31. Beau
thirty-one
Beau
The party was supposed to end at sunset, but two hours after dark, Chord’s Fury teammates are only now making their way to the team bus.
I sit nearby, Daisy’s family around me and my girl tucked under my arm.
Our table is littered with half-filled wine bottles, empty snifters of brandy, and platters of leftover canapes.
The band left long ago, but music drifts from a phone propped against the glass vase in the center of the table.
Curled up on the floor out of the way, on a makeshift bed of seat cushions and tablecloths, Ollie and Izzy sleep like puppies.
Conversation hums around me as I watch Chord’s coach try to wrangle twenty-odd burly, boozed-up athletes out the door.
It reminds me of a sitcom, with nobody listening to the increasingly red-faced and frustrated father figure attempting to corral his wayward sons.
Although most are now waiting on the bus to go back to San Francisco, the team’s first line loiters at the door to the restaurant, their goodbyes to Chord going round in circles.
“See you, man,” says Hayden, the team’s left winger. He offers his hand to Chord for the third time and pulls him in for a man-hug. “Next season won’t be the same without you.”
“Definitely won’t be the same with Cook as captain,” grumbles Jake, their center.
Chord’s jaw clenches, but then his shoulders roll back and he’s instantly a leader, not another pissed-off player. “You boys didn’t like me either when I joined the team.”
Breaker snorts. “You mean, you didn’t like us.”
Chord smiles. A real one. “Either way, we figured it out. Cook’s a dick, and he wouldn’t be my choice”—Chord’s eyes flit to his coach, then away again—“but he’s what you’ve got, and I have faith that you’ll find a way to win games no matter who’s leading you.”
“Fuck, yeah, we’ll win.” That’s Theo, a young defenseman, and Jake gives him an enthusiastic high-five.
“Just take care in the preseason,” Chord reminds them. “Rest. Relax. Stay fit. Stay out of trouble. I can’t wait to see you take out the first game.”
Coach gives Chord a nod of appreciation, and finally, with the help of West—a goalie who’s a little older and a lot less drunk than the rest of them—the Fury is finally out the door.
“It’s weird to think he won’t be playing hockey anymore,” Daisy murmurs at my side. She rests her head on my shoulder. “It must be scary giving up a career you love so much. Chord’s played hockey since he was eighteen—half his life. His entire adulthood. And now what? He’s starting over again.”
I didn’t realize we’d both been observing the team’s interaction, but her focus is on the hockey players, same as mine.
“Not all over again,” I say with a glance around the table.
Dylan and Poppy. Finn and Rosie. Charlie and Violet. Now Chord, taking a seat next to his fiancée, everyone laughing at jokes no one else would find funny, eating though nobody could possibly still be hungry, pouring more wine though everyone insists they’ve had enough.
“He’s got this.” I brush a lock of hair away from Daisy’s face. “He’s got you.”
Her smile is dreamy as she appreciates her family with a sweeping look.
“Today wasn’t too bad, was it?” she asks. “You had fun, didn’t you?”
I tighten my arm around her, caressing the soft skin of her bare arm. “I didn’t think I would,” I confess. “But I did.”
“I’m glad.” She sighs and sinks against me. “What was the highlight?”
I pointedly run my gaze over her body, then cock an eyebrow and put my lips to her ear.
“The way you look in that dress. It looks like it’ll slide off you like cream. One quick pull on these pretty ribbons back here”—I pretend to tug on the fastenings keeping her dress looped around her neck—“and you’d be naked, Darlin’.”
Her cheeks flush, and her focus falls to my mouth as she bites her bottom lip. “This whole living apart thing is getting to be a problem,” she murmurs.
“This having a ten-year-old kid thing is getting to be… an obstacle.”
Her mouth tips up and her eyes sparkle. I love that she accepts Ollie as part of my life—our life. Not a problem to be solved, but a child to be loved and raised. And outmaneuvered when the occasion calls for it.
“You got that right.” She snuggles in closer. “But seriously. What made this night so unexpectedly good?”
I look around the table again, then at Ollie sound asleep as if the floor of a noisy restaurant is an entirely safe space to let down his guard.
“This,” I say. “Watching the way y’all come together. How easy it is. How at ease y’all are. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“What were parties like in your family?”
“Parties?” I snort quietly. “We didn’t throw parties.”
She’s quiet for a beat. “How did you celebrate special days? Birthdays. Anniversaries. Your high school graduation?”
“I don’t remember celebrating anything. Teachers at school might have done something when I was young, but by the time I was a teenager, birthdays were like any other day. My dad celebrated my graduation by packing my bags and giving me just enough money for a one-way bus ticket out of there.”
