Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(88)

When the mascots get up to their antics, I think of Henri smashing a pie in Glow’s face, and then Henri cutting my mascot socks and sewing them into itty-bitty mascot socks for Dogzilla so that the mascots could also be subjected to the litter box.

When I hit a home run in the bottom of the eighth during game three, I think of coming home to Henri and her excited smile. You hit a home run! You hit a home run and you won!

And where the baseball stadium has always been my happy place, all I see is what I’ve lost.

We lose our second home game, and then our third, and then we’re on the road.

Back to Seattle, one loss away from being kicked out of the playoffs, or two wins away from making it to the final round that could crown us as baseball’s number one team.

We’re six wins from going from zero to hero in the span of a year, and nothing about this feels anywhere near as good as it should.

Mackenzie quits her job and comes with us to Seattle. “Win or lose, I’m there,” she informs Francisco as she’s boarding the plane when he asks if she’s afraid of changing the routine. “I was going to quit anyway since clearly it’s good luck for you all to have me in Florida with you for spring training. Just moved it up a few months.”

Her gaze lands on me, and she opens her mouth like she wants to add something else, then shakes her head and moves past me to claim a seat two rows back.

I give Brooks the what the hell was that? look.

He ignores me. “Hey, Torres. Saw Marisol’s necklace. About time, idiot.”

I whip my head around, and I’m not alone.

Emilio’s grinning like an goofball. “She’s my boo. Made her wait long enough, and I don’t wanna—”

He cuts himself off as his gaze lands on me, and we all know what he’s thinking.

I don’t wanna fuck it up.

Marisol didn’t want a diamond engagement ring.

She wanted a necklace that reminded her of her favorite novel from her teenage years.

And Henri didn’t want a ring, or a wedding, or a husband at all, but I got so wrapped up in the idea of keeping her forever that I thought proposing a different kind of wedding without all of that love crap would be exactly what she’d like, when in reality, I basically offered to be the next guy to humiliate her.

Fuck.

I’d never humiliate Henri. I love her.

I. Love. Her.

I lean into the aisle. “Elliott. I need to talk to your wife.”

“Can’t hear you.”

I glare.

He gives me the suck it up shrug.

And then Glow the Firefly drops into the seat next to me.

“Smile, Rossi,” our team photographer calls. “Wait, don’t. That was a better expression.”

“Team yearbook!” someone crows.

I spend the entire flight from the east to the west coast with Glow sitting next to me, and now I’m wondering why the mascot didn’t need to at least go to the bathroom once.

Mackenzie spends the next day and a half avoiding me.

It’s mid-October.

There are Halloween decorations everywhere you look, and I can’t even run to the corner drugstore for a freaking candy bar without seeing rows of costumes that all make me think of Henri and Dogzilla.

I’m about to get a cat.

I’m seriously in danger of walking into a shelter and leaving with a cat.

I miss the cat.

I miss Henri’s companionship. I miss her smile. I miss the way her lips move when she’s typing, and the way she gets excited over sweet corn from a farmers market, and the way she sometimes misses her mouth when she tries to take a drink of tea while she’s writing because she’s so into her scene.

Tell me to fall in love, and I’ll fight you all day.

Give me unconditional love that fits, that’s worth the effort, and I’m still the idiot who doesn’t know what he had until it was gone.

We take the first game in Seattle, which leaves the series tied.

One more win, and we’ll be league champions, headed to the World Series for the first time in Fireballs history.

We all wear our Fireballs capes and our Fiery thongs over our pants onto the field for warm-ups. It’s a joke from earlier in the season, and we’re feeling like gods when we start the game with three runs in the first inning.

Without the thongs and capes, for the record. Those were just for warm-ups.

But things start sliding downhill in the fourth, because we’re getting too cocky.

By the seventh, we’re tied at five.

At the top of the ninth, Brooks takes a pitch to the arm. He shakes it off and heads to first, but I follow him and roll us into a double-play on a ball I shouldn’t have swung at.

Darren strikes out.

And on Stafford’s first pitch in the bottom of the ninth, Seattle’s catcher slams it out of the park so high up that neither Darren, nor Robinson, nor I could’ve leapt high enough to rob him.

Not even with springs in our cleats.

The three of us stand there in the outfield, staring dumbfounded at the scoreboard sixty feet up as the ball pummels the screen and Seattle knocks us out of the running while their fans cheer and scream so loudly, the ground is probably shaking all the way out to the San Juan Islands.

“Fuck,” Robinson whispers as he and Darren converge on me.

“Rookie,” Darren replies like a man who’s earned a hell of a lot more than standing here, watching another team’s fans celebrate the win we so desperately wanted.