19. Diaz
Diaz
Thanksgiving Day
“Somebody pinch me,” Pink all but squealed from his corner of the sectional. “I must be dreaming because there’s no way I just heard the word pavlova come out of Peter Diaz’s mouth.”
Nessa laughed and nudged him with her bare foot.
“Says the man who knows the Latin names for most plants,” she teased.
Pink puffed up proudly. “Angel, you knew I was a full-blown plant daddy when we got together.”
Plant daddy was putting it lightly. Pink was a man obsessed, as evidenced by the tattooed ivy circling his upper arm and the poison garden he had built behind Nessa’s house last spring.
Yep, a poison garden. Only Jared Pink would be proud of cultivating a backyard full of deadly plants. Who needed kids when you had a bed full of snapdragons?
I chuckled and leaned my head back against Matty’s thigh. “Remind me never to piss you off, Pink. I don’t want to end up as fertilizer in one of your experimental beds.”
Pink winked. “Only if you deserve it.”
Bella held up a hand, halting the conversation.
“Shh!” she scolded without taking he eyes off the screen. “They’re about to do the judging and I want to hear what Jin Kato has to say.”
The diamond on her left hand caught the firelight as she gestured, the one Bennett had given her the same night we’d won the World Series.
That was right. We’d won it all.
I was still floating on cloud nine—more like cloud twelve—and I wasn’t the only one.
Hours after the last fans had filtered out of the stadium and the confetti had been swept into neat little piles, Bennett had driven Bella back to the ballpark.
Not for some big public spectacle or a viral Jumbotron moment—if there was one thing everyone who loved Bella knew, it was that she hated being the center of attention.
So, he’d waited.
Until the stands were empty and the lights had dimmed to their soft, after-hours glow. Until it was just the two of them.
Then, he’d taken her down to home plate. And there, with nobody watching except a couple of exhausted grounds crew members who pretended very hard not to notice, he’d gotten down on one knee.
I had never seen Bennett look prouder than he had carrying her back to the clubhouse afterward, her face buried in his neck while she’d kept flashing the ring at anyone unlucky enough to make eye contact.
Now, every time Bella gestured with that hand, she still looked a little surprised to find the ring there.
And I couldn’t blame her. It was one hell of a rock.
I should know—I helped pick it out.
She caught me staring and wiggled her fingers.
“Still shiny,” she announced.
Bennett, who was seated beside her, reached over and took her hand without even looking away from the television. “You’ve said that at least six times tonight, baby.”
“Because it’s still true.”
A smile tugged at his mouth.
I felt Matty’s chest shake with a laugh behind me. His fingers continued their lazy path along the back of my neck, occasionally scratching lightly at my scalp in a way that was becoming dangerously addictive.
Dios mío! The things that man could do with his fingers . . . .
“Don’t encourage her,” Tucker said around a mouthful of pie. “We’ll be eighty years old and she’ll still be shoving that thing in our faces.”
“She better,” Bennett said simply.
Bella, entirely unbothered, shushed him with another flick of her hand and kept her eyes glued to the television.
“Quiet! The judges are tasting the Lane Cake.”
Our annual Friendsgiving tradition had turned into a full-on Sleigh the Bake screening party, complete with a drinking game, thanks to Dani.
She and Coach Ward had shown up with their kids and a stack of freshly printed rule sheets like it was a team-building exercise.
She had even posted the rules to the Roasters’ social media accounts earlier that morning, determined to use the episode to raise awareness for the Junior Roasters and, in her words, show the world that professional athletes could, in fact, “wield a whisk.”
The engagement numbers were phenomenal.
My dignity, less so.
The rules were simple but deadly: take a sip every time a judge used the word “texture,” two sips whenever someone licked their fingers, and a full shot when any of the contestants made some kind of baking innuendo.
As an added treat—pun intended—the team was offering free tickets to next season’s opening weekend to anyone who replicated one of our recipes.
By the time we made it to the final challenge, half the room was already pleasantly buzzed, me included.
Hm, Matty and I haven’t had drunk sex before.
“Um, Peter,” Dani said, her eyes bouncing between me and her seven-year-old stepdaughter on the floor. “That sounds like an inside thought.”
I knew I shouldn’t have had that fourth cup of punch.
Thankfully, Carolina was too caught up in her coloring pages to notice my accidental slip.
