I smile mysteriously.

He shakes his head. “Not the point. Point is, I need you to quit flirting with Max. You’re not…helping.”

“I’m not flirting with him anymore.” Final decision. Right now. Mostly because I was possibly offended that he thinks of me as a sister after he kissed me once and tried again. But I’m also rapidly figuring out that no good comes from me getting any closer to Max Cole.

I fuck with his head. I don’t know why, or how, but I know I do, and I know that having their brains fucked with isn’t good for anyone on the team, and therefore, it’s not good for the team as a whole.

“That got old since he’s next door every day,” I add.

Uh-oh.

Cooper’s giving me the flat, I don’t believe you glare. “Nothing ever gets old with you.”

“Not true. I outgrew my addiction to Lucky Charms.”

“After you ate too much of it while you had a stomach bug.”

“Maybe I flirted with Max while I had a stomach bug and now the thought of him makes me turn green too.”

“Tillie Jean, do not fuck with him. This isn’t a normal off-season. Last year? Last year, we had nothing to prove. Yeah, we knew things would be different since the new management would care and want us to win, but nobody expected us to make the play-offs. We just had to win a few more games, which was almost a given with fans coming back and us knowing we’d all get fired and the team moved to Vegas if we couldn’t pull it off. And you know what? We’re professional athletes. We like winning. Of course we were gonna win more. This year? This year, there’s pressure. Like we need to win it all pressure. And nobody feels it like the pitchers. Lay off, okay? Be a friend, not a pain in the butt.”

“Do you know what relieves pressure?”

My brother glares down at me with that do not sleep with my teammates glare that he’s worn since we were all old enough to understand what sleeping with was.

I roll my eyes. “Fun, Cooper. Fun relieves pressure. I would be happy to have fun with Max, and after the stupid garden gnomes, despite the fact that he did it with garden gnomes, I thought he was having fun back. And weren’t we having fun at Scuttle Putt last night? He was having fun. He called me his sister. He challenged me to the hurricane hole, and you know as well as I do that it was pure luck that I sank that shot, but he couldn’t handle losing to—”

“Just lay off, okay?”

“Rawk! Land ahoy, motherfuckers! Rawk!”

We both glance up at Long Beak Silver, who’s sitting on a lamppost.

“Go walk the plank, you miserable old bird,” Cooper snaps.

“Rawk! I hate you and your mother’s left tit too!” The parrot lifts one leg, falls off the lamppost, plummets toward the ground, but catches himself and swoops away before he turns himself into a colorful splat on the ground.

“I seriously hate that talking chicken,” I mutter. “Why won’t he walk the plank for me?”

“Probably because you call him a talking chicken. And also because you break into people’s houses and replace their shower curtains with giant ugly pictures of yourself.”

“That was for you, for the record. I wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t pulled out the garden gnomes. The garden gnomes, Cooper.”

We reach the tables, and Yiannis Florakis, who owns the Mediterranean deli, Port of Athena, near the spa, flags us down. “Cooper, I made your special baklava. And dolma! Grape leaves cure any hangover.”

Yiannis finishes his pitch with a grin.

He’s been in Shipwreck for two years and is still impressed with Cooper. I’ve assured him many times he’ll get tired of my brother, but a lot of the newcomers haven’t yet.

I attribute that to Cooper not being here as often as the rest of us.

Until a few years ago, our family—aunts, uncles, and cousins—owned most of the town. But more and more people from the city have moved out here to work remotely or try a slower-paced life, which means our little town is expanding with new residents enamored with our local celebrities.

And by local celebrities, I unfortunately mostly mean just my brother, whom I elbow out of the way to get a sample of the dolma before his appetite wreaks havoc on what’s left here. “Oh my god, Yiannis, this is delicious.”

He gives me the stink eye. “I was saving that for Cooper.”

I smile at him. “Guess Cooper’ll have to come into the deli this week to try them for himself. Again.”

“Bring all the baseball players,” Yiannis tells him. “And you tell me if you’re having a party. Free food for a picture.”

Cooper snags the baklava before I can get to that too. “Thanks, Yiannis. Will do.” He nudges me down the row. “I need you to invite Max to stay for Thanksgiving and promise him you’ll behave yourself.”

“Right. If I do that, he’ll think I’m plotting special ingredients in the gravy.”

“The laxative kind of special ingredient?”

“The pot kind of special ingredient.”

He gives me the side eye of don’t. “Not funny, TJ.”

That would’ve been funny any other year. Especially since he snuck pot into the cranberry sauce last year and got Nana high as a kite, which was basically the best entertainment we’ve had in Shipwreck since the loose goats interrupted that destination wedding here a few years ago.

It’s also why the town council voted to ask all the restaurants on Blackbeard Avenue to open for a progressive dinner for Thanksgiving this year.

So we can all enjoy drunk, high Nana if it happens again.

And probably also so that we’re making sure we include as many new people in town as possible.

I nudge Cooper. “So spill. What’s got you so worried about Max? Trevor’s the one everyone else is freaking out over.” Can’t blame them. Trevor’s looking at his career being over.

His jaw clenches and he looks quickly around the park like he’s afraid of who’s listening to us.

“What?” I press.

“You remember Mr. Atherton?”

“High school geometry?”

“Yeah.”

I don’t think there’s anyone who went to school with us who doesn’t. Mr. Atherton took a leave of absence midway through my freshman year—Cooper’s junior year, when Grady had already left home for culinary school—for what was rumored to be a nervous breakdown. No one said depression back then. “You think Max is gonna be like Mr. Atherton?”

“I think there’s a lot that you never know about another person, and you need to lighten the fuck up on Max, okay?”

We get to the next table, and I spot the man in question himself hanging out under a barren oak tree at the end of the next row. He’s angled away from me, but not enough that I can’t see his face, and not enough that I can’t see that he’s sneaking a piece of Anchovies pizza to Goatstradamus too.

He was so funny last night.

Relaxed. Happy.

Attractive.

And if Cooper’s trying to tell me that Max is dealing with a mental heath struggle, then yeah, I need to lighten up. “I’ve been trying to annoy both of you for years.”

“A few times a season when the stakes weren’t so high. Not every day. Just lay off, okay?”