He turns just right, and there’s glitter sparkling in the dude’s chin dimple.
People think Zeus and Ares are the reason we’re known for glitter wars.
Wrong.
It all started with their sister.
Who also doesn’t get the credit she deserves.
Just like Addie before she came here to Copper Valley.
“Somebody start this party without us?” Tyler Jaeger asks. He and his wife, Muffy, have also arrived. Tyler’s one of few guys still active on the team who hasn’t retired yet, but I suspect it won’t be many more years before he’s done too.
“Do you think the people sitting around us have any idea what they’re in for?” Kami muses as she and Muffy hug each other.
“Nope,” we all answer for her.
I know what I’m in for.
A fun game with good friends where the woman I want to date knows I’m wearing her jersey.
And then patience.
And then—well.
Guess we’ll see what’sthen.
I know what I want it to be.
I want it to be with Addie wearingmyjersey inheroff-season.
It’ll take time, but I believe it’ll happen.
I have to.
14
Addie
It’sa terrible day for pickleball sign-ups.
A wall of thick, dark gray clouds are making a slow roll our way from the horizon. It’s hot enough here in a corner of Reynolds Park near the pickleball courts that the mascots have had to take breaks inside the concrete restroom building. And every fifth person who’s approached the table has asked if Duncan and I are dating.
“She deserves someone way better than me,” Duncan’s saying to a seventy-year-old woman who’s here to sign up for theseasoned citizensbracket, and who has askedthe question.
He’s in a maroon Thrusters polo and a tan bucket hat that hides his curly hair. If you didn’t know who he was, you’d think he was any random admin person who sat in the back office for the Thrusters instead of the team’s captain who has four championship rings and celebrated a thousand career games played two seasons ago.
“It’s nice to see a young man who’ll recognize that,” the woman says. “So you know, though, you don’t get credit for lip service. You have to prove you mean it.”
“Would you like a Fireballs water bottle, ma’am?” I interject.
“Honey, when you get to be my age, you have so many water bottles that you forget which ones have water and which ones have vodka in them. Don’t fall for any sweet words from cute young men. Make them earn you. Don’t call himDaddylike those articles say you do.”
“The articles gave us that nickname because of how it sounds when you smush our names together.” It’s not the first time Duncan has said this today. “We didn’t ask for it. We’re not using it.”
“I’m unattached and planning to stay that way,” I tell her. The statement is lacking its normal conviction, and it doesn’t slide off my tongue the way it used to.
Freaking Duncan.
