Chapter 22

Brooks

I forgotwhat it feels like to be a team player.

My batting average still isn't where I'd like it to be—probably need to see a psychic or ask Eloise for a recommendation to get rid of the residual memories of the woman I made out with at spring training—but we pulled off the win last night against Arizona.

I didn't act on anything Mackenzie and her dads told me about the team, but I'm watching closer, learning my teammates, and getting back in the groove of reminding the younger players when to panic and when to let the bad stuff flow off your back.

Down by two in the third? We still have six innings to score.

Missed an easy hopper up the middle? Set us up for a double play, didn't it?

Watched a video of Meaty touring Cooper Rock's hometown, knowing it was Mackenzie under that costume hugging random strange men on the street?

Probably a good thing Stafford knows how to talk a guy off a ledge too.

What's with you and the meatball fascination?he wanted to know.

I don't like that it's winningwas my answer.

He's not an idiot, and he didn't believe me.

But watching the mascots rally the crowd before the bottom of the eighth inspired me, and so Tuesday morning, I decide to continue a tradition that clearly influenced us winning last night.

With a little help.

"I can't decide if you're an idiot or a genius," Luca says to me as we step off the elevator.

"Definitely genius," Stafford pipes up.

"Idiot," Robinson chimes in.

Like Luca, his voice is muffled.

And I'm grinning like an idiot. "Ready?" I ask Stafford.

He nods and knocks at apartment 1302, then steps back, the camera we borrowed from the Fireballs' AV department aimed at all three of us. It's a slick set-up—basically a phone hooked to a stabilizer that he can hold in one hand.

The door swings open, and Mackenzie shrieks and slams it shut again.

Robinson—or rather, Glow the Firefly—turns to face me. "That's not good luck."

I shrug my echidna shoulders.

Cooper—in the duck costume—bangs a padded fist on the door. "Don't write off anything, rookie."

The door opens again, and there's Mackenzie in a knee-length sundress and strappy heels. Her hair's mussed like she's been running her fingers through it, and her pink lips are parted as she breathes rapidly. Pretty sure she slapped on two more Fiery Forever buttons, because she only had one stuck to her dress the first time the door opened. "Gentlemen. Or should I say, mascots. What brings you here this morning?"

"They're sad that you don't like any of them." Stafford's doing our talking since mascots aren't supposed to talk, and he's the only one of us not in a costume.

Which is a rule Mackenzie should've known the night we met, but I can make an exception for her. She had good intentions, even if I'm still pissed at the universe for that particular curse.

Not her.

Just the universe.

It's complicated.

She purses those lips as she looks between the three of us in costume, and that tiny action combined with her still rapidly rising and falling chest makes my cock ache.

"I don't dislike you," she tells the three of us.

"But you're campaigning to bring back the old mascot."

I put my mascot hands to my face and shake my mascot head like I'm disappointed. Robinson's smacking the firefly in the face. And Cooper—in the duck costume—does a dance move.

Actually—what is that? It's like a cross between the lawn mower and the MC Hammer dance, and he might be a genius, because no one could ever vote for a duck that dances that badly.

Mackenzie's fighting another smile. "I think you three haven't found the right team yet."

"What about Meaty?" Stafford asks. "Would you take him back to the Fireballs?"

"If Meaty wanted to be part of the Fireballs, he wouldn't have run away, would he?"

"Fiery left."

"Fiery had to go to the hospital. That's completely different than voluntarily running away."

"Is it?"

"Yes. You know Fiery wanted to stay with the Fireballs forever. He's a dragon. He shoots fireballs. And he has way bigger muscles than Glow here."

I poke Robinson, and he belatedly lifts a costumed arm like he's showing off his non-existent biceps.

Then he hangs his head in shame.

Who says none of us will have careers in baseball once our playing days are over?

Cooper tests the muscles on Glow's extra arms.

Glow punches the duck and then feels his muscles, which are even smaller.

"Okay, guys, break up the muscle contest." Stafford reaches into his back pocket with his free hand and pulls out a smashed packet wrapped in foil. "We're here to bring Mackenzie a peace offering, remember?"

She eyes the packet.

Looks at the duck, who flosses. Then at the firefly, who launches into the Macarena. And then at me.

I mean, the echidna, but if she doesn't know it's me, then she's not as bright as I think she is.

I can do the worm, but probably not in mascot costume, so I settle for making a bunch of hand gestures that would probably be rude in certain European countries.

They're pretty similar to the third base coach's gestures for don't fucking steal second until I tell you to.

Mackenzie stifles another smile while she takes the packet I fixed this morning. "Is this poisoned?"

Stafford jerks a thumb at me. "Spike thinks he can cook."

"That must be hard with those claws in the way."

"He uses them to flip pancakes."

"Fiery once made me eggs. He cooked them by breathing fire over them."

"Dude, I can't compete with that," Cooper says.

I punch him, because mascots aren't supposed to talk.

Robinson cracks up.

I punch him too.

Mackenzie curtsies to us. "Thank you, kind mascots, for breakfast. I hope we can still be friends after Fiery comes back. You're all very good mascots, but you're not quite right for the Fireballs."

"I hope you're right, Mac." Stafford gives her the thumbs-up. "We have to run. More breakfasts to deliver to the voodoo queen who's been stabbing her echidna doll."

I fake a sudden twinge in my back.

Mackenzie stifles a laugh, and has to try three times to make her face go straight. "Best of luck. Tell the Fireballs to win today."

She waves and steps back into her apartment, shutting the door on all of us.

Stafford lowers the camera. "What would management do if we didn't bring back these costumes?"

"Fire us," the duck says. "They'd fire us."

No, they won't. They're getting too much free publicity over all the mascot antics. "You know they have six extra versions of every one of these back in storage after the meatball incident."

We all look at each other.

I mean, as much as three mascots and a relief pitcher who's sliding a release form under an apartment door can look at each other.

"It's three hours before Stafford has to get to the park," Cooper says.

I look back at Mackenzie's door.

It's not opening. And no small part of me wants to circle back here as soon as I ditch these guys.

But when's the next time I get to semi-anonymously wreak havoc all over a city?

Back when Rhett was in the Navy, anytime he came home during the off-season, he, Jack, Gavin, and I would find a way to get into trouble in New York.

There was that time we glued little green army men to the backs of random benches in Central Park. Then that time we talked the maintenance crew at the Empire State Building into lighting up the windows in the shape of a giant penis. That time we kidnapped Knox after he and Parker hooked up and accidentally lit his pants on fire and singed his pubes when we were merely trying to prove a point about how he'd better not hurt our sister.

What better way to fit in with my new team than to participate in some harmless mischief?

And four hours later, when we all get to the ballpark late, with the mascot costumes returned to headquarters unapologetically stained and a little worse for the wear, having treated half of the city to an even better show than a ball game, I almost feel like I'm at home.

Being a Fireball might not be such a bad thing after all.