Ruff and Tumble

by Lucy Gilmore

  Cole’s mom kicked a leg sideways, hitting the recliner with a thud. In addition to being a tall woman, she was a strong one, and Cole’s father grunted as his footrest came crashing down.

  “Well, of course she can have anything she wants,” he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “But that doesn’t make your woo-woo magic any more real.”

  The entire family seemed as though they’d like to protest this remark, but Cole’s father was blissfully inured to their scathing looks.

  “Oh, look. They’re getting ready to flip the coin,” he said as he pulled his footrest back up. “It’s going to be heads. I always guess it right. Tell her, Paula.”

  Cole’s mom threw up her hands, obviously giving up on the other conversation. “It’s true,” she said. “He has a gift.”

  “What he has is a selective memory,” Regina said in a laughing undervoice. “He also thinks he invented DVDs and wine bottles with screw caps. Don’t listen to a word he says.”

  The sudden image of Cole’s face on the oversized television screen drew Hailey’s attention. It was a familiar sight in so many ways. She’d been seeing it for years—that dimple and those cheekbones, the way he seemed to ooze confidence as he led his team out onto the field—but it had never felt quite like this before.

  In the past, he’d always been a legendary figurehead, like Alexander the Great or Hercules, a man revered by the masses. To be near him was to be near greatness, to bask in the presence of a god. Now that she’d met his family and discovered them to be the nicest, most welcoming, most truly lucky people in the world, Hailey could marvel at how foolish she’d been.

  His powers weren’t mythical. His strength wasn’t pretend. This was his actual existence, the life he got to live every single day.

  “It’s not going to be heads,” Hailey said as the camera moved past Cole to the coin toss taking place in the middle of the field. She took a large swig of her beer—too large, considering how close she came to choking on it—and pointed at the screen. “It’s going to be tails, and the Lumberjacks are going to defer.”

  It was nothing more than an educated guess. The team often made the choice to defer when playing an away game, especially one as important as this, and her odds were fifty-fifty about the coin.

  That didn’t seem to matter as her prediction played out word for word on the screen. Cole’s mother and the Wegmores gasped. Sam and her wife cackled with glee. Regina looked at Hailey sideways. Even Cole’s dad turned to her with renewed respect.

  “Well, shit,” he said, ignoring the repeated outcries on his language. “Maybe we do have a chance at making it to the Kickoff Cup this year. I think I’m starting to like this girl.”

  Chapter 7

  Cole stepped through the back door of the dog shelter onto a patch of damp lawn littered with toys. Most of them were well used and well loved, with frayed ropes and chewed ends. One of them—a football—appeared to have been ravaged more than the rest. The faux leather was almost completely torn apart.

  “In my world, this is sacrilege,” he said, picking up the ball and spinning it lightly in the air.

  “Oh. You’re here.” Hailey had been playing tug-of-war with a compact, muscular puppy whose gray fur was so thin that his skin showed through. She turned toward Cole, no sign of surprise on her face. The rope—with the puppy attached—dangled from one of her hands. “Your plane was supposed to get in hours ago.”

  “It did.”

  He angled the ball and threw it, allowing it to skim past the puppy. It was close enough to draw the animal’s interest but not so close it made contact. As he’d hoped, the puppy pounced off after it.

  Hailey’s gaze followed the line of the ball. “That was a good throw.”

  He knew it was. He could feel it burning in his ligaments. Yesterday’s game had been a success, but like most of his successes, it had come with a cost. Not even Regina and an entire freezer full of produce could touch the pain. This was a grin-and-bear-it day.

  Weirdly enough, the grinning part was easier now that he’d seen Hailey.

  “I would have come straight here, but I had to wade through my family’s extravagant praise of you first.” Cole shifted his weight to one leg and stood watching her. “I have no idea what you did to them, but you have some serious explaining to do. My dad is ready to divorce my mom and make you an offer in her place.”

