Chapter 13

13

Tripp

The rest of the week is a whirlwind of nanny interviews at home and pass-the-duck-picture at work.

Plus the emails.

So many emails.

They're preferable to face-to-face meetings, because every time I pass Lila, I get a whiff of whatever that delicate shampoo is that she uses, and I want to bury my nose in her hair until I can identify it. Which is ridiculous, because I can't smell the difference between an orchid and a rose, and I don't actually know anyone—male or female—who can.

Nor am I convinced it's a flowery scent. It's probably called Eating Morning Caramel Biscotti While Sipping Tea in A Dew-Covered Field of Cotton Just Before Daybreak , or something ridiculous like that.

Or possibly it's just called The Scent of Chaos and Heartburn .

It would fit, because when I'm not trying to sniff her, I'm trying to not throttle her.

And I would very much like to throttle her right now.

All because of the emails we're using to communicate since neither of us wants to be face-to-face.

From: Lila Valentine [email protected]

To: Tripp Wilson [email protected]

Subject: Ducks

Mr. Wilson,

Seeing as the ducks have become so popular with the locals, I've arranged for a giant duck mascot to replace the Fireballs dragon. Delivery of the costume is scheduled for Tuesday. Please assemble as many players as possible for a photo shoot on the field by next Friday.

Sincerely,

L. Valentine

Owner, Fireballs Organization

From: Tripp Wilson

To: Lila Valentine

Subject: Re: Ducks

Lila,

Fiery the Dragon is an institution in Copper Valley. Capitalizing on the duck craze is fine. Replacing Fiery will cause riots and looting. I've consulted with the local police and FBI offices, and they agree. In the interest of public safety, Fiery stays.

That said, I'm sure the PR department can arrange a photo shoot for fun with a duck and whoever's still in town. We can also keep the duck to participate in between-innings entertainment. Fun is what the game is about. Good call.

Respectfully,

T. Wilson

#1 Fireballs Fan and Team President

From: Lila Valentine

To: Tripp Wilson

Subject: Re: Re: Ducks

Mr. Wilson,

I sincerely doubt the authorities are concerned about the Fireballs' current seven or eight fans staging a coup over a new mascot. The duck stays. Community involvement is key in rebuilding a fan base, so we'll host events to meet the duck and name him.

Related - I'll need a list of Copper Valley's most famous residents by close of business today. We'll need back-up plans because I'm not naming the duck Quack, no matter how many people suggest it. Surely we can be more creative than that.

Sincerely,

L. Valentine

She Who Makes The Final Call

From: Tripp Wilson

To: Lila Valentine

Subject: Copper Valley's Most Famous Residents

Levi Wilson

Cash Rivers

Beck Ryder

Davis Remington

Tripp Wilson

Perhaps you should just call him Duck Code . That would be simpler than picking which of us is the head duck, and which are the ducklings. Levi would get a big head over Levi Duckson, and Duckett Ryder just sounds weird. Though I could get on board with Davis Quackington.

Also, if you insist on changing the mascot, you're far better off taking a poll on what the new mascot should BE rather than dictating it to people who are VERY attached to Fiery the Dragon.

Respectfully,

#5

But still #1 in love of the team

From: Fireballs Media Relations [email protected]

To: Tripp Wilson

BCC: Fireballs Media Contact List

Subject: Fireballs Mascot Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

As of this morning, Fiery the Dragon is on emergency medical leave for a heart condition following the epic disaster of the last three baseball seasons in Copper Valley, with an expected retirement to follow treatment. As such, the Fireballs are in need of a new mascot. Suggestions and nominations may be submitted through November 15 at Fireballsfamily.com/mascot

The Fireballs organization thanks Fiery for his many years of dedicated service and wishes him well in all of his future endeavors.

Questions may be directed to Tripp Wilson, Fireballs President of Operations.

Yep. I'm going to throttle her.

I'm a zero-inbox kind of guy. The hundreds of messages pouring into my email since her press release went out Wednesday afternoon—from everyone from the staff members who've donned the Fiery costume to the press to other baseball team owners and administrators to angry fans age seven to ninety-seven—have me about ready to pull my hair out.

She's caused at least a hundred new gray hairs to sprout in under a week, and I don't want to see her.

Not that I have any confidence she's coming to tonight's cookout.

She could probably read between the lines of the last email I sent her before I left the office today.

