Page 20 of Out of Bounds
“Dime for your thoughts?” Sas asks, rolling her hip into mine where we sit together on a log.
I give her an abbreviated version. “I can see how you got sucked in by the Quinns and the ranch.”
“Yeah, it’s a special place.” She smiles warmly. “You know, it’s interesting that I stayed at your place for most of last season and I never noticed an Audi on the driveway.”
I run my tongue along my teeth, buying myself a second, then tell her, “Maybe you were so busy trying to get into Colton’s pants that you didn’t look.”
With her signature pout in place, she gives my shoulder a pathetic shove. “You know something I have observed?” she asks, and for some reason that question has me swallowing so hard I feel it in my cheeks. “That your beard gets more silver every time I see you.”
Relieved, I smirk. “You be careful there. When I get too old, I’ll stop lining yours and your dad’s pockets with agent commission.”
“Then you better do some things to keep you feeling young, old man.”
Or someone, I think, picturing Annie. The thought hits me like a lightning bolt, making me twitchy on the log.Where did that come from?
“I don’t know what you’re insinuating, firecracker, but you know I don’t mess during season.”
“Noooooo, you don’t dorelationshipsduring season but I’ve got your number, Casanova.”
“Yeah, you and the rest of the world, right?”
Even though we banter about my reputation, I feel guilt that wouldn’t exist if I was doing a better job of fighting how much I enjoy spending time with one woman. My teammate’s much younger sister.
Speak of the devil, Annie and Colton come from inside carrying two boxes of skewered marshmallows. Accepting Nelson from Annie while she roasts s’mores for the kids, then us, I settle him onto my lap. He’s mesmerized by the fire, and the only thing that distracts him is watching the roasted marshmallow Annie hands me on a stick.
“D’you want me to take him?” she asks.
“No, we’re good. He’s neat as a button in this sturdy arm, aren’t you, Nellie Bellie?”
I chuckle when Annie glares at me. Then, she starts chatting to Sas about her new client. Richie Davenport was a first-round draft pick for Louisiana this year and he’s Sas’s first client at her dad’s sports agency.
I have half an ear on the conversation because football is my world, but I’m not going to let the little man on my lap miss an opportunity to taste his first s’more behind his mama’s back.
“You want some, Nellie Bellie?” I whisper. The kid beams. He gets it.
I heat test the sweet treat with my fingertips, then, satisfied it’s cool, I tease off a stringy wedge. “Open up, buddy. We’ve got to be quick.”
He nearly chomps off my fingers when I put the food inside, up against his mostly toothless gums.
Annie is suddenly in front of me, hands on hips, legs going on for days beneath her skirt. “Tanner Pace, Iknowyou aren’t feeding my baby marshmallows.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But Nelson chooses now to let me down. Turning his head further on that stanchion than I’ve seen him do before, he looks right at his mama and opens his mouth, which is full of stringy marshmallow, melted and gooey and stretching from the top to the bottom of his mouth.
“Well now, there’s no hiding that,” Sonny says from across my shoulder, and while I’m braced for a tongue lashing from Annie, we all fall into laughter.
“Come on, buddy, I thought we were on the same team,” I tell Nelson, tickling his tummy through his sleep suit.
Despite the sugar, he falls asleep in the crook of my arm shortly after our moment of deviance and Annie leads the way as I carry him up to his bedroom.
At his crib side, I press my lips to his scalp and set him down. “Sweet dreams, kiddo. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
Then I’m thrown into an absolute spin as I realize what I’ve done, that I’ve overstepped, but that it felt like the most natural thing in the world to care for this little boy.
What makes my entire torso feel even more like a laundry machine on spin cycle is the way Annie is looking at me, eyes glossing over. It’s so intimate that I should look away but she’s as enthralling as the flames of the fire outside and I just… can’t.
“Why’re you being so nice to me?” she asks quietly, almost to herself.
