The Grumpy Player Next Door: Copper Valley Fireballs #3 Read online

  Which I only know because Luca couldn’t shut the hell up about it.

  Not because I pay that close of attention to what happens in Tillie Jean’s life.

  If I had my say in it tonight, I’d know nothing at all about what Tillie Jean was up to right now either.

  Also, reason number four thousand, six hundred twelve: Tillie Jean effortlessly saves other people’s lives.

  Shouldn’t be a reason I hate her, but it is.

  So. Fucking. Perfect. All. The. Fucking. Time.

  And I’m the moron who chose—who chose—to move to her hometown for the off-season, which is how I’ve ended up here tonight, sitting between her brother Cooper and Trevor Stafford, relief pitcher for the team, drinking iced tea in the party room of The Grog, a local bar which feels like the inside of a ship after a night of pirate debauchery, while Tillie Jean instructs us on how to paint our own Ashes.

  Yes, I said Ashes. Not asses.

  Ash is the newly-hatched next-generation dragon mascot of the Copper Valley Fireballs, who’s adorable as hell with her pudgy baby arms and little ear sprouts.

  Usually.

  She’s not nearly as cute when I’m being coerced into painting her with Tillie Jean Rock’s instructions. My version looks like an angry green blob with a face and a diaper, and not because I hope management ages her up to breathe fire and be a scary mascot so our reputation doesn’t get soft after all the work we put in over the last year to go from zeroes to heroes.

  “Dude, check out your Ash eyes.” Cooper leans into my painting and grins. He’s two beers deep, which means he’s fully relaxed and in his happy place. Not that Cooper’s ever not in his happy place. Does that mean he’s in his happier place? “She looks like she wants to murder someone.”

  Trevor leans over from the other side and whistles. “Pretty sure that’s not what management was picturing when they asked us to do this. We want people to bid on these for charity, not run screaming from the demonic baby dragon.”

  I point to his painting, where his Ash’s eyes are making her look terrified. “And what happened to your Ash?”

  Cooper peers past me and cracks up. We’ve been teammates for four years. He’s seen me at my absolute worst—not long after I joined the Fireballs, matter of fact—and I’d hate him if it wasn’t so easy to like him.

  He’s basically just like his sister, except he doesn’t flirt with me, which makes him tolerable.

  Okay, more than tolerable. He’s a good dude. Probably the best friend I’ve ever had on any team.

  “She get kidnapped by the loser mascots?” he asks Trevor. “They holding her for ransom in the dungeon at Duggan Field or something?”

  Three of the women in front of us turn around. Their Ashes look like actual cute baby dragons.

  Apparently Tillie Jean runs Ladies Painting Nights monthly here. Yes, of course she also knows how to paint, and of course she uses her skills to help the people in her pirate-themed hometown in the mountains. She can also drive in the city or the country, tell pirate jokes or recite Shakespeare and switch seamlessly between the two, and sprinkle glitter all over the town without getting any on her.

  And she still looks right in a paint-splattered smock with her cinnamon-brown hair swept back under a Pirate Festival bandana, her cheeks glowing, her summer sky eyes bright and cheerful, and her lush pink lips spread in a perpetual smile.

  She’s such a pain in the ass.

  I have zero doubt that all the stories about this town being founded by a pirate who raced his treasure inland to hide from the authorities however many hundreds of years ago are true, nor do I doubt that pirate blood still runs in her veins.

  Annoying wench.

  Come paint the new Fireballs mascot with us, Robinson Simmons, the Fireballs’ utility man, said this morning at the end of our workout. Management signed off. It’s all this guided painting thing so we don’t make her look bad, then we sign the paintings, and then we can auction them off for my niece’s foundation.

  Who says no to two hours spent painting a baby dragon mascot to be auctioned off in support of kids with Down syndrome?

  Assholes, that’s who.

  Tonight, I wish I’d been an asshole. Instead, I’m a glittery pitcher posing as a guy who likes to paint baby dragon mascots for charity.

