“Holy. Fuc—ow!” Levi glares at me for kicking him under the table while the two women shake hands, both of them smiling secret smiles like the entire table doesn’t now know both of their secrets.
Mom’s gaping. So’s Homer.
“Unka Wevi, fuck!” Emma crows.
“He has very bad language and should definitely be disinherited,” I tell my daughter.
“I’m willing to overlook the language so long as he doesn’t start dating Violet again,” Mom replies.
“For fu—pete’s sake, fine. Keep the damn doll,” Levi says.
“He slept with it until he was twenty-three,” Mom side-whispers to Lila and Yvette.
“Thirteen,” he corrects.
Lila tips her head back and laughs.
That’s joy.
Pure joy.
And seeing her joy is filling my heart with something I thought it could never be full of again.
She meets my eyes over the table, and I rub my foot against hers under the table.
I’m so fucking proud of you, I telegraph.
She gives me a cheeky grin, but her eyes are shiny and there’s a flutter at the base of her neck that tells me she’s still mildly terrified of what she just confessed out loud—or rather, with her handshake—but she’s going to be okay.
So. Fucking. Proud.
And you’re damn right I’ll make sure no one in this room breathes a word.
An hour later, she’s trying to chase me out of the kitchen. “You cooked. We can clean.”
“More hands make clean-up go faster.”
“And sometimes you have to take a break and let someone else do something.”
“And miss all the good dishwashing gossip? No way.”
She throws her hands up. “You’re impossible.”
I laugh, and I don’t care that my brother, my mom, and my mother-in-law are all standing there while we argue.
Nor do I care that they all see when I grab her around the waist, pull her into me, and kiss her until I can’t pull away without showing everyone in the kitchen what she does to me.
“So Tripp and Lila are doing the dishes,” Levi announces, reminding us we have an audience.
“I’m not entirely certain that’s what they actually want to do in the kitchen, but I’m out,” Mom replies. “Yvette. Coffee and naptime?”
“I’ll grab the pot.”
“Don’t bother. Tripp has a pot in his office too.”
Mom pulls the pocket door shut as they leave us to the disaster in the kitchen, and we’re alone for the first time all day.
Just me and this green-eyed goddess who’s smiling at me like I hung the moon.
“Best Thanksgiving ever,” she whispers.
“I love you,” I reply.
Her eyes go misty, and she wraps her arms tighter around me. “I’ve never fallen in love with anyone before.”
“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Tripp—”
“You didn’t have to tell them your secret.”
“But that’s what family does.”
Family.
I don’t take it for granted. But being Lila’s family—her chosen family—is next-level special. “I like you in my family.”
“I love you being mine.” She goes up on her toes and captures my lips again. I press her back against the messy counter, kissing her back, my hands slipping under her sweater, my head full of dreams of more time with Lila.
Naked bedroom time.
Family dinner time.
Playing with the kids time.
Arguing at work time.
Fixing the Fireballs time.
Lila time.
All the time.
29
Lila
It starts in New York.
I’m back in the city a week or so before Christmas for meetings about Bubble Bath Books and some of my favorite charities, missing Tripp like I left one of my limbs behind, when I feel the tickle in my throat again.
No big deal.
People get colds.
But I don’t want Tripp to know I’m sick, because I don’t want him to worry.
He’s already fussing over my hours, and not just because he wants me to stay over in his bed, but because I can’t hide the bags growing under my eyes. I’m beginning to suspect his invitations to sleep over are more so he can watch over me and make sure I’m sleeping than because he actually wants to wake up next to me, and I won’t put him in the position of being overworked during the day, making the most of every minute with his kids every evening, and monitoring my health during normal sleeping hours.
It’s entirely possible he was right, and firing half the organization, right down to the mascot, wasn’t the best approach to fixing my family’s baseball team.
Maybe we should’ve done it one phase at a time.
All Pakorski wanted to see was progress. Not zeroes to heroes in a single season.
And let’s be honest here.
He doesn’t want the legal challenge I could bring with the bank account I’m sitting on if he tried to move the team, though I’d much rather not spend months and months in court.
But my point is, we’re all overworked, and I’m doing what I can to make sure Tripp’s not dealing with the majority of the upheavals I’ve caused.
We’ve added staff, which helps in theory, but there’s training. Getting them up to speed. Negotiating over the differences in what they’ve done for previous teams, and how I want things to run for the Fireballs. Prepping for Fireballs Con.
It was supposed to be a small thing. Announcing our coaching staff and mascot finalists, and making players available for autographs and pictures between sessions about the Fireballs’ Foundation and their living legends.
Turns out that takes way more planning than anything I’ve done before, because all of my projects have been either hands-off investments or projects I was obsessed with until I found the next shiny object and moved on, letting other people handle the kinds of tasks I’m still having fun with at Fireballs headquarters.
I’m reading less, but I’m living more.
And I wouldn’t be in New York at all, except it’s time to do what I do best, and hand off a successful business to the people who are doing the real work, so I can get back to Copper Valley and my life.
But when the sniffles hit, I text Tripp that I’m in back-to-back meetings, send him a homemade selfie gif of me blowing him a kiss, and promise I’ll see him soon.
My meetings are over in two days, and I can get over the sniffles in two days. The vitamin combo I used right before Thanksgiving should do the trick.
I even go to the doctor, which is a pain in the ass, but I know if I can tell Tripp I’ve been, he’ll feel better.
On the doctor’s advice, I’m trying out a nasal irrigator—trust me, not at all sexy—when Tripp calls me over video chat.
I decline, but on the third call, when I’ve made it out of the bathroom and cleaned up after almost choking on the damn saline solution, I finally pick up.
“Hey!” I say brightly, sounding like someone’s holding my nose shut while taking a blowtorch to my tonsils.
Huh.
My throat didn’t hurt thirty minutes ago.
Stupid nasal irrigator.