9. Cody
Cody
As soon as we exit the ice, I blow out a long breath. I'm dead on my skates. I swear since my eyes landed on Sloan at the last game, my head has been all over the place. I can’t seem to turn my brain off and relax.
It hasn’t impacted my performance on the ice yet, but it’s going to. Playing sports as a job takes so much out of your body. If I don’t have time to recover physically between games and practices, it will eventually catch up with me. And that’s something I don’t want happening.
Jax already has his gear off of him when I enter the locker room. He’s talking wildly with his hands as Griffin, Tanner, and Huxley chuckle at whatever he’s saying. Killian rolls his eyes as he strips his jersey off and begins taking off his pads.
Killian, Griffin, and I have always gotten along really well. They’re quieter and are happy to let the rest of the guys steal the spotlight when we go out. Killian especially reminds me so much of Dad with how he sits back and observes everyone.
Tanner, Huxley, and Jax love to be in the spotlight and receive attention from everyone. It’s almost comical to see them fight over fans and women.
“Oh, please! That girl wasn’t trying to give you her number.” Huxley rolls his eyes as Tanner howls with laughter.
Killian rolls his eyes and Griffin grins in my direction.
Jax swears at least once a week that a woman is trying to give him her number when he’s on the ice.
I'm not sure how anyone would think that makes sense. How would he write it down? Jax definitely wouldn’t remember it. He has the world’s worst memory.
“Jax, any woman mouthing her number to you isn’t someone you want to go after,” I sigh as I drop down onto the bench in front of my cubby.
“Why not? She could be my one true love!” Jax stands and stretches his back one way and then the other.
“Because she’s just after your money, man,” Killian mumbles as he heads towards the showers.
“Exactly!” Huxley motions wildly to Killian.
“Well, how am I supposed to find my girl if I can’t go after anyone who likes money?” Jax frowns like this is the first time he’s ever really thought about this.
“You need to find someone who doesn’t care about the money. Someone who would like you even if you had nothing.” Huxley shrugs his shoulders.
“I know the perfect woman for you,” Tanner says with way too much amusement in his tone.
I know whatever comes out of his mouth next is going to push Jax’s buttons and Jax knows it too. He’s already narrowing his eyes on his friend and teammate.
“Oh, really? And who is the perfect woman for me?” Jax keeps his tone even and his gaze locked on Tanner, daring him to say it.
“Bella’s pretty fine and that woman is always all over you.” Tanner smirks like he just won, but he has no idea what he just started.
Jax and Bella have an interesting relationship and they always have.
Where Jax is loud and outgoing, he seems like he’d be the perfect match for Emma.
Bella on the other hand is calm and collected.
She’s not a wall flower but she doesn’t feel the need to be the center of attention either.
She’s happy being surrounded with a handful of friends and nothing more.
Jax has always been protective of her and I’ve wondered off and on if he has any sort of feelings towards Bella, but he’s never voiced anything to me.
That’s one of the difficult things about growing up on Mulberry Lane. We grew up acting like everyone is family. All of the men were our pseudo uncles and the women our pseudo aunts, their kids were like cousins to us. We weren’t actually related to any of them though.
The only people brave enough to try a relationship was Charlie and Wyatt, and we all saw how that turned out. Sure, they’re living their best life now, but it wasn’t always great. In fact, it was awful for a long time and made things tense and awkward for almost a decade.
I'm not sure anyone else is willing to risk something like that happening. It will be interesting to see if any of them try it as we get older. I know I'm not going to, but I’ve never seen any of the girls as more than family. I probably have Sloan to thank for that.
“Bella’s just a friend, Tanner,” Jax says softly. He gets unusually quiet and heads towards the showers. I frown as I watch him go. He’s never like this. What’s going on with him?
Tanner turns his attention to me. His mouth opens and closes several times, but nothing comes out.
“I don’t know,” I say before following Jax towards the showers.
“There’s my big sister!” I scoop Charlie into my arms and hold her tightly against my chest. She doesn’t try to get away from me, instead she enjoys the hug and squeezes me back.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” she murmurs.
“I know. I can’t wait for my house to be finished. Then we can get together a lot more often.”
“Or you could drive the twenty minutes to see us,” Wyatt mumbles under his breath.
“Man, I’d love to but it seems like our schedules never line up.
” I release Charlie and hug Wyatt. He’s always been like a second brother to me and I was thrilled when he and Charlie finally figured things out.
“You know how difficult it can be to just find an hour of free time and then when you take away the driving time each way, I’d get like fifteen minutes to actually see you. ”
“I'm just messing with you. I get it to my core. During the season I feel like I barely see my little girl.” He frowns as he glances at Charlie. I'm sure he’s missing Carter.
