The Copper Valley Bro Code Series: Volume 1, page 107
An hour later, she’s trying to chase me out of the kitchen. “You cooked. We can clean.”
“More hands make clean-up go faster.”
“And sometimes you have to take a break and let someone else do something.”
“And miss all the good dishwashing gossip? No way.”
She throws her hands up. “You’re impossible.”
I laugh, and I don’t care that my brother, my mom, and my mother-in-law are all standing there while we argue.
Nor do I care that they all see when I grab her around the waist, pull her into me, and kiss her until I can’t pull away without showing everyone in the kitchen what she does to me.
“So Tripp and Lila are doing the dishes,” Levi announces, reminding us we have an audience.
“I’m not entirely certain that’s what they actually want to do in the kitchen, but I’m out,” Mom replies. “Yvette. Coffee and naptime?”
“I’ll grab the pot.”
“Don’t bother. Tripp has a pot in his office too.”
Mom pulls the pocket door shut as they leave us to the disaster in the kitchen, and we’re alone for the first time all day.
Just me and this green-eyed goddess who’s smiling at me like I hung the moon.
“Best Thanksgiving ever,” she whispers.
“I love you,” I reply.
Her eyes go misty, and she wraps her arms tighter around me. “I’ve never fallen in love with anyone before.”
“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Tripp—”
“You didn’t have to tell them your secret.”
“But that’s what family does.”
Family.
I don’t take it for granted. But being Lila’s family—her chosen family—is next-level special. “I like you in my family.”
“I love you being mine.” She goes up on her toes and captures my lips again. I press her back against the messy counter, kissing her back, my hands slipping under her sweater, my head full of dreams of more time with Lila.
Naked bedroom time.
Family dinner time.
Playing with the kids time.
Arguing at work time.
Fixing the Fireballs time.
Lila time.
All the time.
29
Lila
It starts in New York.
I’m back in the city a week or so before Christmas for meetings about Bubble Bath Books and some of my favorite charities, missing Tripp like I left one of my limbs behind, when I feel the tickle in my throat again.
No big deal.
People get colds.
But I don’t want Tripp to know I’m sick, because I don’t want him to worry.
He’s already fussing over my hours, and not just because he wants me to stay over in his bed, but because I can’t hide the bags growing under my eyes. I’m beginning to suspect his invitations to sleep over are more so he can watch over me and make sure I’m sleeping than because he actually wants to wake up next to me, and I won’t put him in the position of being overworked during the day, making the most of every minute with his kids every evening, and monitoring my health during normal sleeping hours.
It’s entirely possible he was right, and firing half the organization, right down to the mascot, wasn’t the best approach to fixing my family’s baseball team.
Maybe we should’ve done it one phase at a time.
All Pakorski wanted to see was progress. Not zeroes to heroes in a single season.
And let’s be honest here.
He doesn’t want the legal challenge I could bring with the bank account I’m sitting on if he tried to move the team, though I’d much rather not spend months and months in court.
But my point is, we’re all overworked, and I’m doing what I can to make sure Tripp’s not dealing with the majority of the upheavals I’ve caused.
We’ve added staff, which helps in theory, but there’s training. Getting them up to speed. Negotiating over the differences in what they’ve done for previous teams, and how I want things to run for the Fireballs. Prepping for Fireballs Con.
It was supposed to be a small thing. Announcing our coaching staff and mascot finalists, and making players available for autographs and pictures between sessions about the Fireballs’ Foundation and their living legends.
Turns out that takes way more planning than anything I’ve done before, because all of my projects have been either hands-off investments or projects I was obsessed with until I found the next shiny object and moved on, letting other people handle the kinds of tasks I’m still having fun with at Fireballs headquarters.
I’m reading less, but I’m living more.
And I wouldn’t be in New York at all, except it’s time to do what I do best, and hand off a successful business to the people who are doing the real work, so I can get back to Copper Valley and my life.
But when the sniffles hit, I text Tripp that I’m in back-to-back meetings, send him a homemade selfie gif of me blowing him a kiss, and promise I’ll see him soon.
My meetings are over in two days, and I can get over the sniffles in two days. The vitamin combo I used right before Thanksgiving should do the trick.
I even go to the doctor, which is a pain in the ass, but I know if I can tell Tripp I’ve been, he’ll feel better.
On the doctor’s advice, I’m trying out a nasal irrigator—trust me, not at all sexy—when Tripp calls me over video chat.
I decline, but on the third call, when I’ve made it out of the bathroom and cleaned up after almost choking on the damn saline solution, I finally pick up.
“Hey!” I say brightly, sounding like someone’s holding my nose shut while taking a blowtorch to my tonsils.
Huh.
My throat didn’t hurt thirty minutes ago.
Stupid nasal irrigator.
And there goes the frown.
I usually like that frown. It means I’m irritating him in the office, and he’s going to take it out on me by going down on me later in the bedroom.
