Chapter 2
Dani
Three Months Ago
Another year, another vodka lemonade.
That’s what happens when you cheat on me.
She couldn’t keep it in her pants . . . so I’d taken them.
Sure, it was probably too cold for a skirt, but it was also New Year’s Eve. I owed it to my hot ass self to show a little leg. Especially since my latest thigh tattoo—a fine-line tarot card design I had gifted myself for my birthday—had just finished healing.
An empress for an empress.
I had picked up the skirt on a whim during the team’s last road series to Nashville.
It was short, black, and cut with a deep slit on the left side that would have made my mother cringe—just the way I liked it.
It was snug but not suffocating, showing off the tattoos that curled up my legs like wild ivy, and it paired perfectly with my deep burgundy tube top that left little to the imagination and even less room for a bra.
Not that I would have worn one anyway. I was a card-carrying member of the itty-bitty titty committee, so the girls were doing just fine on their own.
Platform combat boots completed the look, because five-foot-three or not, heels had never been my style. I liked knowing I could stomp someone if I needed to—metaphorically or otherwise.
If I was going to ring in another year full of questionable decisions, I might as well do it while looking like a bad ass bitch.
“Thirty minutes to go,” Nero shouted from behind the bar. “If you want a fresh drink before midnight, grab it now. Don’t be the dick who waits until 11:59.”
Hoots and hollers sounded over the music.
Thorn Tavern was glowing. Not in a flashy, gimmicky kind of way meant for attracting social media influencers, but rather in the warm, familiar glow of a place that had been well-loved for generations.
Nero wouldn’t have it any other way.
It was a neighborhood bar through and through—always had been, even well before the Roasters had moved into Rose City, Oregon.
He had made some cosmetic changes since inheriting it from his mom, but something told me he would sooner burn the place to the ground than see it turned into an Instagrammable watering hole.
Hell, he’d nearly blown a gasket last week when Pink’s sister, Bella, had recommended he stock kombucha.
“This is a bar, not a farmer’s market,” he had told her, this coming from the man who infused his vodkas with yuzu and orange peels.
Thorn Tavern had become the Roasters’ favorite postgame spot, which meant men and women alike came from far and wide to enjoy a game—along with the game-day drink specials—and hopefully, if they were lucky, take home a hot baseballer.
In my experience, a quick and dirty fuck—even with a professional athlete—was easy to come by. The tavern’s famous “Totchos,” on the other hand, were one of a kind. I had had naughty dreams about those ooey-gooey, bacon-covered potatoes on more than one occasion. Positively sinful.
Speaking of sinful things that were no good for me . . .
I checked my phone for the umpteenth time and then cursed myself for doing so.
Don’t go there. New Year’s Eve was all about starting over, after all.
A fresh start. Yet here I was, decked out in sequins and dripping in sex appeal, and all I could think about was a certain bearded and bespectacled behemoth—more specifically, about how that beard felt between my thighs.
“Nope,” I said, popping the “p” with my copper-painted lips.
“No, you don’t want Champagne?”
I looked up from my phone just as Nessa settled back into the empty chair to my left, armed with two Champagne flutes. Her silver-gray jumpsuit hugged every delicious curve of her size-twenty body. Seriously, if Pink didn’t wife her up someday soon, I would happily volunteer.
“Earth to Dani,” she said when I didn’t answer. “Champagne?”
I waved her off, gesturing to the glass in my hand. “I’ve already had more than I probably should.”
“And I haven’t had enough, so gimme!” June demanded. “We’ve got thirty minutes until the new year. That’s plenty of time to squeeze in at least one more bad decision. Two, if I’m lucky.”
Nessa, June, and I had taken over the corner booth next to the jukebox.
Pink was currently at the bar with Nero, probably arguing over pour size, a losing battle if I ever saw one.
Clarke was holding court in one of the large, leather reading chairs beside the fireplace, half on Soren’s lap, half in her umpteenth glass of punch.
Her party hat was on sideways—not that she or Soren seemed to care.
He was too mesmerized by her exposed cleavage, and she was too focused on trash-talking our shortstop’s new girlfriend. A match made in heaven.
“I’m just saying,” Clarke slurred lightly, “Matty deserves better.”
“Blondie, you only met her once,” Soren soothed, stroking her bare shoulders with love and admiration, like she was the most precious gem in the world. To Soren, she was.
