He shrugs.
Doesn’t need to finish that sentence.
The thing about the Fireballs being total losers for so long is that their fans abandoned them.
Brooks’s fiancée excluded, of course. He’s shacking up with the most dedicated Fireballs fan ever put on this earth—including Cooper Rock, who grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains an hour outside of the city and has never wanted to play for another team.
But Cooper gets paid to be a Fireball, whereas Mackenzie is doing everything for free.
Right down to stealing the damn meatball costume to screw with the voting on the new mascot contenders.
Things are working well, and management’s still pulling out all the stops to get as much positive press on the team as they can, and it seems giving behind-the-scenes tours to romance novelists is the next ploy.
“Which one’s Cooper Rock?” the oldest of the writers asks, peering around the dusty old common room. Granny Romance is a black lady, about four feet tall with chicken legs sticking out from under her jean skirt, mismatched socks with her white sneakers, and a Fireballs visor on her white hair. “I need a selfie with Cooper Rock so my daughter-in-law will believe we got the full tour.”
Cooper lights up. “You want one with my shirt on, or my shirt off?”
“Oooh, honey, both.”
“You get him, you want me too.” Francisco whips off his practice jersey and flexes. “I have bigger muscles.”
The tallest of the novelists fans herself.
The white lady in the Fireballs jersey is furiously scribbling in a notebook.
Granny Romance leaps at us while Brooks pulls his shirt off and flexes too.
And Henri Bacon is pretending she’s using her phone as a voice recorder, but she’s staring straight at me.
There’s no way this is a coincidence.
I fold my arms and watch her, remember I’m holding the dick-ball hat, and scramble to hide it behind my back again.
She gives me a finger wave. “Hi, Luca.”
“You know a romance novelist?” Darren asks.
“Not really.”
“She knows you.”
“We were in the same place once.”
“Dude, I’d wave back. If you don’t, she might write you into a book and make you the bad guy or kill you or give you fleas in your pubes or something,” Francisco hisses.
Then he flexes for the selfies.
“Fleas in pubes! Brilliant!” The one taking notes is also walking blindly, and she trips over a chair.
Henri dives and catches her. “Whoopsie-daisy!”
“Now, which one of you ladies wants to write a story about a studly baseball player who hasn’t found the one yet?” Rock asks.
“I’ll be your one, Cooper.” Granny Romance strokes his biceps.
“But how’s that fair to the rest of the ladies?”
“I’ve got experience, sonny. The rest of these chickadees can’t say that.”
My sanctuary has been invaded by people obsessed with love.
And Lila’s frowning at me. “Luca? You have something in your eye?”
Yes.
It’s called everything in my line of vision.
“No.”
“It’s twitching.”
“I slept wrong.”
“Were you up late doing renovations again?”
“Ooooh, a baseball player who renovates things?” Notepad zeroes in on me. “Are you renovating a house? Oh my god. Plot bunny. A washed-up baseball star inherits an inn on an island in Florida—”
“Or Maine,” Henri supplies.
“Maine! A washed-up baseball star inherits an inn on an island in Maine, and he has to get help from…”
“I’m not washed-up,” I tell Lila.
“You can still be inspiration.”
Henri beams at me. “Definitely inspiration.”
I don’t beam back at her.
“Did you eat something wrong for breakfast?” Lila’s frowning now. “You’re very…growly today.”
“AC went out.”
“Again?” Cooper shoots me a look. “Dude. You know I’ve got a spare bedroom.”
Confession: I don’t have an AC unit in my house.
I like it that way.
At least, that’s my excuse for why I haven’t replaced it yet.
The truth might be a little deeper.
Also, Cooper is the last person I’d turn to for a spare bedroom. I don’t want to hear whatever goes on at his place.
Brooks snickers. “Luca never fixed it the first time. Being around women makes him nervous, and he knows no one’s shacking up with him if he doesn’t have basic life necessities.”
Fucker’s gonna die. I don’t care if he’s like a brother to me, he’s gonna die. “Okay, Mr. Oldest Virgin in Baseball.”
All seven romance novelists suck in a breath as one. “A virgin baseball player!”
It’s in stereo.
It’s actually in stereo.
And Brooks puffs his chest out. “One woman. For me. For life.”
“Oh my god, swoon.” The one who’s been quietly downing something in a big Starbucks mug in the corner turns doe-eyes on Brooks.
“A ghost!” Notepad exclaims. “The washed-up virgin baseball player who inherits a broken-down inn in Maine is getting help from a ghost!”
“What if he thinks it’s a ghost, and it’s really his long-lost love?” Starbucks says.
“Who jilted him at the altar!” Henri shrieks.
Silence falls over the group.
But only the group of romance novelists.
Francisco is shaking his head. “But why would she do that to him? And what’s in it for him if he takes her back? Once a failed relationship, always a failed relationship. Move on. People don’t change.”
“What if she had his secret baby?” Brooks offers.
My phone rings—thank fuck—and even though it’s my agent calling, and he’s been irritating the hell out of me since a small-time gossip rag printed a picture of me at Jerry’s not-wedding last month along with a suggestion that I have a curse, I pretend like I need to take the call, and I wave it at them, then slip out of the room.
“Hey, Luca?” Henri calls.
“Glad you’re feeling better,” I call back.
And I take the pussy way out, and I disappear.
4
Henri
It’s possible I have a problem.
But it’s not like I don’t know Luca Rossi. If he was invited to my wedding, I technically know him, right?
And we did share those few moments that day my wedding didn’t happen. You know. When I caked him.
Before I knew the full story of why Jerry called everything off.
Also, I’m not sitting on the step of what I assume is Luca’s house because he’s a baseball player. Or because he’s famous.
That actually makes this more uncomfortable, when what I want is to ask him for a small favor. It’s a tiny thing that I wouldn’t hesitate to ask any other man. Or woman, for that matter.
Itsy bitsy on the grand scale of things.
Really, really small.
Sort of like his house.
It’s a two-story house, but it’s narrow, and on a small patch of land, super close to the other houses on the block. The houses are all small, but the yards are mostly well-kept. All of the streetlamps are lit, and a couple walking their dog waved at me a bit ago before continuing on their way.