She sets a hand on my chest, fingers playing anxiously with one of the buttons. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
I shrug one shoulder. “I’m not. That bus ticket led to my first ranching job, which was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” she says. “It’s not too late for you and Ollie to have the family you both deserve.”
I press a firm kiss to her temple, but I don’t say anything. Her faith that this could be so easy is both naive and sweet, and I’d like to pretend for at least tonight that I believe it too.
“Hey, Daze,” says Poppy from across the table. Her cheeks are red from laughter, and beside her, Dylan’s shaking his head with an amused smile. “Remember that year we cut ourselves bangs?”
“Oh, my God.” Daisy groans with good humor. “Don’t remind me.”
Poppy cackles again, and Charlie hides her smile behind her wineglass.
“What happened?” I ask.
Dylan grins hard. “They must have been about seven or eight years old, and our baby sister pilfered the kitchen scissors, locked herself in the bathroom, and cut off half a head of hair. Those bangs started on the crown of her head!”
Charlie spits out her drink trying not to laugh, and the table erupts in a round of chuckles.
“Shut up!” Daisy laughs.
“Sounds… fetching,” I tease her.
She rolls her eyes. “Best part was convincing Poppy to do it as well so I wouldn’t be the only oddball going back to school that fall.”
I grin at Poppy. “And did you?”
Poppy covers her face with her hands. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she mumbles into her palms.
“You were being a good friend.” Daisy throws a balled-up napkin at her, and Poppy lifts her head. “And I appreciated it.”
“Was that about the time you wanted to be a horse when you grew up?” Chord asks, face completely serious.
“You mean, she wanted to ride horses,” I correct him.
“Nope. She wanted to be a horse. A Palomino, wasn’t it, Daze?” Chord takes a canape from a nearby platter and stuffs it in his mouth, eyes alight with humor.
“Ha ha,” she retorts. “So funny.”
“What about you, Beau?” Rosie asks. “What did you want to be when you grew up?”
Everyone’s quiet, waiting for the answer, and I’m surprised at how it makes me feel included instead of scrutinized.
“I never gave it much thought,” I admit. “Just happy, I guess.”
Finn nods with a thoughtful frown, and Rosie asks, “And horses make you happy?”
“Sure do.” I glance at Daisy under my arm, then Ollie across the room. “Among other things.”
Daisy smiles. “Good answer.”
I don’t care that her family’s watching. I lean in and kiss her.
The conversation moves on from there, and I relax into it.
I laugh at stories about the Davenports’ childhoods and answer questions when I’m asked, though as the night wears on, they become few and far between.
Daisy and her siblings are enjoying each other too much, and I know it’s not just me, because Violet and Rosie sit back too, with fond reflection in their expressions as Chord, Charlie, Finn, Dylan, Daisy, and Poppy share story after story of their lives growing up at Silver Leaf ranch.
The tales aren’t always happy ones. There are tears when they talk about their parents.
There are eye rolls and grimaces when the conversation touches on sensitive subjects, but it just makes the joyful moments more real.
This family isn’t perfect, but they’re here.
They like each other, which isn’t always the case with the people you’re supposed to love.
And tonight, they asked me to sit at their table.
I’m absently brushing Daisy’s arm, listening with half an ear to the voices around me, when she leans in and whispers, “Meet me in the bathroom.”
She stands and crosses the room, her smooth back beckoning me, her bare feet underneath the couture gown making me smile as she disappears into the corridor.
I glance around, hoping it’s not too obvious, then get up and follow.
The door to the bathroom is ajar, and I push it open just enough to peek inside. “Hey, Darlin’. You in here?”
She reaches around the door, grabs a fistful of my shirt, and yanks me inside.
Her mouth is on mine before I find my bearings, but I quickly figure it out.
I kiss her hard and fast, the rush of making out like kids making my blood hotter.
She tastes like the vanilla frosting on the cake and the almost-empty bottle of Silver Leaf brandy, and I tease open her mouth, tongue lashing for more.
She lifts her knee, and I hook it over my hip, shifting so my dick is pressed hard against the soft heat between her legs.
Daisy has her hands up my shirt and I’ve got mine twisted in the fabric of her dress when the door creaks open.
“Ahem,” says Poppy. “This is a respectable establishment, you know.”
I jump back, letting Daisy’s dress fall back into place. I’m half unbuttoned, and these linen pants do nothing to hide my arousal. I take a careful step to the side, putting Daisy between me and Poppy.