But I do not feel like doing anything other than sleeping right now.
“Are you sick?” he asks.
“Too much talking at the meetings. And someone brought a cat. I’m allergic.”
Uh-oh. It’s the eyebrow.
He doesn’t believe me.
He shouldn’t, but I really want him to, because he carries the weight of enough people’s worries on his shoulders. He doesn’t need to get tied up in knots over me having a simple cold.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be home in two days.”
His face softens at the word home.
Did I say two days?
Screw that.
I want to be home now.
“Where are your friends?” he asks.
“They’re at book club. With a cat. I shouldn’t be there.”
“Lila.”
“And I’m planning on catching up on some sleep.”
He thrusts his hand through his hair, and I want so bad to be there with him to hug him and promise him I’m fine, but I’m actually feeling a little warm, and I shouldn’t share germs with him or his kids, so going home actually isn’t in the plans right now.
“Send me your address,” he orders.
“You are not coming here. Just in case my…allergies…are contagious.”
“I’m sending Levi to check on you.”
“Tripp.”
“Lila.”
“I’m fine. I promise.”
“You need to see a doctor.”
“I did. Cross my heart. He says I just need to slow down a little. Just like you’ve been saying. And I am. No more conventions or mascot contests or firing any more coaches before spring training. Six more weeks, and all the heavy lifting will be done. We’re halfway there anyway with the coaching staff, right?” I need to quit talking. My throat is on fire, and I’m having a hot flash.
At least, I think that’s a hot flash. But I’m too young to be going through menopause, so maybe I have a low-grade fever.
Tripp’s making that face. The one that says he’s trying very hard to let me do something stupid, and which he usually later comes around to admitting wasn’t actually stupid at all.
Like Fireballs Con.
And the Fireballs and Furballs calendar, which we sold out of in ten days.
I freaking love Copper Valley. Everything we’ve done, the community has responded to. When we need help, the mayor steps up, or one of the other pro sports teams in town, or plain old normal people who just want to participate in something, like being honorary duck guards for an hour.
Although, I don’t think a cold is going to have quite the same impact on productivity and community involvement as everything else I’ve been putting energy into.
“I’m going to bed right now,” I promise him.
It’s seven o’clock. Still so many productive hours left in the day.
But I am. I’m going to bed.
And tomorrow, I’m going to feel much better, and in two days, I’ll be back in Copper Valley, back in Tripp’s arms—possibly with a face mask on, just in case I do have contagious germs—and everything will be just fine.
“I love you,” he says.
I press a kiss to my fingers and wiggle them at the camera. “Love you too.”
Gah, I do.
I love him.
Everything from his stubbornness to his patience, his loyalty to his heart, and his kids, his protectiveness, his intelligence, his passion, his insecurities, even the way he’s been trying so hard to give up his addiction to hand sanitizer—everything.
All those little bits of him that are so much more than the responsible one in that boy band.
The way he’s teaching me that life goes on.
That it’s up to us to live it, and the way he’s helped me embrace who I am.
All of me.
“I’m worried about you,” he says with that same intense look James gets when he’s thinking hard about something that puzzles him.
“I don’t want you to worry about me.”
“That’s what partners do, Lila.”
“I know. And I worry about you worrying about me.”
That earns me a small smile, but it doesn’t erase those lines in his forehead. “Check in first thing tomorrow, and call me if you get worse. Understand?”
“Tripp—”
“Please.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
But I think he knows I’m lying.
Because if my options are making Tripp more worried or taking care of myself, I’m still going to take care of myself.
He has enough other things on his plate.
He doesn’t need me triggering his anxiety about germs too.
30
Tripp
Lila’s not coming home.
The last time I talked to her, she sounded like she had bronchitis and strep throat and the flu and pneumonia and an ear infection and needed her tonsils out, which I can acknowledge is definitely my hypochondria talking, but this morning, she texted that she’s rescheduling her flight because her ears are a little stuffy, which I know damn well means she’s sick as hell.
And that’s not the paranoia talking.
That’s the man who knows she’s trying to shield me from the truth talking.
I tell Waylon to leave my kids with my mom when he’s had enough of them, and I head to the airport, which is what I should’ve done two days ago.
Even using a private jet, the whole process of getting in the air takes too long, and once we’re on our way, I can’t sit still.
Traffic in New York is a nightmare, like usual, made worse by a snowstorm that all the Christmas lights all over the place can’t make better, but at least Levi’s with me. He picks me up at the airport, and he keeps poking me when I start biting my fingernails while his bodyguard drives us through the city.
“Don’t do this,” he says. “It’s a cold. I get why you’re worried, but she’s going to be fine.”
“It’s not just a cold. My gut says so.”
“Your gut’s a hypochondriac.”
“And it’s fucking earned that right.”
He stops arguing, and when we finally make it to Lila’s apartment building, he’s beside me every step of the way.