  Any other night, with any other instructor…

  “You can use my painting and say it’s your own, Trevor,” one of the older ladies says with a wink in his direction.

  “Thanks, Dita, but I don’t think anyone’s gonna be buying my Ash no matter how she looks.”

  I scowl at him.

  Cooper punches him in his non-pitching arm. “Shut up. Yes, they will. You’re a legend.”

  Trevor snorts.

  I refrain from punching him in his non-pitching arm too. If I punch anything, I’ll send it through a wall.

  “Trevor, I love her.” Tillie Jean, painting goddess of Shipwreck, Virginia, the godawful pirate town that would be charming and welcoming and everything a small town should be if she didn’t live here, steps into our row and leans over my buddy’s shoulder, close enough for him to sniff her, and yep, I should not be here.

  She even smells good. Like a flower that’s not too potent mixed with a sea breeze or something.

  Reason number six hundred ninety-four…

  “She’s not as good as yours,” Trevor says to TJ.

  She puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes, and my blood pressure threatens to choke me.

  “It took me eight times to get her perfect,” she tells him. “You practically nailed her the first time around.”

  “Yeah, but your Ash glows.”

  “Like Max’s hair?” Cooper asks.

  I do punch him in the arm.

  That glitter bomb was for him, and if I hadn’t left my wallet at his place last night and gone to retrieve it before lunch instead of taking him up on his offer to cover me, he would be the one sparkling right now.

  “Max, you should lean into your painting and rub your hair all over it,” Cooper’s grandmother says from the row behind me. “You can have a glittery ass. Ass. Ash!”

  “Too much punch, Nana?” Tillie Jean asks.

  “Jus’ right,” the grand dame of the Rock family replies, hefting a stein with Nana sprawled over an image of a pirate wench on the side of it. “Arrr!”

  Cooper lifts his own custom stein, which has a picture of himself as a pirate holding a baseball bat that serves as a flagpole for a pirate flag. “Arrr!”

  Everyone else in the room lifts their custom steins too. “Arrr!”

  Trevor’s spent a few off-seasons here in Cooper’s hometown, so he has his own custom stein with a painting of himself—yes, done by Tillie Jean—as well.

  Only Robinson and I are drinking out of plain pint glasses.

  And Tillie Jean and her coffee mug.

  She leans over my shoulder and peers at my painting. “Nicely done, Max. I can feel the emotion.”

  Her voice has that coy, flirty quality again, like she wasn’t squeaking in terror when she realized I wasn’t Cooper a few hours back, and as usual, my junk doesn’t know how to react.

  A woman getting throaty and purry with me? We gear up for fun.

  Cooper’s sister brushing her boob against my shoulder? Full-on retreat.

  You don’t touch Cooper Rock’s little sister.

  As if I’d want to.

  And do you know how it feels when your junk wants to get hard and also asks your nuts to retreat back into your body at the same time?

  Hell.

  It feels like hell.

  “Leave him alone, TJ, and come tell me I’m perfect.” Cooper reaches around me, and Tillie Jean disappears from my side like he yanked her away.

  I grab my tea.

  Trevor eyes me and shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything.

  “We about done?” I mutter. Tillie Jean’s telling Cooper his brush strokes are imprecise or some bullshit, and he’s laughing bec
ause that’s what they do. They give each other shit, but they also have each other’s backs.

  Trevor studies me for half a second, then looks past me to the happy siblings. “Yeah. Darts?”

  “I’m in for darts,” Cooper says. “Sign your paintings, mateys. That’s worth more than your art. Arr!”

  “Is he like this all winter?” I ask Trevor.

  “Only the first few times he drinks. He’ll get it out of his system when he realizes spring training starts in three months. We usually get four.”

  Cooper drops his stein and stares at us in horror. “Oh, fuck. We only get three months.”

  Tillie Jean pats his head. “I think you’ll be fine, Stinky Booty. Robinson. Let’s see this beauty. Oh, look at you. You cover all the bases and you paint circles around your teammates. I’m having words with management if they ever trade you away.”

