Out of Bounds (Wild Card #2)

Chapter 1

ANNIE – SEPTEMBER

Back to School

People talk about crossroads in life – my mama used to. A point where two different paths collide and the subject – that would be me – must figure out which route to take.

In my case, I can’t choose to take a certain path. Rather, my two very different lives are about to impact – this morning, to be precise – as my brother, Colton, pulls up outside a diner on campus at San Antonio University.

I gather my bag from the passenger footwell and clutch it to me, expunging a long exhale.

Because today, I’m going back to school to finish the final year of my degree, which I deferred last year, to grow and birth a tiny human.

My new adult education era is crashing smack into my new mama era. I have a baby boy and I’m a student.

We’re stupidly early for school – I have a couple hours to kill before my first class – but I’ve tried to align my timetable as best I can to fit with Colton’s training schedule for the San Antonio Bears.

I live on our family’s ranch, more than an hour outside the city, so for the days I need to attend college, Colton will be driving me.

Which kills me, for the record. I’m not a girl who wants to depend on others.

I feel bad for burdening my brother – I’ll need a ride to university and back to the ranch three days a week. I’m the one who failed Driver’s Ed. But he did relentlessly counsel me to defer for a year rather than quitting to raise my son, so this is Colton’s karma.

I don’t realize I’m worrying my lip and holding on to my backpack so tight my knuckles are white until he unclasps my fingers from the leather strap. “You’ve got this, Annie.”

I glance out the window of his SUV again.

When I last attended school, I fit. I was living on campus with my bestie, who’s since moved home to Missouri and got a great job.

Now, looking at the sports students moving around the quiet campus for early morning training, I feel as if I’ve aged a decade in the ten months I’ve been caring for Nelson.

“I’m not convinced I’ve got this,” I mutter, unclipping my belt and reluctantly getting out of the car. Leaning back in through the window, I tell Colton, “But God loves a trier.”

He does that lazy, barely there smile of his that makes me think he might feel a tiny bit of pity for my plight.

Not that I welcome pity – it’s my own fault I slept with his best friend behind his back. I fell for the sports guy, who used me then couldn’t run fast enough when he found out I was pregnant with his child. To St Louis, where he’s the starting quarterback for the Archers.

I’m the fool who thought a professional player would be interested in a ranch girl from Texas.

Ultimately, the decision to finish my education and make something of myself is also on me. It’s my choice, even if Colton did stick his boot up my ass to kick me in this direction.

So as my brother drives away to the Bears’ state of the art training facility, I pull up my big girl panties and head into the campus diner for breakfast and pre-reading.

Tucked away in a turquoise leather booth, knowing my hair will smell like burnt sourdough by the time I leave, I read through the chapters of my text on cognitive psychology.

I swear there isn’t enough horchata in the world to help my brain make sense of the words on the page.

Regardless, I take a second mug of the sweet cinnamon drink and chomp down into my burrito.

“Annie?”

I gladly look up from the blurred lines of scientific research to see Professor Banks. She hasn’t changed a jot in a year. I’m certain I’ve seen her in the very same smart dress before. Yet her presence alone makes me feel as if I’ve changed infinitely.

“Professor Banks. Hi.”

“Are you well, Annie?” she asks, sliding into the booth opposite me and gesturing to the server for coffee. Looks like she’s sitting. “I was so sorry to hear about your mama.”

Mama died three months ago and it feels as raw now as the day cancer took her from us. She was my best friend. My biggest advocate.

I clear my throat as grief knots in my stomach. “Thank you.”

“And how’s baby Quinn?”

For a moment I’m blinking, wondering whether my mama brain has led me to forget an entire conversation with Professor Banks in which I told her I had a child.

Then I remember, my personal life became public knowledge this year when my brother’s PR used it as clickbait to deflect from Colton’s love triangle involving his agent’s assistant, Sas, and a Hollywood singer-actress.

I love Colton and Sas and I’m genuinely thrilled they got their crap together, but I really could have done without my dirty laundry being aired in public. For sure I could have done without the reminder of it today of all days.

“Nelson’s doing great,” I tell her.

Professor Banks leans her head to one side and nods, reaching out to put her hand over mine, making me realize that people are going to react to me one of two ways back at college. They’ll pity me or think me a slut. I’m not sure which is worse.

“Well, darlin’, I’m delighted to see you back.” She taps my textbook on the table between us – one she co-authored. “See you in class.”

Though I’m smiling as she leaves, the anxiety that’s become a new but silent trait of mine over the past year or so is having an absolute field day with my heart rate.

When I make it to class, I slip into the lecture theatre by the bottom door and try to take a seat near the front without making eyes at anyone. I don’t know my fellow academics because my college friends are now working and starting their real lives.

There’s giggling somewhere over my right shoulder, whispers over my left, and though I can’t make out what the words are or what the joke is, I suspect it’s all about me.

The student who got knocked up to a football star who wants nothing to do with her. The girl who fell for her brother’s best friend. The woman riding on the shirt tails of her famous sibling and will stop at nothing to clinch some of his fame.

That narrative couldn’t be further from the truth.

I’m the girl who fell for a guy I thought cared about me, too.

A man I couldn’t have conceived would turn his back on me when I accidentally fell pregnant.

A woman trying to graduate to make her own way in life and stop having to take handouts for tuition and childcare from her brother.

A girl who hasn’t asked for a dime from her extremely wealthy ex.