“What do you mean?”
“He could marry an American girl.”
Jealousy catches me off guard.
In all my twenty-six years, I’ve never really experienced the emotion.
But my fingers are markedly icy, back stiffening when I try to straighten.
“Y-yeah. He could, I guess.” For some reason, I backpedal, not wanting to encourage this idea of Sumner wedding a faceless girl I’m suddenly very annoyed with. “Although, it’s not that simple. Marrying an American would keep him here legally for now. But he’d have to file a ton of paperwork and go through an interview and . . . why are you looking at me like that?”
“Britta.”
Understanding dawns.
And that’s when I realize the entire table of Bandits is staring at me.
With hope in their eyes.
Whoa, hold on.
Is Bryce—and the whole team—suggesting I marry Sumner?
My stomach lurches, panic firing through my bloodstream. Marriage?
Commitment? Family? I’d rather walk into the lion enclosure at the zoo draped in bacon.
“Oh, no. No.” I back up so abruptly, the backs of my legs ram into the bench of the neighboring picnic table. “You’re all high if you think I’m getting married. Me? Married? ”
“I’m an ordained minister. We could wrap this shit up to- night,” says Riggs midburp. “Excuse me. I officiated my brother’s wedding. I accidentally said his ex-girlfriend’s name during the vows exchange, and the bride broke my nose, but swear to God, that won’t happen again.” He pauses. “Sumner doesn’t even have any ex-girlfriends, right?”
The players consult each other about this and shake their heads.
“You could be his first,” Bryce says encouragingly. “Ex- wife, though.
Even better.”
The absolute nightmare of a conversation is interrupted when Sumner stands up, the top of his head not all that far from the ceiling, issuing a menacing growl that sends a hush through Sluggers. “I told you not to bother her with this.”
“Yeah?” someone shouts back at him. “You expected us to listen?”
“You’re actively getting scouted, Sum,” Bryce says angrily, while shoving a trio of fries into his mouth. “We can’t just let you leave. Fuck that.”
Sumner turns an apologetic gaze on me, but there’s something else in the depths of those eyes that makes my stomach flip-flop. Yearning. “Britta, ignore them.”
My mouth is open. No words are coming out. This can’t really be happening. Did they actually think I was going to say yes? To marrying someone tonight? Or ever? I am vehemently opposed to the institution of marriage—and I have been since I was twelve years old. When I sat at the kitchen table and listened to my truck-driver father confess to my mother that he had a whole other family in another state. And he was choosing them. Over us.
Bryce stands up, blocking my vision of the rest of the table. “Britta,”
he says, speaking beside my ear so no one else can hear. “What happened with our dad was messed up. I know you never want to get married, but this is different. It’s a business arrangement.” He rears back slightly and toggles his blond eyebrows. “He’ll pay you.”
I blink in what feels like slow motion.
Pay me?
I’m still going to say no to wedding bells, but it doesn’t hurt to ask . . .
“How much?”
“You two will have to work that out. But, like . . .” He gestures to the dilapidated, beer-soaked bar that is currently being overrun by revelers kissing the year goodbye, more than a dozen people dancing on tables now, sparklers streaking across the interior. The unruly establishment that just happens to be my home away from home. “He could pay you enough to finally become a partner in this place. Isn’t that what you’ve wanted for years?”
Yes. That has always been my goal. Since I was in high school and this place became my refuge. A relationship with another person?
Absolutely not.
But being able to commit to this place, which has been the only constant in my life?
Yeah. That is what I need. Badly enough to look over Bryce’s shoulder at Sumner.
Am I getting married tonight?
No. No way.
But it can’t hurt to have the conversation, right? Despite this idea being crazy and out of left field, the last thing I want to do is reject gentlemanly Sumner in front of his team.
“Can we talk, Sum?” I shout over the noise, tipping my head toward the bar.
The Bandits lose their minds, high-fiving, chest-bumping, and ordering bottles of champagne, which we definitely do not have in stock.