The copper valley bro co.., p.93
The Copper Valley Bro Code Series: Volume 1, page 93
But I can’t log onto the computer, so I can’t. And my phone isn’t working, so I can’t call tech support, or even Denise, who’s now giving Tripp’s kids donuts when I poke my head out the door.
Donuts.
I want a donut.
And also for those two ducks to not be glaring at me from the wall.
“Inspirational, isn’t it?” Tripp says when he catches me looking at it.
“Denise, can you please call tech support for me? I can’t get onto my computer.”
“It’s password reset day,” she replies with a nod. She’s in her early forties, with pictures of her own teenagers on her desk, and even though she’s alive and well, I want to hug her kids too.
What in the hell is happening to me?
“I reset my password two days ago.”
“Al ordered everyone to change their passwords every month on the twenty-seventh. It was his favorite number. So IT set everyone up to get locked out and force a reset on the twenty-seventh.”
So that’s a policy that will be changed immediately.
And now my eyeball is twitching. Harder.
“Conference call with Pakorski at noon,” Tripp says. He pulls out his phone, snaps a picture of the ducks, and then puts a hand to each of his kids’ backs. “Time to go see Daddy’s office. I have walls you can color on.”
“Co-wors!” Emma jumps in place, drops her donut, and bursts into tears.
“I feel you,” I murmur to her. I’d cry if my jelly donut splattered all over the floor too.
Tripp shoots me a curious look.
And once more, I retreat into my office.
If he has half a clue how easily I’m being charmed by his kids, he’ll use it against me, and he already has enough weapons in his arsenal to get past my defenses.
We’re fixing a baseball team.
Not getting personally attached.
End of story.
My headache slowly subsides, and once Parker and Knox are moving, I get regular text updates about things at Uncle Al’s house.
Parker: We flubberbusted a goat baloney!
Knox: She means we found a goat figurine. Two goats, actually. They’re mating. Want a picture?
Parker: No! Wait and let her sex them up herself. Sex them up. S-E-E them. SEE. Ducking gnomes. Gnomes. P-H-O-N-E-S.
Knox: Babe, you gotta try voice to text. It can’t be any worse than autocorrect.
Parker: That WAS vagina to Mexico.
Parker: DUCK.
Yep.
Every time, it comes back to the ducking and the duck.
I get a jelly donut mid-morning, and Denise tells me that the mating ducks at the ballpark have the potential to be the best thing that’s happened to the Fireballs since the bat incident of 1972. “Flying bats. Not baseball bats. That’s the last year they almost clinched their division title,” she explains.
I head downstairs when it’s time for the conference call with Sam Pakorski, who’s back in New York. Today, he thinks this partnership between me and Tripp is just what the Fireballs have needed. Now let’s see if you can make the team a bunch of profitable winners this year.
I sit on my hands in Tripp’s very utilitarian office so I don’t try to stroke Emma’s curls while she naps on the new couch, which he tells me he bought himself so that his kids don’t have to inhale whatever Uncle Al did on the last one.
Legit concern, though I think the amount of hand sanitizer he uses is overkill.
James is off at preschool, apparently.
I wonder if he goes happily, or if it’s hard for him to be without his dad.
“You should get your duck poster put up in here too,” I tell Tripp on my way out of his office after the conference call.
“Don’t worry. I had fifty printed. They’ll be everywhere in the building before the week’s over.”
Parker and Knox meet me for a late lunch at Chester Green’s, a hockey-themed bar and grill that they’ve heard about from the Berger twins, who are both playing for Copper Valley’s pro hockey team this year, though they’ve been too tied up with practices and games to hang out.
Parker doesn’t ask if I’ve accidentally kissed Tripp again today. Not after I whisper about being stuck with the damn ducks on my office wall.
Because I am stuck, but not for long. I’ll be back in New York next week for the final meetings about Wellington Holdings’ liquidation.
