Chances Taken

“Is he all right?” I asked as I sat on my couch, my legs tucked under me, I was on the phone with my Mom listening to her tell me that my Dad had suffered a broken arm while trying to do some work on the house, he had fell off of a latter.

“He’ll be fine, he’s just being a grouch,” she explained and I laughed a little, “I heard him yell for me and I saw him on the ground and thought that he had a stroke. I was so happy to hear that he just fell and his arm really hurt.”

“Yeah, I tell her I think I broke my arm and she’s like ‘oh thank god’,” my Dad reenacted as his voice suddenly appeared on the phone.

“Were you listening in, Dad?” I laughed and then heard my front door open to see Mike walking into the house. I waved towards him and watched as he walked over, his dog, Stan following him. Mike plopped on the chair next to the couch and looked at me.

“Well you know, I never know what you ladies are gossiping about,” Dad chuckled and I smirked.

“Well I’m glad you’re feeling better, I hope your arm heals fast,” I said and looked towards Mike, “Mike’s here, do you want to talk to him?”

“Yeah, I wanna bust him for his fight,” Dad said and I giggled.

“Don’t worry, the guys did plenty of that the other day,” I answered and Mike looked at me confused, “Here he is, love you Dad.”

“Love you too,” he said and I handed the phone to Mike.

“Say hi to your father,” I smirked and Mike scoffed.

“He’s gunna bust me on the fight, isn’t he?” Mike asked and I laughed.

“Of course,” I smiled and then pet Stan before walking towards the kitchen to grab a drink.

A little over a week had passed; we had won our away game against Buffalo, lost against Philly, and won against the Rangers. We were sad about the Philly loss because we were so close. I had almost made a goal to tie the game a minute before the game ended, but it was saved and I was angry. During the game, Mike had gotten into a fight with Kimmo Timonen because he kept on coming after him, trying to pick a fight, so Mike finally gave him one. Mike won the fight and as he was being taken to the penalty box, Daniel Briere and Braydon Coburn of the Flyers tried to go after him, but Mike just pushed them back and they were both on their asses. The guys were busting Mike on trying to take on the whole Flyers team in a fight.

“Mags!” Mike called and then walked into the kitchen, “Mom wants to ask you something,” he said and I nodded my head and picked up the other phone as Mike sat on the counter.

“Yes?” I smiled.

“You’re in Dallas this Saturday, right?” she asked and I turned to the fridge and looked at the schedule.

“Yeah, we have a game against the Stars; it starts at noon,” I said and looked at Mike, “Why?”

“Well that’s the day of the family Christmas party, I was wondering if would come to that since you’re in town,” Mom said and I looked at Mike to see him shrug his shoulders, “The teams invited too, you know we’ll have enough room and food.”

“That’s really Coach’s decision; I know we leave Dallas the next day because we fly to Phoenix,” I said and pushed myself up onto the counter next to Mike, “I can ask, you know that Mike and I want to be there.”

“I know,” Mom said sounding a little sad, “I know I won’t be able to see you for Christmas, so I was hoping to see you for the day.”

“We’ll see what we can do, Mom,” Mike said and looked at me, “If we have to sneak away from the team, then we’ll do that,” he smirked towards me and I giggled.

“I miss you both so much,” Mom said and I smiled and leaned against my brother.

“We miss you too, Mom,” Mike and I said together.

“All right, I’ll let you go, I’ll talk to you both later,” she said and we said our goodbyes and then hung up.

“So what do you want to do?” Mike asked and I looked at him, “We leave tomorrow afternoon for Dallas.”

“I know,” I said, and then looked at my phone and decided to give Coach a call and tell him what was going on. After talking with him for over a half hour, giving him the details of what my Mom had planned, he agreed and I was really excited. I called Mom right back to tell her the we would be there and that the team will whether they liked it or not, but Mike and I knew that they would want to go.

After the Stars game, we were going to go back to the hotel to change and take the bus to the suburban parts of Dallas to where my family was having the Christmas party. I told my Mom that we would be there between four and five and she was really excited to tell everyone that we would be there.

“We gotta tell the guys,” Mike said and I nodded my head and went up the stairs to my room to grab my laptop and send an email out to everyone, knowing that they’ll get it right away because of their smartphones.

I came back downstairs to see Mike watching Stan and Jazz playfully fight over a toy while holding Bella. I smiled and watched as he kissed her head and scratched behind her ear, “For someone who didn’t want me to get her, you’re really good with her.”

“Shut up,” Mike laughed and I walked over towards him and sat on the couch, “When’s Emma coming back?”

“Mario told her that she doesn’t start until the first, so she’s got a few weeks,” I said and Mike nodded his head, “She’s probably packing up her apartment and gunna come up earlier.”

“It’ll be nice to have her around, be the three of us again,” he said and I smirked, “Remember how much trouble we would get into at school?”

“Most of those times were because of you, my brother,” I laughed and Mike smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

“Is she gunna live with you?” he asked and I nodded my head.

“She will until she gets her feet on the ground. Said she wanted to get an apartment, though I told her she could stay here, it was no big deal,” I said and Mike nodded his head. My phone went off and I looked to see that Sidney was calling me, “Hey Sid, what’s up?”

“So we’re goin’ to your family’s Christmas party in Dallas?” Sidney asked and I smiled.

“Yeah, well you were invited, it’s up to you whether you want to go or not,” I said and looked at Mike, “I’m sure the guys will want to go, free food and booze,” I laughed and heard Sidney chuckle.

“Sounds like fun, will they’ll be a football game on?” he teased and I scoffed.

“Shut up,” I laughed, remembering how I was for when the guys were over for Thanksgiving.

“All right, I kid,” he said and I rolled my eyes, “Well it sounds nice, I’m in- but there’s another reason I called.”

“Yes?”

“Vero’s cookin’ dinner tonight, some of us are heading to Flower’s place, you and Mike coming?”

“Sure, when is it?”

“I’m getting ready to leave now,” he said and I looked at the clock to see that it was about three in the afternoon.

“Are you guys having a video game competition?”

“It’s Flower’s house, you know it,” Sidney said and I laughed.

“All right, Mike and I will be over soon,” I said and Mike looked at me confused.

“All right, see you guys soon.”

“Yup, bye Sid,” I said and then hung up the phone and looked at Mike, “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Flower’s.”

“All right,” he said, not really bothering to hear why we were going, “It’s Flower, he’ll always make something fun.”

“So true,” I laughed as I threw my shoes on and grabbed my coat, “You driving or me?”

Mike looked into the sky and saw that it was snowing a little, “You, you have four wheel drive.”

“You just had to get a little sports car,” I laughed as I grabbed my keys and we went into my garage.

“Shut up,” he barked and then got into my car.

I hit the road to head to la casa de Fleury, Mike and I fought over the radio station, something we always seem to do. When we got to Marc’s place we saw that there were other cars here and I wondered how many people were going to be here. I saw Kris’ car and smiled and then parallel parked in front of him and behind Geno’s truck.

“Yeah, I would have never gotten in there,” he said and I laughed.

“You have a smaller car,” I teased.

“Yeah, but you’re a better driver, I would have hit one of them,” Mike said and I snorted.

“That is true.”

“Shut up, you’re supposed to be like, ‘No Mike, that’s not true at all’,” he acted and I laughed and looked at him.

“Then I wouldn’t be the best honest sister that you know me to be,” I smiled and Mike rolled his eyes, “Love you!”

“Whatever.”