Trevor leans over from the other side and whistles. “Pretty sure that’s not what management was picturing when they asked us to do this. We want people to bid on these for charity, not run screaming from the demonic baby dragon.”
I point to his painting, where his Ash’s eyes are making her look terrified. “And what happened to your Ash?”
Cooper peers past me and cracks up. We’ve been teammates for four years. He’s seen me at my absolute worst—not long after I joined the Fireballs, matter of fact—and I’d hate him if it wasn’t so easy to like him.
He’s basically just like his sister, except he doesn’t flirt with me, which makes him tolerable.
Okay, more than tolerable. He’s a good dude. Probably the best friend I’ve ever had on any team.
“She get kidnapped by the loser mascots?” he asks Trevor. “They holding her for ransom in the dungeon at Duggan Field or something?”
Three of the women in front of us turn around. Their Ashes look like actual cute baby dragons.
Apparently Tillie Jean runs Ladies Painting Nights monthly here. Yes, of course she also knows how to paint, and of course she uses her skills to help the people in her pirate-themed hometown in the mountains. She can also drive in the city or the country, tell pirate jokes or recite Shakespeare and switch seamlessly between the two, and sprinkle glitter all over the town without getting any on her.
And she still looks right in a paint-splattered smock with her cinnamon-brown hair swept back under a Pirate Festival bandana, her cheeks glowing, her summer sky eyes bright and cheerful, and her lush pink lips spread in a perpetual smile.
She’s such a pain in the ass.
I have zero doubt that all the stories about this town being founded by a pirate who raced his treasure inland to hide from the authorities however many hundreds of years ago are true, nor do I doubt that pirate blood still runs in her veins.
Annoying wench.
Come paint the new Fireballs mascot with us, Robinson Simmons, the Fireballs’ utility man, said this morning at the end of our workout. Management signed off. It’s all this guided painting thing so we don’t make her look bad, then we sign the paintings, and then we can auction them off for my niece’s foundation.
Who says no to two hours spent painting a baby dragon mascot to be auctioned off in support of kids with Down syndrome?
Assholes, that’s who.
Tonight, I wish I’d been an asshole. Instead, I’m a glittery pitcher posing as a guy who likes to paint baby dragon mascots for charity.
Any other night, with any other instructor…
“You can use my painting and say it’s your own, Trevor,” one of the older ladies says with a wink in his direction.
“Thanks, Dita, but I don’t think anyone’s gonna be buying my Ash no matter how she looks.”
I scowl at him.
Cooper punches him in his non-pitching arm. “Shut up. Yes, they will. You’re a legend.”
Trevor snorts.
I refrain from punching him in his non-pitching arm too. If I punch anything, I’ll send it through a wall.
“Trevor, I love her.” Tillie Jean, painting goddess of Shipwreck, Virginia, the godawful pirate town that would be charming and welcoming and everything a small town should be if she didn’t live here, steps into our row and leans over my buddy’s shoulder, close enough for him to sniff her, and yep, I should not be here.
She even smells good. Like a flower that’s not too potent mixed with a sea breeze or something.
Reason number six hundred ninety-four…
“She’s not as good as yours,” Trevor says to TJ.
She puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes, and my blood pressure threatens to choke me.
“It took me eight times to get her perfect,” she tells him. “You practically nailed her the first time around.”
“Yeah, but your Ash glows.”
“Like Max’s hair?” Cooper asks.
I do punch him in the arm.
That glitter bomb was for him, and if I hadn’t left my wallet at his place last night and gone to retrieve it before lunch instead of taking him up on his offer to cover me, he would be the one sparkling right now.
“Max, you should lean into your painting and rub your hair all over it,” Cooper’s grandmother says from the row behind me. “You can have a glittery ass. Ass. Ash!”
“Too much punch, Nana?” Tillie Jean asks.
“Jus’ right,” the grand dame of the Rock family replies, hefting a stein with Nana sprawled over an image of a pirate wench on the side of it. “Arrr!”
Cooper lifts his own custom stein, which has a picture of himself as a pirate holding a baseball bat that serves as a flagpole for a pirate flag. “Arrr!”
Everyone else in the room lifts their custom steins too. “Arrr!”
Trevor’s spent a few off-seasons here in Cooper’s hometown, so he has his own custom stein with a painting of himself—yes, done by Tillie Jean—as well.
Only Robinson and I are drinking out of plain pint glasses.
And Tillie Jean and her coffee mug.
She leans over my shoulder and peers at my painting. “Nicely done, Max. I can feel the emotion.”
Her voice has that coy, flirty quality again, like she wasn’t squeaking in terror when she realized I wasn’t Cooper a few hours back, and as usual, my junk doesn’t know how to react.
A woman getting throaty and purry with me? We gear up for fun.
Cooper’s sister brushing her boob against my shoulder? Full-on retreat.
You don’t touch Cooper Rock’s little sister.
As if I’d want to.
And do you know how it feels when your junk wants to get hard and also asks your nuts to retreat back into your body at the same time?
Hell.
It feels like hell.
“Leave him alone, TJ, and come tell me I’m perfect.” Cooper reaches around me, and Tillie Jean disappears from my side like he yanked her away.
I grab my tea.
Trevor eyes me and shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything.
“We about done?” I mutter. Tillie Jean’s telling Cooper his brush strokes are imprecise or some bullshit, and he’s laughing because that’s what they do. They give each other shit, but they also have each other’s backs.
Trevor studies me for half a second, then looks past me to the happy siblings. “Yeah. Darts?”
“I’m in for darts,” Cooper says. “Sign your paintings, mateys. That’s worth more than your art. Arr!”
“Is he like this all winter?” I ask Trevor.
“Only the first few times he drinks. He’ll get it out of his system when he realizes spring training starts in three months. We usually get four.”
Cooper drops his stein and stares at us in horror. “Oh, fuck. We only get three months.”
Tillie Jean pats his head. “I think you’ll be fine, Stinky Booty. Robinson. Let’s see this beauty. Oh, look at you. You cover all the bases and you paint circles around your teammates. I’m having words with management if they ever trade you away.”
He gapes at her with horrified brown eyes. Kid just finished his rookie season in the show and liked it. “Don’t jinx it, TJ.”
She winks. “No such thing, Robinson. I wouldn’t do that to you.”