This has been a long time coming, so there’s not as much to do as everyone expects. The high-maintenance assets are long gone, the employees transitioned to new positions, and most of what’s left are relatively small numbers of shares in reliable companies that require little oversight.
But I still don’t want to go back to New York to finish up. I’d rather it was just done.
Ties cut.
Time to move on.
Not to Copper Valley permanently, of course, but long enough to know that the team is once again in the black and under the management of dependable, ethical people.
“Why are single dads so attractive?” I blurt as we’re finishing our burgers.
“They’ve proven they can procreate and provide for their young,” Knox answers.
I blow out a breath I don’t realize I’m holding. “So this is all evolutionary biology, and I’m not actually attracted to him.”
Parker grins over her sweet potato fries. “No, you’re definitely attracted to him. He’s hot regardless of the single dad angle. Also, just so you know, Beck Ryder just walked in the door.”
More boy banders.
I frown. “Is Tripp sending spies after me?”
“If he were sending spies, they’d be a lot less recognizable than Beck Ryder.”
She probably has a point.
Everyone in the restaurant is turning to stare as Beck and a smiling brunette make their way to a table several seats from ours.
Parker suddenly gasps. “Okay, yes, he’s spying on you,” she whispers. It’s a squeaky whisper, and her face is doing that thing again where it goes all splotchy blushy. “Don’t look. Do not look, but I swear that’s Davis Remington. The guy with the man bun. Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Air. Need air.”
Knox grins. “You’re adorable.”
She’s fanning herself and looking-not-looking at the table where Beck and his girlfriend just sat down. A server’s already depositing ten plates of food.
For three people.
At a four-person table.
“Are hobbits joining them?” I ask Knox.
“Beck Ryder can eat his body weight in food three times a day,” Parker whispers.
Except it’s not a whisper.
It’s a shrill wannabe whisper, and now every person at the table in question has turned to stare at us.
Knox waves at Beck.
Parker slides under the table.
One of the things I love most about Parker is that it would be so easy to suspect she wanted to come to Copper Valley because I’m working with one of her boy band idols, except I also knew that this would happen.
She doesn’t want to be seen by her boy band idols, which means it would have been way less stressful for her to have stayed home in New York, where she frequently hangs out with other rock stars, since one of her other bandmates is dating the lead singer of the rock band Half Cocked Heroes.
But Half Cocked Heroes is no Bro Code. At least, not to Parker.
No sense putting off the inevitable.
I rise, set my napkin on my plate, and head for the empty seat at Beck and Davis’s table. And when I get there, I ignore the two men, and instead extend a hand to the lone woman. “Hi, I’m Lila Valentine. Which I suspect you already know.”
A dimple pops out in her cheek as she takes my hand. “Sarah Dempsey. Lovely to meet you. This is Beck. That’s Davis. And we’re not spying on you.”
“Much.” Davis jolts in his seat, turns a glare on Sarah, who apparently just kicked him under the table, and then drops his brown eyes contritely when she frowns right back at him. “Fine. Wiping my memory of anything I heard,” he mutters.
“I didn’t spy at all,” Beck promises as he grabs a handful of fried pickles. “Sarah said I couldn’t eat if I did.”
“Are you around Friday night?” she asks.
Suspicion kicks my pulse up a notch, but I’m so freaking tired of being suspicious of everyone and everything, which is also Tripp’s fault.
If he would’ve just told me his real name at the club, I wouldn’t have called Uncle Guido. But now that I’ve called Uncle Guido, he’s texting me with conspiracy theories, because he no longer has wife number two to rein him in.
It’s exhausting to keep smiling when what I really want to do is crawl into bed with a good book and a mug of tea and drift off to sleep in a world where bad things don’t happen.
“My friends and I haven’t discussed plans yet,” I tell her.
