“I know. Dammit, I know.” He started coughing, forcing him to pull out his inhaler. “She makes you happy. That pissed me off. I thought baseball was it for you, but it’s not. It’s her.” He looked pained. “I’m going to get used to that. I’m retiring, Pace.”

“Red—”

“Jesus, I’m doing it your way, and you’re still fucking arguing with me.” He clasped Pace on the shoulder, his eyes serious. “Thanks for not ratting me out. Thanks for letting me do this with my dignity intact.”

Pace stared at him, his throat tight. “I didn’t do that for you. Holly did.” And in return, Pace had been hard on her, too hard. She’d deserved better from him. Much better. He was going to do his damnedest to make it up to her.

Holly had assigned jobs to the volunteers and was putting up the decorations when the guys started to arrive. Once the event began, they’d each be manning a table, available for fun and laughs and whatever else the people who’d paid a thousand bucks a head to be there wanted. For now, they were volunteers like the rest of them.

When Henry came in, Holly smiled, but he didn’t. Joe arrived, and she showed him to his table. He quietly thanked her, but without his usual smile. Mason came through without stopping to say hi.

Holly took a deep breath and kept working.

Red stood in a corner with Gage, talking. When she needed help moving a huge table, she turned to them. “Can either of you help?”

“Of course,” Gage said, nudging her out of the way. “It’s our team.”

Right. Message received. They were helping the Heat, not her. Her chest ached, and her eyes burned, but she kept her chin up. “Thank you.”

Wade walked by, looking his usual California-surfer-boy gorgeous. He was the first to stop. “Hey,” he said quietly.

“Wade.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat and looked at the bruise on his jaw from the earlier fight at home plate. “How are you?”

He let out a breath. “Keeping my head above water. You?”

“Same.” She paused. “How is he? How’s Pace?”

“On or off record?”

Her heart squeezed. “Off.”

“Missing you,” he said bluntly, his green eyes meeting hers. “A lot.”

Oh God, this was tough. Holding it together was tough. “Good.”

He smiled at that and tugged a loose strand of her hair. “Hang in there.”

“I’m trying.” When he left, she looked around the ballroom at the people she’d come to know and love, all working their butts off for a charity event, all giving back to the community, all united together. She’d never really had that; she’d always been on the outside looking in.

But there for a little while, she’d gotten a taste of being on the inside, and . . . and she’d loved it.

Loved them.