Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(87)

“This gonna affect your game?” Max asks.

I scrub a hand over my face. “No.”

“You sure?”

“I’m a fucking professional and I can fucking compartmentalize, but it won’t be a problem, because I’m getting her back.”

I am.

I’ll get her back.

I’ll take back the proposal. And all the idiotic things that fell out of my mouth next as I was struggling with realizing that she was going to continue saying no, because marry me is the very, very worst thing I could’ve ever said to Henri, even if having Henri by my side for the rest of my life is the only thing I’ve ever wanted as much as I want baseball.

I fire her a quick text.

I’m so sorry. I know better. Call me. Please? I’ll make this up to you.

She doesn’t answer immediately.

The small message beneath the text doesn’t change from delivered to read either.

Shit. Shit.

Max pushes off his Mercedes SUV. “Look, Luca, you need to do whatever will make you happy, but all this shit your family’s putting you through? That’s not love, man. That’s not what anyone needs. You want neutral ground where no one’s giving you shit or trying to tell you how to live your life, you know where I live.”

“She’ll text me back. She’s probably—”

“I don’t know shit about love beyond what I see in movies, but even I know you don’t want your live engagement photos to happen when you look like your bride-to-be lost a bet over who could most look like they belong in a mental institution.”

“Shut your fucking mouth.” I’m slamming him against his car before my brain can process that he’s grinning.

It’s a dark grin, but it’s a grin. “Yeah. Thought so.”

“Screw you.”

“Not enjoying your pain, Luca. Making sure you’re good enough for her.”

I’m not, and we both know it. “I don’t want another dickhead hurting her by giving her dreams about forever when they don’t deserve a forever with her. Nobody does. She’s too—she’s too good for all of us.”

“Any woman who’ll send a teddy bear bouquet to a guy’s nuts after he gets racked by a line drive really is.”

I gape at him.

He shrugs. “Stafford told me. While he was sitting on an ice pack after that game in Philly. Didn’t want to tell you so you wouldn’t get jealous. Or get her in trouble if she’s using your credit card.”

“What’d she do for you?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Cole. What did she do for you?”

He sighs. “You remember the father’s trip?”

“Do any of us not?”

“She found my first tee-ball coach. Had him call me. Offer to come next year if I wanted.”

“That’s…”

“The nicest thing anyone could’ve done. And she knew because she listened, and she’s a freak when it comes to finding things out. So, yeah. She’s too good for all of us.”

I stare at my phone again, where Henri still hasn’t texted back.

She could be asleep.

Or she could be hundreds of miles away by now.

She left an entire house behind once. Why would she worry about a piece or two of luggage and some clothes and a coffee mug, when she has everything she needs—her cat and her computer—already with her?

Max is right.

I don’t deserve her.





34





Luca



It’s been eight days.

It’s been eight days since I saw Henri. I stopped calling, texting, and emailing her four days ago when my mother called me a stalker and my grandmother agreed.

My grandmother and my mother are new best friends.

I don’t know what happened, but they’ve both decided to let bygones be bygones, to move in with me and help with my renovations, and to sit up and play cards all hours of the night, and they suddenly agree on everything from which brand of jelly is best to what’s best for my life.

Fine. I know what happened.

Henri happened.

Henri happened, and she left my life better for having been here, which I’m not thinking about, because I need to concentrate on baseball.

Our first two games of the league championship are in Seattle. We come home with the series tied.

Every time I run into the Lady Fireballs, Henri’s missing.

Of course she is.

She left.

I spooked her, and she left.

And every time I see one of the Lady Fireballs, I start to ask if they’ve heard from Henri, and they give me one of those looks, and I walk away.

I don’t want to know.

I don’t want to hear that she’s moved on. That she went to a remote cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains for a few days to collect herself, and a shapeshifting bear man stumbled into her cabin and she tended his wounds and got engaged and he left her because he, too, realized he could never be good enough for her.

I seriously need to get a grip.

But at least my game’s not suffering.

Much.

It’s almost harder being at home, because between innings, we have control of the video screen, and every time a kid starts doing the Gel, I think of Nonna, then I think of Henri.