Home > The Grumpy Player Next Door(4)

The Grumpy Player Next Door(4)
Author: Pippa Grant

I sign my painting and head out into the main bar. I need to get away from this room. Trevor stretches his pitching arm while we cross past the pool tables.

I shoot him a look.

He ignores me.

Guy’s older than I am, and he fucked up his shoulder good about two years ago. Wasn’t sure he’d have a comeback, and he hasn’t been the same since. Plus, his contract’s up. He’s here for off-season workouts because he’s optimistic.

No idea if his agent’s blowing smoke about being able to get him another deal, but we’ll see before spring training starts.

I nod to his glass. “Refill?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“Grab a dart board. Be right back.”

 

 

3

 

 

Max

 

The dart board isn’t cooperating.

And I don’t mean my score. My score is fine.

But the dart board isn’t making it easy to ignore the laughter coming from the bar running the length of the far wall, where Tillie Jean and all her aunts and cousins and grandmother and mom and friends are sitting around, shooting the shit, having a better time than I am.

I should go home.

I should’ve already gone home.

Spending three months in the same town as Tillie Jean Rock?

Not a good plan.

Spending those three months renting the house next door to her?

Even worse.

“Cole. Dude. You still surfing that pissed-off wave with TJ?” Cooper looks up from the closest table, where he’s catching up on all the Shipwreck gossip with a handful of locals now that the last of the paint night activities are over, and he eyeballs my dart.

It’s just a normal dart.

But it might’ve hit the board the way my fastball lands in a catcher’s glove.

“Just playing darts, man.”

“You just looked at the bar and then looked at the dart board like you want to eat it.”

Tillie Jean and her mom explode in laughter again. My whole body tenses, and I actively force my muscles to relax on a subtle exhale.

I shake my head at Cooper. “Off night.”

His brows furrow as he tips his chair back to study me with a clear view like he hasn’t had a single drink tonight, even though he’s taken a few shots after his painting beers. “You wanna get out of here? I got glow-in-the-dark balls. We can—”

“Your balls glow in the dark, man?” Robinson looks up from the table where he’s spilling to Cooper’s local friends about the time this past season that we got roped into an engagement gone wrong on a road trip in Cincinnati.

Trevor snorts next to me. “Gotta see a doctor about that. Or maybe a nurse. You have pretty nurses here.” He’s on beer number five and feeling fine.

Whereas I know better than to touch a beer or a shot or anything stronger than unsweet tea tonight.

Definitely time to leave.

I thought I could hang out here and ignore the only irritating part of this town, but I can’t. Every time I start to relax into the game, she laughs that magical fairy laugh that makes the glitter in my hair feel like pixie dust.

Or someone says her name, which should be annoyingly country—Tillie Jean, it’s so old-fashioned—but instead sounds like fucking music.

Or I accidentally look over at her and catch her tucking her perfect hair behind her ear.

It’s not too short or too long. Not too curly, nor too straight. And it’s this magical color of cinnamon with some caramel sprinkled in between, and I have a serious problem.

I fling another dart at the board.

This one hits so hard it breaks in two, and the pieces go flying in opposite directions.

One lands in Robinson’s drink. “Touchdown,” he crows as the guys around him explode in laughter.

Cooper keeps staring at me.

“Let it go,” I mutter to him.

“I’m serious. You want to take off, I haven’t hit Scuttle Putt yet for midnight minigolf, and the fresh air’s good for plotting revenge.”

Right.

Revenge.

If she were one of the guys, revenge would be a no-brainer. We pull shit on each other all season long, and yeah, a glitter bomb would be epic and it would require an epic plan for retribution that would make the sports pages.

But she’s not one of the guys. She’s Cooper’s sister. And while Cooper might be the best friend I’ve ever had in baseball, possibly one of the best guys I’ve ever met in my entire life, I’m damn certain he wouldn’t say the same about me, which means no matter how fucking perfectly annoying his sister is, I keep it to myself.

I keep everything to myself when it comes to Tillie Jean.

Because I like having Cooper Rock as one of my friends.

“I don’t want revenge.”

He grins. “Hate to tell you, but you don’t get a vote. Ever since the great tea towel incident all those years ago, it’s tradition for us to entertain ourselves one-upping each other all winter. She got you. You have to get her back. But don’t even think about doing it with nudity or spit-swapping or I’ll kill you.”

I’d be offended, except I wouldn’t trust me with his sister if I were him either. I have a longer relationship with my jockstrap than I’ve ever had with a woman, and I like it that way.

“What’s the great tea towel incident?” Stafford asks.

Half the locals gathered with Cooper laugh, and the other half sigh. Tillie Jean and her crew pause and glance our way.

She winks at me.

I twitch.

Stafford snorts.

And Cooper, who doesn’t notice his sister flirting with me—not that it’s unusual, since she likes to do it to irritate both of us—shakes his head. “Sorry. Rock family secret. I’ve already said more than I should.”

“Hey, Coop, speaking of family—you related to the bartender?” Robinson wiggles his thick brows at the woman running the taps in front of a cracked mirror etched with a pirate ship.

“Yeah, she’s my aunt, and she’s married with three kids.”

“Aw, hell, no. No way.”

“Aunt Glory, Robinson’s got a crush on you,” Cooper calls.

A collective groan goes up around the bar.

“Join the club, kid,” an older guy at the pool table calls back.

“His beer’s on me,” another older guy at a booth hollers.

“She’s such a heartbreaker.” Cooper’s in his element, smiling and laughing and pulling everyone in the entire bar into his orbit. He loves being here, and they love having him. Not that there’s a place on earth where it’s not true. It’s just extra true here.

“Marriage or birth?” Stafford asks.

“Both.”

That would be hilarious any other night of the week, but tonight, my shoulders bunch again, and I turn and try to concentrate on the dart board while Cooper keeps going.

“Just pulling your pegleg. She was born Glory Rock, married a Johnson, and now—”

“Quit talking,” I say as I miss the dart board completely.

“What? She didn’t hyphenate. She hated being Glory Rock. Pop and Nana didn’t think that one through. Teenage boys, man. They all wanted to climb Glory Rock. But I was gonna say, we’ve got some Johnsons up our family tree if you go back a few generations, so even though we’re pretty sure it’s not incest, we’re not sure sure.”

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