She needs chicken noodle soup. She needs decongestants and water and sleep. Swear to god, if she’s working, I’m going to sit on her and make her stay on the damn couch until she sleeps for seventeen hours straight, and then make her do it all again tomorrow.
And I need to know this isn’t as bad as I’m afraid it is.
Levi checked on her two days ago and told me she was taking care of herself, that it was a mild cold, and that she wasn’t even as bad as James and Emma were last month.
He was lying, and we both know it, but if she’d been dying, he would’ve told me.
He knows I love her. He knows she’s getting to know the kids more, that they adore her and that she’s asked about them so much while she’s been gone that I’ve been joking she’s only with me for them.
He knows she’s been good for me too, both at work, and at home, and with all of my paranoia.
Until today.
He knows she’s nothing I expected, and everything I want.
I usually bounce from challenge to challenge, but I’ve never felt like THIS before, she whispered to me one night not long after Thanksgiving. I might leave the Fireballs one day, but I will NEVER leave you. You’re my heart, Tripp Wilson, and my heart needs you.
My heart’s quivering when we step off the elevator.
She needs me.
All of her. And I should’ve been here three days ago.
She doesn’t answer the knock at the door, so I call her security team in to open it for us.
“She doesn’t want visitors, Mr. Wilson, but I’m sure she’ll make an exception for you,” her head of security reports while he lets us in. “It’s just a cold. She’s getting better.”
I ignore him and push into her apartment. It’s so dark in here, and it smells like death.
Like disinfectant weighed down by the weight of the inevitable, and my gut recoils in a way I haven’t felt in almost two years. I clamp a hand over my mouth and force myself to walk past the entryway to the small living room, where Lila’s huddled in a pile of blankets, eyes closed while a large television plays The Princess Bride over a gas fireplace.
A strangled cry slips out of my lips, because fuck.
Is she dead?
She snort-snuffles and jerks awake. “Hello?”
My heart cramps. Completely closes in on itself, because she sounds like a frog trying to talk through a stream, and when she sucks in a breath and erupts in a coughing fit, I’m back in a hospital room, watching Jessie deteriorate before my eyes.
Engulfed in hopelessness.
In fear.
In denial.
In knowing that a microscopic organism was going to take my wife away from me, and there was nothing I could fucking do about it.
This is different, I tell myself.
I suck in a deep breath, realize I’m infecting myself, picture Emma’s little body in that hospital bed too, fighting to live, and I can’t.
I can’t do this again.
I can’t.
“Tripp?”
She hunches over coughing again, that deep, raspy cough that sounds like it’s fighting its way out of a mud hole. “I told—you—stay away,” she rasps between coughs.
“So you can fucking die here all by yourself?”
I don’t recognize my own voice, and I don’t know who’s gripping my shoulder, but I know I can’t stay here.
I can’t get attached.
Fuck. I’m already attached, but I have to get unattached.
Now.
I can’t fall apart again. Not when James and Emma are settled. When I’m settled. When I finally feel almost whole again.
Almost.
And that’s as good as it’s ever going to get, because every time I let my guard down and fall in love, fucking germs ruin it all.
“Hold on, Tripp,” Levi says.
Levi.
I’m exposing my brother to the germs too.
I’m signing his death warrant with my own. And even knowing I’m being a melodramatic, hypochondriac shit, I can’t stop myself.
“Out,” I order him. “Out.”
My vision’s blurry as I shove him back out of the apartment. I should go back in.
Make sure Lila’s okay.
Get her to a doctor.
Fix her.
Save her.
But I can’t.
I can’t make myself go back in there. James and Emma need me too damn much.
I can’t get sick too. I need to disinfect. I need antibiotics. I need to quit hyperventilating.
“Call 9-1-1 if you fucking have to, but get her to a fucking doctor again,” I snarl at the guard.
And then I head for the stairs.
Must.
Get.
Clean.
“Tripp,” Levi calls after me. I don’t know what floor I’m on. The fifteenth? The sixtieth?
Do I care?
“Tripp, don’t do this.” Levi’s pounding after me. “People get sick, and they get better. Lila’s going to be okay.”
“But I’m fucking not.”
And what kind of partner am I to anyone if I can’t handle a cold?
The worst kind, that’s what kind.
Jessie used to joke about man-colds. She’d tell me I was high maintenance and make me homemade chicken noodle soup and tuck me into bed and make sure I talked to my mom twice a day.
But she’d still take care of me.
And I can’t do the same for anyone other than my kids. I can hardly be there for them without losing my freaking mind, because if it’s not Jessie, it’s Emma.
Her little body racked with that cough. Hooked up to IVs. Sitting there in that intensive care unit with her, waiting for the fever to go down, making bargains with the universe that both my girls could be saved.
I can’t do it again.
I can’t.
If I have to choose between raising my kids alone and spending the rest of my days reliving the darkest memories of my life every time someone so much as coughs, then I’m not the partner anyone needs.
