Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(24)

“Oh my gosh, Luca, really?”

“No, Henrietta, that’s the story I told my teammates. Jesus. Fuck on a lasagna. This is never going to work. Not for tonight, and not until the end of the season.”

I pat his arm. “Oh, Luca. Honey. I’ve been training for this my entire career. We’ll pull it off so well no one will know what hit them. And bonus? I’m already feeling like relationships are awful. You’re a peach.” I lean over, peck his cheek, ignore the tingle in my lips and the way my nose practically orgasms at the scent of his aftershave or shampoo or whatever that is, and reach for the door handle. “So. Where’s the party? I’m gonna charm the pants off all your friends, and when we’re done with them, they’ll be asking you for relationship advice.”

He doesn’t look convinced, but he climbs out of the car too.

Still muttering.

All the way to the elevator.

“Smile, honey,” I murmur. “The cameras are watching.”

He smiles.

Like, actually smiles.

Be still my panties. I think I’m in trouble.

No.

Not trouble.

What if he’s right? What if in order to figure out how to not fall in love, I do need to sleep with someone I don’t plan on living with forever?

And what if he can give me a real, honest-to-god orgasm in the process?

Huh.

In that case…party on, panties.

Party on.





11





Luca



This is a disaster. We’re not even to Elliott’s apartment, and already, this is a disaster.

Henri keeps shooting looks at my crotch.

So does her cat.

They look like escaped clown prison convicts. Between the bright pink and green striped beach towel piled four feet high on her head, the black shorts with vicious pink vampire unicorns, and the fact that she’s wearing another man on her shirt, without a bra, and dear god, the slippers.

She’s wearing fluffy panda slippers.

This is the worst idea in the history of ideas. I should’ve taken all the hints and drove us straight back to my place, skipped this meeting-the-team thing, and then called one of her family members. She’s a danger to herself, and I’m quickly making her my problem.

I’m becoming a problem myself.

I should’ve thought to ask if she wanted to go back and change, but when she didn’t suggest it herself, and she took off not knowing her left from her right, what she was wearing became the last thing on my mind.

What does it say about us that I already believe she’d actually dress like this to go to a party?

“How the hell do you drive in those things?”

She jerks her attention away from my crotch and looks down at her feet, lifting her toes, which makes the panda heads on top of her feet dance. “Practice. Pooks and Elbow go everywhere with me.”

“You…named your slippers.”

“In my third book, before I started writing Confucius books, my heroine slips through a time portal into another dimension when she puts these slippers on. When she lands on the other side, it’s full of were-pandas, and Pooks and Elbow are the first two she meets.”

No words.

None. They went poof.

“Since it’s an alternate dimension, the pandas don’t shift into humans when they’re not in were-panda form. They shift into sentient sticks of butter. But she doesn’t fall in love with a stick of butter. She falls in love with a centaur who was accidentally summoned to the alternate universe by the head were-panda during a ritual gone wrong. It sounds weird, but it works in the book. Trust me.”

“Can you pretend you’re mute for the next hour?”

She laughs, and fuck me, she’s a snorter.

She snorts when she laughs.

And it’s too late to bail on this entire thing, take my chances with having an anvil drop on my head next time I’m walking around downtown thanks to The Eye, and kick Nonna out of my house, because the elevator doors are opening, and Francisco and Max are standing in the hallway in the middle of a heated discussion that stops the minute they lay eyes on Henri.

For once, I don’t know the first question either will ask. I told them Henri’s name earlier, mentioned that I played it low-key like I didn’t know her when she came through on the tour with the romance novelists yesterday because we weren’t ready to talk about our relationship yet, and that I wasn’t sure how much she liked crowds.

It was almost the truth.

But the way Max is gaping at Henri suggests he’s starting to suspect my entire story is a load of bullshit. “What the—”

Lopez silences the pitcher with a shot to the arm and recovers first. He, too, has a terrifying grandmother, which probably explains the bright smile and the way he reaches for her hand, pauses, and then strokes the cat right over its vampire pajamas.

You can practically hear him thinking thank god my abuela has never met this woman and cursed me with her, though her cat is adorable. “Honor to meet you, Henri. Luca talks of nothing but your beauty.”

While Henri preens, Max shoves him out of the way. “Quit stealing Rossi’s girlfriend. We need him to live through the playoffs.”

“We need to make the playoffs.”

“You say potato, I say Lamborghini. Hi. I’m Max. You need a room so you two can do the nasty? I’ll kick Elliott and his lady out. Or I’ll borrow another apartment for you.”