuck-ton of bad grandsons out there, and while I’ve never wanted to be number one, I don’t want to be number four billion either.

Is my junk shrinking?

Is she The Eye-ing my junk and shrinking it right now?

“Oh my god, that was beautiful! I got it all on video, Nonna. You want me to text it to you so you can fix it up for TikTok?”

I briefly close my eyes, imagine myself turning and extinguishing Henri too, decide that would probably get me put in jail, which might be a safer place than here in this kitchen, and instead give the now-smoking ziti one last spray, because damn if that shit didn’t flame up again.

I risk a glance at Nonna.

If her hair is rainbow unicorn sparkles, her face is confused llama with a side of twitching cheek and convulsing lips. “You destroyed my ziti.”

“Technically, my oven did.”

“You have a possessed house that aided and abetted the crimes you wanted to commit in your mind.”

This is bad.

I’ve pissed off Nonna before. There was the incident with her rhododendrons when I was eight. The replica statue of Michelangelo’s David that I ran over when I was learning to drive. The time I mistook her priest for a new boyfriend and pissed on the side of his car.

I’ve never felt this level of you fucked up good now, idiot.

Henri leaps between us. “I know a guy who can help with an exorcism. I met him while I was doing research. And I downloaded a grocery app for Crunchy—the organic grocery store?—and I was about to order some yogurt and bananas and tea anyway, so if you let me know what you need, I can add it quick. Easy-peasy!”

Nonna peers around my new fake girlfriend, but I leap away before The Eye can land on me.

It doesn’t count if I don’t look at her and accept The Eye, does it? “Team meeting. Emergency. Mascot problem. I’ve gotta get to the park.”

Yes.

Yes, I’m running away. I’m being a total and complete chickenshit.

Ask me to save a dog from a burning building, I’m in. Ask me to read Everybody Poops to a hundred first-graders, and I’m there. Ask me to stand naked in a shower and get recorded rubbing shampoo in my hair, and— Okay, not a fair comparison, since I get paid to do those commercials.

But still.

I’m not a chickenshit.

Until it comes to my grandmother.

In fact, right now, I’m snagging my keys and dashing straight to Fluffy Maple.

That’s my car. I named her my internet stripper name. First pet, first street.

Which isn’t important, because The Eye can probably outrun Fluffy Maple. Especially since my wheels top out at about sixty-seven, and the maximum speed limit between here and Duggan Field is forty-five, and that’s only on the one stretch of College Boulevard for about a mile.

“Luca?” Henri calls.

Dammit.

I forgot to kiss my fake girlfriend.

I pivot, dash the seven steps from my driveway to my front door, dip her back in one of those kisses you see in the movies, except she’s off-balance, and something wrenches in my back—nothing the physical therapist at the park can’t handle—and her lips smush against my nostrils while I suck on her chin.

I spin her back up, refuse to look her in the eye, yell, “Can’t wait to have wild monkey sex with you tonight,” and dash back to my car, hoping the threat of wild monkey sex is enough to convince her to leave.

I would dive into Fluffy Maple through her window if I had to, because I can sense Nonna coming.

My grandmother’s coming like tornado storm clouds. You think it’s on the horizon, until bam!

There she is.

My pulse is racing. My mouth is dry. Henri’s chin tasted like some weird kind of lotion, and now I have a dry tongue that tastes like dead-flower-flavored Vaseline.