Juliet
Yeah, the team shared his pictures in their stories.
Liesel
That explains why my dad tried to break Coop’s hand this morning.
Juliet
Coop, not Cooper? I thought you couldn’t stand the guy… ;)
Liesel
What? Sorry, the phone’s breaking up.
Juliet
HAHAHAHAHAHA YOU LIKE HIM
Liesel
Gotta go! Relaxation time.
I put my phone down with a soft groan. I can’t believe the picture Juliet is talking about: I’m grinning like a goofball and Coop is smiling at me like I’m the only person in the room.
It’s out of context, obviously. It probably caught him mid-smirk, and it was just a good photo. Or a bad one, as the case may be.
I pull my phone out again and look at Coop’s sharp jawline and the almost boyish smile on his face. It’s not his usual crooked smile tinged with mischief, and it’s not the one I saw earlier that I’m sure is fake. His countenance is open, and it’s easy to study his features, to appreciate the fact that he manages to look both intense and masculine yet hopeful and boyish at the same time. With his gaze riveted on me, he lookshappy.
He looks smitten.
He’s not. But he looks it.
And that makes me flush from the top of my head down to the tips of my immersed toes.
“You know, people usually come to a spa toescapethe world,” a woman with a teasing voice says in the chair next to me. She’s halfway through her pedicure and wearing a plush robe, with her auburn waves pulled up into a loose top knot. I can’t make out her face through her clay mask, but her blue eyes sparkle even more than the massive diamond engagement ring on her finger.
And I meanmassive. It feels like the kind of ring a rich athlete would give his wife when she found out he’d cheated. It’s somehow stunning and borderline tacky at the same time.
She wiggles her fingers. “It’s a little much, isn’t it? The center stone was my fiancé’s grandmother’s, but he insisted we add all the …zhuzh.Personally, I think a six carat emerald cut diamondcan stand on its own, but he wanted to make sure it ‘really pops.’”
“He succeeded,” I say. She chuckles, her cheeks stretching into a big, gorgeous grin. “Congratulations, by the way. When’s the wedding?”
“Next month. And thank you.” She stretches her right hand across her body to shake mine. “I’m Kayla Carville.”
“Oh, I know you! You’re the new owner of the Mullet Ridge Mudflaps, right? I’m Liesel.”
Kayla’s eyebrows lift a little, cracking the clay mask. “I’ve never been to a resort and had people know me because of a sport I know nothing about. This has been an interesting week.”
I laugh. I don’t know who the Carville family isoutsideof their recent purchase. “You don’t know anything about baseball? Why did you buy a baseball team?”
My pedicurist has arrived, and she takes one of my feet out and starts massaging my ankle and heel.
“I feel like a broken record, but my dad bought it for me. He thought it would be a better present than … anything else in the world, apparently.”
“A dad who thinks he knows what his daughter needs better than she does, huh? What would that be like?”
“Cheers to that.” She points her Perrier in my direction and takes a swig like the glass holds something a lot stronger than water. “I’m thirty-two years old, I’m marrying my boyfriend of six years next month, and I’m the Chief Sustainability Officer for one of the largest agricultural companies in the world, which he knows, because I work for him. What could I possibly need with a baseball team?”
