Page 20 of Cheap Shot
I can’t pretend to know anything about my oldest brother any more now than I did when I was a teenager. Cooper always wanted to control everything and everyone around him like puppets. Could he have changed that much since we last spoke? I doubt it. No one, and I mean no one, can rewrite their entire personality on a cellular level. Cooper has always and will always want to control everyone around him, using us as pawns on a chessboard. Finding a way to use us to achieve whatever goal he has in mind.
“It’s his fault we are broken,” I respond, feeling those words with every fiber of my being.
Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. Would I have reacted the same way if I knew that truth from the start? That it was Cooper’s fault that our father fell over the side of a cliff to his death? Probably. Would I have tried to understand it from a different perspective? That it could have potentially been an accident? No, never. There are no words that will ever make me believe that. Even though Cooper didn’t push Dad off the edge of the cliff, it was his fault he died. He was the reason we were up there. It was his stupid fucking birthday.
“It’s everyone’s fault that our family is broken,” Beau responds.
“Except Momma,” we say in unison, both of us chuckling tentatively, worried about upsetting our fragile truce.
“I missed you, Cole.” Beau pushes to his feet, reaching over and grasping my hand. “Not just as a teammate or someone to help deal with Cooper’s bullshit. But just you. My little brother, even when you hated me.”
I stare at Beau and look at him, really look at him for the first time in what feels like years and try to see past my anger.
“I haven’t always hated you, Beau. But I have always missed you. That’s the worst part.”
ChapterSix
Cole
“Dinner was great, Momma.” Beau leans back in his seat, rubbing his hand across his stomach for good measure.
“Thank you, baby.” Momma plants a kiss on Beau’s forehead as she reaches over his shoulder, grabbing his now-empty plate off the table.
I continue pushing my food around my plate, having almost completely lost my appetite. Although dinners used to be a very loud affair in our family, tonight, a somberness has settled over all of us.
“Are you going to eat or play with that all night, Cole?” Momma asks, giving my shoulder a squeeze as she goes by.
“I’m not that hungry, but what I ate was good… for lasagna.”
“For lasagna? How could you not like the greatest dish known to man, especially when our momma made it?” Beau chuckles, leaning back in his seat and rubbing a hand across his distended belly.
I could say something about his eating habits, but that seems way too much like something Cooper would say, so I just answer his question instead. “Because it’s messy, and the noodles, no matter what anyone does, are always soggy for the sauce. Don’t even get me started on the large chunks of tomatoes.”
“You know your brother has always hated anything that has a sauce, no matter what’s in it,” Momma chimes in. “I remember he wouldn’t even put ketchup on his burger.”
Momma’s right. It’s another thing Alise and I would commiserate about when we were younger. Alise has more of an issue processing what is going around her without getting overwhelmed, and I’ve always had an aversion to foods with certain textures and conditions. For instance, I can’t eat a tomato, but I use ketchup. However, I never put it on anything because it makes the bread soggy, but I can dip french fries into it, no problem. Yes, I know it makes zero sense to someone who doesn’t have that issue, but to me, it means everything. I remember when I was younger, Momma feared I’d be malnourished, but as I got older, we found a way around it.
“It’s not the sauce, Momma. It’s the texture of everything together that gets to me. I love ketchup for dipping, but never put it on anything like a burger.”
“My mistake, honey,” Momma whispers, before turning back toward the sink. “Why don’t you boys head out to the game? I’ll have dessert ready for you two when you get back.”
“We? I wasn’t aware thatwewere going anywhere.” I groan, leaning back in the chair.
The last thing I want to do right now is leave the house. Although my mood has definitely stabilized after almost attacking someone in my room earlier, I don’t trust myself to be out in public, where anything could set me off.
“Didn’t Momma tell you I had something to chat with you about?”
“She did, but I figured we already got that out of the way before dinner.”
What the hell could Beau need to talk to me about? I still have no idea what I’m going to do about the Timberwolves offer, not that I really know what it even is. I need to call Remy back and apologize for losing my cool. I’ll listen to everything he has to say and then politely and firmly tell him no. No matter how insane the offer is, there has to be a team somewhere that’s willing to pay top dollar for me, even to ride the bench. Anything is better than being a Timberwolf. Anything.
“Not even close, brother. Not even close.” Beau chuckles, pushing to his feet and stretching his arms above his head.“You aren’t getting rid of me just yet.”
“Fine, but we aren’t going anywhere until we do the dishes,” I respond, grabbing my plate and pushing back from the table. “Rules are rules.”
“It’s okay, my sweet boy. I can wash a few pots and load the dishwasher, but don’t get used to it,” Momma responds, not bothering to turn around and look at either of us.
Something is off. Momma never, and I mean never, does the dinner dishes. The rule in this house has always been that the cook doesn’t do dishes. It’s one of the main reasons we all learned to cook, so for at least one night a week, we weren’t subject to dish duty.