“Puneta,” I grumbled. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Oh, I don’t mind. Believe me, I would love to hear about your naughty sexcapades. Just maybe not in front of the kiddos.” Dani pointed her thumb toward the bearded man at her back, the one staring daggers into me. “And your coach.”
I swallowed hard. “Er, sorry, coach.”
He grunted.
Which, honestly, was probably the best outcome I could’ve hoped for. It sure beat having my ass handed to me in my own house. Well, Matty’s house, though if I had it my way, it would be ours soon.
I glanced around the living room, taking in the beautiful chaos.
The dining table behind us still looked like Thanksgiving had exploded all over it.
Half-empty casserole dishes littered the surface beside crumpled napkins and abandoned wine glasses, while containers of leftover turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes were waiting to be packed away.
It had taken a lot of persuasion (plus a decent amount of peer pressure) to convince Matty to leave the dishes for later.
Pink and Nessa had claimed one end of the sectional, her legs draped over his lap while he absently rubbed her ankle. A half-finished bottle of wine sat on the side table beside them.
Across from them, Tucker and Brock had commandeered a pair of barstools from the kitchen island and dragged them into the living room. Tucker had a slice of pecan pie balanced on one knee and a pumpkin pie on the other.
Bella and Bennett occupied the opposite corner of the sectional. She was perched at the edge of her seat like she was watching the final inning of game seven instead of a baking competition, while Bennett looked perfectly content to let her use him as a backrest.
Coach Ward and Dani had taken over the oversized recliner near the fireplace. Carolina sat cross-legged on the rug at their feet, diligently coloring a picture of a turkey wearing sunglasses while her little sister snoozed in the baby bouncer beside her.
Roman had somehow ended up on the floor beside the coffee table, one leg stretched out and the other bent beneath him while he inhaled the “Gooey Gobbler” sandwich he’d made himself. How the man was still able to eat at this point was beyond me.
Then there was me.
I was in heaven, aka on the rug between my man’s legs, head tipped back against his thigh while his hands played with the back of my neck. The snoring dog curled up in my lap was the icing on my cake.
It didn’t get better than this.
The only ones missing were Soren and Clarke. She was due any day now, and Soren had become somewhat of an obsessive dad-to-be.
Over the past month, our team captain had transformed into his wife’s personal bodyguard. He carried her purse. He opened every door. He refused to let her carry anything heavier than a throw pillow and had somehow convinced himself that a strong breeze might send her into labor.
Just last week, during the baby shower the team had thrown them, I’d watched him quietly trail behind her for three hours, materializing with a fresh glass of water every time hers dipped below halfway.
At one point, she’d mentioned her craving for a particular carrot cake from a bakery on the other side of the river.
Soren had disappeared for a solid forty-five minutes before returning triumphantly with an entire cake, plus an armful of cupcakes “just in case.”
“The baby might want options,” he’d offered up as an explanation.
Clarke had laughed so hard, she’d cried.
“Oh my god,” Bella exclaimed, drawing me back to the present. “The way you two blended your cultures into the Lane Cake . . .”
“Baby, are you crying?”
“No, you are.” Her loud sniffle didn’t exactly help her case.
I laughed and tilted my head back to look at Matty. He was smiling down at me, fingers still playing with the nape of my neck. The simple affection of it made my chest feel too full.
God, I love you, I thought, the words burning on my tongue. The words I still hadn’t found the courage to say out loud. It’s disgusting how far gone I am for you.
Roman grinned from his spot on the floor. “Don’t worry, Bella. I’m telling everyone at spring training that Diaz cried during the cake judging.”
My head spun around so fast. “Did not.”
Matty snorted above me. “You absolutely teared up when Keira said our cake tasted like home.”
I reached up and poked his thigh. “Traitor.”
The group laughed, the kind of easy, familiar laughter that came from years of shared locker rooms and tough losses.
Matty’s phone buzzed across the coffee table. I reached for it and handed it to him with a soft smile.
It was a text from Soren.
Matty’s face lit up as he read it. “Clarke had the baby,” he said, voice cracking with excitement. “Eight-and-a-half pounds, twenty inches. They named him Gable Sinclair.”
The room exploded.
“Gable?” Tucker asked.
“It’s a nod to Clarke’s namesake,” Nessa explained.
“Hell yes,” Pink exclaimed. “I won the pool.”
“No way,” Dani argued. “You insisted that it was going to be a girl, despite the anatomy scan.”
“Yeah, but I guessed nine pounds and twenty inches. That’s got to count for something.”
“Bella?”