“Bring them along,” a familiar voice behind me says. It’s accompanied by a high-pitched squeal of Sawah!, and Tripp deposits his daughter in Sarah’s lap before straightening to look me dead in the eye. “Cookout at Beck’s folks’ place. You’re all welcome.”
“In costumes?” Halloween’s this weekend.
He smiles. “If you want. The whole gang will be there.” His gaze drifts back to my table, where Parker is attempting to discreetly snap a picture with her phone.
She drops it to the table, tugs on her strawberry blonde ponytail, and pretends she’s looking at the posters of hockey players all over the walls.
She’s so freaking adorable.
I slide a don’t mock my friend look at Tripp.
And he smiles that kindly smile at me while he grabs Emma’s hand and squirts hand sanitizer on it. “Can’t blame her. Davis is hot.”
“Hard fact of life,” Davis agrees.
“It’s the man bun.” Beck nods while he shoves a loaded nacho into his mouth.
Sarah smiles at all of them and takes an extra hug from Emma before glancing back to me. “I’ve spent way too many Fridays being one of the few women in this group. Please don’t make me do it again.”
“You don’t really look like it’s a hardship.”
“It’s not,” she whispers with a wink. Emma’s climbing her like a monkey, jabbering about pony-yales and fucks. “Beck, can you give Lila my number?
“You bet.”
Her smile is back at me. “Just in case you can’t make it and you get over-testosteroned after your friends leave. I doubt there are many more women at Fireballs headquarters than there are at Bro Code gatherings.”
“Over-testosteroned is not a word,” Davis says. He’s eating a hamburger without the bun and has a fruit cup.
“It’s a word if she says it’s a word,” Beck replies. “Here. Lila. Hand over the phone, and I’ll get you hooked up. I know these digits by heart, just in case I ever get my phone stolen and aliens kidnap me and brainwash me. True story—aliens won’t heart-wash you. Only brainwash. So the number’s safe.”
“Yes, he really is like that all the time,” Tripp murmurs. He’s entirely too close to my ear, and I don’t like how my breasts are angling toward him while the rest of me is trying to not look like I want to scoot away. “Ryder. Save a cow for the rest of us. And just tell Lila the number, please.”
I’m still gripping my own phone. Apparently I’m not all that subtle when it comes to not wanting to hand over something with so much personal data.
Or possibly I’m just dealing with people who are equally as paranoid.
And with good reason.
Parker isn’t the only person snapping photos in the room now.
Beck leans closer to me and rattles off the digits quietly while I add Sarah’s number to my phone. Then he flashes one of those smiles that’s probably caused panties to drop the world over. “Food’s on at seven. Don’t be late, or it’ll be gone.”
“We don’t know if—”
“I’ll check her calendar and get back to you,” Knox suddenly says beside me. Parker doesn’t seem to be breathing beside him. “We need to go find a paper bag.”
Parker takes one last look at Davis, goes pinker, and I nod my agreement. “Time to go.”
“Text or call,” Sarah says while my friends drag me away. “For real. It sucks being the only woman.”
“Oh my god, Lila, do you know who she was?” Parker breathes out on a whoosh when we’re out on the street. The fall weather is settling in, and there’s a chill in the air that makes me wonder how good of an idea a cookout is.
“Beck’s girlfriend?”
“She’s Sunny Darling’s daughter. The actress? She ran away from it all and was living here totally incognito until Beck came into her life.”
I glance back at the bar. It’s oddly comforting, and definitely hair-raising, to get that reminder that I’m not the only person with secrets.
Paranoid Lila would wonder if Sarah knows I have secrets too.
But we all do. Of course they’re wondering what my secrets are.
“What do you think about going to the cookout?” Parker’s question is slow and halting, like she’s afraid of influencing me one way or the other.
“You want to go?”
“Oh, it’s all up to you. You’re the person who has to live with them. I mean, if you keep the team.”
If isn’t really the question.
How long is the question.
Because sooner or later, this challenge won’t be a challenge anymore, and once again, I’ll need to move on.