  This speech was calculated to get a blush out of Hailey—and blush she did. She was already flushed with exercise and the cold, but the blossoming pink across her cheeks indicated that she had plenty more where that came from. Wisps of her hair played about her face, not unlike the puppy frolicking in the grass around her feet. Her freckles were especially visible in the outdoors, and her eyes matched the heavy gray clouds overhead. Whether to counteract the gloom and doom of a Seattle January sky or because it was the only pair of shoes she owned, she was once again wearing the bright-red Converse.

  Cute. She’s cute.

  Cole was almost startled to realize it. The women in his life had a tendency to boast much more dramatic adjectives than that. They were graceful. They were gorgeous. They were glamorous. Even his own sister, who he rarely saw as anything but the playmate and protector of his youth, was always well put together. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her in anything but full body armor.

  In a pair of faded jeans and a clunky fisherman’s sweater, her hair in a loose braid over one shoulder, Hailey looked, well, cute. There was no other word for it.

  “That was some game you played yesterday,” she said. She was still blushing furiously, but her discomfort—if that was what it could be called—did nothing to deter her. “My ears are still ringing from the sound of your family’s cheers.”

  “I should have warned you,” he apologized. “They can be a bit…effusive.”

  She pushed the wayward strands from her face. Her hands were dirty from playing with the puppy, leaving a streak of mud along one cheekbone. “That’s one way to put it. I would have said they were nice.”

  Nice? Puppies were nice. Hailey was nice. His family was a behemoth of enthusiasm and aggression. He couldn’t remember a time in his life, even as a kid, when they just stood quietly and let the world unfold around them. They pushed and pulled and demanded, and there was no escaping their reach.

  “They liked you,” he said.

  “Yes, because you told them they had to.”

  It was true. He had told them to be on their best behavior, and—if it was at all possible—to tone down their glory-be-to-Cole routine, but that didn’t account for the plate of snickerdoodles currently sitting on the front seat of his Lexus. His mom only baked cookies for people she genuinely liked.

  “Sam wanted me to thank you for sending her the link to that website of Cole Bennett GIFs,” he said by way of answer.

  Hailey’s blush deepened. “She didn’t believe it existed.”

  “And the Wegmores have the recipe for spaghetti Bolognese you asked for.”

  “They were very enthusiastic. I didn’t know how to say no.”

  “Also, my mom managed to find the scrapbook of all my high school football injuries, and she left a standing invitation for you to come over and see it whenever you want.”

  That one gave Hailey pause. “Wait… That’s a real thing? She wasn’t just making it up?”

  Cole only wished his mom had made that up. Thirty-four pages of stitches, scrapes, and black eyes, all of them carefully cataloged and colorfully highlighted. She put it out every Christmas to remind them all of how far he’d come—of the years of pain he’d had to go through to get where he was today.

  “Oh, it’s real,” he said. “She’s very proud of her project.”

  “People who scrapbook generally are.”

  “No, you misunderstand. The book isn’t her project. I am.”


  It was the first time he’d ever said the words out loud, and he was surprisingly nervous to see how they’d be received. A lot of the men on his team had families who played a big role in helping them succeed. Fathers who spent every afternoon throwing balls in the backyard, mothers who worked double shifts to pay for equipment, sisters and brothers asked to put their own dreams aside so weekends could be dedicated to travel teams…his story wasn’t the only one.

  That was what made this all so difficult. Cole wasn’t unique. He hadn’t sacrificed anything extraordinary. His pain wasn’t greater than that of anyone else.

  So why did he feel so damnably alone in it?

  Hailey was watching him with a slight tilt to her head, her eyes scanning his face as though reading the pages of a book. In this, as in most things, he could see what she was thinking. She was deciding whether or not to believe him, whether he was worthy of her pity or her scorn.

  He’d never know which one she’d been leaning toward. As if sensing that Cole was feeling much less stable on his feet than he appeared, the gray puppy came bounding up and shoved his head under Cole’s hand.

