And now I’m blushing even worse.

I shoot one last unintentional look at the pool table, catch Max watching me, and duck my head and cross the bar to the group, waving at other friends as I go.

Sloane’s previously met a bunch of the team here tonight, since Cooper’s teammates aren’t usually strangers to Shipwreck. But she was visiting a friend up in DC the last weekend Luca and Henri were here. I introduce her to everyone, and the minute Sloane gets flustered over I’ve read your books, Henri leaps up, hugs her, and orders her to sit and play a round of Go, Ash, Go so they can be friends.

“TJ.” Marisol nudges me. “The painting.”

I pull my phone out, scroll through to find the picture of the painting she made a fuss over at coffee this afternoon, and hand it to Emilio.

He’s grinning while he takes it, but the grin quickly morphs into a furrowed brow and a whoa face. “Dude.”

I snatch the phone back. “It’s not weird. I did one for almost everyone on the team. Wait. Maybe that is weird.”

“You have one for Brooks?” Mackenzie leans over the table and holds out a hand, making the gimme gesture.

She’d left the coffee shop before Marisol asked if I’d painted anything new recently, and missed the whole story. But I did do one of Brooks, so I pull my phone out again and flip through for the picture. “Don’t tell Cooper, but I was working on paintings of all three of us to give to Mom and Dad for their anniversary, and right after I finished his, he had this six-game streak where he was just hot, you know? So I was like, I wonder what happens if I paint someone else on the team?, and then—”

“Oh my god, you were painting our luck?” Mackenzie squeals.

If ever there was a human born who appreciates baseball superstitions, it’s Mackenzie.

But I shake my head. “It didn’t work.” No need to go into details. Nobody needs to know that I painted Trevor, and the day I finished it, he gave up a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth. No one ever remembers when the relief pitchers save a game. They only remember when the relief pitchers lose it. “But I felt weird having two guys on the team painted and shoved in my closet, so I started doing everyone. I thought—okay, it’s silly, but I thought if management wanted to use them—”

“Or buy them from you because it’s art?” Marisol says pointedly.

I wave a hand. “It’s a hobby.”

“Show Mackenzie your painting of Max.”

Hello, bad idea. “It’s not done yet.”

“It’s a masterpiece.”

“It is not.”

She leans back in her chair and glances at the dart board, where Cooper’s battling Robinson in a Cooper-style game of darts, with both of them throwing darts over their shoulders, with their eyes closed, between their legs, and whatever other weird ways they can think of to toss darts. “Cooper, your sister’s doubting her artistic ability.”

“It must be Saturday,” he calls back.

“Or Friday,” Aunt Glory adds.

“Sometimes Wednesday,” LaShonda calls from the bar.

Max slides me a look that I pretend I don’t see, because otherwise, I’ll wonder if he’s wondering when I paint. If he’s noticed the lights on in my house late at night. If he ever looks at my house at all.

Stop thinking about Max, Tillie Jean. He’s off-limits.

“Wait, what art?” Henri asks. “Tillie Jean, I didn’t know you made art.”

“She paints,” Sloane announces.

“Like fruit paints, or like people paints, or like does that weird pouring and spinning thing?” Luca asks.

“Those videos are so mesmerizing.” Henri smiles at him, all joy and love and happiness, and he smiles back, and my heart does that thing where it aches with the kind of longing I pretend I don’t understand.

It’ll happen when it’s supposed to happen, Matilda Jean. Trust the universe.

I’m only twenty-six. It’s not like my eggs are drying up.

But they are very curious about what Max thinks of this entire conversation.

I have a problem.

I very clearly have a problem.

“Like people and places paints.” Sloane pulls out her own phone, dashes her fingers over the screen, and hands it to him. “You didn’t hear about the night we all painted Ashes? Tillie Jean taught us. And here. She painted this picture of one of her cousins. It’s hanging in her living room.”

I’m not embarrassed by my hobby. I like my hobby.

But everyone tells me I should take commissions or try to sell something to an art gallery in the city, and I don’t want to.

See again, do what makes you happy.

Here, I paint when I want, there’s no pressure, and if someone wants to hang one of my paintings in their house or business, it’s just a thing where I made something they like, and I’m flattered, and it’s win-win.

If I tried to sell my art, to sell my hobby, strangers would get to pick apart every wrong brushstroke, and take all the joy out of it.

Been there, done that. I’d rather keep loving my art and keep it to myself and the people who love me than let the world tear it apart in the hopes of making money from it.

“Tillie Jean!” Henri looks up from Sloane’s phone. “This is amazing.”

I flap my hands. “I mean, yeah, I can paint circles around a seven-year-old, but it’s just a thing.”

“Say thank you, Tillie Jean,” Cooper calls as he nails a bull’s-eye while blindfolded.

“Is that Pop’s trick see-through blindfold?” I call back.

“What?” Robinson looks between us, then shoves Cooper. “Let me see that thing. Aw, man. You cheat.”

“Have you met my brother?” I call to Robinson, and everyone cracks up.

Even Max, though he glances away the minute our eyes connect.

Robinson lifts a dart and squints at it in the soft light. “Do these things have homing sensors? Did you microchip them? Is that why you’re playing with your lucky set?”

With my paintings forgotten, I relax into the evening, only occasionally stealing a glance at Max.

He is in a black T-shirt and tight jeans, staying on the one half of the bar and oozing confidence and some kind of magical aura that makes me want to be closer to him.

I keep to the other half of the bar, as I’m practicing resisting temptation.

Until Cooper challenges me to a round of pool.

Mr. Professional Athlete thinks he’s the winner in the family, but he’s not the only one with a competitive streak.

And he’s going down.

He racks the balls.

I inspect them.

We go five rounds of rock-paper-scissors to determine who goes first, and Grady finally calls it when Cooper demands seven rounds after losing the initial five.

Grady’s such an oldest kid.

But it means I break.

And it’s a glorious, beautiful, perfect break that sends the nine ball into the corner pocket.

“Scratch,” Cooper says.

“In your dreams, Stinky Booty.”

“Your left boob touched the edge of the table.”

“That’s not against the rules.”

“House rules. You can’t put your boobs on Aunt Glory’s table.”