Annika’s squinting at me, her dark eyes suspicious. “You like him, don’t you?”
“Uncle Homer? He’s a good guy, even if he can’t remember us half the time anymore. But he lets me have his chocolate pudding anytime I go visit him at the nursing home. Were you around the summer he bought that tractor with the trailer bed because he wanted to be a farmer pirate and also Shipwreck’s original trolley? He swore he was going to transport people up and down Blackbeard Avenue on the trailer like they were having hay rides.”
Grady squints at me like he’s wondering if I’ve had too much coffee again today.
Hello. Of course I’ve had too much coffee. But I’d rather talk about Uncle Homer. “I was never sure if he was extra fun, or if he never got over that bump on his head that Mom and Dad used to whisper about from time to time.”
“Let’s go with extra fun,” Grady says.
I nod. “I like that better too.”
Annika bumps shoulders with Grady. “You’re going to let her distract you?”
He grins. “She’s not ready to face the truth yet.”
Her entire face melts into sappy cartoon hearts. “Ah. And you would know a thing or two about that?”
When Annika came home two years ago, I was in my last phase of off-again with Ben and quite happy without all the drama Grady was going through.
I was also trying to kick the coffee habit and loving the freedom that came with being done with getting my associate’s degree from the local community college so I had more time to paint and travel into the city for drinks with Cooper’s teammates’ wives and girlfriends, and other friends who moved there.
Now?
Now, I’m doing the same thing, without being in that off-again part of a relationship, which is the last time I was in anything resembling a relationship. Sometimes when I head into the city, I’ll use an app to find a hook-up, but that doesn’t always go well.
Okay, that rarely goes well. The theory of random hook-ups is a lot better than the actuality of it for me. And other than Grady and a random cousin here or there, my friends are still single too.
So why am I suddenly cranky at seeing my brother and his wife—who’s been his soulmate basically since they met in high school—happy and teasing each other?
Because when you tease guys you like, they turn into growly bears, my brain helpfully reminds me.
“I don’t like Max,” I announce, completely unnecessarily, which makes me want to snag the words back out of the air.
Who randomly announces things like that?
Liars. That’s who.
“You flirt with guys to annoy them,” Grady points out.
I gasp and pretend to be offended. “Are you saying I’m annoying?”
“You flirt with our cousins.”
“It’s practice in case someone single that we’re not related to ever moves to town. The universe will provide one day, and I need to be ready when it does. I also flirt with plenty of guys anytime I head into the city. Practice.”
“You don’t flirt with Robinson or Trevor,” Annika says.
“Robinson’s barely old enough to drink, and Trevor would probably think I meant it, but he’s got a lot of stuff to work through before he’d be real relationship material.”
“Or maybe he’d like having someone to work through it with.”
“Do you want to be around Cooper the day he discovers his body doesn’t want him to play baseball anymore?” Yes, I’m whispering.
I like Trevor. He’s a good guy. A lot like one of my brothers, though older. Gives good hugs. And he’s struggling to accept what the rest of us can see.
His best pitching years are behind him.
Poor guy.
“You don’t want to be the person warming him up at night to take his mind off it?” Grady wiggles his brows, making Annika laugh.
I pull a no face. “You know I’ll be the first person taking him a cheesecake and a handle of Jack if he figures it out while he’s here, but he’s a friend. Period.”
The sound of a distant car motor gets louder, and we all glance at the corner as it comes into view.
It’s not Max’s Mercedes SUV, but it’s still a car I recognize. “Oh, yay!”
More Fireballs. Though not Fireballs that I’ll be flirting with. Brooks Elliott is very much taken.
It’s his wife I’m more excited to see, and that’s her unmistakable car.
“Did he seriously ride out here from the city in the passenger seat of a Mini?” Grady mutters.
Mackenzie Elliott parks the Fireball-mobile in front of my house, leaps out, and circles the small vehicle to tackle me in a hug. Where her car is custom-painted in an ode to the Fireballs and Fiery the Dragon, the team’s original mascot, she’s in jeans, hella awesome boots, and a fluffy black jacket over a vintage Fireballs T-shirt. The only thing different about her is that her smile is bigger than ever. “Tillie Jean! I missed you.”
“Mackenzie! I missed you more. How was your honeymoon?”
“Oh my god, we swung by the Baseball Hall of Fame and I got all tongue-tied, which someone found hilarious, but I got over it. How are you? Are you going to Marisol’s wedding? Are the guys behaving here? Do you have to work all the time, or can we hang out at your mom’s adorable coffee shop sometime this weekend? I need to hear all about this glitter bomb you exploded on Max. We’re staying up on the mountain and I miss you.”
Mackenzie’s long-time BFF married Beck Ryder, the former boy band guy-slash-underwear model from Copper Valley who owns a house down the street from Cooper’s—that’s one of the rich weekender properties Cooper hasn’t snagged up—and she’s been visiting Shipwreck longer than Brooks has played for the team. I knew her back when she used to get too nervous to talk whenever Cooper was around.
“Game room time?” I ask her. Beck’s basement man cave is legendary.
She squeals and hugs me again, and I get a mouthful of blond hair. “You know it. I have to introduce Brooks to getting his ass spanked in ping pong.”
“What’s with the gnomes?” Brooks asks. Mackenzie’s husband was a new acquisition this past year, and his bat is half the reason the Fireballs made it to the post-season. He’s a lot less cranky now than he was when he first arrived, and I think it has less to do with the dog he’s letting out of the car, and more to do with Mackenzie. “And are those—are they—those gnomes are giving someone the finger?”
“What a coincidence. That’s what I’d like to do to Max for launching a garden gnome army and trying to take over my yard. Not that I had anything to do with this. I don’t touch gnomes. They freak me out.”
Annika stifles another laugh behind a cough.
Grady sighs.
“What? I hate garden gnomes.”
Brooks and Mackenzie share a look.
“Max did this?” Mackenzie says.
“Unless Cooper’s trying to make me think Max did it, and really, how likely is that?”
Brooks winces. He knows Max’s reputation, and he knows Cooper’s reputation, and he also has a sister of his own that he’s overprotective of, just like Cooper and Grady are overprotective of me.
Mackenzie’s nose wrinkles. “Max paid you back for the glitter bomb?”