Page 48 of Pitcher Perfect (Big Shots #4)

Robbie knew the exact moment he wasn’t mad anymore.

Skylar sat down beside his mother in the stands on Thursday night wearing a Bearcats hoodie and he almost jumped through the

glass to get to her. Thing was, Skylar didn’t even know those were his parents. But his parents knew damn well she was Skylar because he’d told them everything over dinner last

night when they landed in Boston and now, he could barely focus on his stretching routine, he was so riveted by that first

interaction.

His mother snuck a peek at the girl beside her and smiled like a cat who’d got the canary, giving Robbie a covert double thumbs-up.

Skylar didn’t notice, because she was observing a trio of bare-chested fans with furry cat ears screaming, “ Bearcat Nation yeahhhh ,” into a live television camera several feet away.

Robbie watched without breathing as his parents introduced themselves and Skylar froze, before leaning forward and hugging

his mother, making her smile like he’d never seen before, not even when everyone complimented her shepherd’s pie. Yeah. He

stopped being mad at Skylar probably forever in that moment—and became well and truly pissed at himself. How had three fucking

days passed since he’d kissed her in the parking lot before her Monday night game? How had he stayed away?

How?

For one, he’d been traveling for the first two games of the series and had been in and out of team meetings, media sessions, and workouts.

On top of that, he’d been on the phone with a real estate lawyer trying to put a down payment on a condo in Brookline that had been easy to find because it was owned and advertised by the same management company that owned his current building.

Still, he could have called Skylar. No, he should have called, except his heart had still felt raw and beat-up.

Until now. Now it was bleeding for a different reason. He needed

his girl. It was bullshit that he didn’t have her.

She’d hugged his mother.

“Hey,” Sir Savage barked, knee-deep in his back stretches beside Robbie. “Series is tied. Head in the game.” The soon-to-retire

team captain coughed. “That does make a nice picture, though. Is that their first time meeting?”

“Yes,” Robbie managed, feeling ridiculously winded over having his idol acknowledge the important moment out loud. “I probably

should have warned Skylar that she’d be sitting next to my parents, but I didn’t want to spook her.”

“So you blindsided her, instead,” Sig said, grinning on the other side of Robbie. “Good call.”

“Looks like it’s working out fine, doesn’t it?” Robbie shot back.

“Sure does, buddy,” Mailer said, patting him on the back as he skated by. “What do you think they’re talking about?”

“Me, obviously.”

Sir Savage grunted. “All good stuff, I’m sure.”

“Yeah.” Robbie picked up his stick and stood, suddenly determined to have the best game of his life. “Would it be crazy if

I ask her to move in with me?”

“Yes,” they all said at once.

“I don’t care. I’m doing it. I’m going to marry her, too.”

“Why the rush?” Mailer wanted to know.

Sig and Burgess both opened their mouths, seemingly to second Mailer’s concerns, but they snapped them shut just as fast, their attention drawn to the family section where Tallulah and Chloe sat side by side, waving at their boyfriends.

“I get the rush,” Sig said gruffly.

“Same.” Burgess sighed. “Ask her. Tonight. Don’t waste a second.”

But Robbie wouldn’t get the chance to ask. Not until much later.

Sensory overload.

Until tonight, Skylar hadn’t known about hockey stretches. But oh, she knew now. Try talking to the mother of your sort-of

boyfriend while he humps the ice one hundred yards away. It isn’t easy to concentrate. She’d been so startled when Angela

introduced herself, she’d gone in for the hug, which, frankly, had felt like the right thing to do. Her first impulse. And

Angela hadn’t seemed to mind.

The reality was, Skylar wasn’t Robbie’s girlfriend, though. Not really. She’d shown up at Boston Garden tonight unsure if

he’d even left a ticket at the box office. There had been no communication between them since their kiss in the parking lot,

a kiss that she could still feel wash over her body every time she closed her eyes. Maybe waiting for Robbie to stop being

mad was hopeless. Maybe love wasn’t enough when two people had doubted each other the way they had.

Or maybe she needed to make a gesture. Something more than showing up at a game and sitting in a seat. She’d spent the last

three days trying to come up with an act of love to show she’d been paying attention, that every moment they’d spent together

had been important, the way Robbie had done when he’d offered to catch her first pitch in the parking lot. As of now, she

was still drawing a blank.

