I gape at him.
He shrugs. “Stafford told me. While he was sitting on an ice pack after that game in Philly. Didn’t want to tell you so you wouldn’t get jealous. Or get her in trouble if she’s using your credit card.”
“What’d she do for you?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Cole. What did she do for you?”
He sighs. “You remember the father’s trip?”
“Do any of us not?”
“She found my first tee-ball coach. Had him call me. Offer to come next year if I wanted.”
“That’s…”
“The nicest thing anyone could’ve done. And she knew because she listened, and she’s a freak when it comes to finding things out. So, yeah. She’s too good for all of us.”
I stare at my phone again, where Henri still hasn’t texted back.
She could be asleep.
Or she could be hundreds of miles away by now.
She left an entire house behind once. Why would she worry about a piece or two of luggage and some clothes and a coffee mug, when she has everything she needs—her cat and her computer—already with her?
Max is right.
I don’t deserve her.
34
Luca
It’s been eight days.
It’s been eight days since I saw Henri. I stopped calling, texting, and emailing her four days ago when my mother called me a stalker and my grandmother agreed.
My grandmother and my mother are new best friends.
I don’t know what happened, but they’ve both decided to let bygones be bygones, to move in with me and help with my renovations, and to sit up and play cards all hours of the night, and they suddenly agree on everything from which brand of jelly is best to what’s best for my life.
Fine. I know what happened.
Henri happened.
Henri happened, and she left my life better for having been here, which I’m not thinking about, because I need to concentrate on baseball.
Our first two games of the league championship are in Seattle. We come home with the series tied.
Every time I run into the Lady Fireballs, Henri’s missing.
Of course she is.
She left.
I spooked her, and she left.
And every time I see one of the Lady Fireballs, I start to ask if they’ve heard from Henri, and they give me one of those looks, and I walk away.
I don’t want to know.
I don’t want to hear that she’s moved on. That she went to a remote cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains for a few days to collect herself, and a shapeshifting bear man stumbled into her cabin and she tended his wounds and got engaged and he left her because he, too, realized he could never be good enough for her.
I seriously need to get a grip.
But at least my game’s not suffering.
Much.
It’s almost harder being at home, because between innings, we have control of the video screen, and every time a kid starts doing the Gel, I think of Nonna, then I think of Henri.
When the mascots get up to their antics, I think of Henri smashing a pie in Glow’s face, and then Henri cutting my mascot socks and sewing them into itty-bitty mascot socks for Dogzilla so that the mascots could also be subjected to the litter box.
When I hit a home run in the bottom of the eighth during game three, I think of coming home to Henri and her excited smile. You hit a home run! You hit a home run and you won!
And where the baseball stadium has always been my happy place, all I see is what I’ve lost.
We lose our second home game, and then our third, and then we’re on the road.
Back to Seattle, one loss away from being kicked out of the playoffs, or two wins away from making it to the final round that could crown us as baseball’s number one team.
We’re six wins from going from zero to hero in the span of a year, and nothing about this feels anywhere near as good as it should.
Mackenzie quits her job and comes with us to Seattle. “Win or lose, I’m there,” she informs Francisco as she’s boarding the plane when he asks if she’s afraid of changing the routine. “I was going to quit anyway since clearly it’s good luck for you all to have me in Florida with you for spring training. Just moved it up a few months.”
Her gaze lands on me, and she opens her mouth like she wants to add something else, then shakes her head and moves past me to claim a seat two rows back.
I give Brooks the what the hell was that? look.
He ignores me. “Hey, Torres. Saw Marisol’s necklace. About time, idiot.”
I whip my head around, and I’m not alone.
Emilio’s grinning like an goofball. “She’s my boo. Made her wait long enough, and I don’t wanna—”
He cuts himself off as his gaze lands on me, and we all know what he’s thinking.
I don’t wanna fuck it up.
Marisol didn’t want a diamond engagement ring.
She wanted a necklace that reminded her of her favorite novel from her teenage years.
And Henri didn’t want a ring, or a wedding, or a husband at all, but I got so wrapped up in the idea of keeping her forever that I thought proposing a different kind of wedding without all of that love crap would be exactly what she’d like, when in reality, I basically offered to be the next guy to humiliate her.
Fuck.
I’d never humiliate Henri. I love her.
I. Love. Her.
I lean into the aisle. “Elliott. I need to talk to your wife.”
“Can’t hear you.”
I glare.
He gives me the suck it up shrug.
And then Glow the Firefly drops into the seat next to me.
“Smile, Rossi,” our team photographer calls. “Wait, don’t. That was a better expression.”
“Team yearbook!” someone crows.
I spend the entire flight from the east to the west coast with Glow sitting next to me, and now I’m wondering why the mascot didn’t need to at least go to the bathroom once.
Mackenzie spends the next day and a half avoiding me.
It’s mid-October.
There are Halloween decorations everywhere you look, and I can’t even run to the corner drugstore for a freaking candy bar without seeing rows of costumes that all make me think of Henri and Dogzilla.
I’m about to get a cat.
I’m seriously in danger of walking into a shelter and leaving with a cat.
I miss the cat.
I miss Henri’s companionship. I miss her smile. I miss the way her lips move when she’s typing, and the way she gets excited over sweet corn from a farmers market, and the way she sometimes misses her mouth when she tries to take a drink of tea while she’s writing because she’s so into her scene.
Tell me to fall in love, and I’ll fight you all day.
Give me unconditional love that fits, that’s worth the effort, and I’m still the idiot who doesn’t know what he had until it was gone.
We take the first game in Seattle, which leaves the series tied.
One more win, and we’ll be league champions, headed to the World Series for the first time in Fireballs history.
We all wear our Fireballs capes and our Fiery thongs over our pants onto the field for warm-ups. It’s a joke from earlier in the season, and we’re feeling like gods when we start the game with three runs in the first inning.