“Once was enough. The woman has her nose so high in the air she could . . . drown in a rainstorm.”
I snorted around my sip of vodka lemonade.
Clarke and I had been working together for nearly a year and yet somehow, she still managed to surprise me with her Southernisms. They certainly made the workday more interesting—because yes, believe it or not, even being the social media director for a pro-baseball team had dullish moments.
Nessa leaned into my side, close enough for her minty-fresh breath to fan my cheek. “Who is she talking about again?”
“Matty’s new girlfriend,” I answered. “Lila something. Apparently, she talks about herself in the third person.”
Nessa grimaced. “That’s not that bad.”
“And she’s a wine snob,” Clarke added.
We all collectively groaned—even Soren. There was a special circle in hell reserved solely for wine snobs, just between the losers who didn’t return their shopping carts and men who never washed their assholes.
“Yikes,” June said through gritted teeth. “A double whammy.”
“Poor Matty,” Nessa lamented.
“Poor Lila.” I polished off my drink. “Mo is going to eat her alive.”
Mo was Matty’s nine-month-old basset hound and the most territorial bitch I had ever met. This Lila didn’t stand a chance.
I sat back, tuning out the girlfriend slander and instead, turning my attention to the string lights draped overhead, reflecting off the glassware polished to a shine.
The whole tavern smelled like campfire, wood varnish, and whiskey-soaked memories.
It was exactly what you wanted from a neighborhood bar, the kind of place where people actually knew your name and where they came to remember, forget, or fall in love—and sometimes all three in one night.
That was Rose City, a town that made space for strangers and residents alike, exactly as they were—messy, loud, broken, brilliant. They all had a home here.
And I did, too.
I was still trying to wrap my head around it—or maybe that was the vodka talking—but at some point over the past few months, I had stopped thinking of Rose City as just another stopover in my career and had started treating it as a potential forever.
Me, a thirty-two-year-old orphan who had spent the first half of her life dreaming of a world beyond her rowhouse stoop and the second half bouncing from one city to the next, searching for somewhere, anywhere to belong.
Who would have guessed I would find it three-thousand miles away in a town so small, it didn’t even have a mayor?
The clock ticked down, inching closer to midnight. Partygoers flocked to scoop up snacks and drink refills. In between the chaos, I couldn’t help but notice a blond man leaning against the bar top, watching me like he thought he was being subtle.
Spoiler alert: he wasn’t. I had clocked him thirty minutes ago, as had the rest of my friends.
“You should go talk to him,” Clarke suggested, appearing at my side like a chaotic party goblin. “Don’t you want somebody to kiss at midnight?”
I arched a brow. “Aww, babe, are you offering?”
She never had a chance to respond. A large, hairy arm circled her waist, dragging her away. “Sorry, Dani,” Soren said, his voice thick with lust. “I’ve already got big plans for her lips tonight.”
Clarke giggled, settling back onto Soren’s lap. “I’m serious. He’s cute and well-dressed and really knows how to rock a . . .” She turned toward June. “What do you call it?”
“Porn ‘stache.”
The table burst into a fit of giggles while Clarke blushed at the mention of anything remotely risqué.
Pink tilted his glass in my direction. “I’m with Clarke Kent. He doesn’t look like a total douchebag. In fact, he reminds me of somebody.”
“Freddie Mercury?” I offered. “Temu edition.”
He leaned in conspiratorially and winked. “Just imagine what he can do with that mustache.”
“Jesus,” I muttered, but I couldn’t help the laugh that slipped out. “I appreciate the thought, but hey, I’m not the only single one at this table. Maybe June wants him.”
She shook her head. “Nah, I’m officially declaring myself emotionally unavailable to male energy for tonight.” Her eyes bounced between Soren and Pink. “No offense, guys.”
“None taken,” they answered simultaneously.
“You don’t have to marry the guy,” Clarke said, not letting up. She had officially crossed from tipsy and cute to drunk and bold. “But some harmless flirtation couldn’t hurt. Or a kiss at midnight. When was the last time you really kissed somebody?”
Nessa arched a brow at me over her drink, making my stomach lurch. We were skirting dangerously close to the edge of that memory. To him. But Clarke didn’t know that.
In fact, the only people in the world who knew anything about my last kiss were Pink and Nessa, and that was only because Nessa had bumped into him in our upstairs hallway.
