Chapter 1
WINNIE
The fans cheer as the camera pans toward me.
The man in front of me beams and gets down on one knee. Only the bottoms of my jeans are visible in the Jumbotron propped up at the end of the baseball stadium.
“Oh, Winnie, isn’t it romantic?” My mom sighs as the entire stadium cheers the happy couple.
“I mean, someone told her, right?” Carolina says around her hot dog. “Like, she doesn’t just normally look like this?”
“I had no idea!” the girl screams, jumping up and down. “I’m getting married!”
Oof.
“Don’t you want a big proposal like this?” my mom cries as fireworks shoot off and both the baseball teams clap.
The camera pans back to the happy couple. The girl is still jumping up and down, and she jumps up, arms wrapping around her fiancé’s neck.
This time, I do appear briefly in the frame, baseball cap low over my messy hair, wearing a sweatshirt with a fresh mustard stain.
Look, don’t judge me. The only reason I’m at this game is for the free hotdogs.
“Winnie…” My mom takes out a Tide pen. “I wish you could be a little neater. What’s Fitz going to think?” She dabs at the sweatshirt.
“Mom, Mom, that’s my boob.”
Fitz is in the neighboring suite, glad-handing a bunch of his brothers’ investors.
“I’ll wash it off in the bathroom.” I push her away.
There’s a small private bathroom off this suite because it’s that fancy.
I’m used to men with money, but the opulence in these stadiums is really something else.
I always bowed out of the sports meetings if I could when I worked at Rainer Investment. Now? Well, my parents really like going, and Carolina likes to go, and I’m not just going to sit at home.
The mustard stain has spread to a beige-colored blob on my sweatshirt that’s now wet.
Great.
I head out.
There’s something baseball-related happening. Balls are being hit.
There is fresh food out. Ballpark food.
I’m half hidden behind a fresh stack of glistening onion rings.
Then I see him.
Fitz.
He’s talking to Kathy.
His jacket is slung over his shoulder. Sunglasses propped on his head. He looks like some rom-com hero.
“Nothing like a day out at the ballfield, eh, girly?” Gran elbows me, drink in hand. She and several other elderly women are there with a number of way-past-their-prime ballplayers.
“Gran, you can’t keep feeding them junky food. It’s hot out,” I say as I dip a mini corn dog in cheese dip.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m going to marry one of them before he croaks. Damn, these pretzel bites are fire.” She toasts me. “Free bar, thanks to your boyfriend. You need to get into baseball so he takes us out every baseball game.”
“There’s, like, a hundred baseball games a season, not including playoffs. I don’t love anyone enough to sit through that many baseball games.”
“You have to embrace the lifestyle.” Gran swats my cap to the side. “This is Fitz’s livelihood. We’re all dependent on him.”
“Are we?”
“Yes, we are, because he’s buying a new yacht—a big one—and it’s almost summer!”
Ugh.
Old me would be freaking out that he wants Kathy more than me. New-relationship me is more worried that Kathy’s talking up the merits of a public proposal.
“There you are.” Fitz saunters over to me.
“If he wants to propose in a stadium locker room, let him,” Gran hisses as she sidles away. “If he collected model trains, I’d tell you to get married on the tracks like a hooker to keep this bag going.”
“Hey, Fitz.”
He kisses me. “Yum. Onion rings.”
“Oh my god.” I down my drink.
“I’ve been told that your family really wants to go out on the boat tonight,” he informs me.
“You really don’t have to buy stuff just because they ask you.”
“Well, it’s my brother’s hand-me-down boat. Reduce, reuse, recycle. He got an even bigger one, and I’m taking this one. Middle-child syndrome. Can’t ever get anything new. I have a new swimsuit for you, though.”
“Wait, we need a swimsuit?” I do not like wearing swimsuits. “It’s still a little chilly, right?”
“I’ll warm you up. Besides, I want to see you in a bikini.”
He’s called away.
A swimsuit.
I get another drink—actually, two. I need them.
“You better not have ruined the boat trip.” Carolina hurries over.
“He wants me to wear a swimsuit. The reason I moved to Seattle was because I don’t have to put on a swimsuit, because it’s cold and rainy here. All year.”
“Take one for the team.”
Maybe I should try a little harder to fit into his world.
Also, it better not be a proposal.
What if he proposes on the rooftop?
Ugh. Someone would have told me, right?
Carolina wouldn’t let me get proposed to with ketchup in my hair.
I chance a glance at my reflection in the mirror in the foyer of Fitz’s penthouse. You need to get it together, girl.
“Did you get new wallpaper?” I stare at it.
“Hand-painted mural,” Fitz crows.
“Oh my god.”
“It’s inspired by you.”
“Fitz.”
I survey the wallpaper. There are very clearly figures of women running through the woods. They all look like me.
The wallpaper is a deep green with a forest motif.
“It’s in your living room.”
“Now you’re here all the time.”
“You have problems.”
“I’ll probably get bored and switch it all out in three months.”
“You bring your little siblings here.”
“The leaves strategically hide things. It’s like if you were wearing a bathing suit. Which, speaking of… right this way.”
“It’s going to be chilly on the yacht.”
“We’re about to have a warm spell, and many of the bathing suits have matching cover-ups. Ta-da!” He has swimsuits arrayed.
“What is this? Do you have a closet just for women’s swimsuits?”
“No, this is your closet,” he says absently. “I cleared out part of my space for you.”
“You got rid of your stuff?”
“No, I moved it to the apartment I bought downstairs. As soon as the fire marshal signs off, I’m sticking a stair down to it.” He grabs one from the rack of suits.
“I am not wearing this.”
“Put it on,” he purrs.
“Okay, where’s the dressing room?”
“We’re in it, Creampuff.”
I settle down on an overstuffed chair. “You just brought me in here to watch me undress.”
“Always. That thing you do where you take off your bra gets me every time.”
It does get me the way he looks at me like I’m a literal sex goddess.
The white bathing suit he has me put on offers very little in the way of coverage.
“Your ass looks good enough to eat.”
I shiver.
“I think,” he whispers, trailing his fingers up my legs, “that this bathing suit is just for us. I’m going to ruin it tonight, FYI.”
“Just… will all the swimsuits you bought have my ass hanging out?”
“I like watching your ass hang out.”
I thumb through the racks. A yellow-and-blue suit with an abstract flower pattern catches my eye. Decent coverage.
“You’re a better shopper than me,” I grumble as I put it on and look at myself in the mirror. “It’s so annoying.”
It is cute.
“I know what you like,” he smirks at me.
“No, you know what I love.”