“Perfectly timed for your Aunty Firecracker to change you, buddy, good job!” I tell Nelson.
Sas whacks my arm and opens her mouth to doubtless throw abuse my way but Annie holds up a finger and tells her, “Na-ah, not in front of the baby.”
So Sas settles for giving me a filthy frown and I tell Nelson, “That’s why I call her a firecracker, buddy. She’s always ready to explode.Justlike you.”
Annie laughs as she takes Nelson to change him.
“I’ll see y’all downstairs. I’ve smelled my nephew’s number twos enough times to know when to leave,” Colton says, and because a sports guy can’t resist chirping, he adds, “Doesn’t smell as bad as Pace covered in cow crap, though.”
As I mutter a retort under my breath to spare the baby’s ears, Sas and Annie smirk to each other.Yeah, yeah, I’ve been the butt of all jokes for days after that first driving lesson.
“Speaking of that road splat, have you shown her yet?” Sas asks, looking at me.
I shake my head. “Annie, come on downstairs when you’re done,” I tell her. “I’ve brought you something.”
Her lips curve up despite the fact she’s opened Nelson’s nappy, as if she’s immune to the stench of rotten vermin. “You have? What?”
“You’ll see,” Sas tells her, grinning.
9
PACE – MID-SEPTEMBER
A Jugular at Stake
“You brought me a girl car?” Annie asks as she looks in surprise at the car I drove here. We’re all standing out on the porch.
“It’s on loan,” I tell her, glancing to Colton, though I’ve already covered this with him. Drummed into him in fact that this car loan is for my own personal safety and to avoid another bath in cow excrement. I didn’t want to lie but if I’d told him I’d bought his sister a new car, the conversation would have gone one of two ways, the most likely that he’d have assumed I’m trying to get my dick wet. Which I’m not. I genuinely consider this a gift of self-preservation, for me, until Annie passes her test.
“It’s my sister’s,” I explain, “for when she visits me. She’s on the road right now, so this is sitting on my driveway not being used and I figured it would be easier to learn in than the truck.”
Taking away the clutch and stick might stop me from getting car sickness or whiplash every Tuesday, and working aircon will mean I can roll up the windows when Annie looks like shitplaning the car out of control.
“Tanner, this is…” She looks my way, then back to the car, gleaming red under the sun. “So cool. And so kind. Has your sister been in this car? I’m going to totally fangirl in there. Does she know you’re letting me use it?”
I avoid lying by mocking her instead. “It’s like no one ever loaned you anything, Annie.” But I’m delighted she likes it. Buzzing that she’s so happy.
“Can we take it out?” she asks.
“Sure, we’ve got Nelson,” Sas says.
So I take Annie out in the shiny new automatic that still smells of fresh leather. Without a shifter or a clutch to worry about, she’s a (marginally) smoother driver. Any worries I had about this gift being too much – or Colton thinking it’s too much – are obliterated. I can be kind without ulterior motive; I’m a grown man and a wealthy one.
When we get back to the ranch, Sonny and the team are back at the corral with the kids here on respite. Colton and I are pulled into requests for photographs and autographs, which is zero hardship. I swear I’ve never made so many people as happy in the space of a couple hours – outside a playoff game.
I’m focused on the kids but overhear as Annie tells Sas, “It’s so much easier in this car. Maybe the problem’s been the vehicle all along.”
Relatively, it’s true that she drove the Audi better than her daddy’s rusty truck. She didn’t commit a felony or get me covered in animal excrement. Would I trust her in a populated area, though? Ninety-nine percentno.
“Will you play football with us?” The request comes from a kid called Alvarez, who’s maybe ten or eleven, but the group all jump on it, begging Quinn and me for throw downs.
Colton and I will be heading to Florida with the squad bright and early tomorrow, so I could use an early night, but dinner turns into s’mores by the campfire.
Technically, I’m being forced to stay, since I’m reliant on Colton and Sas to get me back to the city but honestly, I have no qualms about it. If anything, I’m reluctant to head home to my own place where there’s nothing butGrand Theft Autowaiting for me.
I don’t do relationships during season. In fact, I don’t do relationships at all. I’ve always said there’ll be plenty of time for that when I retire. But this off-season was the least active with the ladies that I’ve had since I was a pimpled teen, and I think it’s Sas’s fault. Watching her and Colton fall for each other last season was…nice. It got me wondering what it would be like to have someone sitting on my sofa when I come home from my games or running me a bath of effervescent salts – preferably Bergamot scented.
I don’t know where these thoughts are coming from, but this is what I’m mulling over as I stare into the flames and floating embers of the campfire, listening to the camp leaders tell stories of dragons and witches.
