Page 91 of A Scoring Chance

“The things I said to them before I left the house…”

“They knew you didn’t mean it, Beauty. They know you loved them more than anything,” Cooper murmurs, planting a kiss on the side of my head.

“How do you know?”

“I know.” His voice catches before he clears his throat loudly. “Because I know you, Beauty. You wear your heart on your sleeve. Everyone knows that. Even though you were angry, I guarantee they knew you meant nothing you said before leaving the house that night.”

I sob loudly, letting all the pain, regret, and sorrow about what happened to Dad and Imani go, and for the first time in five years, I allow myself to finally heal. I don’t know how long we lie there. Cooper continues comforting me as my tears slow.

“I’ll live every day for the rest of my life proving it's not your fault. That you are worthy of being loved and are appreciated. That you deserve every good thing that has and will ever happen to you.”

“Promise?” I yawn, quickly losing the fight to keep my eyes open.

“I promise, Beauty,” Cooper grumbles before my eyes finally drift closed, and I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Cooper

“Did you really think we’d all suddenly become one big, happy family because it’s your birthday?” I shove a change of clothes, my cell, and deodorant into the gym bag sitting on my bed.

Beau is sprawled on the other side, his feet dangling off the edge this time. I hate when that fucker wears shoes on the bed, but since we are leaving in a few minutes, I doubt he’d take them off if I asked.

“No, I thought I wanted to see my baby brother on my birthday since he’s in town. It’s my birthday. I can do what I want.”

Birthday celebrations haven’t changed much from when we were younger. Although now that we have a hockey schedule to work around, Beau tends to get the short end of the stick. The NHL does a good job of blocking out a three-day break for Christmas, but with his birthday being on the twenty-eighth, we can guarantee we’ll have a game or practice that day. This year it’s a game, so instead of trying to go to dinner afterward, we are going out tonight after practice and staying a few days in the city just to hang out and be together as a family.

Most people would expect Beau to want to go party it up in Vegas or something, but he’s always been a homebody. Even when we were younger, Momma and Dad would give us our choice of going anywhere, and Beau always chose a cabin close to home or blanket forts in the living room with his favorite foods. That’s one thing I can say for sure we have in common. Spending time with our families is one of our favorite things to do, so I know that Cole missing from his celebration all these years hurts. I shouldn’t give him such a hard time about wanting to include our baby brother. It’s bad enough that Kyle’s hockey season at college is in full swing, so he couldn’t make it home for the holidays either.

“Why is he here anyway?” I ask, smacking his feet off my bed and taking a seat.

I hurry through my mental checklist to make sure I have everything ready to head to dinner right after practice. Since I’m still on the injured reserve list until the end of the regular season, I don’t have a place to store all my crap. My locker is still there with all my gear, but leaving the extra things isn’t an option for me at the moment. It’s a pain in the damn ass to take a bag back and forth for every practice, but it's a necessary evil I have to pay in order to get back on the ice with my team for the playoffs.

“No idea. He called when I was driving back from Momma’s on Christmas and asked if I was going to be in town for my birthday.” Beau swings his legs off the bed and pushes to his feet. “He said he wanted to take me for a drink and chat about something.”

“And that prompted you to invite him to your birthday dinner? He said he wanted to talk to you, not hang out with the entire family,” I respond, heading out of my bedroom with Beau right on my heels.

When I say the entire family, I mean everyone. Momma, Beauty, Alise, Auntie Peggy, Ms. King, and Darius are all coming to the city tonight to celebrate the birth of the second-best Hendrix. I even convinced Coach to let Darius, Ramona, and Alise sit in on practice. Darius has been itching to get to another game, but it hasn’t worked out with most of their games being away or on the same day as our team practices. I’ve been trying to find an excuse to show Beauty my skills on the ice for a while now. This was the perfect way to kill two birds with one stone.

“Stop complaining. He said no to dinner, but we’re grabbing a drink before he leaves town. Wanna join? It would be the perfect opportunity for you to man up and apologize to him.”

“I’m not the only one who needs to apologize, Beau.”

“No, you aren’t. But you two do need to talk to each other and hash shit out. I know you miss having Cole around. You two will never be best buddies, but I want us all to be brothers again.” Beau slaps me hard on the back before stuffing his feet into his shoes and heading toward the door. “Relax, everything is going to be fine. I’ll meet you at the truck in five.”

“I will leave your ass if you aren’t there. You know how much I hate being late for practice.”

“Being late has nothing to do with it. You are itching to get back on the ice after getting a clean bill of health from Murphy.”

“That, too,” I shout back as the door clicks shut tightly behind him.

The day has finally come. Murphy has given me the go-ahead to play full-time. Well, not completely. The hockey club still has games until March, and I’m not leaving my team without a coach halfway through the season. I won’t be suiting up with the team until we reach the playoffs. As far as I’m concerned, it's a done deal. But with everything so close to being finalized, why the hell is Cole even in town? I guess I need to make a call to our shared agent and find out what’s going on.

I dial the familiar number and wait for him to answer. “He’s there talking to the coaching staff.”

“Hello to you, too, Remy. How was your Christmas?” I chuckle, grabbing my shoes from under the bench and sliding my feet in.

“Christmas was great. Mom says hello, by the way. She’s rather cross with you for not stopping by more since you’re practically living in Redwood Falls again.”

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