Ruff and Tumble

by Lucy Gilmore

  “For a minute there, I think I might have forgotten how,” Cole said. He reached over and tucked her hair behind her ear. It wouldn’t do anything to improve her appearance, she knew, especially since it caused the heat to flare up inside her all over again. “Consider this fair warning, Hailey. If you compliment me like that again, you’re going to get soundly kissed.”

  He paused and stared, as if expecting her to urge him into a repeat performance. As if hoping for it.

  It would be so easy to comply. Compliments on his appearance and muscle tone, on what a good brother and uncle and son he was, on how all he had to do was smile to light up an entire stadium full of people… Hailey had no shortage of options available to her.

  But “You’re not staying here tonight” is what she said. It was the only thing she could think of, and it didn’t even begin to capture everything she was feeling. “You’re getting in your car and going home. If you leave now, you can get a few hours of sleep in before practice tomorrow.”

  He seemed to find this highly amusing. “Yes, yes. I know. I can’t crack a spread defense without it.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” she replied. She blamed the fact that she was still so rattled for what she said next. “It wouldn’t be right for me to take advantage of you in your current situation, that’s all.”

  He blinked down at her, the flutter of his eyelashes the only movement he made. “My what?”

  She made a vague gesture over him—at the wrinkles in his once-crisp white button-down, the lines of exhaustion on either side of his mouth, the way his shoulders were oh-so-slightly sagging from their usual granite position. “It’s been a long day, and you just spent the last five hours at the hospital. You’re feeling emotional and vulnerable and in need of human comfort—totally understandably, by the way—but it wouldn’t be right for me to take advantage of you.”

  He still wasn’t moving, but something in his gaze shifted. “You’re afraid of taking advantage of me,” he said, his tone flat.

  “Yes.”

  “Because I’m in a vulnerable state.”

  “I know it might not feel like it right now, but the classic signs of shock—”

  He didn’t let her finish. “You’ll kiss me and make me hot chocolate and open up to me about your own father’s death, but you won’t sleep with me.”

  She could feel the heat starting to fast-track to her face. Okay, so it was a little presumptuous of her to assume he wanted to stay the night, but after a kiss like that one, she figured the thought had crossed his mind. It had certainly taken up residence in her own.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling flushed. “It’s just that you said if I complimented you again—”

  He swooped in and kissed her again, but this time, it was a quick, loud smack of his lips against hers. He put his hands on either side of her face and held them there, his eyes twinkling down at hers with unmistakable warmth.

  “I don’t know what I did to deserve you in my life, but it must have been something amazing,” he said.

  “Wait. So you do want to sleep with me?”

  His chuckle was so deep and so rich that it sent her whole body quaking. “The things I want to do to you don’t have anything to do with sleep.”

  Hailey had no idea if her cheeks were still flaming, because at those words, her whole body caught on fire.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll go,” he said, his voice low, his hands still holding her face like it was the most precious thing in the world. “Not because you told me to, and not because I’m in an emotionally vulnerable state, but because there isn’t nearly enough time tonight for me to do things properly.”

  She opened her mouth and closed it again, unable to think of a single thing to say. Which was probably for the best, because she doubted she could manage much in the way of coherence right now.

  As if sensing this, Cole leaned down and pressed a quick, light kiss on the end of her nose. “Thank you, Hailey. I knew that seeing you again tonight would cheer me up. I just didn’t realize how much.”

  He stepped back and snapped his fingers. The sound did little to bring Philip to attention, but it did have the benefit of bringing Hailey to hers. She managed to walk Cole and his puppy to the door, saying all the right things and wishing him a safe journey home. She even got the door shut and locked behind them, but that was about as much as her limbs would comply.

  Cole Bennett wanted to not-sleep with her. Cole Bennett wanted the time to do things properly.

  Even if he woke up tomorrow and changed his mind, if he realized that Hailey had been right about the emotional upheaval that a beloved father’s heart attack could wreak—and that she was the last person on earth he wanted to entangle himself with—she still had this moment.

  And she’d always have that kiss.

  Chapter 12

  The matchup against Texas was the first home game in the entirety of Cole’s career that his parents weren’t there to watch. Even though he couldn’t see their usual seats from the field, he felt their absence the entire time.

  It was ridiculous. He was a grown-ass man with a stadium full of fans. There were twenty television cameras pointed on him at any given moment. Two hundred people were working hard to ensure that every pass he made and every play he called were broadcast around the world in real time.

  None of that made the least bit of difference. He still felt weird, like he was playing the game with only half of his heart.

  “Would someone please tell Bennett to come get his damn dog?” The irate voice of one of the assistant coaches hailed him before he even made it all the way to the locker rooms. The team was euphoric, having secured a place in the championship game and now only one win away from the Kickoff Cup, but the assistant coach looked less than pleased to see him. “There you are. What the hell is wrong with this animal?”

  The animal in question came bounding toward Cole as though they’d been parted for days instead of hours. Heedless of the fact that Cole was fully geared up and sweaty as all get-out, Philip launched himself into his arms. He wriggled and licked and otherwise made the pair of them look like lovesick fools.