From: Tripp Wilson

To: Lila Valentine

Subject: Ribs and s'mores

Lila,

Hope you're able to make it to the cookout tonight. I'll bring the ducks. You should bring a coat. And probably armor plating with the questions you'll get about murdering Fiery. Forecast is chilly. Address is below.

-T

The weather forecast is sixty-five and sunny.

The mood forecast is she's going to get eaten alive .

And now, at the Ryders' house on our old block, with the backyard lit by floodlights and strung with fake spiderwebs and orange Halloween lights, Mom, the Ryders, and Mrs. Rivers are all bustling about smoking ribs and finishing baked beans and setting out potato salad while my kids run around with Beck.

And Davis is talking me off a ledge.

"I don't even know why she wants the team," I grit out.

"But murder's still illegal." He tips his beer back—Buried Treasure Ale from the brewery in Shipwreck—and just when I think that's all he has to say on the subject, he flicks another glance at me. "Fiery can make a miraculous recovery. That's the only thing she's done wrong . Everything else needed doin', and you know it."

"Not all at once."

"Why not all at once?"

"Rushed hires don't make good hires."

"So don't rush it."

"We need?—"

"A team manager. You need a manager and a medical staff. So you don't have a batting coach day one. The team will either step up, or you replace the lot of them with the minor league team down in Corieville."

"You want a massacre?"

"Won't be any worse than this season. But you bring in new blood, that's new hope. And those guys—they'll be eager to prove they can do what last year's team couldn't."

I sink back in the lawn chair. "You know our scouting sucks." Which is one more thing I need to fix.

"You know you could get five minor-leaguers on the verge of being ready to break out for two Cooper Rocks."

"Rock could be a dumpster fire on the field and we'd keep him for how much he loves the team. Bonus that he's actually damn good."

"You know what I mean. Also, I've been thinking. Know what Lila has that we don't?"

I can think of a thing or two. Starting with her shampoo. The way her eyes go smoky when she's turned on. The way her entire face lights up when she sees me breathing fire after reading her last email. How soft her skin is on her lower back.

The way she moans when I slip my hand into her pants and suck on her tits.

Fuck .

Davis smirks like he knows what I'm thinking. "The debt."

Debt. Right. That'll kill a boner. "We planned for that."

"Yeah, but—" He stops, shakes his head, and gives me a funny look that I can't interpret. With Davis, that could mean anything from I have gas and you're lucky we're not stuck on a bus to I have an idea I'm working on, but I don't want to talk about it yet . "We don't have a sugar daddy who can just pay it off for us."

And now I'm thinking about Lila banging a seventy-year-old guy with bushy ear hair who wears Ray-Bans inside, and there goes my blood pressure.

The smirk is back.

He pulls his beer out of reach before I can grab it and pour it over his head, because the fucker did that on purpose.

"Chill, old man, and hear me out. We can't hit the salary cap on our own without a significant line of credit, and that's before we talk about coaching staff. Get the fucking best and let her pay for it however she's paying for it. And when she gets bored with everything, or when the team doesn't improve enough for Pakorski to justify not forcing her out, the team's in better shape, but still affordable, because who's out the money? Not you. Not me. And not her."

"What makes you so sure she's getting funding from Wellington?"

This time, his look says I'm an idiot to pretend she could get it anywhere else.

"Maybe she has a trust fund," I mutter. "My kids have trust funds."

"Because you're you. Word around town is that Beversdorf was flat broke. House was mortgaged. No life insurance. Lila lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Midtown Manhattan. The only thing she's ever made the gossip pages for was spending a hundred grand at a bachelor auction. That was all Wellington's money, and they hired the dude she bid on to help open the publishing house she's getting in the company liquidation. Wellington gave her a fucking company when he retired with more money than god. He's payrolling the Fireballs."

The Rivers' dogs suddenly start barking next door, and we all turn as four shadows stroll into the back yard. One's familiar—Wyatt Morgan, Beck's best friend who grew up in his grandma's house two doors down and is now married to Beck's sister—and the other three are new.

"That guy," Davis murmurs. "That's the guy she hired to run her publishing company. Also, I didn't forget everything I heard when I was spying on her for you the other day. Somebody liiiiikes you."

My pulse leaps and my mouth threatens to go dry. "Don't be fourteen."

"So, no singing about the two of you sitting in a tree?"

