Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(68)

During the day when I’m not hiding in his basement writing and he’s not at the ballpark, we’ve had some fascinating discussions where neither of us touch the flaming elephantasaurus in the room that is this weird tension between us.

For instance, I’ve learned that he likes to jog through the zoo a few days a week during the off-season to get his animal fix, and that he’s always wanted pets but feels like it’s unfair to them given how much he travels. He spends a few hours a week helping out at food pantries or animal shelters or visiting with kids at the children’s hospital. If he can’t sleep, he’ll binge watch Sherlock. He’s three classes shy of a degree, because he took classes during the winter when he was in the minors but couldn’t decide what he wanted to major in, since he knew he wanted the big league paycheck and needed to put his primary emphasis on continuously improving his body until it was in major-league shape.

And he’s usually much further along in his fixer-upper projects at this point in a season, but he likes Copper Valley, and he’s stalling on the project for fear that when it’s done, the universe will know it’s time to trade him again.

So the baseball player who doesn’t seem to have any superstitions on the field has them after all.

They’re in his home life instead of at the ballpark.

Considering it doesn’t feel like he’s even started, I’m guessing Luca’s hoping he’ll get to retire in Copper Valley. Not just stay another season, but fully retire.

Nonna’s still staying with us, and she’s filled in a few blanks. I get the feeling she likes me more since I told her off.

And I’m sad that that’s what it takes to get accepted by part of his family. I don’t want to take sides. I want everyone to get along for Luca’s sake.

But I still appreciate knowing that his dad didn’t pay the child support he was supposed to after the divorce, and that by the time Nonna realized it, Morgan was so pissed with all of them that she told Nonna to take a flying leap.

Naturally, Nonna didn’t listen, or she wouldn’t be here, but things are still tense between them.

She also told me people worth having in your life are worth fighting for.

Wisdom from Nonna.

Maybe one day I’ll ask her how I managed to get engaged five times to men who couldn’t go through with marrying me.

She’d probably tell me because I’m a ducked-up basket case.

Yep.

Ducked-up.

I’m back on the struggle bus with using my big girl words.

Luca leaves for a week-long away trip, and after two days of staying in Copper Valley with me, Nonna heads out to Vegas for a thing with one of her new TikTok sponsors.

The Fireballs clinch a spot in the playoffs on their first away game after Boston, so everyone in all of Copper Valley is riding this amazing high. Mackenzie randomly bursts into tears during Lady Fireballs meetings.

So does Tanesha.

And Marisol.

I cry the happy tears with them, because how can I not?

This is a big deal. Luca told me the Fireballs only won something like thirty-nine games out of over a hundred and fifty last year, so to make the playoffs is such a drastic turnaround that even my dad texts about seeing it on the news.

My family knows I’m taking a time-out from life in Copper Valley. I don’t think they follow small-time gossip pages enough to have picked up on the fact that I’m fake-dating a baseball player, which is fine.

Really.

It’s better this way, because I don’t have to answer the questions about if Luca makes enough money to pay for this wedding, when there won’t be a wedding, which is the whole point of me getting to know him in the first place.

I take myself out of Copper Valley and drive an hour or so to reach the Blue Ridge Mountains and go hiking for an afternoon after that, because I need the break from my break.

It feels like both seventeen years and also like a blink of an eye by the day Luca’s supposed to be home again.

Kids are back in school. The weather’s getting comfortably chilly at night, and the kitchen is the perfect spot to sit and write with the windows open now that we’re well into September.

And that’s exactly where I am when my phone rings near dusk.

It’s Elsa, and her due date is approaching, so of course, I drop everything and answer.

And I immediately wish I hadn’t.

She’s not in labor. No one’s hurt. Nothing like that. No one’s dying, no children were stung by bees or fell down a well.

It’s just…

Well, it might be Elsa being Elsa, and this time, she’s completely broken me.

I manage to hold myself together until I can get her off the phone over an hour later, and as soon as I’ve hung up, I wish Nonna was here, because I need a hug.

I need a hug so bad that I’d ask Nonna to be my Nonna for five minutes and hug me.

Okay, confession: Nonna’s not my first choice of who I’m wishing was here.

But I’m pretending like she is, because I can’t handle wishing for Luca on top of handling the bomb that Elsa dropped.

I could call Mackenzie, or Marisol, or Tanesha, except they wouldn’t get it.

Not the way my writer besties will. So I log onto my computer and send an SOS to a couple close professional friends.

In ten minutes, I’m huddled at Luca’s kitchen table, a fan blowing on me because I’m so upset I’m sweating despite the cooler temperatures, my favorite glittery Addicted to Love Stories coffee mug filled to the brim with hot chocolate, and my laptop open while my three friends log onto our video chat.