“I hear you’re a big-time pitcher,” Angela said, smiling, her Long Island accent offering the pronunciation pitcha . “Robbie says you’re a phenom.”

An embarrassing level of heat pressed behind Skylar’s eyes. He talked to his mother about me. Maybe this wasn’t so hopeless after all. “Yeah, I am pretty good,” Skylar murmured without thinking.

Robbie’s mother cracked a laugh. “I love that confidence!”

Skylar smiled through her flush. “That’s how I met Robbie, actually. Did you know the Bearcats have a rivalry with some local

baseball players? One of them is my brother. Imagine my surprise when I was dragged out of bed on a Saturday morning to pitch

against a professional hockey team.”

Angela shook her head, only mildly astonished. “I’m sure my son was the ringleader. He’s a good boy, but wherever he goes,

trouble follows.” Quickly, she reached over and squeezed Skylar’s hand. “Not that you have any reason to worry.”

“I’m not worried,” Skylar reassured her, meaning it. One hundred percent meaning it. She trusted that man down on the ice

with her life. Her heart. “He’d probably say he’s the fun kind of trouble.”

“You’re right, he would say that.” Angela gave her a once-over. “Why aren’t you wearing his jersey?”

“Oh, I...” Skylar trailed off, not knowing what to say. She ended with a jerky shrug, giving Angela an apologetic look

for not having an answer.

Robbie’s mother scrutinized Skylar’s expression and made a sound of understanding. “You’re unsure about where you two stand

after your little tiff, is that it?”

God, this woman got to the point fast. “It wasn’t so little.”

“Well, it couldn’t have been that big, either. He talked our ears off about you all damn night.” She elbowed her husband in

the ribs, sloshing his beer. “Didn’t he, Clark?”

A long-suffering sigh. “Yup.”

“Robbie has never talked to us about a girl before. Suddenly, there he is getting choked up talking about the little gold flecks in your eyes.

Fight be damned, all right?”

“All right,” Skylar responded, grateful for the insight even though it made her heart all the heavier. If he was so enamored

of her, why hadn’t he called? Texted?

He needs that gesture.

You’re blowing it.

“Dinner was gorgeous, by the way. Have you been to Mamma Maria? I had a chicken piccata that was well worth the heartburn,

let me tell you. My ankles are swollen from all the salt.”

“Here we go again with the ankle talk,” muttered Robbie’s dad—and maybe Skylar had no right fantasizing this way, but she

could only imagine the hilarity that would ensue when these people met their polar opposites in Vivica and Doug.

“Robbie kept getting phone calls during the meal from his real estate agent, but all in all, a lovely night.”

Skylar’s ears perked up. “Real estate agent?”

“He’s been planning a move for over a week. He didn’t tell you?”

Over a week? Skylar was almost too stunned to respond. “N-no.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, it’s not like he’s leaving Boston.” She patted Skylar’s knee. “He just wants a place of his own.”

Skylar stared straight forward, pulse tickling her wrists, trying to process that information. Robbie was moving out of his

bachelor pad with Mailer? Was it possible, even just a little, that he was doing that for her? For their relationship?

No. No way.

Right? Wouldn’t he have told her, if that was the case?

Hypothetically, however, if he was moving out of his party palace and into his own apartment to show he was serious about their relationship—and she’d still gone out with Madden for that drink—she was an even bigger asshole than she’d realized. Plus, she was falling even further

behind on Big Gestures than she thought.

“Forgive my son if he’s taking a little while to straighten things out between you two. You see, Robbie used to get most of

his advice from his grandfather. My father.” Angela crossed herself. “If he was still alive, he’d be sitting next to you with an extra large Coke giving you

statistics for everyone on the ice. He was a big character.”

“I’ve been told a lot about him,” Skylar managed. “I heard he loved to fly kites.”

“That’s true. That big yellow one...”

The static rush in Skylar’s ears drowned out the rest of what Angela said. Yellow kite. The one that was stuck in the tree

that Robbie couldn’t get down because of his fear of heights. Robbie’s words drifted back to her while she watched him finish

warm-ups and leave the ice, presumably preparing to be introduced and start the game. It’s ridiculous, but as long as his kite is stuck in that tree, I’ll have this weird sense of things being unfinished. Or unresolved. Like he’s out there

somewhere missing that damn kite.

