“At least we know the team’s not going to Vegas,” he replies, but he’s equally grim.
Because it is.
It’s over.
My dream? It’s not going to happen.
Ever.
6
Lila
Two hours ago, I would’ve told you the one thing I hate more than anything in the universe is being lied to.
Currently, though, I’m sitting in a rental car in a parking garage, spying on a man who lied to me, conflicted about how badly I want to get out of this car, throw my arms around his neck, and hug him and his kids until none of them looks like their puppy—or baby chipmunk, holy hell—died.
So that’s Tripp Wilson.
My boy band knowledge extends only as far as what my friends talk about at book club, and they talk about the Bro Code members who stayed in the limelight more than they talk about the members who went on to live normal lives.
Relatively speaking.
But my point is, they talk a lot about boy bands. Say Bro Code once at a book club meeting, and you’ll find out more than you ever wanted to know.
Which is exactly what I did last week at book club when I took a break from meetings and the hospital. I just muttered Bro Code over my margarita and tacos in Knox and Parker’s jungle-themed apartment, like I’d had a spasm or a cough, and suddenly Knox’s nana, whose hearing is amazing, asked if we’d all seen the news that Levi Wilson is a eunuch.
She never gets anything right, and I suspect she does it for the shock value. Knox has the coolest nana. And also the most terrifying. Because as far as I could tell, none of the gossip sites picked up the story that Levi Wilson was seen making out with a random woman in a club.
Or none of them cared.
Which makes a hell of a lot more sense now that I know Levi was actually his brother, Tripp, even if several other people called him Levi that night.
They damn sure look alike, but not that alike.
After two minutes on Google, I’ve learned that Tripp’s the one whose Hollywood starlet wife died suddenly of the flu almost two years ago, leaving him the widowed father of two who moved home to fully retire from the limelight, which explains why he squirted both his kids’ hands with hand sanitizer like it was habit. Probably didn’t even realize he was doing it.
I can’t even think about it without my heart squeezing itself so hard that I momentarily can’t breathe.
No matter how pissed I am that he lied about who he was.
There’s a knock at my passenger window, and I almost jump out of my skin.
Sam Pakorski just caught me spying.
That’s lovely.
I hit the button to roll down the window, but I don’t unlock the door.
He’s in his early fifties and he’s built like a former pro athlete. Has two teenage daughters. A wife he speaks highly of. Loves baseball, even if it gives him heartburn.
“I have a proposal for you.”
“I’ve heard that before, Mr. Pakorski.”
He flinches. “Your family’s owned the Fireballs from the beginning. They’ve done a lot of good for baseball. I didn’t want to make Al sell, but the team can’t go on like this, Lila. So I wanted to give you options.”
None of his options solve the problem of the letter Uncle Al’s attorney gave me yesterday.
To my niece,
If you’re reading this, then I kicked the bucket while the Fireballs were still in the family. Congrats to me, and congrats to you.
I know you don’t know the team like I did, but when we were kids, your mom and I used to crawl around in the ceiling above the clubhouse and hide buried treasure. We were raised by the ushers at the park and the staff in the front office. One time, when I was really little, I got my whole body stuck in the head of Fiery, the dragon mascot costume, and your mom cried for four days straight at having to watch the crew cut the head off me. It was ugly.
Best damn days of my life.
Except for—never mind. Just trust me when I say, your uncle was a stud. And I enjoyed that too.
Anyway, the glory days of the team are behind us. I wrote your boss and asked if he wanted to buy into the team, because he’s the only billionaire I know, kind of, and he didn’t answer. So the team’s broke. My blood pressure’s the pits. I hope I’ve been able to make payroll if you’re still reading this, because it looks damn bad on the family if I haven’t.
I let your mom down.
I let you down.
I let the team down.
And I’m sorry this is the legacy I’ve left you.
Sell them. Use the money to buy yourself something pretty. And don’t look in the top drawer in the cabinet in my weight room. Ask a neighbor to do it. Probably Joe. The one across the street and two houses to the left. He’s pretty discreet, and if he’s not, you can tell him you know about his cheese fetish.
I’m sorry again. Your mom should’ve been the one to run the team, but she found that higher calling, and I can’t argue with what she did. I kept a few boxes of pictures that I always meant to give you, but it’s easier to write you this letter than it is to pick up the phone, because I know you hated that school I sent you to.
You would’ve hated living with me worse. Promise.
Wishing you all the best, and that you can get top dollar for the team.
Your Uncle
(The Studly One)
I’ve read hundreds of romance novels—thousands, probably. Every time an unexpected heir gets a this is your inheritance letter, it’s usually accompanied with a demand that the heir get married or have a baby within a year to inherit a bunch of money.
Here I am, in no need of a bunch of money, getting told to sell the team my mom should’ve run.
The team Uncle Al asked for my help with.
While payroll might not have even been met this year.
He was right. I hated boarding school. I also would’ve hated living with him.
I hated being an orphan.
His team?
The family team?
It’s the last thing I have that makes me feel like I was born to belong somewhere. And it’s undoubtedly not smart, but I don’t want to sell it.
If anything, I want to go back a year in time, to that day when I found the message from Uncle Al in Dalton Wellington’s email account, asking if he wanted to buy into the Fireballs, and I want to have made a different decision.
What’s a bigger challenge than turning around the worst team in baseball?
Especially when I don’t actually know anything about baseball?
I wanted something new. Looks like I got it.
I look Sam Pakorski in the eye and utter a question that I probably don’t want to actually know the answer to. “What’s your proposal?”
7
Lila
Duggan Field is deserted. The last game of the season was several weeks ago, and it’s currently ten o’clock at night.
Twenty years ago, I spent an afternoon here with my mom, watching my first and only baseball game. We lived in Germany. Uncle Al was this distant rich relative that I knew existed because he sometimes sent weird presents for birthdays, holidays, and Talk Like A Pirate Day. But that summer, we were in the States for vacation. Dad had had a show in the city—he was a painter, like Bob Ross for the Dungeons & Dragons crowd—and so it had just been Mom and me.