Everywhere.
“The signs never apply to me,” I tell Hiramys. Like hell I’m admitting to knowing the undisclosed passages under the field and that I didn’t see a single damn sign on my entire way into the stadium. That’s my little secret. “I live here. Duggan Field is home for a Fireballs baseball god like me.”
“You were kissing your sister,” Waverly says.
Fuck. I would’ve preferred she paid attention to the wholeI’m a godpart.
Maybe.
Did that sound conceited?
Shit.“It’s something we do,” I tell her. “Wait. No. That sounded wrong. It’s not something we do. I mean we fake it when one of us needs to avoid someone. We started it back when I was in high school and playing travel ball and we’d go to these games a few hours from home where guys would hit on her, so I’d kiss her—pretendto kiss her—because they didn’t know I was her brother and not her boyfriend, and then they’d leave her alone.”
My brain saysshut up. My mouth sayswe haven’t dug this hole deep enough. “No one crosses Cooper Rock. Not even back then. I don’t like my sister. I mean, I do. She’s awesome. Great person. But I don’t like her like that. I wasn’t even kissing her. I was kissing my hand over her mouth. There was no lip contact. At all. And she paid me back by—actually, that one’s embarrassing. Never mind.”
Waverly lifts her tumbler and takes a sip of whatever’s left in it, bright hazel eyes watching me. “And who were you hiding from?”
Jesus, Mary, and Babe Ruth. I would’ve rather told the embarrassing revenge story. “Levi Wilson.”Fuck. First name that slipped into my head, and it’s the wrong one. She loves Levi. It’s mutual. They’re like me and Tillie Jean. Brother and sister. Tight. But not involved. They’re not actual blood relations, but they act like, it, andew.
Plus, Levi’s madly in love with a local bookstore owner here in Copper Valley and is about to become stepdad to her three kids. They’re adorable in that adorable way people in love get adorable.
Jesus.
My brain is short-circuiting.
“You and Levi are having issues?” Waverly asks, clearly not buying it.
Or possibly hoping it’s true, since he was my connection to getting my Little Sluggers team into her meet-and-greet back in March and I’m definitely not welcome back for another of those.
“It was a surprise that I was there at the party,” I improvise. “He wasn’t supposed to see me yet.”
“Doesn’t he know your sister too?”
“It was dark. Ish.”
“It really wasn’t.”
A burly security dude with an earpiece and a chest the size of our travel bus approaches.
This.
This right here is why I will be alone once I’ve retired from baseball. My parents set the gold standard for being in love with your partner. My brother’s following in their footsteps. Now that Max has pulled his head out of his ass and quit telling everyone who’ll listen the lie that he’s not good enough for Tillie Jean, she’s following in their footsteps. And I’m great at everything else, but when it comes to talking to women that I’m obsessed with—or rather, theonlywoman I get obsessed with anytime I see her—I turn into a blubbering, incoherent, rambling mess.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” I mutter. I glance at the security guy again. “Really sorry about the tea. Didn’t mean to make you spill it. I’ll go.”
“Who were you hiding from?” Waverly repeats.
I meet her eyes again, and angels burst into song in my head simply from making eye contact with her.
She’s a goddess.
And not like I’m a god. She’s an actual goddess. Not faking it.
And those angels in my head sound a lot like her.
Jesus. I havegotto get over this woman. And I thought I had. I really thought I had.
Until I saw her being her awesome, amazing self with a bunch of kids who are usually reminded by everyone around them how hard they suck at baseball and too many other things in life.
