Page 43 of Break Away
She was so wrapped up in the zings nowtraveling up her arms that she blanked for a long moment before shewas able to answer Brad’s question. “Ah, what would thatinvolve?”
“You bring Lucy to the game on Saturday.We’ll get her a bandana or something to wear. If you’re good withit, we can take her out on the field before the game. There’ll be abreak for the seventh-inning stretch and we’ll do some crowdevents. I’ll buy you both hot dogs and a beer.”
Levi snorted. “Make that a tofu wiener, andZoey might agree.”
She elbowed Levi. “We’ll decline the hot dogand beer. Otherwise, it sounds like fun. Lucy loves being thecenter of attention. She’ll be a total ham.”
A call came over the loudspeakers that anorder was up. Brad rose to his feet and tapped Levi on theshoulder. “Help me carry the pizzas.”
Logan also got up. “I’ll get a couplepitchers of soda and water.”
The minute the men were out of the room,Maddy leaned across the table, eyes bright. “Okay, spill. Are youand Levi dating?”
“No,” she answered quickly.
Dory left her husband talking to someonefarther down the table and scooted into the spot Logan had vacated.“I heard that. Why the heck not? That man looks at you like he’shungry enough to gobble you up in one big juicy bite.”
“And earlier he was checking out the windowto see if you’d arrived only about a dozen times,” Maddy added. “Ican tell when my brother has the hots for someone, and he’s got itbad for you.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then I’ll put it out there. If you don’tlike him, why are you here?”
Fair question.
“I do like him. We’re friends. Okay, friendswith sparks. We can’t act on the sparks, though.”
“Why not?” Dory asked. “Sparks are the funpart.”
“Says the woman who ignored the sparks withthat guy over there for years.” Maddy pointed to Jack.
Zoey liked these women and figured honestywas the way to go here. “I like Levi, but I don’t want to get intoa relationship. And I don’t date cops.” She looked at the womenaround her and thought,oh shit. “Not that there’s anythingwrong with dating cops. Obviously, you’re all married to cops andmust have dated them at some point.”God, she sounded so stupidright now. “But it’s not right for me.”
“It wasn’t right for Emma, either,” Maddysaid. “At least when she first met Brad.”
“Really?” Zoey asked, turning to Emma.
Emma nodded. “True statement. I’d had badexperiences with police when I was younger and wanted nothing to dowith him.”
“What changed?” Zoey asked.
“I guess I did. Brad is,” she grinned,“persistent. He made me see beyond the badge to the person who woreit.”
“Break it up, ladies, pizza is here.”
Brad set down what had to be a meat-lovers’pizza in front of Zoey while Dory scooted back down the bench toher husband. The sausage and what she thought might be ground beefwas still bubbling, and the pepperoni had oily orange liquidseeping into the cheese. Levi stood behind her, motioning tosomeone farther down the table. “We’ll switch you.”
The meat-lovers’ pizza was whisked away andwas replaced with a vegetarian pie loaded with mushrooms, peppers,onions, and olives.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Did you want to stare at sausage andpepperoni?”
“Not really.”
“So I moved it.”
Loud voices came from the hall and whatlooked like a dozen men and women streamed into the room, mostwearing t-shirts printed with HLFD. When they realized that theopposing team had had the same idea for post-practice pizza, therewas a lot of good-natured laughing.