  He gapes at her with horrified brown eyes. Kid just finished his rookie season in the show and liked it. “Don’t jinx it, TJ.”

  She winks. “No such thing, Robinson. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  I sign my painting and head out into the main bar. I need to get away from this room. Trevor stretches his pitching arm while we cross past the pool tables.

  I shoot him a look.

  He ignores me.

  Guy’s older than I am, and he fucked up his shoulder good about two years ago. Wasn’t sure he’d have a comeback, and he hasn’t been the same since. Plus, his contract’s up. He’s here for off-season workouts because he’s optimistic.

  No idea if his agent’s blowing smoke about being able to get him another deal, but we’ll see before spring training starts.

  I nod to his glass. “Refill?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “Grab a dart board. Be right back.”

  3

  Max

  The dart board isn’t cooperating.

  And I don’t mean my score. My score is fine.

  But the dart board isn’t making it easy to ignore the laughter coming from the bar running the length of the far wall, where Tillie Jean and all her aunts and cousins and grandmother and mom and friends are sitting around, shooting the shit, having a better time than I am.

  I should go home.

  I should’ve already gone home.

  Spending three months in the same town as Tillie Jean Rock?

  Not a good plan.

  Spending those three months renting the house next door to her?

  Even worse.

  “Cole. Dude. You still surfing that pissed-off wave with TJ?” Cooper looks up from the closest table, where he’s catching up on all the Shipwreck gossip with a handful of locals now that the last of the paint night activities are over, and he eyeballs my dart.

  It’s just a normal dart.

  But it might’ve hit the board the way my fastball lands in a catcher’s glove.

  “Just playing darts, man.”

  “You just looked at the bar and then looked at the dart board like you want to eat it.”

  Tillie Jean and her mom explode in laughter again. My whole body tenses, and I actively force my muscles to relax on a subtle exhale.

  I shake my head at Cooper. “Off night.”

  His brows furrow as he tips his chair back to study me with a clear view like he hasn’t had a single drink tonight, even though he’s taken a few shots after his painting beers. “You wanna get out of here? I got glow-in-the-dark balls. We can—”

  “Your balls glow in the dark, man?” Robinson looks up from the table where he’s spilling to Cooper’s local friends about the time this past season that we got roped into an engagement gone wrong on a road trip in Cincinnati.

  Trevor snorts next to me. “Gotta see a doctor about that. Or maybe a nurse. You have pretty nurses here.” He’s on beer number five and feeling fine.

  Whereas I know better than to touch a beer or a shot or anything stronger than unsweet tea tonight.

  Definitely time to leave.

  I thought I could hang out here and ignore the only irritating part of this town, but I can’t. Every time I start to relax into the game, she laughs that magical fairy laugh that makes the glitter in my hair feel like pixie dust.

  Or someone says her name, which should be annoyingly country—Tillie Jean, it’s so old-fashioned—but instead sounds like fucking music.

  Or I accidentally look over at her and catch her tucking her perfect hair behind her ear.

  It’s not too short or too long. Not too curly, nor too straight. And it’s this magical color of cinnamon with some caramel sprinkled in between, and I have a serious problem.

  I fling another dart at the board.

  This one hits so hard it breaks in two, and the pieces go flying in opposite directions.

  One lands in Robinson’s drink. “Touchdown,” he crows as the guys around him explode in laughter.

  Cooper keeps staring at me.

  “Let it go,” I mutter to him.

  “I’m serious. You want to take off, I haven’t hit Scuttle Putt yet for midnight minigolf, and the fresh air’s good for plotting revenge.”

  Right.

  Revenge.

  If she were one of the guys, revenge would be a no-brainer. We pull shit on each other all season long, and yeah, a glitter bomb would be epic and it would require an epic plan for retribution that would make the sports pages.

  But she’s not one of the guys. She’s Cooper’s sister. And while Cooper might be the best friend I’ve ever had in baseball, possibly one of the best guys I’ve ever met in my entire life, I’m damn certain he wouldn’t say the same about me, which means no matter how fucking perfectly annoying his sister is, I keep it to myself.

