Now it’s his turn to glance at the field. Probably wondering if I’m willing to agree to the commissioner’s ultimatum too. Maybe looking for that squawking sound.
Or maybe wondering if he can find enough dirt on me to make me sell to him.
“It’s not ideal,” he finally says quietly as he pulls a small bottle of hand sanitizer from his pocket and squirts out a small dollop.
“Because it’s more work than sipping bourbon in the owners’ office and letting everyone else do the job for you?”
He grins at that as he rubs his hands together, and oh, god, he’s adorable.
Just like that night in the club.
Relatable. Friendly. And adorable.
He’s too old to be adorable—I doubt a man in his mid-thirties would appreciate being told I have a crush on how cute he is, which I wouldn’t confess anyway, because he lied to me, and not about if he liked chocolate or vanilla ice cream, but about his identity—but when he smiles, he’s so boyish and light and not at all weighed down by being a single dad who can’t have my team.
Yes, my team.
“It is a bit more work than that, yes,” he acknowledges.
“I’m not the kind to sip bourbon while everyone else does the work either. And I will expect the kind of attention that a president of a baseball team should deliver, and if you pull anything like lying to me again, make no mistake, I will end you.”
His gaze lands back on my face, and I’m grateful for the cool, dark evening, because I swear he just silently promised me all the attention I can handle.
And probably all the honesty too.
“My team put together a report on you,” he says. “I didn’t get to read it before the meeting, but I glanced through while my kids were napping. You’re Dalton Wellington’s personal executive assistant?”
I cross my arms like I didn’t investigate him just as thoroughly. “You put together a report on me.”
“I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood, oldest son of a single mother. Going to Fireballs games with my brother and our friends was the highlight of my summer. This team is why I wanted to play baseball, and this team is what I walked away from when I signed on for Bro Code to keep an eye on Levi. I want my kids to get that chance to sit in these bleachers and have a home team. I want every kid in Copper Valley to have that opportunity. It’s not a game. It’s an experience. With heroes and heartbreak and hope. The Fireballs have lost that. I’m bringing it back, and every single person in a hundred-mile radius of here is going to feel it, and they’re going to benefit from it. So, yes, we put together a report on you. I won’t stop until the Fireballs are the team every other team wants to be, and Copper Valley is the sports capital of the world. No matter what’s standing in my way. I can’t say I’m sorry enough for what I did in New York a few weeks ago, but I also won’t go meekly into the night just because I fucked up. Not when it’s my team on the line.”
Did I say it was cool here? Because I’m pretty sure we just hit the peak of summer. His brutal determination to take over my family’s baseball team is hot as hell.
“How are you going to balance your duties with your kids?” I force myself to ask.
“I’ve had part-time nannies since they were born. We’re just…unfortunately in between at the moment.”
“Part-time?”
“You expected me to say full-time?”
“I’m curious how often they’ll be accompanying you to the office. If you take the ultimatum.” And, yes, I want to know if he did that patient dad thing with them when his wife was still alive. I always assumed most people in Hollywood have full-time nannies. I was apparently wrong.
But I won’t swoon at him rocking that dad thing. More, I mean. He’s already lied to me once. It takes more than letting a kid bleed all over a dress shirt and rescuing a baby chipmunk without freaking to get back in my good graces.
“My plans for the office include the addition of on-site daycare and preschool for all employees,” he informs me.
Unfortunately reasonable. It’s an option we used to look at in every investment opportunity that came to Wellington, because we liked to see those little nuggets that mean a company cares about its employees’ whole life. Not just about squeezing forty productive hours out of them every week.
A chicken squawks again, and this time, another chicken answers it, though it doesn’t sound like a happy chicken.
Chicken? That is a chicken, isn’t it?
Tripp glances at the field with a frown. “Are they nesting down there?”
“Do you really think chickens are the biggest problem the Fireballs have?”
He grins, and hold my ovaries, I am going to swoon against my better judgment. Dammit.
“Aside from the easy jokes about who gets to lay eggs on this field, they’ll tear up the turf.” He rises and heads to the field like he owns the place, even though that honor currently belongs to me. I scramble to follow.
He easily swings open a door I didn’t even see in the half-wall around the field and strolls out, his phone flashlight activated, scanning the ground and following the squawking.
“No chickens on this turf,” I announce.
“And you’re ready to give your first inspirational talk to the players. They’re gonna love you.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you.”
“Just saying. You’re not chickens always goes over better with pro athletes than get your wimpy asses out there to get whooped.”
“I know plenty of pro athletes, and you’d be surprised who actually is a chicken.”
We’re headed to the dugout, which I only know the name of because I’ve been binging every baseball romance novel Knox has ever recommended on his blog.
“Which pro athletes?” Tripp asks.
“The Berger twins.” Kind of. The identical hockey-playing tanks have a sister who’s friends with Parker and Knox, and our paths have crossed occasionally at book club.
“The Berger twins are like five people. And afraid of nothing.”
“Zeus hates spiders. And Brooks Elliott.”
“Zeus Berger hates Brooks Elliott?”
“No. I mean I know him too.”
Tripp stops and turns to face me. “You know Brooks Elliott. Personally.”
“No.”
“Now you don’t know him?”
“I know him very well. His sister is one of my best friends. We hung out at her wedding recently. But no, I’m not asking him to come play for the Fireballs. He has family in New York. That would be rude.”
He closes his eyes briefly and his nostrils waver while he sucks in an audible breath.
Translation: Dear god, the new team owner is an idiot.
I cross my arms and glare at him. “I’m well aware that professional athletes often have to live away from their families, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t enjoy being close to home while they can.”
Plus, his mother is terrifying. I will not break that woman’s family up.
She’d put a hit out on me, and Uncle Guido wouldn’t be able to stop it.
The squawking erupts again nearby and saves me. There are no visible chickens on the field, and it gets louder as we approach the dugout on the first base side.