  “Yes, Philip. I know.” He did his best to control the puppy’s gyrating movements. “I missed you, too, buddy.”

  “How come Bennett gets to bring his dog to games, and I don’t?” complained Johnson. “My kids would love to see Napoleon getting a little airtime.”

  “This isn’t any dog.” Cole pointed the puppy at the kicker. “This is my Puppy-Cup-winning lucky charm. Kiss him for seven years of good fortune.”

  Johnson, who was six feet of long, lanky foot power, eyed him askance. “I thought it was the woman who was the lucky charm.”

  “She is.”

  “Then what good is it going to do me to kiss the puppy? I’d be better off kissing her.”

  Cole couldn’t argue with that. Kissing Hailey seemed to have done him a world of good. Not only had they won the game, but his arm wasn’t giving him any more trouble than the usual grueling ache. Each pass had gone more or less where he’d wanted it to, his strength holding out for as long as the team had needed him. He liked to think that even Hailey’s father would have been proud of his performance today.

  “I’d kiss a frog if it meant we could get another win like that one,” Garrett said, jogging up to join them.

  “I’d kiss your mom for it,” Johnson returned. “Hell, if it means breaking the curse, I’d kiss you.”

  Garrett responded to this by planting a loud, smacking kiss on top of the kicker’s helmet. This kind of high-adrenaline camaraderie was common after a win as important as this one, and Cole would have normally jumped right in to join them. But he caught sight of Regina standing off to one side of the hallway, her cell phone pressed to one ear while she plugged the other with her finger, and moved to join her. He only had a few minutes before he’d
be needed for the postgame interviews, and he wanted a word with her before she switched into full manager mode.

  “Uh-huh. I’ll tell him. I know. I know, Mom.” Regina caught sight of Cole and rolled her eyes in an exaggerated gesture of annoyance. “Give Daddy our love and tell him we’ll see him later, yeah? I have to go now. And please make sure Mia goes to bed at a relatively normal time tonight. I don’t care how many tears she manages to squeeze out at you first.”

  Cole chuckled as Regina finished up the call. “You know she’s going to be up until midnight now, right?”

  “How is that my fault? I’m the only adult in her life who refuses to fall for that sob story of hers. She’s all alone. No one loves her.” Regina sighed. “Bullshit. You’re turning her into a monster, the whole lot of you.”

  “Speaking of monsters…” Cole began with a glance at the phone clutched in Regina’s hand.

  She didn’t miss his meaning. “He’s alive and kicking, but just barely. It would have been nice if you could have won that game by a few more points. Mom says they were discussing sedating him until the game was over to keep him from having another heart attack, but he threatened to walk out if anyone came near him with a needle.”

  Cole assumed his sister was joking, doing her best to make light of a bad situation, but that didn’t stop him from saying, “Our father’s life is entirely in my hands. Got it. Win the Kickoff Cup or be held liable for patricide.”

  “Hey.” Regina frowned and gave his foot a light kick. “I was kidding.”

  “Were you?” he asked. He heaved a sigh before she could answer. “I take it I’m not invited for visiting hours tonight?”

  Regina winced. So far, he hadn’t been invited for any visiting hours. Every time he’d expressed a wish to swing by the hospital, he’d been fed another story about how his dad was sleeping or he shouldn’t leave practice early or it would be better if he focused on football so his dad could recover in peace.

  “He’ll just worry more if you’re there,” his mom kept saying. “You can do more for him by working with your team than by visiting.”

  “Stay away” had been Regina’s less tactful approach. “It’s not as if there’s anything you can do for him, anyway.”

  “No need to come up with an excuse,” Cole said as Regina prepared to hit him with a fresh wave of reasons why it was best for him to celebrate with the team instead of his family tonight. He curled a protective hand around Philip’s head. “Message received.”

  “It’s not personal, Cole,” Regina said, glancing down at where he was clutching the puppy. “We’re just trying to manage his stress levels, that’s all. You know how he gets this time of year.”

  Yes, he knew. From what Regina had told him, his dad had cried last year when the Lumberjacks lost to their longtime rivals in Arizona. He hadn’t shed a single tear when his own father—Cole’s grandfather—had died, but that 21–18 loss so near to the Kickoff Cup had almost broken him. The same thing used to happen when the stakes were much lower, when becoming a pro player was the pot of gold at the end of an endless, laborious rainbow. Weddings, birthdays, funerals…they could easily be dispensed with, just so long as Cole got the ball in the end zone.

  So he did. Then he did it again. Then he did it again.

  And all the while, the people around him got married and aged and died. They lived.

  “I’m sure the guys have something fun planned,” Regina said with a smile for Cole and a friendly pat for Philip. “Go out. Celebrate. Lord knows you’re going to feel like you got hit by a bag of rocks tomorrow. You might as well enjoy the adrenaline while it lasts.”

  “He’s my dad, too, Reg.”

  Regina’s expression softened. “Not during Kickoff Cup season he’s not. You know that better than anyone. This time of year, he’s Julian Bennett, the quarterback who never was. And you’re the only chance he has at redemption.” She looked as though she might say more—remind him, perhaps, that neither of them had really asked for this life—but Garrett popped his head into the hallway before she had a chance.

