Chapter 12

12

Lila

Hangovers make everything better.

At least, that's my line as I push into Fireballs headquarters Wednesday morning, sunglasses on, fast food biscuit in one hand, a massive cup of coffee from that shop Cooper Rock recommended in the other. Parker and Knox are still sleeping off our grief-duck-baseball party. They got a room at the same hotel where I'm staying, and they've offered to keep going through the house while I'm working on the Fireballs reorganization today.

I'm still wearing my sunglasses when I hit the top floor, but it's not enough to block the view of what's going on in the lobby outside the owner's office.

Tripp Wilson.

Holding his daughter.

And directing the hanging of a six-foot-tall square photo of two ducks that have Fireballs jerseys photoshopped onto their bodies.

I almost drop my coffee.

And that's before the little girl exclaims, "Fiya-fucks!"

"Fire- ducks , Emma," Tripp replies patiently. "Duh-duh- ducks ."

She grins at him while she chews on the nozzle of her sippy cup, and my heart melts a little more at the mischief and adoration in that smile that's dimpling her chubby cheeks.

I'm not immune to the curls either. All those wild curls on her head are adorable.

"Daddy, I get a duck?" another voice asks from behind Denise's desk.

"A stuffed duck," Tripp replies. "Stuffed ducks for—Lila. Good morning."

His smile looks genuine, but he's also having a six-foot portrait of fucking ducks hung on my wall. I point to it. "No."

He lifts a newspaper. The Copper Valley Post .

Which features the damn ducks from Duggan Field all over the front page, complete with a headline that I'd also like to stab someone for.

Fireballs Putting All Their Hopes into Lucky Love Ducks .

"The community's invested now. Ticketing says they've gotten fifty percent more calls already this morning than they usually get all day about private tours and renting boxes near the ducks for next year's games. Not that we have private boxes by the dugout, but still. There's interest. We could make duck-themed boxes and suites."

He's playing innocent, but I know exactly what this is.

"You're fired," I tell him.

"No, you fi-yad," his son replies. "Fi-ya! Fi-ya twuck!"

"Fiya-fuck!" his daughter yells.

And despite my splitting headache and my sour stomach, my heart finishes its decomposition into a puddly pile of awww .

Again.

I don't hang around children. It's not that I dislike them, it's that there's never a reason. My social circles have mostly been business, other than Knox and Parker, and they don't have kids.

Yet.

But I've read plenty of books with kids in them.

And I've walked past enough playgrounds and been in enough stores to know that feeling in the pit of my stomach.

It's the knowledge that I've consciously chosen a career over family to be safe , when there's so much more of life that I could be living.

Lucky for me, I work too many hours for me to contemplate the lack of family for long.

"James, the phone isn't a toy," Tripp says. "Here. Uncle Beck got you a new airplane."

"This not a phone, Daddy. It a hat."

James places the phone receiver over his brown hair, and despite needing to retreat to my office to stuff my face with this biscuit before I toss what's left of last night's pity-fest, I find myself smiling at him while he hits all the numbers. "Now it's a police hat! Now it's a fiya-fighta hat! Now it's a duck hat!"

"Fiya-fuck!" Emma pumps her legs. She's in pink leggings, a yellow tutu, and a unicorn shirt, and I can't stand here watching Tripp's kids being adorable for one more minute.

The duck picture can wait.

Everything can wait.

I know I'm being rude in turning around and walking to my office, where I shut the door too hard behind me, but if I don't, I'm going to hug those kids until they squeak.

Every kid should have a mother.

Even kids with a dad who seems as patient and gentle and kind as Tripp.

Who also has a devious streak.

Fucking ducks .

I'd fire the whole coaching staff all over again this morning if I could.

But I can't log onto the computer, so I can't. And my phone isn't working, so I can't call tech support, or even Denise, who's now giving Tripp's kids donuts when I poke my head out the door.

Donuts.

I want a donut.

And also for those two ducks to not be glaring at me from the wall.

"Inspirational, isn't it?" Tripp says when he catches me looking at it.

"Denise, can you please call tech support for me? I can't get onto my computer."

"It's password reset day," she replies with a nod. She's in her early forties, with pictures of her own teenagers on her desk, and even though she's alive and well, I want to hug her kids too.

What in the hell is happening to me?

"I reset my password two days ago."

"Al ordered everyone to change their passwords every month on the twenty-seventh. It was his favorite number. So IT set everyone up to get locked out and force a reset on the twenty-seventh."

So that's a policy that will be changed immediately.

And now my eyeball is twitching. Harder.

"Conference call with Pakorski at noon," Tripp says. He pulls out his phone, snaps a picture of the ducks, and then puts a hand to each of his kids' backs. "Time to go see Daddy's office. I have walls you can color on."

"Co-wors!" Emma jumps in place, drops her donut, and bursts into tears.

"I feel you," I murmur to her. I'd cry if my jelly donut splattered all over the floor too.

Tripp shoots me a curious look.

And once more, I retreat into my office.