It’s what I’ve always done.
Maybe it’ll be harder to leave behind a piece of my family history, but my mom’s been gone for twenty years. She wouldn’t want me to stay and keep the team if it’s not what makes me happy.
But I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever find something that’ll make me happy forever.
13
Tripp
The rest of the week is a whirlwind of nanny interviews at home and pass-the-duck-picture at work.
Plus the emails.
So many emails.
They’re preferable to face-to-face meetings, because every time I pass Lila, I get a whiff of whatever that delicate shampoo is that she uses, and I want to bury my nose in her hair until I can identify it. Which is ridiculous, because I can’t smell the difference between an orchid and a rose, and I don’t actually know anyone—male or female—who can.
Nor am I convinced it’s a flowery scent. It’s probably called Eating Morning Caramel Biscotti While Sipping Tea in A Dew-Covered Field of Cotton Just Before Daybreak, or something ridiculous like that.
Or possibly it’s just called The Scent of Chaos and Heartburn.
It would fit, because when I’m not trying to sniff her, I’m trying to not throttle her.
And I would very much like to throttle her right now.
All because of the emails we’re using to communicate since neither of us wants to be face-to-face.
From: Lila Valentine
To: Tripp Wilson
Subject: Ducks
Mr. Wilson,
Seeing as the ducks have become so popular with the locals, I’ve arranged for a giant duck mascot to replace the Fireballs dragon. Delivery of the costume is scheduled for Tuesday. Please assemble as many players as possible for a photo shoot on the field by next Friday.
Sincerely,
L. Valentine
Owner, Fireballs Organization
From: Tripp Wilson
To: Lila Valentine
Subject: Re: Ducks
Lila,
Fiery the Dragon is an institution in Copper Valley. Capitalizing on the duck craze is fine. Replacing Fiery will cause riots and looting. I’ve consulted with the local police and FBI offices, and they agree. In the interest of public safety, Fiery stays.
That said, I’m sure the PR department can arrange a photo shoot for fun with a duck and whoever’s still in town. We can also keep the duck to participate in between-innings entertainment. Fun is what the game is about. Good call.
Respectfully,
T. Wilson
#1 Fireballs Fan and Team President
From: Lila Valentine
To: Tripp Wilson
Subject: Re: Re: Ducks
Mr. Wilson,
I sincerely doubt the authorities are concerned about the Fireballs’ current seven or eight fans staging a coup over a new mascot. The duck stays. Community involvement is key in rebuilding a fan base, so we’ll host events to meet the duck and name him.
Related - I’ll need a list of Copper Valley’s most famous residents by close of business today. We’ll need back-up plans because I’m not naming the duck Quack, no matter how many people suggest it. Surely we can be more creative than that.
Sincerely,
L. Valentine
She Who Makes The Final Call
From: Tripp Wilson
To: Lila Valentine
Subject: Copper Valley’s Most Famous Residents
Levi Wilson
Cash Rivers
Beck Ryder
Davis Remington
Tripp Wilson
Perhaps you should just call him Duck Code. That would be simpler than picking which of us is the head duck, and which are the ducklings. Levi would get a big head over Levi Duckson, and Duckett Ryder just sounds weird. Though I could get on board with Davis Quackington.
Also, if you insist on changing the mascot, you’re far better off taking a poll on what the new mascot should BE rather than dictating it to people who are VERY attached to Fiery the Dragon.
Respectfully,
#5
But still #1 in love of the team
From: Fireballs Media Relations
To: Tripp Wilson
BCC:
Subject: Fireballs Mascot Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
As of this morning, Fiery the Dragon is on emergency medical leave for a heart condition following the epic disaster of the last three baseball seasons in Copper Valley, with an expected retirement to follow treatment. As such, the Fireballs are in need of a new mascot. Suggestions and nominations may be submitted through November 15 at Fireballsfamily.com/mascot