"Only if you want me to shave you bald in your sleep."

We both rise as Wyatt leads Lila and her two friends onto the patio. "You made it," I say.

"Seeing as you'll probably have me murdered by Monday, I couldn't deny Parker a chance at meeting her favorite stars before you're all in jail for homicide."

"Lila," the strawberry blonde hisses.

The dark-haired guy with them squeezes her shoulder. "She was joking."

Lila smiles, and the sun reverses course to get closer to her glowing face. "I was joking. But I'm still leery of accidentally ending up with a broken leg tonight."

"You're safe," Wyatt tells her.

"Military?" she guesses.

He nods. Between the buzz cut and the posture, it's nearly impossible to miss. "And I'd like to keep my best friends out of jail."

"Thank you."

Pretty sure she's missing the gleam in his eyes that says she'll still have to answer to his ten-year-old son, who's pretty upset about Fiery. He glances my way, and we silently agree to save that until dessert.

Ambushes are best served over banana pudding.

And yes, we've had our share of ambushes over banana pudding in all our years together.

Lila introduces us to her friends, Parker and Knox. I pretend I'm not noticing that she's in jeans for the first time all week, and that they fit her like a glove. Nor am I noticing that the fitted T-shirt under her black sweater is a vintage gray Fireballs shirt from back in the day when Fiery looked more like a lumpy kangaroo with baby wings. Or that she's four inches shorter in sneakers, and that her copper-red ponytail looks soft as Emma's cheeks.

"Take all the pictures you want, but the kids are off-limits," Davis tells Parker as he shakes her hand.

He doesn't have kids of his own, but around here, it's just like when we were growing up.

Family.

Regardless of blood relation.

Cash arrives to a ton of fanfare, since he's home least of all of us. The mothers all smother him with hugs and kisses. So do the sisters. Emma screams. She's going through a phase where she's terrified of his nose, and even Grandma can't calm her down, so I end up walking the back of the yard with her while she searches under the orange fairy lights for frogs for James, who wanders back here with us to fly his trucks while he has the run of the place, since the grown-ups who would normally be playing catch or tag or wrestling in the grass have headed inside to load up plates.

My kids have already had dinner, because they'd be complete and total hellions if they hadn't. And this is one place I'm not worried about germs.

It's the great outdoors. Not trampled by shoes and touched by a million fingers. Frogs and chipmunks aren't going to give my kids the flu.

So I'm relaxed tonight. Lost in thought, contemplating Davis's suggestion that we let Lila do the heavy lifting with paying for making the Fireballs a better team, when that scent tickles my nose.

I straighten from my perch against the fence as she stops beside me. "You're not eating?" Lila asks.

I was avoiding you. "Waiting for the line to die down. Plus, if Wyatt's wife sees Davis sticking a finger in the banana pudding in the fridge, she'll dump coleslaw on his head, and then whoever's in the vicinity will have to help clean up."

"When you said the whole gang , we assumed you meant you and your former bandmates. Not… all of this."

"Bro Code extends beyond the five of us. It's all of us who grew up together. Sisters included. All of them answer to bro . We indoctrinated Sarah this year too."

"And Mackenzie?"

I don't try to hide a smile. "Oh, is Mackenzie here?" Sarah's best friend is the biggest Fireballs fan in the universe. She and I have spent many hours over the last year and a half discussing ways to turn the team around.

" Is Mackenzie here? " Lila mocks. " No, Lila, I didn't set you up to get cornered in the bathroom by the Fireballs' most rabid fan ."

She's fucking adorable.

Lila, I mean.

"I absolutely set you up," I tell her. "And I have zero regrets. She's one of our investors."

Her brows furrow. "She said she's a trash engineer."

"She is. And she showed up on my doorstep with a check for six hundred and seventy-five dollars the day she heard we were planning on putting together the capital to buy the team."

"That…won't even buy a season ticket."

"Can't buy heart. But she bought herself a share in the team. Or would've. If things had been different."

Her body jerks, and I reach out to grab her plate. It's instinct.

As is narrowing in on the cause of her jerking.

"James." My voice wobbles when my fingers collide with Lila's, and I have to swallow hard to continue. "We don't poke people in the bottom."

"But I wants to show her my twuck," James says.

"James—"

"That's a very red truck." Lila, who's only ever made weird faces at my kids, hands me her plate and squats to his level. "Does it have a name?"