If he has half a clue how easily I'm being charmed by his kids, he'll use it against me, and he already has enough weapons in his arsenal to get past my defenses.

We're fixing a baseball team.

Not getting personally attached.

End of story.

My headache slowly subsides, and once Parker and Knox are moving, I get regular text updates about things at Uncle Al's house.

Parker : We flubberbusted a goat baloney!

Knox : She means we found a goat figurine. Two goats, actually. They're mating. Want a picture?

Parker : No! Wait and let her sex them up herself. Sex them up. S-E-E them. SEE. Ducking gnomes. Gnomes. P-H-O-N-E-S.

Knox : Babe, you gotta try voice to text. It can't be any worse than autocorrect.

Parker : That WAS vagina to Mexico.

Parker : DUCK.

Yep.

Every time, it comes back to the ducking and the duck .

I get a jelly donut mid-morning, and Denise tells me that the mating ducks at the ballpark have the potential to be the best thing that's happened to the Fireballs since the bat incident of 1972. "Flying bats. Not baseball bats. That's the last year they almost clinched their division title," she explains.

I head downstairs when it's time for the conference call with Sam Pakorski, who's back in New York. Today, he thinks this partnership between me and Tripp is just what the Fireballs have needed. Now let's see if you can make the team a bunch of profitable winners this year .

I sit on my hands in Tripp's very utilitarian office so I don't try to stroke Emma's curls while she naps on the new couch, which he tells me he bought himself so that his kids don't have to inhale whatever Uncle Al did on the last one.

Legit concern, though I think the amount of hand sanitizer he uses is overkill.

James is off at preschool, apparently.

I wonder if he goes happily, or if it's hard for him to be without his dad.

"You should get your duck poster put up in here too," I tell Tripp on my way out of his office after the conference call.

"Don't worry. I had fifty printed. They'll be everywhere in the building before the week's over."

Parker and Knox meet me for a late lunch at Chester Green's, a hockey-themed bar and grill that they've heard about from the Berger twins, who are both playing for Copper Valley's pro hockey team this year, though they've been too tied up with practices and games to hang out.

Parker doesn't ask if I've accidentally kissed Tripp again today. Not after I whisper about being stuck with the damn ducks on my office wall.

Because I am stuck, but not for long. I'll be back in New York next week for the final meetings about Wellington Holdings' liquidation.

This has been a long time coming, so there's not as much to do as everyone expects. The high-maintenance assets are long gone, the employees transitioned to new positions, and most of what's left are relatively small numbers of shares in reliable companies that require little oversight.

But I still don't want to go back to New York to finish up. I'd rather it was just done .

Ties cut.

Time to move on.

Not to Copper Valley permanently, of course, but long enough to know that the team is once again in the black and under the management of dependable, ethical people.

"Why are single dads so attractive?" I blurt as we're finishing our burgers.

"They've proven they can procreate and provide for their young," Knox answers.

I blow out a breath I don't realize I'm holding. "So this is all evolutionary biology, and I'm not actually attracted to him."

Parker grins over her sweet potato fries. "No, you're definitely attracted to him. He's hot regardless of the single dad angle. Also, just so you know, Beck Ryder just walked in the door."

More boy banders.

I frown. "Is Tripp sending spies after me?"

"If he were sending spies, they'd be a lot less recognizable than Beck Ryder."

She probably has a point.

Everyone in the restaurant is turning to stare as Beck and a smiling brunette make their way to a table several seats from ours.

Parker suddenly gasps. "Okay, yes, he's spying on you," she whispers. It's a squeaky whisper, and her face is doing that thing again where it goes all splotchy blushy. "Don't look. Do not look, but I swear that's Davis Remington. The guy with the man bun. Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Air. Need air."

Knox grins. "You're adorable."

She's fanning herself and looking-not-looking at the table where Beck and his girlfriend just sat down. A server's already depositing ten plates of food.

For three people.

At a four-person table.

"Are hobbits joining them?" I ask Knox.

"Beck Ryder can eat his body weight in food three times a day," Parker whispers.

Except it's not a whisper.

It's a shrill wannabe whisper, and now every person at the table in question has turned to stare at us.

Knox waves at Beck.

Parker slides under the table.

One of the things I love most about Parker is that it would be so easy to suspect she wanted to come to Copper Valley because I'm working with one of her boy band idols, except I also knew that this would happen.

She doesn't want to be seen by her boy band idols, which means it would have been way less stressful for her to have stayed home in New York, where she frequently hangs out with other rock stars, since one of her other bandmates is dating the lead singer of the rock band Half Cocked Heroes.

But Half Cocked Heroes is no Bro Code. At least, not to Parker.

No sense putting off the inevitable.

I rise, set my napkin on my plate, and head for the empty seat at Beck and Davis's table. And when I get there, I ignore the two men, and instead extend a hand to the lone woman. "Hi, I'm Lila Valentine. Which I suspect you already know."

A dimple pops out in her cheek as she takes my hand. "Sarah Dempsey. Lovely to meet you. This is Beck. That's Davis. And we're not spying on you."

