Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(61)

Poor Luca.

But I can fix this. I can— “No.”

My two friends shoot me startled glances, and now I, too, am undoubtedly turning pink. “I mean, that’s not right.”

“I got my story wrong? Or you don’t want the gossip?”

“No! I’m sure you’re right, and I want all the gossip. Luca and I are still enjoying…you know…the easy benefits, so we haven’t exactly shared all the deep and meaningful stuff yet—though I know we will—but that’s so cruel. And wrong.”

“He fired his agent the same day. And he was mid-negotiation for exercising his contract option with New York, which is part of why he got traded. Everything stalled too long, and his new agent had higher aspirations. It’s worked out well, I’d say—the new guy’s the one who was like, ‘start growing your hair enough that we get a few good shots for me to sell to shampoo companies.’ Kinda ruthless, but also admirable, I guess?”

“Paid off,” Marisol mutters. “Emilio can’t even get endorsement deals for used car lots.”

“Emilio needs a new agent too. Oh! Game time! Where’s the popcorn? And I promised Brooks we’d do the wave together for good luck, and do you mind if I light a few candles? We’re so close. I need to smell fall. I need to smell fall and believe.”

Yesterday, I would’ve thrown my whole heart into helping Mackenzie with her superstitions.

Today, I feel wrong being here when I suspect Luca’s struggling in Boston.

And when the pre-game show starts on Marisol and Emilio’s television, and the camera pans to the entire Fireballs’ team with their hats off for the national anthem, we all gape.

“Their hair,” Marisol gasps.

“The dads did not do that. Ohmygod, this better not be bad luck.”

“Nonna,” I whisper.

This has Nonna written all over it.

But that’s not the worst view of the pre-game show.

Nope.

The worst view comes when the cameras pan to the fathers.

Nonna’s sitting with them, naturally.

But it’s when the cameras switch and identify an arguing couple in another part of the stands that I leap to my feet.

Should I go to Boston?

Not if I want to keep up this whole charade for Luca that I’m not falling for him.

But am I going to Boston?

You’re damn right I am.





24





Luca



Losing sucks.

We’re not out of the playoff race—far from it—but we haven’t clinched our spot yet either.

“Shouldn’t have rushed the dye job,” Robinson grumbles as we climb off the bus and file into the hotel after the game, all of us in matching rainbow hair.

“Shouldn’t have brought the fathers,” Max mutters even more softly to me. “Fucked with the routine.”

He’s starting tomorrow.

This isn’t a good headspace.

“Forget it,” I mutter back. “You know how to pitch a ball. Just do it.”

“Do it despite the universe being a dick,” Brooks agrees on his other side.

“Elliott’s right, man,” Cooper agrees. “And if there’s anyone you should listen to about superstitions, it’s the guy who waited until he was thirty to get laid but can still hit a baseball despite giving the universe the middle finger.”

“Get some sleep,” I tell them all. “We’ll get ’em tomorrow.”

We’re sneaking in a back entrance, because sleep—not groupies—are what we all need.

But I still don’t relax until I’m in the elevator, because I know my father’s lurking somewhere.

Lurking. Waiting. Wanting to be someone again by proximity.

Is it weird that I want to call Henri?

It is.

It’s weird. I should want to hit something, but I want to call Henri, because I know exactly what she’d do.

She’d start rattling about the time Confucius thought he was a goner because he was facing down a horde of angry elves with cursed vampire stakes ready to hex them all and send them through his heart, and instead, he gathered the strength he needed to overcome being cursed by his nemesis to shift into a bat—instead of a turtle—one last time and pull some bat ninja moves, because that’s what heroes do when their backs are against the wall.

And now I feel better, because we’re fucking heroes.

Baseball heroes, not vampire heroes, but still heroes.

And I still want to talk to Henri.

She has this brightness that she spreads everywhere she goes, and I’m struggling—hard—to understand how five different men could walk away from her.

I swipe my keycard over the lock to my room, push inside, and pull out my phone, ready to make that call—her book will be live in Europe by now, based on how she was explaining the timing of books going live the other day—when I smell it.

Eau du hatred.

The official smell of my family when the two sides clash.

“Luca. There you are. Tell your grandmother to get out of the bathroom before I piss all over the carpet.”

“This is a hotel room for two, not three, and you can pay for your own damn room in another damn city,” Nonna yells from inside the bathroom.