by Lucy Gilmore
“What’s so funny?” Regina demanded. “I’m good at my job. Mia is finally old enough for me to start taking on more clients. You were never going to play football forever, and there’s no reason why I can’t manage the extra workload. Dammit, Cole. Stop laughing. Hailey’s boss even said she could get me a job in television if I wanted one. They’ve been really happy with my work on the Puppy Cup so far.”
“You’re right,” Cole said as soon as he was able to regain some of his composure. That mention of Hailey helped, her name acting like a dash of cold water to the face. “You’re absolutely right. You’ve been the best manager a man could ask for.”
“Then stop looking at me like I just announced my candidacy for the presidency.” She pulled her hands away and glanced at the baking mess with a frown. At least, he thought that was what she was looking at until she spoke again. “I know how much I’m in your debt, okay? My career, this house, Mia… You’ve been amazing to us, and I appreciate it, I really do. But I have to start forging my own path. Signing Garrett is just the start. What I’d like to do is build a whole roster. Bring on associates. Make a real go of things. I can, you know. Other people do it all the time.”
“Hey, Reg. Stop.” Cole interrupted her before she started to work herself up any further. Everything she was saying was perfect—for her and for Mia, for the life they both deserved. The last thing he planned to do was stand in her way. “I’m sorry for laughing, but you have to admit it’s funny.”
She pursed her lips. “I don’t have to do any such thing. My life isn’t meant to be a source of amusement for you.”
And here it was. The moment of truth. He picked up the bottle of painkillers and rolled it across the table at her.
“I’m not going to take these. Not now and not ever again.” He nodded down at his shoulder which—yes—ached like the devil, but not as much as if he’d played real football. Running up and down a field all afternoon with puppies hadn’t been physically taxing, but it had been a strain on an emotional level that he’d never experienced before. He’d happily be tackled a thousand times over if it meant he didn’t have to stand there, pretending not to stare at Hailey as she pointedly ignored him.
“That’s between you and Dr. Hampton,” Regina said primly.
“No, it’s not. He isn’t going to be my doctor much longer.” He paused. “I’m not going back.”
A flicker of emotion crossed her face. “What do you mean, you’re not going back? Like…this week? You’re out until next year? They’re pulling you?”
“I’m pulling me,” he said, finding more comfort in those words than he thought possible. “I could probably piece myself together enough to play next Sunday, do my year of penance of rehabilitation, maybe even try another surgery to strengthen things, but what’s the point? My heart’s not in it anymore. It hasn’t been for a while now.”
“Cole, you don’t mean it. I know it’s been a rough couple of months and that you’ve been struggling lately, but—”
He sighed. “If I can’t convince you how serious I am, I don’t know how I’m going to convince the rest of the world. I’m retiring, Reggie. I’m closing this chapter of my life. I don’t know what I’m going to do next or what your role in it is going to look like, but I need this. Please.”
The plea at the end seemed to check her. “Are you asking for my permission?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” He pushed back from the table and rose to his feet, unable to continue this while sitting on his ass. If Hailey could stand in front of him and reveal the deepest, darkest parts of her, tears streaming down her cheeks but her posture proud and tall, then he could have one honest conversation with his sister. He took a deep breath and tried again. “No, I’m not asking. I’m telling. I’d like you set up a meeting with the coaches and the owners and my agent and anyone else who’s required to be present when I hand in my resignation. I know it’s going to be a hot mess in terms of press, and I’d like to do whatever I can to reduce the impact it will have on the Puppy Cup and Hailey, but—”
“Okay.”
Cole checked in the middle of his sentence, unsure if he heard her correctly. “Okay?”
“Okay,” she repeated with a nod. She also got up and began moving around the kitchen, though most of that was to start tossing half-full pots and pans into the sink. “You’re right that it’s going to be messy, and I have my work cut out for me, but when has that ever slowed me down?”
“Really? Just like that? After banning me from Dad’s hospital room and ‘forgetting’ Amara’s request for me to visit the kids and acting as though I’m basically holding my finger over the button that holds our father’s life in the balance?”
She winced. “Yeah, that was a shitty thing to do.”
“Agreed.”
Her wince turned into a grimace. “You don’t have to be so smug about it. It was an impossible position. It’s always been an impossible position, trying to be your manager and your sister at the same time. A good manager wouldn’t have let you get anywhere near that hospital while the playoffs hung in the balance.”
“A good sister would have been the first to let me in.”
Not surprisingly, this criticism had a way of causing Regina to flare up in her own defense. She was always quick to rise to temper, especially where he was concerned. “It’s not always easy, you know. To find where the line is. To walk it by myself.”
He knew how she felt. Keeping to that line hadn’t been easy for either of them. He was looking forward to erasing it.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about it now,” Regina added. She spoke more gently this time, as if she, too, was envisioning a world where they could just be siblings. “And I wouldn’t have kept you out if he’d been in any real danger. You have to know that. The second he took a turn for the worse, I would have called you. Even if it was in the middle of a game.”
