"Dad, you're not supposed to call your only son a loser," Tate reprimands him with a look of mock sadness like he's taken it personally. "My poor self-esteem might crumble."
"You'd have to actually listen to me when I speak to have anything I say affect you," Jordan counters and bothhe and my dad high-five each other over the burn, which instantly makes it less burn-y.
“I think we’ll stick around for one more,” Theo announces, and Dad immediately walks over and plucks his mostly empty drink out of his hands.
"Nope," Dad says simply. "But you all are welcome to stick around, crash in our old bedrooms, and wake up to the smell of cinnamon waffles like we did as kids."
“Sold!” Grady announces too loudly and we all shush him.
“Do not wake them up,” Dad says, pointing at each of us so we know he means business before he walks toward the front hall. “See you kids in the morning.”
We all wave goodbye. Jordan stops after he puts on his coat and catches my eye. "Mac Larue huh? You know her dad might be older than both me and your dad, but he can, and will, kick your ass. Just a friendly warning."
Everyone snickers. “Nothing is happening.”
Unfortunately.
The adults leave and we let Theo have a beer and then raid the remnants of the charcuterie board Dad and Uncle J just finished wrapping and storing in the fridge. At about two-thirty in the morning, Grady is reclined in Gramps' chair, snoring away. Tate is passed out on a couch. Theo and I walk down the hall toward the bedrooms that used to belong to our parents. I hold his shoulders, walking behind him to keep him from weaving too badly. I deposit him in the first bedroom and he immediately nose dives onto the bottom bunk. I make sure he's in the recovery position in case he pukes, which I doubt will happen but… better safe than sorry.
“Con-Con?” Theo murmurs barely audible. He hasn’t called me Con-Con since he was, maybe ten.
“Yeah, T?”
“Brooklyn is no longer my number one hope for the draft,”he slurs, half his mouth unmoving because it’s crushed into the pillow. “If they draft me, I won’t sign.”
Awe. Theo doesn't get to control what team drafts him, no player does, but we all have hopes. I honestly didn't know the Barons was his. "Don't do that, T. Sign with whoever wants you. It's okay."
“I just wanted to play for them because you were there,” he whispers.
“Fuck, kid,” I whisper to myself because he’s clearly passed out now. That was a drunken punch to the feels I wasn’t expecting.
I close the door and walk into the bedroom next door. My dad shared it with Jordan for about a decade until he moved into a room in the basement and Uncle Luc moved in with Jordan. I drop onto the bed left of the window, strip down to my undies, and pull back the covers. My phone is almost dead and I don’t have a cable because I didn’t know I’d be staying. I open up my contacts and stare at Mac’s name. And then I hit record and leave her a voice message.
"I just wanted to say Merry Christmas. And let you know if we hadn't been interrupted the other day, I was going to give you the fuck of your life." I pause and think about how good she felt wrapped around my torso and all the things I would have done to her if we'd made it to her bedroom. My free hand slips under the covers and rubs my growing cock. "But I heard you tell Ten you didn't want me. So I guess you got what you wanted for Christmas, which is not getting the fuck of your life. From me. But, Mac, princess, you missed out because damn, it would have been the absolute most earth-shattering time you've ever had."
Well, even my drunken brain can hear how obscenely bold that sounds. I swallow and sigh and close my eyes. “Seriously, though, I wouldn’t want you to regret anything. Regretme, so Iam glad we got interrupted, for your sake. But can you please stop bringing your A-game? Because you kiss like you want me even though you said you didn’t. It’s confusing. Also confusing is the fact that your smile makes me forget my life is circling the drain. So anyway I’m gonna think of you tonight and do very bad things to myself. Ho. Ho. Ho, princess.”
I hit end and pass out to the sound of my cousin banging on the door and calling me every name in the book for sticking him with the couch.
Chapter 12
Mac
Iwalk into the break room and don’t see one familiar face. That’s because none of the coworkers I’ve become friendly with have volunteered to work on Christmas Eve. They all have friends and family in town. So the faces staring back at me when I enter are either loners like me or new employees who didn’t have the seniority to avoid the shift.
There's only one nurse two doctors and an orderly in there, but all of them stop chatting as soon as I open the door. They all stare at me, not a welcoming smile in the bunch. I mean no one is trying to eviscerate me with their eyes but the looks are cool, aloof, and slightly judgey. Apparently, even the skeleton crew tonight has heard the rumor Heather is spreading that I cheated on Beckett with Conner Garrison. A rumor I stupidly started myself.
I flash a brief smile at all of them, walk to the coffee machine, make a quick coffee, and then head right back out. I should have opted to be on call tonight instead of coming in. The head of the residents told me I could. But I didn’t want to sit at home alone, so here I am, getting treated like the outcast in a high school dramedy.
There's a break room down the hall with two beds. If I'm lucky, I will find it empty. As it turns out, I am lucky and it's blissfully empty and dark. I put my untouched coffee on the small table, drop onto one of the cots, and close my eyes. But I can't resist the urge to re-listen to that drunken message Conner left me a couple hours ago. So I pull my phone out of the pocket of my scrubs and hit play.
His words bring heat to my cheeks, just like when I listened to it for the first time. And the seventeen consecutive times right after that. Now eighteen. There wasn’t a single word in that message that didn’t make my insides fizzle and pop.
Yes, he was drunk but… you couldhearthe authenticity in his words and the need in the way his voice quivered a little. I hit playagain. When the message ends I almost fan myself.
Had I responded to that message at all, in any way? Nope. Because what the hell was I supposed to say? This whole thing was too much to process. Two weeks ago I hadn’t thought about Conner Garrison for more than a hot second in years. Now I thought about him like he was my Roman Empire.
Before I can listen to his drunken confession again, I get a text from the ER telling me we have an ambulance arriving and it’s all hands on deck.