I don’t know what that is, but it’s seven levels past poker face. She could be negotiating with the devil for all she’s giving away.
Oh, fuck.
She wants to keep the team.
“Levi and I are acquainted,” she says, her brows furrowing tighter while she looks at him.
I swallow hard.
Even baffled, she’s sexy as hell.
“What? Oh, no, I’d remember you,” my brother says, completely missing the subliminal shut the fuck up and don’t make this worse message I forgot to send him with my mind while I was distracted with trying to not get aroused.
“You’re…Levi?” Lila repeats to my brother.
Then she looks at me.
I duck my head—yes, a complete chicken move—and open the diaper bag for my kids to rustle through.
Yep.
This is helping the whole she’s pretty and I want to kiss her again thing.
“You’re Levi Wilson?” Lila repeats to my brother.
She turns back to me without waiting for an answer. Her eyes have gone so flat and cold that they could single-handedly put a few million metric tons of glacier back in the Arctic.
Or right here. In downtown Copper Valley.
My face, on the other hand, is so hot I could grill a burger on it.
I cried when both my kids were born and wasn’t the slightest bit embarrassed. Hell, I cried at my wedding and Jessie’s funeral too. I’ll own it.
I once tripped over a microphone cord and split my pants in the middle of a sold-out stadium show while the camera was trained on me. I said the word epitome wrong seven times in an interview once.
Not once did I get embarrassed the way I’m currently embarrassed.
And we’re going to ignore the part of me howling a big ol’ nooooo at realizing I won’t ever be back in a club where I accidentally run into this woman again, buy her a drink, and tell her a funny-not-funny story about how I felt like I couldn’t have a good time as myself, and I’m sorry, but could we start over?
She looks at Levi.
At his fedora.
Then his white pants.
Then back to me, confirming that Levi and I don’t look as much alike as I thought.
Levi looks at me.
And all the puzzle pieces seem to fall into place, even though I never actually told him what happened in New York, but he’s smarter than he lets on, and now he’s giving me that look.
Hell, Lila is too.
It’s the one our mother used to give both of us when Beck and his bestie Wyatt would sneak into our house and steal all the cookies from the cookie jar, which she never believed, because she always said Mrs. Ryder kept enough food in her house for a small army.
Beck eats more than a small army, though, and so Levi and I got blamed a lot for missing cookies.
This time, I’ve fully earned the glare of shame.
My brother’s glare disappears as he turns to aim his pop star, ladies love me smile at her. “Yep. I’m Levi. Most days. Unless I need a break and hire a stand-in.”
I could fucking kiss him.
Pretty sure he’d rather kick me.
Understandable. I want to kick myself right now.
“This is my big brother, Tripp,” Levi adds. “Doesn’t get out much, but he makes being a dad look easy.”
“Wook, Daddy.” James reaches into the diaper bag and pulls out a baby chipmunk.
A live baby chipmunk.
I dive for it. Levi coughs, and I know he’s hiding a laugh, even though this isn’t funny. Pakorski makes another strangled noise.
And Cowboy Hat might as well pry off that belt buckle and whip his belt over his head in a dance move worthy of some of the shit I used to do on stage.
He’s won.
He’s already won. “Son, you two need to take this circus out of this here business meeting. Ain’t no place for kids here.”
Translation: Nobody’s selling a baseball team to you, idiot. You can’t control your personal life. How could you run a baseball team?
The chipmunk bites my thumb, and I stifle a yelp while I try to grab the itty thing by the scruff of the neck.
“Daddy! That my chipmunk!” James cries.
“And he needs to go outside with his family.” Fuck. Fuck. His family was released yesterday in the woods behind our house. This one’s going to need to be taken to an animal sanctuary, because it’s not like I can just go call Mama Chipmunk and tell her she forgot one.
James’s lower lip wobbles.
Emma bursts into tears.
And I’ve officially used up my entire quotient of fucks for the entire month. Going to need a year’s worth this morning.
Levi lifts my screaming daughter, gives me a this is a worse shitshow than Cash’s wedding look, and strolls out of the room while I struggle to keep hold of the chipmunk.
“He wantsa to wide in my fiya-twuck,” James wails.
“I’ll get you a stuffed chipmunk to ride in your firetruck, bud, but real chipmunks belong with their mommies. Daddy’s gotta have a meeting with the grown-ups, and then we’ll go see a lot of animals, okay?”
Cowboy Hat clears his throat. “I don’t know what your wife does, son, but if she don’t know her place with those rugrats, then you’re doing something wrong.”
My head whips up.
“His wife’s dead,” Pakorski supplies for me.
That, at least, takes him aback.
But only as long as it takes Lila to speak. “Mr. Pakorski, this meeting is over. The Fireballs aren’t for sale.”
“Lila—” Pakorski starts.
“Darlin’, I see you sitting there saying you know a thing or seven about running a baseball team,” Cowboy Hat says. “But little girls don’t belong in pro baseball.”
I step in front of James to shield him from the carnage that’s undoubtedly about to happen. My eyebrows are so high, they’re rearranging my hairline. That feeling in the pit of my stomach?
That’s my own rage exploding. I don’t have any right to come to this woman’s rescue—not after what I pulled—but I start to ball my hands into fists, which makes the damn baby chipmunk give a squeak and pee down my shirt.
I won’t hit him while my kids can see. I will not hit him while my kids can see.
“You need to stop talking,” I growl.
“You’re standin’ there holdin’ a rat with a screaming brat behind you and thinkin’ you got room to say a word?”
Pakorski’s on his feet. “Lila, wait.”
“For what?” She gestures to Cowboy Hat while she yanks her bag open. “If this is any representation of what you look for in team owners, you clearly have bigger problems than a team that’s come in last for a couple seasons.”
Levi walks back in. Emma’s gnawing on a piece of bread, and he has a large metal bowl in hand. “Compliments of the kitchen.”
I wish I could say this was the first time the two of us had ever done this routine, but life on the road in a boy band is weird sometimes, and so is single parenthood.
The chipmunk goes in the bowl. I get Happy Emma. Levi gets Sobbing James. He angles his chin toward Lila, who’s shoving a notepad into a messenger bag, and asks the silent question. So are we screwed or what?
Yeah.
We’re screwed.
“Darlin’, you ain’t goin’ nowhere until you sign those papers selling that team to me,” Cowboy Hat says.