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“YOU’RE COMING TOmy fucking birthday party whether you like it or not, numbnuts.” Koz tugged on his tie, always uncomfortable wearing anything more elaborate than sweats, and looked down the concourse toward the exit for the parking garage. Then he glared at me as if daring me to contradict him.
We’d just finished beating the Habs in a shootout—Jamie had scored the game winner—and my feet were ready to move toward the escalator leading up to the owner’s box, taking the rest of me along with them whether that was what I intended to do or not. I didn’t exactly have plans with Cadence for tonight, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make them with her. Did it? But then again, we weren’t dating. We were friends. That was all. And friends shouldn’t simply assume that the other friend would go along with anything and everything on the spur of the moment.
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “But it’s a Saturday night.” My complaint was feeble and I knew it.
“And you don’t have a fucking date or anywhere more important to be than my birthday party, so don’t pretend you do.”
It was true. Cadence still hadn’t given in and agreed to take our friendship to the next level, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to see her tonight. If I dropped by the owner’s box to see her… Maybe she’d give in tonight. If I didn’t try, I’d never know.
Nicky streaked past us, bumping into Koz as he went. “Sorry. Jessica’s in labor!”
“Go,” Koz shouted after him, actually grinning for once.
“Your birthday isn’t even until tomorrow,” I argued once Nicky was gone.
“My birthday starts in exactly forty-seven minutes. Clock’s ticking. Maybe Nicky’s kid will be lucky enough to share my birthday. But if you aren’t at my place when the clock strikes midnight and we start celebrating, I will kick your ass from here to eternity.”
Harry came out into the concourse this time, heading for the garage wearing one of his ridiculous bowties. No guy in the league but Harry could get away with wearing a damn bowtie all the time. Fucking ginger. No soul. If he had one, there was no chance bowties would work on him. Tonight, he even had on a vest as part of his suit.
Still, he’d been my defense partner for the last couple of weeks, and we were working well together after my first big blunder. Whether the guy had a soul or not, at least he and I were making a good team. Hell, he’d even scored tonight’s game-tying goal off a one-timer from my pass.
Koz caught sight of Harry’s bright red hair flashing in the lights and yelled at him across the empty space. “My place. You’re coming, right? All the single guys are supposed to be there. Party of the year.”
“I have plans already, Koz. Can’t do it.”
“Do your plans involve strippers? Because mine do.”
Harry laughed. “Strippers don’t come close to what I’ve got planned. Not gonna happen this time. I’ll buy your dinner tomorrow to make up for it.” With that, he disappeared down the corridor.
Better than strippers, huh? Did Harry actually have plans—and if so, did they involve Dani Weber, who was still in town—or was he simply uninterested in one of Koz’s crazy parties? Harry always seemed so straight-laced, but sometimes he threw me for a loop with something that seemed completely out of character. Like flirting with Dani that night. Out of all the guys on the team, he might be the most private.
“What the fuck is he trying to pull off, thinking anything’s better than strippers?”
I could think of a lot of things that were better than strippers. Like a night with Cadence. Hell, even if Jonny and Sara went out for a night without the kids and we spent the whole time babysitting Connor and Cassidy, and Connor jumped up and down on my balls, that’d be a lot better than strippers. But I didn’t expect Koz to understand that. He lived in a world that was all his own. The rest of us could drop in and look around sometimes, but rarely did any of it make any sense to anyone but him.
I also knew without a shadow of a doubt that if I didn’t show up at Koz’s party, he’d hold a grudge the size of Mount Hood. I was his road roommate. His best friend on the team. One of the only guys who managed to put up with his shit on a regular basis.
So I headed back inside and up to the owner’s box to make my excuses to Cadence. Only she wasn’t there.
Sara saw me and headed over almost immediately, digging around in her purse for something. She handed me the folded piece of paper when she got it free from her bag. “She asked me to give you this.”
“Thanks.” I folded it over one more time and slipped it into my pocket. Whatever it said, I got the sense I should read it alone. “Is she all right?” Every single home game we’d had since her arrival in Portland, Cadence had been there. She hadn’t told me she had anything else going on. Granted, she didn’t owe me any explanations. We were still nothing more than friends, however much I might want us to be more. There was no reason she had to tell me anything at all. It was entirely possible she even wanted to stop being my friend. Something squeezed my chest at the thought, but there wasn’t a hell of a lot to be done about it. She might never change her mind and give me the opportunity I wanted. Then where was I? All alone, same as always.
“She’s fine,” Sara said. But her eyes told me a different story.
“Did I fuck things up somehow? What did I do?” It had to be something I’d done. My brain couldn’t process any other explanation for the worry in Sara’s eyes.
She shook her head. “It wasn’t you.”
But the fact that she’d said it wasn’t me meant I hadn’t imagined things, and there was something wrong. But who had done something to hurt her?
Jonny? No, that couldn’t be it. As far as Cadence was concerned, her older brother had practically hung the moon.
Maybe something was going on with their mother, though, or one of their sisters? But if there was a family emergency of some sort, Jonny would be aware of it, and he would have gone home to deal with it along with her. That couldn’t be the problem.
Possibly there were issues with Anthony. But why wouldn’t she be here, with her family, if she was struggling with something related to her new partner? And based on the way the guy had acted around her the day we’d gone to ChocolateFest, I couldn’t dream that he’d ever do anything to hurt her. If anything, he was as protective of her as Jonny was.
None of the scenarios that came to mind made any sense at all, and Sara didn’t seem inclined to fill me in. I thanked her for passing on Cadence’s note and headed down to my car to read it.