Where swallowing was hard a minute ago, it's impossible now.

"This twuck is Wawwy," James says.

"Larry," I interpret huskily.

"That's a lovely name for a truck. Does he fly, or just drive?"

"He fwies. Did you know my gwamma has a candy jaw? She gives me candy when I help Emma push her seat in."

"Gamma canny!" Emma shrieks.

"Not this close to bedtime, kiddo." The words slip out before I realize what I'm saying, and I can't take back the bedtime word.

Not fast enough anyway.

My blond-curled two-year-old throws herself on the ground and howls like I've just impaled her on a rusty pitchfork, which is an analogy I never want to make about my daughter again, but pitchforks are on my mind after watching one of Cash's movies last night.

He needs to stop doing the horror-fantasy films and get back to some wholesome romcoms.

"Banana pudding?" I say, and Emma peers at me through one eye while she continues to scream bloody murder.

We might be testing my mom's theory that she yells loud enough to wake the dead. The nearest cemetery is only a mile or two away. She's definitely hitting at least seven miles from here with that howl.

Lila's lips are twitching, eyes sparkling like she's enjoying this.

It's a far cry from the discomfort and horror on her face when she found me with my kids at the office the other day. Or from those expressions she kept making during the meeting with Beversdorf.

I hand her back her plate and squat next to my daughter. "Be tall?"

She's glaring with both eyes now while she hollers for her undead army to rise against the injustices the world heaps on a two-year-old.

"Glitter doll?" I continue.

The scream stops, but she doesn't close her mouth yet.

Levi's convinced she'll follow in her mother's acting footsteps, but probably start at a young age as the victim in every horror film until she makes enough money to be an Instagram star.

Like Instagram will still exist when she's forty-seven.

What? You don't seriously think I'm letting my little girl loose in Hollywood before middle age, do you?

Also, if she's following in her mother's footsteps, she'll graduate from Juilliard at twenty and take thoughtful roles in critical indie films until getting her breakout role as the lead in a Hallmark Christmas movie.

And yes, Hallmark will still exist when Emma's twenty. It's a rule. I said so.

"Up-daw?" Emma says.

"You want up to be tall?"

She grunts like a hockey player.

"Say sorry to the grass for making its ears hurt."

"Sawwy ass," she says dutifully as she lifts her chubby toddler arms to me.

Lila seems to choke on air. Should be a victory, but it feels like I've just sealed my doom.

Fighting is easy.

But laughing—laughing with a woman is dangerous.

I swing Emma up onto my shoulders and glance back to check on Lila, because I can't seem to help wanting to look at her.

It's like the night we met all over again.

Except different, because James is jabbering and Emma's shoving slobbery hands across my forehead, and I don't need to pretend to be someone else to enjoy myself here.

And to be glad that Lila's here too.

My grin slips as my daughter's adorable sawwy ass fades.

Lila studies my face like she's a human lie detector, and she's looking for what part of me tonight is faking it.

I'm stupidly glad that the orange fairy lights only work so well, because I don't want to know what she'd see if she could get a clear look at me right now.

"How do you get work done with your hands so full?" she asks.

I don't think she's implying I'm not pulling my weight. I think she's honestly curious. "Coffee and a willful ignorance of just how busy I am. And coffee." I nod to the house. "And help. And did I mention the coffee?"

"You don't want your kids raised by a nanny."

"I can't find a nanny."

I wince. That wasn't supposed to be something I confessed.

She's smiling though. "Control issues? Or perfectionist issues?"

Considering I rejected the last one after she didn't know off the top of her head how many degrees chicken has to be cooked to before being served, yes is probably the correct answer to that question. "Are we getting into pot-kettle territory?"

"Does it matter?"

"Since the next step is the two of us arguing over who's the pot and who's the kettle, yes. It does."

Her smile grows seventy million megawatts. "You're clearly the kettle."

"Wrong. And we're not discussing this. You should eat before your food gets cold. If you don't try that rib, Emma's going to steal it. Can't get food like that in New York."

"I can get anything in New York."

I make myself smirk back at her. "I've been all over the world, and all over New York, and you cannot get ribs like that anywhere else."

"Trying to convince me to stay, Mr. Wilson?"

My heart gives two hard thumps, and fuck .

Am I?