Skylar didn’t have a fear of heights. She could get him that kite.

She could do this thing that was important to him and earn her right to say I love you . Maybe then he’d be ready to start dating her again. Because she couldn’t stand being trapped in the uncertainty anymore

when she was so sure of Robbie, she felt him in her bones.

“Where exactly is this yellow kite that got stuck in the tree?”

Robbie walked into the friends and family waiting room ready to propose.

No bullshit.

Don’t get him wrong, he’d concentrated as much as possible on the game—and they’d secured the W, bringing the series to 2–1—but

he’d be lying if he said he didn’t sneak approximately ten thousand looks at his beautiful girl sitting in the stands with

his parents. At this point, his heart was going to tumble out of his fucking chest if he didn’t kiss Skylar and sleep in the

same bed as her tonight. Tonight.

No more screwing around. This was serious. He felt ill.

So why didn’t he see her anywhere? Wives, girlfriends, parents, assorted family for the entire roster, down to the equipment

manager. No Skylar.

“Where is she? Where’s Skylar?”

His mother drew him down for a kiss on the cheek. “Nice to see you, too. What a joy she is, Robbie. Pure joy. So much heart

and sincerity for such a young girl. She left.”

Robbie’s entire chest lurched, like a semitruck slamming on the brakes. “What do you mean, ‘ she left ’?”

“She said she had something to do.”

Something to do?

Like a date?

Nope. Absolutely not. That was irrational.

Unless he’d waited too long to get his head out of his ass.

Robbie dropped his equipment bag to the floor with a thud, raking a panicked hand through his hair, the pulse in his neck

sprinting like a mailman trying to outrun a Doberman. Crouching down, he riffled through the front pocket of his bag, freeing

his phone and calling Skylar, his chest seizing at all the heart emojis he’d added to her contact profile when he was drunk

on lasagna. He was going to add more later.

She couldn’t have gotten far, right? She’d still been there at the end of the third period. He’d simply ask her to come back, they’d resolve the remaining divide between them and put a permanent end to this separation. That would be that.

Voicemail.

Fuck.

“Skylar, could you please stop whatever you’re doing and come back here, please? Don’t make me look at you all night and not

even kiss me afterward. What the hell is that?”

He hung up, stared at his phone. “ RING ,” he bellowed.

“Robbie, that was a terrible message.”

“Ma, please, I’m in the middle of a crisis. Did she say where she was going?”

“Don’t you think I would have told you by now?”

“She was asking an awful lot of questions about that kite,” his father drawled, still holding a half-drunk beer in his hand.

“Wanted to know directions. Logistics. For chrissakes, Angela, you drew her a map on the back of a bar napkin.”

“The kite?” Robbie stood up slowly, but his legs were starting to tingle. “Why did she want to know all that?”

“When she kissed me goodbye, she said she’d see me on Long Island.” His mother laughed, clearly not grasping the gravity of

the situation the way Robbie was beginning to do, his stomach squeezing like a lemon. “Maybe she meant sooner than later.”

He called Skylar again, but this time his hand was shaking.

“Hey, Rocket...”

“Honey, he calls her Rocket,” whispered his mother, hands clasped beneath her chin. “How adorable is that?”

“Listen,” Robbie continued, his vision starting to turn an ominous shade of gray. “I know this is a long shot, but you wouldn’t

be on the way to Long Island, by any chance?

Right? To get a kite down out of a tree?

No. Right? ” His throat was shrinking down to the size of a cocktail straw.

This wasn’t an average person he was speaking to.

His girlfriend was highly competitive and well versed in challenges just like this one.

She’d absolutely make this attempt. Oh my God.

“Because that would be a very bad idea, Skylar. That tree sticks out over the edge of a cliff. A cliff , okay? It’s a big drop with a lot of rocks.

.. and I’m suddenly very positive that’s exactly where you’re going. But you

can’t. You cannot try and get that kite down, please, because you could get hurt and I won’t... I can’t even conceive of

that without getting dizzy. If something happens to you, it happens to me. Stop the goddamn car, Skylar.” He jabbed his thumb

into his eye socket, pacing in a circle. “Okay, I know you won’t. I’m right behind you. I’ll stop you myself.”

Robbie hung up, fumbled his phone back into the bag with quaking hands, slung the strap across his chest, and ran for the

exit, his parents hot on his heels.