Also, it is hot in here.
I know hot after living in his house for a couple weeks, and this place shouldn’t be hot, but I’m burning up from my toes to my nose.
“I ordered you a tomato juice,” I blurt.
Oh, god, the grin.
He’s giving me the grin.
“I’d be disappointed if you’d been less unpredictable.”
“If you want my Shirley Temple instead, I’ll drink the tomato juice. It’s like living in Confucius’s body, since Burrito always gets his blood and his tomato juice mixed up.”
“Burrito is an awful bartender.”
“Right?”
“The Bat Cave should fire him.”
“I know, but it wouldn’t be a Nora Dawn book if a bartender was good at his—wait. You’ve read my books?”
Now he’s blushing.
Luca Rossi blushing is not the parachute that I need for this long fall I’m on. I need something more than a parachute, because this cliff face that I’m next to is so rocky, I should be wrapped up with mattresses or bubble wrap or something.
“He won’t quit,” Cooper says. “I had to pry his phone out of his hands so he wouldn’t miss batting practice yesterday.”
“You did not.”
“Okay, I didn’t, but I did sit behind you and mouth all the words to Lopez and Stafford while you were reading that brown-chicken-chocolate-cow part.”
Francisco nods and wiggles his eyebrows.
The last man—Stafford, I gather—pulls a face. “I was with him until he started pantomiming what was going on, using the special magic meatball hat. After that—let’s just say I’d rather have a nightmare than watch Cooper demonstrate what happens in dirty books.”
“You were mocking my books?” I frown at Cooper. “I know what that means. It means you’re bummed Tillie Jean doesn’t write romance novels, because we all know you’d want to read them and get turned on by your sister.”
“Oh, snap,” Brooks says. “Rock, you got owned by Rossi’s girlfriend.”
Tillie Jean’s bent double and nearly falling out of her seat. Mackenzie’s laughing so hard every other breath comes out as a snort. Tanesha’s baby gives another horrified cry as he accidentally unlatches, but she gets him hooked back up and happy.
The entire table is rolling, and yeah, it feels good.
Except for the part where I was a total asshole to Cooper.
But he grins at me and holds out a fist. “Nice one, Ms. Dawn. I bow to the master.”
I bump. “Thank you.”
“Oh, no. Thank you. As Mackenzie’s reminded me numerous times, I’m basically a god. So it’s good to have someone who can balance my ego.”
Our drinks arrive. We order food, and then spend the next two hours joking and laughing, all while Luca keeps one arm wrapped around the back of my chair, and I tell myself that it’s for show, but my heart can’t help believing what it wants to believe.
That I’m growing on him.
That he likes me.
That maybe our fake love story could be real.
To the best of my knowledge, none of the men I’ve been engaged to have ever read one of my books.
But Luca has.
Learning how to not fall in love wasn’t supposed to hurt.
Which means one of two things. Either this isn’t working.
Or it’s working entirely too well.
I’m drifting deeper into my thoughts when Tanesha says something about indoctrinating grandpa the right way with the baby by sharing a hotel room with him for the players’ father’s trip, and my gaze instantly snaps to Luca.
He’s poker-faced, except for a tiny tick in his jaw.
“Is—” I start.
“No.”
I squint at him. I’ve been writing hard again, and yeah, I do need to get to an eye doctor, but maybe next month.
He lifts a brow, then follows it by lifting a corner of his lips, and gah.
I’m rapidly becoming fluent in Luca Rossi, and that corner lift tells me two things:
One, his father is not going on the dad’s trip with the Fireballs, and two, if I don’t drop it, he’ll kiss me again.
I should drop it.
I should definitely drop it.
But if I drop it, I’ll never get the right moment to ask again. If life isn’t about seizing moments, what is it about?
My hand drifts to his thigh as I lean into him and lower my voice like I’m talking dirty to him. We do have appearances to keep up. “Is that because he’s not invited, or because you told him not to come?”
“Henrietta…”
“A woman always wants to help her boyfriend deal with issues that cause him pain. I can’t fix your problems for you—that’s not the healthy route to lasting relationships, it turns out—but I can hold your hand if you want to work through them.”
I slide my fingers higher on the thick muscle in his leg, and he shoots to his feet so abruptly that the chair topples over backward and clatters to the ground. “Gotta call it a night. Young love.”
He wrenches me to my feet and nods at Max. “Remember LA?”
The pitcher gives him a knowing grin. “Calling in those drinks I owe you? Dunno, Rossi, that Shirley Temple might break me.”
Luca waves bye with his middle finger and pulls me out of the bar. We make it four steps past the door when he turns on me, loosely trapping me against the brick building. “You want to play games, Henrietta?”
“You’re helping me with my baggage. I should help you with yours.”
His hand trails down my hip and he leans closer. A passer-by would think we were planning on getting busy right here against the building.
And I wouldn’t object to that, because I know what he can do with his tongue. He smells like nighttime at the ballpark with a hint of danger added to the mix. And he’s watching me with lowered lids over darkened eyes like he, too, could easily forget where we are because I’m his favorite aphrodisiac.
Hello, party in my panties.
He nips my ear. “I don’t have baggage.”
“If that were true—” I cut myself off with a gasp of pleasure as he licks my neck beneath my earlobe.
Must. Resist.
I grit my teeth. “If that were true, you’d talk about your issues with your father and about why your mom and Nonna hate each other, and Nonna wouldn’t have—mmph!”
Okay, yes.
I talked until he had to kiss me to shut me up, and I’d do it again.
Because Luca Rossi is kissing me.
He’s kissing me when his teammates aren’t watching, when his Nonna isn’t here either, and when he’s digging his fingers into my hips and holding me tight against his body, which is fully on board with the let’s go find a dark corner and do this the right way plan if that hard ridge poking my belly is any indication.
It’s not forever, Henrietta, I remind myself.
As if I’m going to listen to that kind of negativity when my entire body is in absolute bliss.
A camera flashes, and Luca pulls back abruptly.
“Hey! Hey, it’s Luca Rossi!”
He blinks three times, like he’s re-centering himself and not entirely certain what happened, then the camera flashes again.
“Gossips,” he mutters. “C’mon. Let’s go.”