Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(55)

That I’m growing on him.

That he likes me.

That maybe our fake love story could be real.

To the best of my knowledge, none of the men I’ve been engaged to have ever read one of my books.

But Luca has.

Learning how to not fall in love wasn’t supposed to hurt.

Which means one of two things. Either this isn’t working.

Or it’s working entirely too well.

I’m drifting deeper into my thoughts when Tanesha says something about indoctrinating grandpa the right way with the baby by sharing a hotel room with him for the players’ father’s trip, and my gaze instantly snaps to Luca.

He’s poker-faced, except for a tiny tick in his jaw.

“Is—” I start.

“No.”

I squint at him. I’ve been writing hard again, and yeah, I do need to get to an eye doctor, but maybe next month.

He lifts a brow, then follows it by lifting a corner of his lips, and gah.

I’m rapidly becoming fluent in Luca Rossi, and that corner lift tells me two things: One, his father is not going on the dad’s trip with the Fireballs, and two, if I don’t drop it, he’ll kiss me again.

I should drop it.

I should definitely drop it.

But if I drop it, I’ll never get the right moment to ask again. If life isn’t about seizing moments, what is it about?

My hand drifts to his thigh as I lean into him and lower my voice like I’m talking dirty to him. We do have appearances to keep up. “Is that because he’s not invited, or because you told him not to come?”

“Henrietta…”

“A woman always wants to help her boyfriend deal with issues that cause him pain. I can’t fix your problems for you—that’s not the healthy route to lasting relationships, it turns out—but I can hold your hand if you want to work through them.”

I slide my fingers higher on the thick muscle in his leg, and he shoots to his feet so abruptly that the chair topples over backward and clatters to the ground. “Gotta call it a night. Young love.”

He wrenches me to my feet and nods at Max. “Remember LA?”

The pitcher gives him a knowing grin. “Calling in those drinks I owe you? Dunno, Rossi, that Shirley Temple might break me.”

Luca waves bye with his middle finger and pulls me out of the bar. We make it four steps past the door when he turns on me, loosely trapping me against the brick building. “You want to play games, Henrietta?”

“You’re helping me with my baggage. I should help you with yours.”

His hand trails down my hip and he leans closer. A passer-by would think we were planning on getting busy right here against the building.

And I wouldn’t object to that, because I know what he can do with his tongue. He smells like nighttime at the ballpark with a hint of danger added to the mix. And he’s watching me with lowered lids over darkened eyes like he, too, could easily forget where we are because I’m his favorite aphrodisiac.

Hello, party in my panties.

He nips my ear. “I don’t have baggage.”

“If that were true—” I cut myself off with a gasp of pleasure as he licks my neck beneath my earlobe.

Must. Resist.

I grit my teeth. “If that were true, you’d talk about your issues with your father and about why your mom and Nonna hate each other, and Nonna wouldn’t have—mmph!”

Okay, yes.

I talked until he had to kiss me to shut me up, and I’d do it again.

Because Luca Rossi is kissing me.

He’s kissing me when his teammates aren’t watching, when his Nonna isn’t here either, and when he’s digging his fingers into my hips and holding me tight against his body, which is fully on board with the let’s go find a dark corner and do this the right way plan if that hard ridge poking my belly is any indication.

It’s not forever, Henrietta, I remind myself.

As if I’m going to listen to that kind of negativity when my entire body is in absolute bliss.

A camera flashes, and Luca pulls back abruptly.

“Hey! Hey, it’s Luca Rossi!”

He blinks three times, like he’s re-centering himself and not entirely certain what happened, then the camera flashes again.

“Gossips,” he mutters. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

Oh, god. He knew.

He knew they were there.

He’s not attracted to me. He’s still playing the part.

And I still haven’t learned.

Which means I probably never will.





22





Luca



Two days later, right at seven in the evening, mere hours after getting one game closer to the playoffs, the team strolls out of Duggan Field to board the bus that’ll take us to the airport for our flight to Boston, riding blow-up animals like the biggest, baddest cowboy team to ever exist.

Francisco’s on a triceratops. Robinson’s riding an alligator. Cooper’s on a giraffe with a neck that doesn’t fit into the bus’s doorway. Brooks is shouting giddyup! to a blow-up bulldog with a mailman biting its ass.

I’m on a rooster, because Henri bet me I wouldn’t.

She loses, so now she has to name a vampire after me.

We’re both pretending Chester Green’s didn’t happen. That she doesn’t know everyone else’s dads are along for this trip, or that thinking about my father bothers me.