Charlie and Wyatt are fantastic parents. They want Carter around all the time. They hate when she isn’t close by. I'm sure they’re especially thankful Owen has a daycare at the clubhouse and during baseball season she doesn’t need to be away from them.
“We have off this weekend. We’ll definitely be at family dinner. Dad’s trying to get us to stay in our childhood rooms for the entire weekend.” I chuckle.
Dad’s one of those people you wouldn’t expect to love their kids so much, but he’s always been so invested in us. He hates having an empty house now. I'm sure he tries to steal Carter away from Charlie and Wyatt as much as possible.
“Oh my gosh! You should! We can spend so much time together!” Charlie bounces on her toes and claps her hands in excitement. “Soph! Jax and Cody might spend the weekend at Mom and Dad’s!”
“What!” Sophia shrieks and pushes Pecker out of the way to get to me. “Really?” Her eyes quickly fill with tears and she throws herself into my arms.
“Hey, why are you getting all teary-eyed on me?” I kiss the top of her head and rub a hand up and down her back. I’ll always have a sweet spot for my sisters.
“Because I miss you!” She holds onto me even tighter and sniffles.
“Sweetheart, all you and Charlie have to do is tell us you need us. Jax and I will be there as soon as we possibly can.”
I eye Jax as he exits the locker room. He drops his bag on the ground and instantly wraps his arms around Sophia, turning her into a sandwich. She doesn’t even try to get away from him. In fact, after a few moments, she spins in my arms until she’s hugging Jax instead of me.
I take a step back and run a hand through my hair. I think Sophia’s emotions are all from the pregnancy, but I'm going to keep an eye on her. I don’t want my sister going through something feeling like we’re not there for her.
“She’s ok,” Peck says softly as he appears at my side and places a hand on my shoulder. “She’s just really emotional from her hormones being all over the place.”
“There’s nothing else going on?” I glance at him, knowing Peck would never keep anything from us.
“Nah, she’s happy. She just misses having her brothers next door. Why do you think she comes to every game? I don’t know what she’s going to do when the baby is born. I don’t think it’s hit her that her life will change drastically.”
“We’ll get a box,” I growl.
We’ve never had box seats for our family, purely because they all enjoy being in the center of the action, but if Sophia can still come to our games and feel closer to us, I’ll ask Coach about a box tomorrow. I don’t care how much it costs or what I have to do to get one.
Wyatt’s lucky. Owen has a box for Mulberry Lane at the baseball stadium, even though we don’t use it much.
He says he wants to make sure we all know we’re welcome and if he knows we won't be using it, he’ll make sure it gets used, but it’s always available for us.
I wish Owen would buy the Pythons too, but I don’t think he really has any interest in hockey.
“Do you want to go out for dinner?” I eye my sisters. As much as I’d love to go home and relax the rest of the night, it’s only five o’clock and I'm starving.
“Yes!” Sophia pushes away from Jax and stares up at me with wide eyes. “Where are we going?”
“Anywhere you want, sweetheart.” I chuckle at how quickly her mood can turn around.
“You’re coming too, Jax, right?” She peers up at him with big innocent eyes.
“You think I’d turn down dinner with my favorite women?” He arches a brow. “Never.”
We both grab our duffle bags off the ground and hoist them over our shoulders. We’re about to head towards the parking lot, I'm sure we’ll all pile into my car so we don’t have to wait for everyone to get their cars out of the packed lots.
“Jax! You were amazing tonight!” Jude’s voice cuts through the nice family moment we were having.
Jax lets out a quiet growl of frustration before plastering a fake smile on his face. He turns around and acts like he and Jude are best friends. I don’t know how he does it. If anyone other than my family saw him right now, they’d think Jax was actually happy to see Jude.
“Thanks, man.”
“Jude, we should get going,” Sloan says softly.
“No! I want to hang out with Jax.” He glares at Sloan before turning a big smile on Jax. “What are we doing tonight?”
“Well, I'm going out for dinner with my siblings…” Jax grips the back of his neck uncomfortably. He glances in my direction looking for help, but I don’t know what to do. Jude can’t take a hint.
“Oh! We’re free for dinner. Where are we going?” He’s grinning ear to ear like a complete idiot.
“They didn’t invite us, Jude,” Sloan hisses, trying to pull her boyfriend away from Jax. He slips from her hold and ignores her.
“I… I don’t know where we’re going.” Jax sighs like there’s no winning this. He sends an apologetic glance in Sophia and Charlie’s direction.
“Well, this baby is craving protein.” Sophia places her hands on her tiny stomach.
“What about the Brazilian steakhouse?” I arch a brow with a smirk.
For being such a small human, Sophia can eat her weight in meat when we go to the Brazilian steakhouse. She loves it.
“Oh my gosh! Yes! I love that place!”
“Alright, we’ll meet you guys there!” Jude smiles triumphantly.