Cole thought about holding on to his resentment a little longer, but there was no point. If they could go back and change things…what? Would he have refused to pick up a football the first time it was offered? Would she have renounced the family name and baked pies for a living instead of becoming his manager? The idea of Regina lovingly rolling out crusts in a frilly pink apron was enough to have him forgiving everything. She’d have been awful at it.
“Have you talked to them about this yet, by the way?” Regina asked suddenly. “Mom and Dad, I mean.”
“No, but I’m going to head over there next.” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “They aren’t going to be happy.”
“No, they’re not.”
“You’re not happy about it, either, are you?”
“What I feel doesn’t matter. Is it going to be harder for me to build my client list if I lose the great Cole Bennett? Yes, obviously. Am I going to miss my ten percent of all your earnings?” Regina grinned. “Heck yeah. But with any luck, I’ll convince all your big sponsors to transfer your contracts over to Garrett. You won’t miss them. What’s a few million dollars to someone as obscenely wealthy as you?”
He couldn’t help laughing. That sounded more like the Regina he knew.
“And it won’t change things between us, right?” he asked. This was the last and most important consideration—the thing that was weighing heaviest on his heart. “I mean, things will be different, but not a lot, right? You and me… Mia and me…”
Anything the least bit managerial or laser-shark-like about Regina disappeared in a flash. For the first time in a long time, she was just his sister.
“Nothing will change between you and Mia,” she said, her reaction vehement to the point of caustic. “I mean that. You are the most important man in her life, and I hope you always will be. I know you’ll probably have a family of your own someday, and you won’t be able to give her as much of your time, but—”
“Never,” he promised. Honesty com
pelled him to add, “Well, that’s not true. I want to have tons of kids, but Mia will like that. She can order them around the way you used to do with me.”
“Tons of kids?” Regina echoed. “Really? That’s your dream of the future?”
He only shook his head, unable and unwilling to give voice to all the things he wanted. None of them mattered if he couldn’t have Hailey. Every time he tried to picture what happened once football no longer took up the majority of his time, all he could see was her. Her house full of sports memorabilia and puppies. Her naked body poised unabashedly on top of his. Her freckles. Her smile. The way her hair never quite stayed where she put it and how quickly and easily she’d seen through all the bullshit that was the life of a professional quarterback.
The look on her face as he’d ruined all his chances with her not just once but twice.
“She doesn’t really hate you,” Regina said as if reading his mind. “I only said that because you’re a moron.”
“She might not hate me, but she doesn’t like me very much.”
“Yeah, well. Neither do I. But we’re family, and that’s all that matters.”
* * *
If Cole thought his conversation with Regina was difficult, it was nothing compared to the one he had with his parents.
His mom cried. His dad didn’t cry, but only because anger took over long before sadness had a chance.
“After everything we’ve done for you, all the sacrifices we made.”
“How I would have loved an opportunity like the one you’ve been given. And you’re throwing it away like yesterday’s garbage.”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ll just die full of shame for the son who wasted his talent. Give me a moment. I’m sure the Grim Reaper will be here any minute.”
Cole sat and took it—much longer than he thought he could and much more calmly than he might have had he not had Regina’s blessing and Hailey’s words to support him.
I can guarantee that your mom will still open her arms to you. You get to keep hugging her, Cole. You get to keep being hugged.
A few months ago, he wouldn’t have believed that. The look on his mom’s face was so shocked and so hurt that it was hard to imagine she could ever forgive him—for what he was doing to his father, for what he was doing to his family. Today, however, he knew it to be the truth. It might take months—years, even—before his parents could fully wrap their heads around his decision, but he knew without a doubt that his mom would end this day with a hug. Not because she understood how difficult this was for him, and not because she approved of what he was doing, but because that was what she did.
She was his mom. She hugged him. She hugged a lot of people, actually, and in a way that had been highly embarrassing during his teenage years, but that didn’t matter. He’d never realized before what it meant to be offered physical affection for no reason other than the ties of family.
He realized now. It meant everything.
“I left Regina on the phone with the team,” Cole said as soon as his father stopped railing at him to draw a much-needed breath. “They’ll probably just list me as injured for the Kickoff Cup next weekend so the team doesn’t completely freak out, but my retirement will be announced not long after that.”
“If modern medicine had been in my time what it is today, I’d still be playing football myself,” his father announced with a firm set of his jaw. “You don’t know how lucky you have it.”
At mention of that word—lucky—Cole couldn’t help but smile.
“That’s funny to you, is it?” his father demanded. “My back broken and my knees blown, everything I was put into your training…”
“Julian, please,” his mom begged. “At least sit down if you’re going to start yelling again.”
“No, Dad. I don’t think your injuries are funny—and I don’t think mine are, either—but ‘luck’ is a funny word to use in this instance.”
For some reason, this caused his dad to perk up. “Luck. That’s it, isn’t it? This is nothing more than the curse at work, the only way fate can stop an unstoppable force like you. Hailey failed.”