  I keep everything to myself when it comes to Tillie Jean.

  Because I like having Cooper Rock as one of my friends.

  “I don’t want revenge.”

  He grins. “Hate to tell you, but you don’t get a vote. Ever since the great tea towel incident all those years ago, it’s tradition for us to entertain ourselves one-upping each other all winter. She got you. You have to get her back. But don’t even think about doing it with nudity or spit-swapping or I’ll kill you.”

  I’d be offended, except I wouldn’t trust me with his sister if I were him either. I have a longer relationship with my jockstrap than I’ve ever had with a woman, and I like it that way.

  “What’s the great tea towel incident?” Stafford asks.

  Half the locals gathered with Cooper laugh, and the other half sigh. Tillie Jean and her crew pause and glance our way.

  She winks at me.

  I twitch.

  Stafford snorts.

  And Cooper, who doesn’t notice his sister flirting with me—not that it’s unusual, since she likes to do it to irritate both of us—shakes his head. “Sorry. Rock family secret. I’ve already said more than I should.”

  “Hey, Coop, speaking of family—you related to the bartender?” Robinson wiggles his thick brows at the woman running the taps in front of a cracked mirror etched with a pirate ship.

  “Yeah, she’s my aunt, and she’s married with three kids.”

  “Aw, hell, no. No way.”

  “Aunt Glory, Robinson’s got a crush on you,” Cooper calls.

  A collective groan goes up around the bar.

  “Join the club, kid,” an older guy at the pool table calls back.

  “His beer’s on me,” another older guy at a booth hollers.

  “She’s such a heartbreaker.” Cooper’s in his element, smiling and laughing and pulling everyone in the entire bar into his orbit. He loves being here, and they love having him. Not that there’s a place on earth where it’s not true. It’s just extra true here.

  “Marriage or birth?” Stafford asks.

  “Both.”

  That would be hilarious any other night of the week, but tonight, my shoulders bunch again, and I turn and try to concentrate on the dart board while Cooper keeps going.

  “Just pulling your pe
gleg. She was born Glory Rock, married a Johnson, and now—”

  “Quit talking,” I say as I miss the dart board completely.

  “What? She didn’t hyphenate. She hated being Glory Rock. Pop and Nana didn’t think that one through. Teenage boys, man. They all wanted to climb Glory Rock. But I was gonna say, we’ve got some Johnsons up our family tree if you go back a few generations, so even though we’re pretty sure it’s not incest, we’re not sure sure.”

  Tillie Jean pushes a chair in between Cooper and Robinson and hands the rookie a beer, sloshing the liquid over the side as she puts it down. “Tough break, kid, but you’re not the first to fall under her spell. Aunt Glory’s half the reason for the huge rivalry we have with that dumb town up the way that I’m not allowed to call dumb anymore now that Grady’s married to someone from there. Max, I didn’t get to tell you earlier—I love your shirt. It really brings out the muscles in your—a-wah-wah-wah.”

  Cooper jerks his chin at me while he holds a hand over her mouth. “Got your back, Max. Starting to understand what’s wrong with the dart board, and it’s not the dart board, right?”

  Stafford lines up a shot and comes within a hair of a bull’s-eye. “Yeah, the problem’s totally not the dart board.”

  Robinson scoots his chair further from her. “TJ, why don’t you ever compliment my muscles?”

  “Boo-da-fwa-wa.”

  Her eyes are dancing again, clear as day despite the late hour, and it briefly makes me wonder what she’s sipping out of her glittery coffee mug before I remember I shouldn’t wonder about her at all.

  I’d still bet my favorite glove she’s talking nonsense behind Cooper’s hand, though, and also that she’s probably going to lick it any minute now.

  He yelps and jerks his hand away.

  Stafford snickers. “Can’t handle a little lick, Coop?”

  “I hit his tickle spot,” Tillie Jean whispers loudly, lifting a hand smeared with dried green paint and wiggling her fingers. She follows it with a giggle. “And don’t worry, Max. I’ll get him back for you taking his glitter bomb. TJ’s on the case.”