  “Hello there,” he said, giving the animal’s head an obliging scratch. Like Hailey, the puppy was covered in swipes of mud, his paws caked in it. The kennel yard attached to the shelter was obviously well used, that hard-packed earth showing signs of regular canine wear. “Aren’t you a lucky dog?”

  “Not really.” Hailey squatted down to the puppy’s level and grazed his cheek with a kiss. “This is Philip. He’s a pit bull mix, five months old. He was left tied to a tree out in front of the shelter right after Christmas.”

  “Oh.” Cole wasn’t sure how to respond to this. That anyone would tie a cute little puppy like this to a tree and drive away was bad, obviously, but Hailey was kissing the dog’s face with unselfconscious abandon. A life like that couldn’t be too bad. She’d shown no signs of wanting to comfort him with kisses.

  “He’s not taking well to life in the shelter,” she said as she rose to her feet. “He picks at his food, cries all night long, and starts shaking anytime they shut the gate to his pen.”

  “Oh,” Cole said again, this time with more sympathy. He looked at the puppy again, this time noting how visible the ribs were under the thin coating of fur. The animal did look as though he could use a good meal. Or ten. “Are we going to make him football famous so he can find a new home?”

  “That’s the plan, yes. He’s one of the fifty puppies in the area I’ve selected for the show.”

  “Then why are you looking at me like that?”

  Her answer was to clip a leash to the dog’s collar and hand it to Cole. “Until the show airs and someone steps up to adopt him, Philip is going to live with you.”

  “Uh…” He glanced at the leash in his hand and then down at the puppy. As if sensing that something exciting was happening, Philip planted his hind end in the dirt and lolled an oversized tongue out the side of his mouth. “Is this retribution for me promising Mia a puppy? Did Reggie put you up to it?”

  “No. You did.”

  He transferred his gaze to Hailey. She squirmed under the directness of his stare, but she held herself firm, unable to hide the sudden spark of silver in her eyes.

  “Consider it a payment of sorts,” she said. “If you’re going to use me to try and break the Kickoff Cup Curse, then giving Philip somewhere comfortable to live for the next month is the least you can do.”

  If Cole had been a decent man, his first reaction upon hearing these words would have been embarrassment. It was wrong to leverage Hailey’s puppy luck for personal gain, not to mention roping her into this project without telling her what he wanted out of it. He owed her the benefit of truth and full disclosure. He owed her at least a little shame.

  Instead, he laughed. “They told you, huh? I was afraid something like that might happen.”

  “You aren’t even going to try and deny it?”

  Not a chance. Not when she was drawing closer to him, her lower lip pulled between her teeth.

  “So this whole thing,” she said. “The puppies, the show, me… It’s about the curse? About you trying to break it? That’s the ulterior motive?”

  Cole nodded, even though she was only partially right. He wasn’t about to get into a detailed medical history—pull out the charts and projections, discuss his complicated relationship with the sport, ask her opinion about his viability as a human being without football to prop him up. Not because he didn’t want to hear her thoughts but because she already acted like he was on the bottom rung of a ladder that descended far, far below the earth’s surface.

  He was well aware that he wasn’t out curing cancer or reversing climate change—that his value to the world lay in his ability to throw a ball with unerring accuracy. He didn’t need Hailey to remind him.

  For some reason, hearing it from her seemed so much worse.

  “You caught me,” he said. “It’s ridiculous, I know, but we can’t spend another year getting so close only to lose at the last minute. As the last six years have proven, you’ve got luck on your side—and even better, you have the appearance of luck. When it comes to my team, that’s just as valuable as the real deal. A few smiles, a few photo ops, and they can break this thing. I know it.”

  And then maybe, just maybe, he could sit down and have a serious conversation about retiring. A Kickoff Cup win wouldn’t change anything fundamental, but it would give him leverage. He could depart on a career high, leave his team with something to carry them through the years ahead.