"Much." Davis jolts in his seat, turns a glare on Sarah, who apparently just kicked him under the table, and then drops his brown eyes contritely when she frowns right back at him. "Fine. Wiping my memory of anything I heard," he mutters.

"I didn't spy at all," Beck promises as he grabs a handful of fried pickles. "Sarah said I couldn't eat if I did."

"Are you around Friday night?" she asks.

Suspicion kicks my pulse up a notch, but I'm so freaking tired of being suspicious of everyone and everything, which is also Tripp's fault.

If he would've just told me his real name at the club, I wouldn't have called Uncle Guido. But now that I've called Uncle Guido, he's texting me with conspiracy theories, because he no longer has wife number two to rein him in.

It's exhausting to keep smiling when what I really want to do is crawl into bed with a good book and a mug of tea and drift off to sleep in a world where bad things don't happen.

"My friends and I haven't discussed plans yet," I tell her.

"Bring them along," a familiar voice behind me says. It's accompanied by a high-pitched squeal of Sawah! , and Tripp deposits his daughter in Sarah's lap before straightening to look me dead in the eye. "Cookout at Beck's folks' place. You're all welcome."

"In costumes?" Halloween's this weekend.

He smiles. "If you want. The whole gang will be there." His gaze drifts back to my table, where Parker is attempting to discreetly snap a picture with her phone.

She drops it to the table, tugs on her strawberry blonde ponytail, and pretends she's looking at the posters of hockey players all over the walls.

She's so freaking adorable.

I slide a don't mock my friend look at Tripp.

And he smiles that kindly smile at me while he grabs Emma's hand and squirts hand sanitizer on it. "Can't blame her. Davis is hot."

"Hard fact of life," Davis agrees.

"It's the man bun." Beck nods while he shoves a loaded nacho into his mouth.

Sarah smiles at all of them and takes an extra hug from Emma before glancing back to me. "I've spent way too many Fridays being one of the few women in this group. Please don't make me do it again."

"You don't really look like it's a hardship."

"It's not," she whispers with a wink. Emma's climbing her like a monkey, jabbering about pony-yales and fucks. "Beck, can you give Lila my number?

"You bet."

Her smile is back at me. "Just in case you can't make it and you get over-testosteroned after your friends leave. I doubt there are many more women at Fireballs headquarters than there are at Bro Code gatherings."

"Over-testosteroned is not a word," Davis says. He's eating a hamburger without the bun and has a fruit cup.

"It's a word if she says it's a word," Beck replies. "Here. Lila. Hand over the phone, and I'll get you hooked up. I know these digits by heart, just in case I ever get my phone stolen and aliens kidnap me and brainwash me. True story—aliens won't heart-wash you. Only brainwash. So the number's safe."

"Yes, he really is like that all the time ," Tripp murmurs. He's entirely too close to my ear, and I don't like how my breasts are angling toward him while the rest of me is trying to not look like I want to scoot away. "Ryder. Save a cow for the rest of us. And just tell Lila the number, please."

I'm still gripping my own phone. Apparently I'm not all that subtle when it comes to not wanting to hand over something with so much personal data.

Or possibly I'm just dealing with people who are equally as paranoid.

And with good reason.

Parker isn't the only person snapping photos in the room now.

Beck leans closer to me and rattles off the digits quietly while I add Sarah's number to my phone. Then he flashes one of those smiles that's probably caused panties to drop the world over. "Food's on at seven. Don't be late, or it'll be gone."

"We don't know if?—"

"I'll check her calendar and get back to you," Knox suddenly says beside me. Parker doesn't seem to be breathing beside him. "We need to go find a paper bag."

Parker takes one last look at Davis, goes pinker, and I nod my agreement. "Time to go."

"Text or call," Sarah says while my friends drag me away. "For real. It sucks being the only woman."

"Oh my god, Lila, do you know who she was?" Parker breathes out on a whoosh when we're out on the street. The fall weather is settling in, and there's a chill in the air that makes me wonder how good of an idea a cookout is.

"Beck's girlfriend?"

"She's Sunny Darling's daughter. The actress? She ran away from it all and was living here totally incognito until Beck came into her life."

I glance back at the bar. It's oddly comforting, and definitely hair-raising, to get that reminder that I'm not the only person with secrets.

Paranoid Lila would wonder if Sarah knows I have secrets too.

But we all do. Of course they're wondering what my secrets are.

"What do you think about going to the cookout?" Parker's question is slow and halting, like she's afraid of influencing me one way or the other.

"You want to go?"

"Oh, it's all up to you. You're the person who has to live with them. I mean, if you keep the team."

If isn't really the question.

How long is the question.

Because sooner or later, this challenge won't be a challenge anymore, and once again, I'll need to move on.

It's what I've always done.

Maybe it'll be harder to leave behind a piece of my family history, but my mom's been gone for twenty years. She wouldn't want me to stay and keep the team if it's not what makes me happy.

But I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever find something that'll make me happy forever.