“Good luck with that. Try not to get lost chasing the play, rookie.” Cole snorts.
“Betrayed by my own flesh and blood.” Kyle clutches his chest in mock offense. “This is what I get for trying to carry the family name into the future.”
Cole smirks and reaches out, snagging Kyle by the neck and dragging him into a loose headlock before he can duck away. “Please, you can’t even carry your own gear without tripping over it.”
“Unhand me, old man!” Kyle thrashes, cackling too hard to fight him off. “You’re ruining my hair.”
Cole tightens his hold just enough to make Kyle wheeze dramatically before shoving him back into his seat.
“Traitors,” Kyle mutters, grinning wider as laughter spills across the box.
He basks in it like it’s exactly the reaction he wanted, his grin only growing when Cole glares at him out of the corner of his eye.
Ramona is still snickering, but when she glances back at me, her smile softens. She leans closer, her voice dropping so it only carries to me. “You good?”
“Yeah. Big night, right?”
She studies me quietly, not in a pushy way, just giving me a look like she knows. Like she sees the hollowness I’m trying to mask behind fake excitement and mascara.
“You’ve got that face,” she says, leaning her head gently on my shoulder.
“What face?”
“The one that says you’re one strong word away from crying in a bathroom stall.”
“I’m just tired.”
“Alise…”
“Don’t,” I whisper, the plea barely audible over the music pulsing through the speakers. “I can’t… talk about it. I don’t even know whatitis.”
She pulls back, expression unreadable, but she nods. “Okay. Not tonight.”
I blink fast, letting the cheering crowd fill the space between us. The roar of the Timberwolves’ faithful fans swells, echoing off the concrete, giving me just enough noise to cover the sound of my heart falling out of rhythm.
Not tonight. Not right now.
I swallow around the lump in my throat, forcing my shoulders straight. I can do this. I can hold it together for Cooper and the team. It’s only for a few hours, then I can ask Beau what the fuck is going on and have some peace of mind. Ha, who am I kidding? I’m gonna avoid Beau like the plague because not knowing is so much easier than having an answer, especially if the answer is one that could potentially shatter my heart into a million pieces.
I manage to get my emotions under control moments before Cole appears at my side, tall and casually smug, like he’s got a spotlight trained on him no one else can see. He has his arms crossed over his chest like he’s just finished narrating his own entrance in third-person, and the results please him very much.
“You’re wearing Cooper’s jersey?” he asks, mock horror dripping from every syllable.
“I mean… yeah?” I say, glancing down, having almost forgotten I have the thing on.
He gasps dramatically, like I’ve just betrayed the Hendrix family code or something. “I leave for a few years, and this is what I come back to? You’re siding with the enemy?”
“Coop’s not the enemy,” I say, trying for breezy in an attempt not to let it show that my stomach is still in knots from Beau’s voice, Beau’s eyes, Beau’s absence.
“Debatable,” Cole mutters, narrowing his eyes like he’s considering disowning me on the spot.
I laugh, a little too high-pitched, a little too desperate to sound normal.
“Okay, what’s going on?”
I knew it. Of course, he’d notice. Cole and I have always been partners in crime. The quiet ones in the corner at every family event, whispering behind our hands, scheming, plotting, and judging everyone else with perfectly synchronized side-eyes. We were the observers. The vaults. The ones who didn’t need to say much to say everything.
He was the first person to catch on that I was in love with Beau. I hadn’t even admitted it to myself yet, but Cole knew instantly. Instead of teasing me or making it weird, he’d done everything in his power to nudge us together. Subtle at first and then not so much.
