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He grins as he takes a bite of hash. “Exactly. I’m sure he’s got a matching shiner; we went pretty rough against the boards.”
Sebastian rolls his eyes. “And then you went into the penalty box for slashing.”
Cooper shrugs at Sebastian’s chiding tone. “So did he.”
“And it’s going to catch up with you, racking up all those penalties.”
“Who are you, Dad?”
“He does have a point,” James says. “You don’t want to give your agent a reason to be pissed at you.”
My eyes widen. “You already have an agent?”
“It’s not official,” says Cooper. “She’s a friend of our father’s, I’ll actually sign with her after graduation.”
“Coop’s still salty that Dad didn’t let him go into the draft,” James teases.
“How?” I ask. “You haven’t been drafted yet.”
“Hockey is different. A lot of guys get drafted way before they end up signing with a team, but our parents would’ve killed him if he left college early.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Cooper grumbles.
“But the NFL does things differently?”
“Yeah. Most guys don’t enter the draft until they’re seniors. I’ll get drafted in the spring and go straight into the NFL after graduation.”
I lean back in my chair, coffee mug in hand. “And then baseball?”
“Different again,” Sebastian says. “Even if you’re drafted out of high school, guys play in the minors for a while anyway.”
My phone buzzes in my back pocket. I almost don’t pick it up, but it’s my mom.
The first thing I hear is sirens.
My heart forces its way into my throat. I stand up, my chair scraping against the floor. James glances over at me.
I think he says my name, but I can’t hear him, not over the sirens, my heartbeat, and worst of all, my mother’s frantic sobs.
“Mom,” I say. “Slow down, I can’t understand you.”
“It happened so fast!” she says. “Bex, I don’t know what to do!”
I hurry around the table, making a beeline for the stairs. I burst into James’s room, grab my bag, and shove all my crap into it. I can barely understand her, but the wordfirecomes through.
As I turn, I run smack into James. He steadies me, looking down at me with concern in his expression. “Bex, what’s going on?”
“Who’s that?” I hear my mother say from the phone.
“No one,” I say. “I’m on my way right now.” I don’t have time for this. And I don’t have time for the hurt way James is looking at me. I brush past him, rummaging in my bag for my car keys.
“Bex!” I hear him call from the landing. He thunders down the stairs, reaching the front door half a beat behind me. I unlock my car with shaking fingers and slide into the driver’s seat.
James appears at the window and knocks on it. “Bex, stop. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I have to go.”
“Like hell you are.” He opens the car door, covering his hand with mine to prevent me from shoving the key into the ignition. “You’re panicking, you’ll get into an accident. Let me drive.”
