Page 21 of Out of Bounds
I could say I can’t help myself. She’s good people and deserves a break. I like being around her. But something tells me she’ll take any of that as a pity party.
“That’s a question the team psych could write an essay on,” I tell her instead. “Childhood trauma. Daddy issues. Countering guilt over everything I have because I didn’t grow up with much. The need to be a people pleaser. Because I crave feeling wanted. Self-gratification.”
She raises one eyebrow, a slight twist in her lips. “So you’re helping me because you’re a fellow hot mess?”
I find myself smiling at my feet, an alien sensation of heat in my cheeks. “Something like that.”
Before questioning my motives, I press a soft kiss to her cheek, the contact traversing everything north of my waistline and culminating with a beat in my chest. “Goodnight, Annie Quinn.”
“Goodnight, Tanner Pace.” I head out of the room, looking back to see her unmoving, hand to her cheek.Yeah, I felt something then, too.
Something I need to turn off.
I’m too old. She’s been through too much. Her family has been through too much. I’m not a guy who has managed to stay in a relationshipever.
The last time she fell for her brother’s best friend, he dicked all over her.
The most romantic thing I can offer her is to leave well alone and promise that I willneverhurt her the way Auston Rogers has.
Not least because my position as a friend and captain, and the very jugular in my neck, are resting on menotmessing around Quinn’s baby sister.
10
ANNIE – MID-SEPTEMBER
Massively Unattainable
Daddy, Nelson and I are set up in the lounge with Monday night football snacks – Daddy has a beer and me a mug of hot chocolate. I haven’t dared have an alcoholic drink since Nelson was born.
I never knew I was a worrier before having a baby but now I overthink everything.Is he breathing if I can’t hear him? Is his heart beating if I can’t see it? Do I do things the right way or the best way for him? Do I spend enough time with him? AmI,mealone,enough for him? Is he going to grow up lopsided without a daddy?
I’m lying on my tummy on the rug in front of the television, rolling sensory balls Nelson’s way and watching his face light up multicolor as the toys flash. I have moments of clarity, where I know he has a good life. A beautiful life out here on the ranch. Then others where I doubt every decision I’ve ever made. When I wonder whatIdid so wrong to make Auston not want to stay.
The thing is, I’m only human, and as much as I’m not a woman in the market for a man or interested remotely in introducing anyone new to Nelson’s life, there’s nothing I can do about the hormones I am biologically preprogrammed with. So when the broadcast shows clips of the Bears arriving at the stadium in Florida and Tanner looking sharp in a dark tailored suit, white shirt unbuttoned at the neck, shoulder pads accentuating his broad shoulders and the cut displaying hisveryfine hind and thighs, I forget how to roll a ball along the rug.
He’s wearing a different pair of sunglasses to the ones he wears when he takes me out driving. A flashier pair. He looks like the guy I’ve read about – the one who dates models and plays golf with Grammy award winners. Wholly hot. Massively unattainable.
And boy have I learned my lesson about trying to be the girl who breaks the mold.
I come to sit, back to the sofa and legs spread with Nelson between them as the Bears line up in the tunnel. They don’t get the flashy pyrotechnics to run out at an away game but it’s a sellout crowd and in our lounge, all three of us are rooting for my brother,andTanner.
It’s bizarre watching them through the screen, untouchable, when they’re family and friends at the ranch. It’s always been a trip to see my brother’s fame but I also know how hard he’s worked for it. I’m proud of him, even while feeling like the lesser sibling sometimes. But watching Tanner feels different to that, as if I’m viewing an entirely different version of him than I see in real life, where he’s the guy with a famous sister, the man who gives me driving lessons and feeds my kid s’mores on the sly.
“Go, Bears,” I say, clapping my hands, which Nelson follows.
Jacksonville starts with possession and earns three quick first downs before the Bears’ cornerback, Trent Daniels, intercepts a deep pass.
“Let’s go, boys,” Daddy says, shuffling to the edge of his seat as our offense comes onto the field.
On the Bears’ first drive, our running back makes twenty yards and a new set of downs. Then we see the kind of play I have to wonder is even in the rule book.
Lamar throws a questionable pass that Tanner somehow manages to take hold of. The angle knocks him off balance and he looks as if he’s going to ground but remarkably, stays on his feet and pushes across the field through the defense, then he flicks the ball through his legs, under his body, and I have no idea how but that ball winds up in my brother’s hands, who rushes it right into the end zone.
As Daddy, Nelson and I are jumping around our lounge, on screen Colton is mauled by his teammates. When everything settles, he and Tanner are helmet to helmet, presumably congratulating each other on making up their own play book.
At home, we all settle onto the sofa and my phone starts to vibrate. Assuming it’s Sas messaging from the family zone in Florida, I pick it up. But the name on the screen makes the room spin, as if I’m having an out of body experience.
Auston
