I want a donut.
And also for those two ducks to not be glaring at me from the wall.
“Inspirational, isn’t it?” Tripp says when he catches me looking at it.
“Denise, can you please call tech support for me? I can’t get onto my computer.”
“It’s password reset day,” she replies with a nod. She’s in her early forties, with pictures of her own teenagers on her desk, and even though she’s alive and well, I want to hug her kids too.
What in the hell is happening to me?
“I reset my password two days ago.”
“Al ordered everyone to change their passwords every month on the twenty-seventh. It was his favorite number. So IT set everyone up to get locked out and force a reset on the twenty-seventh.”
So that’s a policy that will be changed immediately.
And now my eyeball is twitching. Harder.
“Conference call with Pakorski at noon,” Tripp says. He pulls out his phone, snaps a picture of the ducks, and then puts a hand to each of his kids’ backs. “Time to go see Daddy’s office. I have walls you can color on.”
“Co-wors!” Emma jumps in place, drops her donut, and bursts into tears.
“I feel you,” I murmur to her. I’d cry if my jelly donut splattered all over the floor too.
Tripp shoots me a curious look.
And once more, I retreat into my office.
If he has half a clue how easily I’m being charmed by his kids, he’ll use it against me, and he already has enough weapons in his arsenal to get past my defenses.
We’re fixing a baseball team.
Not getting personally attached.
End of story.
My headache slowly subsides, and once Parker and Knox are moving, I get regular text updates about things at Uncle Al’s house.
Parker: We flubberbusted a goat baloney!
Knox: She means we found a goat figurine. Two goats, actually. They’re mating. Want a picture?
Parker: No! Wait and let her sex them up herself. Sex them up. S-E-E them. SEE. Ducking gnomes. Gnomes. P-H-O-N-E-S.
Knox: Babe, you gotta try voice to text. It can’t be any worse than autocorrect.
Parker: That WAS vagina to Mexico.
Parker: DUCK.
Yep.
Every time, it comes back to the ducking and the duck.
I get a jelly donut mid-morning, and Denise tells me that the mating ducks at the ballpark have the potential to be the best thing that’s happened to the Fireballs since the bat incident of 1972. “Flying bats. Not baseball bats. That’s the last year they almost clinched their division title,” she explains.
I head downstairs when it’s time for the conference call with Sam Pakorski, who’s back in New York. Today, he thinks this partnership between me and Tripp is just what the Fireballs have needed. Now let’s see if you can make the team a bunch of profitable winners this year.
I sit on my hands in Tripp’s very utilitarian office so I don’t try to stroke Emma’s curls while she naps on the new couch, which he tells me he bought himself so that his kids don’t have to inhale whatever Uncle Al did on the last one.
Legit concern, though I think the amount of hand sanitizer he uses is overkill.
James is off at preschool, apparently.
I wonder if he goes happily, or if it’s hard for him to be without his dad.
“You should get your duck poster put up in here too,” I tell Tripp on my way out of his office after the conference call.
“Don’t worry. I had fifty printed. They’ll be everywhere in the building before the week’s over.”
Parker and Knox meet me for a late lunch at Chester Green’s, a hockey-themed bar and grill that they’ve heard about from the Berger twins, who are both playing for Copper Valley’s pro hockey team this year, though they’ve been too tied up with practices and games to hang out.
Parker doesn’t ask if I’ve accidentally kissed Tripp again today. Not after I whisper about being stuck with the damn ducks on my office wall.
Because I am stuck, but not for long. I’ll be back in New York next week for the final meetings about Wellington Holdings’ liquidation.
This has been a long time coming, so there’s not as much to do as everyone expects. The high-maintenance assets are long gone, the employees transitioned to new positions, and most of what’s left are relatively small numbers of shares in reliable companies that require little oversight.
But I still don’t want to go back to New York to finish up. I’d rather it was just done.
Ties cut.
Time to move on.
Not to Copper Valley permanently, of course, but long enough to know that the team is once again in the black and under the management of dependable, ethical people.
“Why are single dads so attractive?” I blurt as we’re finishing our burgers.
“They’ve proven they can procreate and provide for their young,” Knox answers.
I blow out a breath I don’t realize I’m holding. “So this is all evolutionary biology, and I’m not actually attracted to him.”
Parker grins over her sweet potato fries. “No, you’re definitely attracted to him. He’s hot regardless of the single dad angle. Also, just so you know, Beck Ryder just walked in the door.”
More boy banders.
I frown. “Is Tripp sending spies after me?”
“If he were sending spies, they’d be a lot less recognizable than Beck Ryder.”
She probably has a point.
Everyone in the restaurant is turning to stare as Beck and a smiling brunette make their way to a table several seats from ours.
Parker suddenly gasps. “Okay, yes, he’s spying on you,” she whispers. It’s a squeaky whisper, and her face is doing that thing again where it goes all splotchy blushy. “Don’t look. Do not look, but I swear that’s Davis Remington. The guy with the man bun. Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Air. Need air.”
Knox grins. “You’re adorable.”
She’s fanning herself and looking-not-looking at the table where Beck and his girlfriend just sat down. A server’s already depositing ten plates of food.
For three people.
At a four-person table.
“Are hobbits joining them?” I ask Knox.
“Beck Ryder can eat his body weight in food three times a day,” Parker whispers.
Except it’s not a whisper.
It’s a shrill wannabe whisper, and now every person at the table in question has turned to stare at us.
Knox waves at Beck.
Parker slides under the table.
One of the things I love most about Parker is that it would be so easy to suspect she wanted to come to Copper Valley because I’m working with one of her boy band idols, except I also knew that this would happen.
She doesn’t want to be seen by her boy band idols, which means it would have been way less stressful for her to have stayed home in New York, where she frequently hangs out with other rock stars, since one of her other bandmates is dating the lead singer of the rock band Half Cocked Heroes.
But Half Cocked Heroes is no Bro Code. At least, not to Parker.
No sense putting off the inevitable.
I rise, set my napkin on my plate, and head for the empty seat at Beck and Davis’s table. And when I get there, I ignore the two men, and instead extend a hand to the lone woman. “Hi, I’m Lila Valentine. Which I suspect you already know.”