Chapter 10

10

Tripp

After four hours of fielding phone calls in my office below Lila's, where I refuse to admit how much time I spent straining to hear the subtle sounds of the two women going through Beversdorf's things, I head to my buddy Beck's place for a much-needed decompression meeting. He lives in the penthouse of Shuler Tower, a high-rise apartment complex in downtown Copper Valley. From the floor-to-ceiling windows in his living room, I can see both Reynolds Park and its landmark fountain, as well as the Blue Ridge Mountains beyond the city.

The mountains are extra blue today, like they know it's been a bloodbath and they're mourning the loss of my well-constructed plan to bring fans back and to make the Fireballs into a team that likes to win again.

"Dude, you're hoarse," Levi says. He's on video chat since he's on his way down south for concerts in Miami and Atlanta this weekend. Cash is on the other half of Beck's big-screen TV—he's out in Hollywood finishing a press junket for his latest movie release this weekend.

"He does look like a horse, doesn't he?" Davis—aka The Man Bun—drove up from the small town he lives in near the nuclear power plant an hour or so south of Copper Valley and is sprawled on the couch with a coffee mug and a laptop.

Beck's girlfriend, Sarah, rounds out our group. Because Beck loves food like normal people love oxygen, except more consciously, we have a lunch feast of breakfast food laid out, and everyone has piled plates with cinnamon rolls, fruit, eggs, regular bacon, Canadian bacon, English muffins, pancakes, sausage, French toast, Moroccan breakfast pastries, truffles, crepes, bagels, cream cheese, and waffles.

Actually, that's just Beck's plate. The rest only took a fraction as much.

"Where are you putting all that food?" I ask him, because it's a normal question on a day when nothing is normal.

Know the last time I kissed a woman I worked for?

Never .

Know the next time it's happening again?

Fuck me, I don't know, but I have this horrible suspicion it'll be sooner than I'm ready for, despite all of my best intentions and better sense.

Sarah ruffles Beck's hair with an amused grin while he wolfs down a bagel sandwich. "He's eating his feelings. And I've actually seen him eat more."

Beck nods mournfully. I'd worry, except he's physically incapable of not being a ball of sunshine and rainbows and fluffy puppies for more than about two minutes at a time.

"Feelings about…?" I'd rather think about his feelings than think about Lila Valentine and all of the missteps I've made in the last month.

"We were gonna own a baseball team, man," Beck replies morosely. At least, as morose as he gets. "That's like kid goals 101. Plus, I really believed in Salazar. I thought he had the heart for it."

"If he had the heart for it, the Fireballs wouldn't have finished dead last. And we're not out yet." I lift a fork of eggs.

Levi clears his throat on the video monitor. "I'd put half of that food back if I were you, Tripp. Remember your problem with dad butt?"

"At least he's getting some," Cash says with a grin, because they all know now about the incident in the bathroom in New York.

And in the locker room at Duggan Field.

"With ducks watching," Levi points out. "Which makes you more jealous, doesn't it?"

Cash throws a stuffed bratwurst at us—pretty sure it's the mascot for Copper Valley's hockey team—but it bounces off the camera.

"Hey, hey." Beck swallows and leaps to his feet, his overflowing plate easily in hand and in no danger of tipping, because it's food, and Beck doesn't waste food. He's freakishly skinny for all the calories he can pack away. "We're not throwing stuff at each other through the interwebs." He cocks his head to one side, then his grin lights up the whole damn Copper Valley metro area. "Dude, Cash, there you go. It's like Star Trek meets America's Top Chef meets Food Wars . Teleporting food fights. It'll slay at the box office. My gift to you. For free."

"Feel better?" I ask him while Cash thoughtfully sips his coffee like he's actually going to investigate the idea, which we all know he won't.

Beck nods. "Yeah, but I'm still eating all of this food."

"So what's the plan?" Davis interrupts. Of the five of us from the band, he's the one no one ever recognizes anymore. Man bun, beard, and long sleeves to cover his tattoos. I don't know that his neighbors even know who he is. Somedays, I'm not sure I know him at all either despite touring with him for six years, other than knowing that the dude's almost as good with computers as Hank is. "Fight fire with fire and have Tripp authorize something worse than firing the entire coaching staff on day one? Or investigate her background until we have enough blackmail material to push her out?"

"Both," Levi says.

I rub my temples. "Neither."

" Neither? " Cash says it, but all of my friends—except Sarah—are giving me identical you've lost your flipping mind looks.

"Fireballs first. Getting rid of Lila second."

"Nuclear option," Levi argues. "Do it all at once. Getting rid of Lila is good for the Fireballs."

"She wasn't wrong about the coaching staff needing to go. And it's generating a lot of buzz for the team. I spent all morning on the phone with reporters, who also want to talk about the shake-up in ownership and management. If we play selecting new coaches right?—"

"You can't play a media game with someone who doesn't know how to work the media. She got us a good bang. Now she needs to go."

"We're all forgetting one very key detail that would make all of this easier." Davis flips his laptop around. It's open to Wellington Holdings' basic webpage, with the announcement up-front that Dalton Wellington has retired. "Lila doesn't have money. Not this kind of money. The Fireballs don't have money. Which means I'd bet you anything she's getting money from here to keep the team going. We convince Wellington to convince her to sell to us."