"Fwy appacoppa!" Emma orders, saving me from the dawning realization that for all the headaches this woman has caused me this week, I'm stupidly happy to see her tonight.

Also, the day my daughter learns to say helicopter correctly is a day that I'll most likely get choked up. Same as the day James stops asking for peter-butter hammiches.

"Excuse me," I say to Lila. "I have to go be a helicopter."

"Oh, no! Fiyah-fiyahs in twubble!" James makes firetruck noises and lifts his race car to make it fly straight toward Lila's butt again.

"James. Car in the grass, or at least five arm-lengths from the nearest people, okay?"

"Fiyah-fiyahs need hugs."

"You can go ask Grandma for—James. We talked about that hand gesture."

Lila snort-laughs. "Aw, I wonder where he learned that from."

"One of his uncles, undoubtedly. I use the European version. Much more subtle."

"I'm aware. I've seen you do it seven times to me this week."

I have not , but once again, I'm smiling at her like she's the sun and I'm a Doomsdayer who's spent the last fifteen years huddled in a bunker forty feet underground and have finally emerged to see the light, despite the very clear suggestion that it's only my children's presence keeping her from making a few hand gestures of her own at me.

I clear my throat as if doing so can solve my lack of control over my facial expression. Emma sneezes, and something wet coats my hair. "Dada boogie?"

That gets a full belly laugh from Lila, which is both the most awful and gorgeous thing I've ever seen.

"It's just fall allergies, Tripp," my mom calls as I reach up to check on Emma and the sneeze. "She's fine."

"Talented girl," Lila says, still chuckling. " Oh! " She leaps sideways and looks down.

Dammit . " James . Come here, please."

Solemn blue eyes blink once at me. "Fiyah-fiyah and Wawwy want hugs," he insists.

I try to bend to his level, get a crick in my neck from having thirty pounds of toddler straddling it, and end up patting my leg like he's a dog.

"Please come here," I repeat to my son on a sigh, though I have to hand it to him.

He's managed to distract me from checking to see if Emma's snot is cold-colored or allergy-colored. But if she sneezes again, we're going inside.

His lips wobble.

Shit .

If he cries, Emma will cry, and then they'll try to outcry each other, and then there will be the puking that comes with too much crying. We're getting close to the danger zone for bedtime, which I don't normally push, but family cookouts are worth the pain. And James probably needs a trip to the potty.

Lila bends carefully, balancing her plate. "Quick hugs, and then Fiyah-fiyah and Larry have to go fly again, okay?"

James presses his truck and car to her face, grinning happily.

Heat washes over my face and down my neck once more, and my heart gives a strangled cry at watching my son with a woman the right age to be his mother. It's a familiar cry, one that sometimes hits me when we're hanging out with Sarah or one of the sisters from the neighborhood, and it's gradually happened less and less frequently in the last year and a half, but that thick, heavy, lonely howl has been quiet just long enough that it takes me by surprise and knocks the wind out of me.

"Wait—what's this?" she says suddenly, and she pulls a quarter out of his ear.

James gasps.

Me?

I. Am. So. Screwed.

Because I think I just fell in love.

James takes the quarter from her. "Is dat mine?"

"It was in your ear, wasn't it?"

I stifle the urge to tell him to clean his hands after touching money, because I don't need to wave my irrational fears out here tonight. Mom's right. Everyone's fine.

He tugs at the ear in question, then the other ear. "One in there too?"

She inspects his ear. "No, I don't think—oh! Look at that. There is one in there too."

He giggles. "Gwamma!! Gwamma, I got coins in my eayas!" He takes off for the house.

And I have to swallow hard to make my tongue work.

"I didn't think you liked children," I say while Emma rubs her sneeze harder into my hair.

Lila watches the darkness where we can just make out James's shadow dashing through the yard. She slowly lifts a rib, still not looking at me. "I lost my mom when I was little too."

She was older than my kids, but it still sucks. "I'm sorry."

"Me too. For all of us." She bites into her rib. Her eyes slide closed, and a low moan slips from her lips, and my cock instantly rises to attention.

"Okay, yes, you can't get this in New York," she says huskily.

"Dada appa-coppa!" Emma insists.

"Glad you agree. Gotta run."

Am I a chicken?

Yes.

But I definitely need to run off this hard-on before I can go back inside. And remember what's important.

My kids. My family. And the team.

My dick can stay out of it.