“Don’t.” For the first time since this conversation started, Cole spoke with hard authority. His parents responded to it almost immediately, both of them turning to him with interest. “Don’t try to blame this on Hailey. She didn’t fail. She doesn’t even believe in the stupid curse—and neither, might I remind you, do you. She only did all this because I asked her to, because I was too much of a coward to tell you to your face what I was feeling.”
“As well you should have,” his dad grumbled.
Although Hailey had taken Philip from him, Nala was still residing with his parents until the Puppy Cup aired. The beagle entered the room just then and, with one look at the tense faces of the three people in it, darted for his dad’s side. Unthinking, his dad sat in his favorite recliner before patting his lap, at which point the beagle jumped up and immediately settled in for a nap. He had no idea that he’d done it—sat down and relaxed, his anger ebbing away with each brush of his hand over the puppy’s fur—but Cole and his mom shared a knowing look.
“Does this mean she’s coming over for dinner on Friday?” his mom asked, tacitly accepting the truce brought by the puppy. Cole knew it would be a while before any of them could talk about football without tempers flaring, but he was willing to accept his end of the olive branch. “I tried inviting her, but we got cut off before I could get a firm answer.”
“You asked her to dinner?”
“The Wegmores are coming, and she handled them so well last time that I thought she might do the trick a second time. The poor thing. She doesn’t have much family of her own, does she?” His mom clucked and shook her head. “Well, the Wegmores aren’t much of a consolation prize, but what can you do? They’re what we have to offer.”
“You asked her to dinner?”
His mom looked at him with an odd light in her eyes. “Yes, dear. I already said that. Are you sure you didn’t hit your head as well as your shoulder?”
“She won’t come,” he said, ignoring the question. “I’m sorry, Mom. I ruined it.”
Cole wasn’t sure what he said or did next, but he was in his mom’s arms before he knew what was happening. In his lifetime, he’d been tackled and hit from every angle. He’d taken physical blows that would fell a tree and stood up to coaches shouting at him with so much violence that they’d actually spit in his face. He’d listened to his father shout him through football drills when he was barely old enough to walk and stood watching as Hailey showed him the inner workings of her heart.
This, however, was his breaking point.
“Cole, love, don’t worry.” His mom was tall and strong but not as tall or as strong as him. That didn’t seem to matter as she continued holding him, her arms not quite reaching around his torso. “We’ll pick another date, one that works for her. You know Gertie will do anything for a free dinner.”
He gave a watery chuckle, but his mom didn’t release him. It was as though she knew that she was the only thing holding him together, that the moment she let go, he’d fall to pieces.
“It’s not the date,” he said, his voice shaking. “It’s me. I wrecked it. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened, and I blew my chance.”
“Well, really. Do something, Julian.”
“What do you want me to do?” came the irritable reply. “He won’t listen to reason about football. What makes you think he’d take my advice about women?”
Cole couldn’t help but be intrigued by those words. He pulled out of his mother’s grasp and glanced at his father, who sat regally on his throne, petting his fast-sleeping puppy. “Do you have advice about women?” he asked.
His dad snorted his indignation. “I’ve been married to the love of my life for thirty-five years. I might be an old, doddering fool
whose only son betrayed him, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that.”
Chapter 20
Hailey had never been so nervous in her life. The Puppy Cup was set to air any minute, the huge screen at the front of the restaurant switched away from the halftime show to the much-less-expensive cable channel they aired on. The entire crew and their respective families were sitting with her and waiting for it to start.
They’d all seen it about twelve times already, the edited footage completed and packaged days ago, but that didn’t seem to lessen the excitement any. It helped that this particular restaurant had been more than happy to open the doors to both humans and canines, so in addition to the Puppy Cup production team, which was rapidly becoming drunk, there were several puppies and adult dogs running around underfoot. Hailey had been so confident in Bess and her pack of babies that even they were in attendance, albeit in a quiet corner where they could rest and nurse, should the need arise.
So far, resting was all they’d had an opportunity to do, since Philip stood guard over the pack. Rufus was finally starting to gain enough strength to hold his own against his brothers and sisters, and Philip was determined to see that he got his fair share.
“Okay, everyone, quiet down,” Hailey called, raising her hand to try to stem the enthusiasm long enough to get a speech in. Against all odds and the devastating news that Cole Bennett wouldn’t be playing in the Kickoff Cup, the Lumberjacks were up by seven points. Everyone was understandably elated—especially since there were so many Lumberjack ties to the Puppy Cup. If their luck held, there was a good chance that every puppy in the country would be adopted after this.
“It’ll never work.” Penny sidled up next to Hailey and passed over a glass of sparkling wine. Their doubled budget had allowed them to throw this party, but real champagne was still out of the question. “Everyone is already drunk. You’ll have to flip on the karaoke machine and sing if you want to get anyone’s attention.”
“I’m not that desperate.”
“I was afraid of that.” Penny put a finger in either side of her mouth and released an ear-splitting whistle. Almost immediately, the movements and conversations in the room stilled. Even the puppies seemed to sense that quiet was called for. “There you go. The crowd is yours.”