Chapter 10

Mackenzie

Openingday should be a federal holiday, especially when opening day happens at home.

But since it's not, I'm using one of my valuable remaining vacation days to lead protests against the new mascot options at Duggan Field.

A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Sarah joins me at eight in the morning. We're both in Fiery hoodies, because it's chilly, and while I thought maybe we'd get eight people to join us, it's closer to eighty and growing by the minute.

"I'm so proud of you," Sarah says as we march down Luzeman Lane, the street between Duggan Field and Fireballs headquarters, named after the greatest Fireballs player to ever play the game.

He was in his fifties when I went mute at meeting him the one and only time my dads tried to take me to a fan event. They have the picture framed at home—Andre Luzeman giving me a side eye while I stood there doing a guppy impersonation when I was sixteen. My hair was fabulous and my jersey was stylin', but I was totally dorktastic.

Learning to talk to the players last month for spring training was weird.

But they won more games than they lost in Florida, so you're dang right I need to keep talking to them.

It's working, even if Brooks Elliott has done nothing but glare at me the two times I've seen him since the team got back to Copper Valley a few days ago.

But he's hitting the ball again, even if it's mostly pop-outs and foul balls. And he started an Instagram account for Coco Puff, which is the cutest thing I've ever seen, and it's also making me miss my old foster dogs.

Not the heartache—never the heartache—but the joy of having a dog around.

I wonder if he's bringing Coco Puff to the game today.

Probably not.

A puppy would probably make a ton of messes in the clubhouse, and it's newly renovated. Plus, who's going to watch him while the players are playing?

We're marching both through the front courtyard and around the block and past the players' entrance in case any of them want to join us. It doesn't hurt that I really want to see the team. Cooper's been texting regularly—mostly funny baseball memes every few days and occasionally a random mention that Brooks isn't seeing anyone—and he tells me that all the players fully support my efforts to bring back Fiery.

I had to send another case of buttons for the teams' friends and family members to wear.

I still haven't confessed to anyone that I have the meatball costume. And don't ask how I got it through airport security. You don't want to know.

My dads know though. I'm hiding the costume at their place, because Sarah never goes there, because why would she? I wouldn't go to her parents' place randomly and unannounced either.

Plus, my dads have been helping me take the new videos that I'm feeding to Tripp through a burner phone often enough to discourage the Fireballs' video and marketing team from putting their new mascot costume to use.

"We're gonna win this year." I link my arm with Sarah's and lean in for a shoulder-bump. I'm freaking proud of her too.

Two years ago, we were both uber-shy dorks hiding from the world in our own ways. Now, she's dating a superstar, no longer paranoid about the paparazzi who captured every gloriously awful moment of her awkward childhood—her parents are Hollywood royalty—and she's balancing time with Beck with running her science blog and working part-time for an environmental engineering firm.

And I can talk to baseball players.

We reach the corner and turn to start the march back, only to bump into two massive guys who completely block the sidewalk.

Block?

More like overflow.

I have to look so high up to see their faces that my neck hurts, and recognition makes me sputter in surprise.

Copper Valley's two most well-known pro hockey players—identical twin beasts—are standing there in Fiery the Dragon T-shirts and Fiery Forever buttons, one with a protest sign that reads Fiery is Best, Bring Back the Dragon Mascot, Meatballs Taste Yummy.

Oh my god.

They're protesting in haiku.

"You're Mackenzie?" one asks.

I nod.

"The Thrusters believe in you, lady. We'll get that dragon back." He holds out a meaty fist.

I bump.

The other twin grunts and bumps my fist too.

"You call if you need anything." The first one hands me a slip of paper with his number on it, and the entire Thrusters hockey team files past us, all of them wearing my buttons and bumping my fist while they loop back to continue the protest route.

Their goaltender even brought along his pet cow, who drops a patty while the cops overseeing the protest watch.

"Your friend is totally badass, Sarah," the team's captain says when I don't immediately reply to his hey, Mackenzie, nice job.

I can talk to hockey players. They're not baseball gods.

But the unexpected support of their entire team has me a little choked up.

We're starting the second hour of the protest, with news crews showing up because the street and the courtyard are overflowing, when I catch sight of Brooks pulling into the team's parking lot.

He climbs out of his Land Rover behind the fence, and even though he's wearing sunglasses, I swear he looks straight at me.

You could say things got a little awkward once he realized how many people knew about the virgin thing at the cookout.

He didn't confirm it, but he didn't deny the hints that were hanging heavy in the air that night either.

And I still don't like the way he looked at me when he told me to tell him he can't hit a ball.

Unsettlingmight be a good word for how that left me.

Or possibly so paranoid I have an escape route if the cops show up at my apartment.

Sarah and I keep walking our path amongst the protesters, who start shrieking with excitement as they realize the players are arriving.

"Brooks!"

"Elliott! Over here!"

"Can I get your autograph, Brooks?"

"Oh my god, marry me?"

Sarah smiles at that last one. "Don't worry, I doubt he takes her up on it," she whispers.

"I'm not worried."

Instead of heading for the players' entrance, he walks to the fence and greets a few fans, signing baseballs and protest posters through the chain link.

"Mackenzie," he calls as we walk past.

I almost keep walking, because he's not calling me.

But Sarah grabs me and stops me. "Don't clam up now. The team needs you."

"He's not—" I start, but when I turn, he is.

He's lowered his sunglasses, and he's looking straight at me.

My knees get a little wobbly, because this is unexpected.

Also, his hazel eyes are really, really hot when he's peering at me over his sunglasses like that.

And I might have been having dreams about him having a four-headed penis the size of Mount Rushmore after listening to his sister-in-law talk a little too much about his brother's penis.

For the record, I did not get a glimpse of the goods the night I was hiding in his closet.

And good thing, too, because I want him to not have sex, even if I'm getting warm in all the right places from him looking at me like that.

I draw up across the fence from him. It's a chain-link number, about eight feet high, so we're definitely separated.

One side of his mouth quirks up.

It's not friendly, even if he is wearing a Fiery Forever button on his jacket.

"How's Meaty?" he asks.

My eyes bulge.

Everyone around us turns to stare at me.

"Fiery, you mean?" Crap, my stutter's back.

He holds my gaze without speaking for three long beats where he silently telegraphs that no, he means Meaty.

You know my secret. I know yours, that smoky smirk says.

He pushes his sunglasses back up onto his head. "Yeah. That's what I meant."

A news crew is pushing in, and I am not going to hyperventilate at the fact that he could completely blow my Save Fiery campaign and probably get me arrested at the same time.

This is worse than that moment at the cookout where I thought he'd figured me out, because now I know he has.

Probably I need to come clean with Tripp and Lila.

Hey, guys, funny story that ends well, haha…

"Brooks! Brooks, how are you feeling before the game?" the reporter calls. "Are you coming out to protest for Fiery? How are you liking Copper Valley? How's your puppy? Do you have any family in town for opening day?"

He stares at me. Even through the sunglasses, I know he's staring at me.

Mostly because he mouths Meaty before he gives the crowd a wave and turns to walk away without answering the reporter's questions.