Now I want to throw something. "You can't get to Wellington without going through Lila. You think she's gonna let us just waltz past her and go to her boss, who by all accounts only talks to her , to ask if he can help us get rid of her? After he's retired?"

"Should've closed the deal in that bathroom," Cash says.

Levi flips him off for me.

"Don't think that would've helped," Davis drawls. "If he'd been a three-thrust wonder, she'd question his ability to do anything outside the bathroom too. Gave her the best O of her life, she'd hang on to the team and add sexual favors to his list of duties."

"Or possibly she likes baseball and wants to turn around the team in her uncle's memory," Sarah says with an eye roll at Davis, who grins at her.

Davis cracking a grin is about as rare as Beck having a bad day.

You could say we're all smitten with Sarah, have adopted her into the fold, and are ready to pop the question for Beck, since he didn't do it while they were in Europe, and no one can figure out what he's waiting for.

"Still can't turn a team around without money," Davis says. "We need to talk to Wellington. She's not getting loans, or you'd be able to see it in accounting. Which means it's Wellington. You know the guy has to adore her if he's kept her on this long. Or, there's something else going on."

Cash sets his coffee down. "You think she's giving him sexual favors?"

I shoot him a glare that could melt the TV screen.

People accuse me of getting reclusive since Jessie died, but my retreat from public life is nothing like Dalton Wellington's. There are only a handful of pictures of him floating around the internet, and more than half of them are fuzzy and from a distance.

The one close-up shows him to be at least in his mid-sixties, which means he's probably approaching at least his mid-seventies by now. Makes sense, given that he's retiring.

But as for his relationship with Lila, something smells fishy. How did she get the job in the first place?

She's either secretly his daughter, or she's sleeping with him.

And now that I'm imagining her naked in bed with him?—

"The Wellington angle is a dead end," I announce before my blood pressure makes my eyeballs pop out of my head. "She doesn't work for him anymore. He's retired. She's in Copper Valley practically full-time. We need to get her out another way."

Davis flips his computer back around and starts hitting the keys, like he's looking for the next way.

"You're not invading her privacy, are you?" Sarah asks.

"No," he lies.

She frowns at him.

And he sighs and shuts his laptop.

Disappointing Sarah is like disappointing a unicorn fairy, and even Davis isn't immune.

"We're not planning on selling an exposé to TMZ ," he mutters. "And it's not like we haven't been doing this anyway for the last month."

"What if we buy the stadium?" Cash says suddenly. "The city owns it, right? And the Fireballs lease it? We own the stadium, we get more leverage. We can use it for concerts and exhibition games when the Fireballs are out of town."

Levi nods. "Lots of guys owe me favors. We could make up a Bro Code team and play some exhibition ball against a few other celebrity teams."

"I can get the whole cast of Zombies with Chainsaws for a game."

"I can get the American Music Awards moved to Copper Valley with a pre-show concert at Duggan Field."

"I can get the fucking Oscars."

"Oh my god, you can not. Both of you. Hush." Sarah throws an orange slice at the television screen with Levi's and Cash's faces, and her cat leaps on it.

Beck grins. "I can get— oof ."

Sarah follows the elbow with an I will kill you look.

Beck grins bigger. "I was going to say I could get some royals here."

"So we buy the stadium from the city," I say slowly. "At what cost to the team?"

Everyone falls silent.

"I don't know how long Lila wants to play baseball team owner, but the point is keeping the Fireballs in Copper Valley. We're not doing anything stupid and reckless. We're putting the team first, and if that means I have to deal with shitty days at work when she's in town pulling crap until things turn around, that's what it means."

Sarah leaves Beck's side after stealing his bacon and moves to sit next to me. "Let me talk to her."

I glance at her serious brown eyes.

She and Beck first bonded over the Fireballs. Her best friend is an even bigger home team fan than all of us in this room put together, and she'd completely fall apart more than the rest of us if the Fireballs left Copper Valley.

And while Sarah's an environmental engineer by day and a Fireballs fan by night, she's also the daughter of two Hollywood stars.

And she's never kissed Lila accidentally. Or on purpose. Or lied to her. Or had a run-in with a horny duck with her.

"Better yet," she continues, "invite her to the neighborhood for a cookout. She's here alone, isn't she?"

"She has a friend in town." I clear my throat. "One of the rabid Bro Code fan types."

"Even better," Levi says with a smirk. "Unless you kissed her too?"

It's my turn to flip a bird.

"Definitely invite them both," Davis agrees. "And let me know what day so I can have plans."

"You're going," Sarah orders.

He winces, and we all know he'll be there.

"My parents' place. Friday night." Beck holds up his phone. "Already settled. My mom can't wait to meet the woman who stole my dreams of owning the Fireballs. Yours too, Tripp."

Sarah smiles another of her indulgent smiles at him, and once again, I wish I still had someone who would smile at me that way, or just look at me in that way that says I know you, I know what you're thinking, and I dig it .

Like I swear Lila knew I was reliving her duck catastrophe this morning.

Ducks .

Oh, that would piss her off.

That would piss her off good .

"Dude, I don't know what you're thinking, but whatever it is, I want in," Levi says as I rise.

"Gotta get back to work and invite the boss to a cookout," I reply.

"Be nice about it," Sarah warns.

"I'm always nice."

All of the men crack up.

I'd defend myself, but I currently don't care to. And what I'm planning may not actually be all that nice.

But if it's what I have to do, it's what I have to do.