Page 101 of Out of Bounds
She’s away from the house but keeps looking Auston’s way, flapping, hurrying. No one else on this porch is going to come to her aide because no one wants Auston to be here. But I love Annie, I’minlove with Annie, and if that means I’ve got to get along with Auston…
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter. Grabbing two beers from the cool box on the lawn and lugging with me the moral high ground, I make my way toward the man I despise.
He stops before I reach him at the edge of the picket fence.
“Pace,” he says.
“Rogers.” I hold up the beers. “Brought you a beer.”
He considers the bottle like I might have poisoned it –damn,that would have been a good shout.
“Looks pretty hostile over there,” he says, taking the bottle between his fingers as he holds on to his gift with two hands.
“Can you blame them?”
He clacks his tongue. “Guess not.”
“They’re over by the pool.”
He nods. “You going to escort me?”
“To the slaughter? Gladly. Come on.”
Annie meets us midway down the lawn, with Nelson on her hip, and the way she beams at Auston like he’s wearing a fucking halo for turning up kills me.
“Hey,” he says, all casual like he didn’t rip her heart out and abandon his kid, after telling Annie to get rid of him. Like he didn’t shatter her confidence and self-esteem into tiny pieces.
“Hi. Thanks for coming.” She twists Nelson’s chin so he stops looking at me and looks to Auston. “Look who it is, Nelson.”
Nelson looks distinctly like he couldn’t give a crap about anything other than the shiny parcel, and it delights me.
I have the most vivid and thankfully short-lived flashback to watching my stepdad walk away from our home for the last time. Never looking back.
Then I snap out of it, clearing my throat. It’s not my place to get between this kid and his dad. “I’ll leave you guys to it,” I tell them. I look back across my shoulder as I go and find Annie watching me. Looking at me in a way that cuts. She’s apologizing and she shouldn’t be. This isn’t on her. None of it.
“I know that can’t have been easy. You did good, Tanner,” Darcy tells me, hand on my shoulder where we stand in front of the porch, watching as Annie sets Nelson on the lawn and Auston crouches down to place the gift on the ground in front of him.
Nelson uses it to pull himself up, delighting in the shimmering wrapping paper and big bow on top of it.
“Like you said, if it’s meant to be, she’ll figure it out.” But I’m not convinced I believe in wishes anymore because the one I made when I helped Nelson blow out the candles on his cake didnotinvolve Auston showing up. “I won’t be the man who stands in the way of a family.”
“Hunny, there’s no way this whole thing ends with them being a family. You did the right thing in giving him a chance to be a father to that sweet boy but I’m pretty sure all you did was hand him a rope to hang himself with.”
She knocks her temple against my shoulder. “Listen, I’m going to distract Colton for a while. If I can take one set of daggers out of Auston’s back, the party atmosphere might not be completely obliterated.”
We look behind us at Sonny, Colton and Sas, stern-faced, arms folded.
Darcy does convince Colton to show her the horses in the barn and the corral. Sas takes up position on a lounger by the pool, chatting with Betty, and Sonny… Well, Sonny gets back to his rocking chair and bottle of beer, doing nothing to hide that he loathes Auston Rogers.
Rogers hurt Sonny’s daughter. He’s messed with Sonny’s grandson. He was welcomed into this beautiful home, then he shit all over their kindness. While I want to give Annie the freedom to figure this out on her own, I respect Sonny’s hard stance. Darcy might be proud of the way I took the objective high ground. But me? I’m proud of the man who takes no prisoners when it comes to protecting his daughter.
I head onto the porch and take up the other rocking chair.
“You’re a better man than me, son,” Sonny tells me. “Can I convince you to have a beer now?”
I laugh shortly, raising the non-alcoholic bottle I’m still holding. “If I weren’t driving you could probably convince me to have something stiffer, sir.”
We watch as Annie unboxes a ride-on car for Nelson, but Nelson is more concerned about the torn-up paper it came out of.