  “Coach wants to know if he can borrow his quarterback for a few minutes,” he said. “And by ‘borrow,’ he means if he doesn’t see your ass in here immediately, he’s going to do something drastic like ban puppies from the locker room from here on out.”

  “The horror,” Regina said with a laugh. She put her hands on Cole’s shoulders and spun him around, losing no time in pushing him down the hall. “Go. Be brilliant. And don’t forget that we promised Hailey’s people you’d mention the Puppy Cup at least twice during the interviews.”

  Cole went, mostly because he was contractually obligated to, but also because that mention of Hailey instantly perked him up. He might be banned from visiting his dad, but there was one place both he and Philip were always welcome.

  Okay, so always was a bit of an exaggeration, and there was a good chance Hailey would decide that the euphoria of a win was yet another emotional vulnerability that prevented him from whisking her into his arms and his bed, but that was all the more reason to stop by.

  No one had ever accused him of having emotional vulnerability before, but he was starting to like the way it sounded.

  Emotional. Vulnerable. Human.

  Real.

  * * *

  Hailey had never thrown such a successful party before.

  Okay, so unless you counted the wrap party she helped organize every year for the Puppy Cup cast and crew, she’d never really thrown any kind of party before, but she didn’t care. Multiple people had come over to her house. They’d eaten food. They’d consumed alcohol. They’d watched football. She wasn’t saying she was the root cause of the Lumberjacks’ win over Texas, but she was supposed to be the token lucky charm. There could totally be a correlation.

  “You don’t have to stay and help me clean up,” Hailey said as Penny started stacking plates and carrying them to the kitchen. “I can get all this later.”

  “Are you kidding?” Penny stepped neatly over the gate and around Bess’s puppies, who were growing larger and more mobile with each passing day. Only Rufus remained stunted, but Hailey had set up a box with a heated blanket for him to sleep in at night, so at least he was keeping warm. “I’ve been waiting for everyone else to leave so I can snoop through your house in peace. You never told me that you have your own little garden out back. And two closets in your bedroom. And a real bathtub. I haven’t taken a bath in ages. My apartment is only big enough for one of those all-in-one wet rooms.”

  Hailey had a hard time picturing glamorous, elegant Penny washing her hair while seated on a toilet, but she could see the hint that was being dropped easily enough. “Do you want to take a bath?” she offered.

  Penny laughed as she stacked the plates in the sink. “I do, actually, but even I’m not that pushy. I’ll wait until you invite me over a second time.”

  Hailey felt a warm flush of pleasure at these words. She hadn’t been entirely sure that anyone from the office would come if she threw a party, but she’d given it a try anyway. After watching the last game with Cole’s family, sitting in front of the television screen alone had seemed pathetic, even for her.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t asked you over before this,” Hailey said. “To be honest, I didn’t know you wanted to come.”

  Penny stared at her for a moment before shaking her head, her long, dark hair breaking around the Lumberjacks jersey she wore. She’d arrived in a tasteful boatneck sweater, but that hadn’t lasted long. By halftime, she’d pulled one of the signed jerseys down from the wall and put it on in the sweater’s place. The jersey had probably depreciated about five hundred dollars the moment it came down, but Hailey didn’t mind. It was about time someone got some actual use out of the thing.

  “Your problem, Hailstorm, is that you underestimate yourself.” Penny clucked her tongue. “You’ve always underestimated y
ourself.”

  Hailey’s whole body jerked at the sound of that nickname, which she hadn’t heard in over nine years. “What did you just call me?”

  Penny arched her brow. “Hailstorm? It’s what we decided to call you after you landed both Cole Bennett and Garrett Smith in the same week. No one sees you coming, and then—BAM! You’re pouring down hard everywhere.” She paused when Hailey could do little more than blink at her. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  No, she didn’t. She didn’t mind at all. To hear her dad tell the tale, that was exactly why he’d chosen the same nickname for her—because she hit as if from out of nowhere. It had never been his intention to be a foster parent, even less to be an adoptive parent, but a coworker at the manufacturing plant where he’d worked convinced him to give temporary guardianship a try. Then Hailey had shown up on his doorstep, clutching a backpack of all her worldly possessions, looking lost and terrified out of her mind.

  “And I fell in love,” he’d said, as though that was all there was to it. “You changed everything.”

  Hailey felt her eyes flooding as she remembered the day he’d said those words for the first time, standing in front of a judge and making the appeal to become her legal parent and guardian.

  So you never have to be alone again. So you always have somewhere to come home to.

  It had been such a beautiful promise, and Dad had kept it as faithfully as he could. In addition to teaching her everything he knew about football, he’d also taught her everything he knew about life. It wasn’t much, as he was always the first to point out, but it was more than Hailey had ever hoped for.

  He’d taught her how to cook and also how to avoid the dishes for as long as possible. He’d taught her how to change a tire and fix a leaky faucet. He’d pushed her to go to college even though neither one of them could afford it and had cried harder than all the other parents when she graduated from high school.