Naked.
Him, not Nessa.
The events that followed were permanently etched in my brain like the ink on my skin. Nessa had screamed, Pink had rushed in, and that was how my best friend and roommate had found out that I was screwing his boss, Brooks Bailey-Ward.
Coach Daddy.
He may have been Coach Ward to Soren, Pink, and the rest of the Roaster family, but the fans had affectionately—sometimes too affectionately—had referred to him as Coach Daddy since he’d signed with the Roasters. With good reason, too—he was a daddy, in all senses of the word.
He was probably at home right now. Warm house, dim lights, his daughter, Carolina, tucked in upstairs with her mermaid nightlight and a mountain of Squishmallows.
I imagined him reading to her, voice low and steady, that soft scratch of stubble on his jaw as he turned the page.
I could practically smell the cedarwood on his hoodie.
God, I was pathetic.
“You’re zoning out,” Nessa said, leaning into me like a nosy little devil on my shoulder.
“I’m good,” I told her, a little too fast.
“You’re lying.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I pulled out my phone and reread his last few messages.
Brooks
Carolina and I watched Princess Diaries. You were right. She loved it.
A smile tugged at my lips when he followed up almost immediately with another text.
Brooks
I did, too.
That had been three weeks ago.
I stared at the screen for a long moment, thumbs hovering. This was a mistake. It was nearly midnight. He was a single dad; he was probably in bed by now.
And still, I hit send.
Me
Happy almost New Year.
There. It was too late now. I stared at the speech bubble, heart thudding wildly.
Me
Nessa and Pink dragged me out to the tavern to celebrate. Lucky me. Do you have Carolina tonight?
Nessa was watching me like a hawk now, which made it even worse. Thankfully, she didn’t press me on it.
Seconds turned into minutes. The music swelled around us until finally, we reached the final countdown to midnight.
I tried to sink into the noise, into the safety of my friends and the chaos of a bar gearing up for a new year, but my brain was somewhere else entirely—looping back to Brooks’s well-worn, navy hoodie that always smelled like him and the way he carried his daughter in one arm while holding a coffee in the other like some goddamn domestic fever dream.
Competent men were my kink.
And just when I had given up hope, my phone buzzed across the table.
I didn’t check it. Not right away. Not with Nessa still eyeing me sideways, like she could smell the emotional recklessness on me. Hell, she probably could.
“I’m gonna use the bathroom,” I said, sliding out of the booth.
“But it’s almost midnight,” Clarke sputtered. “Don’t you want—”
“Clarke, I love you, and I promise, first thing in the morning, you can continue your matchmaking efforts. But right now, all I really want is to pee in peace.”
I barely spared my friends a glance before darting through the crowd, my heart pounding harder than it should’ve been. I wasn’t even sure why I’d texted him. Maybe I was a glutton for punishment. Or maybe I just needed to touch the wound, make sure it still hurt.
I never made it to the bathroom. Instead, I ducked under somebody’s arm and found an empty spot at the end of the bar. Being short and petite definitely had its perks.
“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
Around me, strangers threw arms around each other. Champagne flutes were raised, the air vibrating with possibilities—or the illusion of them, at least.
“Seven . . . six . . .”
I glanced down at my phone, my finger poised over his name, unread message still glowing.
“Five . . . four . . .”
Maybe it was nothing.
“Three!”
Maybe I was hoping it wasn’t.
“Two! One!”
Maybe I needed to get some fresh air.
The room erupted into cheers. Couples crashed together in a series of wet, messy kisses, strangers clapped, someone—Temu Freddy Mercury—howled at the ceiling like a wolf, and I smiled through every second of it, faking it like the pro that I was.
I pushed through the crowd and out the front door, the cold air hitting me like a slap.
And that was when I saw him, hands tucked into his joggers, wearing that hoodie and his signature, black-rimmed glasses.
Nerdy and dirty, just the way I liked them.
The world faded behind me, the noise muffled by the glass door I’d just walked through.
“Hey,” he said softly.
I blinked. “What are you doing here?”
“You texted.”
“I know, but I didn’t think . . .”
I trailed off when he stepped forward, closing the distance between us. And just like that, I wasn’t cold anymore. In fact, I was burning up.
“Happy New Year, Dani.”