  Give his parents something to be proud of.

  “Couldn’t you, like, sacrifice a goat or something?” Hailey asked.

  His laugh escaped before he could stop it. “I’d rather sacrifice something a little less bloody, if that’s all right with you.”

  He took a step toward her, careful not to jostle the puppy that sat panting at his feet. Unable to fight the sudden impulse, he reached out and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. He even went so far as to allow his hand to linger, the silky-smooth strands sliding through his touch, the warm and rapid beat of her pulse evident under his fingertips.

  “There must be something I can do for you in return,” he said, his voice low. “Something you want. Something only I can provide.”

  Hailey’s breath hitched and her whole body trembled, but she didn’t take the bait. “I already told you what you have to do,” she said with a nod toward their feet. “Take Philip home. Feed him. Love him. It’s only a month, and it will make a huge difference to his quality of life. It’s why I asked you to come all this way.”

  Cole glanced down at the animal in question, trying to decide whether he was insulted or intrigued by Hailey’s determination to make him take this dog home. There were hundreds of things she might have asked him for instead: money, fame, success, sex.

  She asked for none of them. She hadn’t even taken home the signed photo he’d had Regina set aside for her yesterday. He couldn’t understand it. There was no denying that Hailey was a fan of the Lumberjacks or of him. From the things his family had said, she knew her shit when it came to his team—better, probably, than anyone who didn’t share his blood. And this thing he was offering her, free publicity for the Puppy Cup, was obviously something she was willing to accept on behalf of her career.

  But that was it. That was where the exchange stopped, where Hailey’s admiration came to an end. Cole had the sinking feeling that although she appreciated him as an athlete, she didn’t think much of him as a man.

  “Take Philip home,” he repeated carefully.

  She nodded.

  “Feed him.”

  She nodded again.

  “Love him.”

  He didn’t wait for her nod this time. Instead, he reached down and tucked the puppy under one arm in the same football hold he’d used to carry Mia. It took
a lot more of his strength than he cared to admit to keep Philip there, but he managed the same way he always did.

  With grit and determination and a desperate wish that he could just once admit he didn’t have nearly as much of his shit together as the world believed.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it. And I’ll take this little guy for my team. Look at him wriggle. He’s got fight in him. He’ll make an excellent offensive tackle.”

  An exasperated sigh escaped her. “For the last time, we don’t pick teams. Or assign positions, for that matter. They’re puppies. We just let them run around for a while.”

  “As long as we let them run in my favor, I don’t care how we play it,” he said. “But for the record, you never want to lead your pick with an OT. Or a kicker, but don’t tell Johnson I said that. He got us six points yesterday. He’s feeling a little smug.”

  “Cole!” Hailey released a shaky laugh. “It’s not real football. It’s literally a patch of Astroturf with puppies and chew toys. We film them for like forty hours in hopes of whittling it down to thirty minutes of play time. You’ve seen the Puppy Cup before, right?”

  “Well, no,” he admitted. “I’m usually busy during the game. Sorry.”

  Cole took advantage of Hailey’s momentary discomfiture to set Philip on the ground and watch as the puppy took off after a bird that landed on the edge of the yard, his leash dragging behind him. If history planned on repeating itself, Cole had about ten seconds before Hailey recovered and gave him his own back again, and he didn’t intend to waste them.

  “That dog has good speed,” he said with a nod. “Not to mention good form and lots of energy, but I feel like he could be easily distracted. Are you writing this down?”

  “Of course I’m not writing it down.”

  “Fine.” Cole made a big show of reaching for his phone and pulling it out. He snapped a quick photo of Philip, who was barking excitedly at the bird, before turning on the record function.

  “Philip the pit bull,” he said in a loud, careful voice. “Five months old and—what was it you said?—abandoned next to a tree. Good speed and strength, but he can’t even scare that bird on the fence away. Final assessment: All bark. No bite.”