Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(6)

In the Fireballs’ case, the new owner retired Fiery the Dragon and has fans voting on a freaky-looking firefly, a duck—don’t ask—an echidna—more don’t ask—and a flaming meatball.

My hat?

It features two plush flaming meatballs swinging a curved bat, and it looks…

Well, it looks like injured male genitalia in need of jock itch spray. And possibly antibiotics.

I proudly plop it on my head, whip out my phone, bend over, and attack Elliott in the arm with the plush bent bat glued to my hat while snapping selfies for the unofficial team yearbook that Emilio Torres is putting together.

“That’s right, baby, rub it all over me,” Brooks crows. “Cooper. Get a shot for Mackenzie. With Francisco using the Fiery thong on the meatball in the background. She’ll be so turned on.”

“And this is the players’ lounge, which I thought would be empty this time of day,” a feminine voice says behind me.

We all leap to attention, because while we know we’re in no danger of being fired by Lila Valentine, team co-owner and the woman responsible for the Fireballs still existing, we also don’t need her to know about the dick-ball hat.

She’d probably decide to mass-produce and sell them, which would make the flaming meatball option even more popular, and we’d be stuck with the damn thing forever.

Elliott’s fiancée is right.

They need to bring back Fiery the Dragon.

I whip off the dick-ball hat and hide it behind my back.

Too late, it seems, because the seven women with her are all gaping at me.

Including—oh, fuck me.

Including trouble.

Trouble with a capital Henri.

It’s not that I’ve spared many thoughts or have any feelings about the woman jilted a month ago by my mother’s possible new secret boyfriend.

It’s more that the very sight of her makes me see that giant cake monument with the googly eyes, and remember Jerry asking all those questions about my own wedding disaster, and then remember Jerry kissing my mother, who’s gone radio silent since we both vowed to never discuss anything that happened in that weird little town that I had no idea existed an hour from where I grew up, and that I now can’t un-know.

“Oh, shit, dude, the romance novelists are here,” Francisco hisses to my left.

“The what?” I hiss back, and it’s not because I don’t understand his accent. It’s that I don’t want to hear.

“Romance novelists.” Brooks is also sizing up the seven women ranging in age from twenties to seventies, hair from platinum to purple, skin of all shades, and clothing from yoga pants to pantsuits. “Lila used to run a publishing company. She heard a few writers needed to do research about baseball for books, and…”

He shrugs.

Doesn’t need to finish that sentence.

The thing about the Fireballs being total losers for so long is that their fans abandoned them.

Brooks’s fiancée excluded, of course. He’s shacking up with the most dedicated Fireballs fan ever put on this earth—including Cooper Rock, who grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains an hour outside of the city and has never wanted to play for another team.

But Cooper gets paid to be a Fireball, whereas Mackenzie is doing everything for free.

Right down to stealing the damn meatball costume to screw with the voting on the new mascot contenders.

Things are working well, and management’s still pulling out all the stops to get as much positive press on the team as they can, and it seems giving behind-the-scenes tours to romance novelists is the next ploy.

“Which one’s Cooper Rock?” the oldest of the writers asks, peering around the dusty old common room. Granny Romance is a black lady, about four feet tall with chicken legs sticking out from under her jean skirt, mismatched socks with her white sneakers, and a Fireballs visor on her white hair. “I need a selfie with Cooper Rock so my daughter-in-law will believe we got the full tour.”

Cooper lights up. “You want one with my shirt on, or my shirt off?”

“Oooh, honey, both.”

“You get him, you want me too.” Francisco whips off his practice jersey and flexes. “I have bigger muscles.”

The tallest of the novelists fans herself.

The white lady in the Fireballs jersey is furiously scribbling in a notebook.

Granny Romance leaps at us while Brooks pulls his shirt off and flexes too.

And Henri Bacon is pretending she’s using her phone as a voice recorder, but she’s staring straight at me.

There’s no way this is a coincidence.

I fold my arms and watch her, remember I’m holding the dick-ball hat, and scramble to hide it behind my back again.

She gives me a finger wave. “Hi, Luca.”

“You know a romance novelist?” Darren asks.

“Not really.”

“She knows you.”

“We were in the same place once.”

“Dude, I’d wave back. If you don’t, she might write you into a book and make you the bad guy or kill you or give you fleas in your pubes or something,” Francisco hisses.

Then he flexes for the selfies.

“Fleas in pubes! Brilliant!” The one taking notes is also walking blindly, and she trips over a chair.

Henri dives and catches her. “Whoopsie-daisy!”