He squints one eye at me. “You’re pissed.”
“I’m Canadian. We’re never pissed.”
“That’s why this is weird.”
“What’s weird is thinking of you as part-owner in this club.”
Mentioning his relatively new change in position with the team distracts him.
Dude smiles so big, I want to punch him in the face.
I don’t usually resent other people being happy, but seeing Cooper Rock marry one of the world’s biggest pop stars, happily go into baseball retirement at the end of last season without a care in the world about what came next, take on fatherhood like a natural, and then his wife gifting him a minority share of the team he’s loved from birth feels like more than one man deserves.
Especially when the last woman I let myself be obsessed with won’t even let me make sure she gets to a doctor safely and when I shouldn’t care as much as I do.
“Surreal, man,” he says. “It’s like every day is better than the last, and the last was pretty freakin’ awesome.”
I nod. “Happy for you.”
“You still look pissed.”
“Haven’t had poutine in too long.”
Cooper looks down the hallway that Addie disappeared into, then back at me once more. “You give her a ride? She was going dress shopping. Were you at the dress shop?”
“Wrong place, wrong time.” I pull out my phone like someone’s calling. “Gotta take this. See you around.”
I like Cooper most days.
Today isn’t most days.
Today isgo home and work out until I can’t move so my brain shuts off.
While I wait for the text from Addie that won’t come.
And while I know I’ll turn on the Fireballs game tomorrow night to see if the cameras pan to her, so that I can see for myself that she’s okay.
3
Addie
The dayI interviewed for my position with the Fireballs, I was positive I blew it.
That I said all of the wrong things. That my philosophies and experience were insufficient for the highest levels of baseball. That I’d accidentally insulted the new owners. That I wasn’t good enough.
Considering that the Fireballs were the worst team in baseball at the time and had been for basically decades, it took a lot to feel like I’d bombed an interview with them.
I’d gone back to my hotel, called my favorite sister-in-law to vent, and then decided to hit a bar for a single self-pity drink by myself.
That’s the night I met Duncan.
He was jamming out on an acoustic guitar on stage, absolutely slaying some Levi Wilson pop song.
He stopped after two more songs, and since I had nothing more to lose that day, I waded through the crowd of women, andwhat I realized much, much later were hockey fans, to offer to buy him a drink.
Because he was cute.
And he could sing.
