Wild Card: A College Sports Romance (Rake Forge University Series Book 1)

by Ashley Munoz

  I’d woken up from a nightmare the night prior, where instead of Trevor telling me I didn’t get the spot, it was my mom. I’d turned into a little girl, and the people in the room were all Minecraft characters.

  “Still, that fucker has a flat tire waiting for him.” Hillary tossed her spoon back into her pudding cup and angrily put it in my tiny garbage.

  “Hil, he’s not even worth your energy.” I closed my eyes and envisioned a peaceful lake. Suddenly Hillary was on the lake, in a kayak, waving at me. I opened my eyes.

  “Get your dad to whack him,” she whispered, sitting inches from my face.

  I closed my eyes tight and kicked my legs out from under me. “My dad isn’t in the mob.”

  “He’s a millionaire—don’t be a baby about this. Just tell him what happened, and I bet all on his own, he’ll decide to kill him.”

  “He’s not in the mob!” I yelled at her, standing up. I grabbed my shirt from the hem and tugged it over my head.

  “But he’s got the money to make him disappear, so just tell him. That’s all I’m saying.” She winked at me conspiratorially, lifting her hands in mock surrender. Hillary had met my dad a thousand times over the years, and she knew he wouldn’t hurt a fly. I had no idea why she kept going on about the mob.

  “What I need is an idea. I’m not giving up…I know I don’t have six months, but I can wrangle something together. I mean, I have to try.” I grabbed for my red hoodie and held it close to my chest, wishing it still held the power to feel lucky. Even if it wasn’t real, that feeling I’d once had was everything.

  “What you need is a new wardrobe.” She carefully tugged the hoodie off my body. I slapped her hand away.

  “I’m serious…hey, wait!” I snapped my fingers at her a few times, trying to remember what I’d heard. “What do you know about the Devils and their card game?”

  Hillary’s pink lips twisted as she pushed her black-rimmed glasses up her nose. “Um…not much. I think I heard they host a party of some kind, hand out these cards, but I don’t know what they do with them.”

  Shit. My shoulders slumped as the last piece of hope drifted out of me like air escaping a leaky balloon. My best friend came and sat next to me, putting her arm around me. She and Juan were the only two friends I didn’t have spatial anxiety with. They could touch me any time they wanted, and I wouldn’t freak out. That’s not to say we hadn’t had our issues, but now, we were past it.

  “Why are you suddenly asking about the Devils? You don’t do sports, babe.”

  I laughed; as if I needed that reminder, but it also felt good to have someone in my life who knew me in a way that I needed to be known.

  “Taylor got this card…it says home run on the back. She was invited to the party…or something.” I furrowed my brows, unsure of how to explain all the details she’d provided the day prior. “I also think I saw them meeting in the bar the other night, when I went with my classmates.”

  “You went without me?” She pinched me.

  “Ow!” I pinched her back. “Don’t pinch me…we were celebrating my article…” I trailed off, feeling so stupid for jinxing myself with that damn night. I should have just gone home and slept like a good introvert.

  “This might be why you didn’t get accepted.” She crossed her arms.

  I scoffed. “Seriously, Hil…you’re ridiculous.” I stood, moving to my door, knowing she’d follow after me.

  “You know I’m right. Don’t go places without me anymore,” she scolded while we treaded down the hall into the kitchen. On the back porch, we saw Taylor face timing someone, and in her hand was the card she’d gotten from the team.

  Hillary seemed to notice it too.

  With both our hips pinned to the sink, my best friend said, “You should write your story on the team and have your sister help you. It’s too convenient not to.” She turned toward me, her intelligent eyes bright with mischief.

  I let out a heavy sigh, facing the window and realizing this might be my only shot.

  “Taylor!” I elbowed the front door shut as I ambled toward the kitchen with my arms full. I had bought sushi and boba tea for my stepsister in hopes that she would be open to helping me.

  “Mal, you’re home early.” Taylor walked out of her room, hugging her sweater to her chest. I’d blown off my entire afternoon for this conversation, so yes, I was home early; part of me wanted to keep her in suspense just to see if she’d ask me why. I knew it didn’t come natural for her, but she needed to start getting past that issue and pretend to care about others.

  I didn’t have time to wait for her to care, though.

  “Taylor, I need you to do me a favor.”

  I handed her the food and tea I’d purchased for her, hoping to butter her up to do my bidding.

  “What’s going on…you have that look in your eye that you get when you’re brainstorming a new story lead.” She sat down on the coffee table, crossed her legs, and took a sip of her drink.

  “You’re going to the party tomorrow night, right?” I sat across from her, mentally struggling to push past my sensory issues. I lived with Taylor, so I didn’t feel the anxiety spike as much, unless we were crowded in a tight space…somewhat like we were now.

  “Yeah, of course.” She toyed with the blue straw in her cup and eyed the food bag to our left.

  “Okay…I need you to try to record some of what you see, or describe it into your recording app, or just call me so I can hear what’s going on while you’re there.”

  Her face scrunched in that unfavorable way. “What?”

  “Just hear me out,” I started cautiously, but I’d already lost her.

  She stood and let out some kind of scoffing sound, her blue eyes widened in shock. “I am not spying on the Devils for you.”

  “I don’t want to spy on them…I just want some insider info on the game.” I followed her around the living room like a lost puppy.

  “Is this game your next story lead?” The incredulous tone in her voice made me slightly flinch.

  “No, I just…” Shit, it would have been a good idea to think of something to say prior to this moment so I had an excuse or something other than spying. “I just want to be sure you’re safe.”

  “No way. I’m not that stupid, Mal. I know what you’re doing.” She wagged her finger at me, and my stomach bottomed out as the window for my potential story began to close.

  I licked my lips and tried a different tactic. “Look, Trevor shot down my last story, but he’s giving me one last chance to come up with something to be featured so Kline Global might pick me.”

  She rolled her eyes, and the sight of it hit me in the chest. “Just ask Dad! I don’t know why you do this to yourself. We both have the key to any job we want. You know what Dad would say in this situation.”

  It burned like acid eating away my esophagus to hear her call my dad her dad. I knew that it was dumb. He was a dad to her and the only one she’d ever known, but I didn’t have the same relationship with her mother. Not even close.

  “Tay, it’s not that simple. He can’t put in a good word for me with this one.”

  “He has stock in Kline Global, like he’s a pretty big shareholder—he could easily make this happen for you.” She crossed her arms defensively, her boba tea forgotten on the coffee table, sans coaster.

  “I don’t want that.” I swallowed down the thick need to justify my actions. It would just end up in a confusing argument that we both walked away from without hearing the other one out. She never understood why I tried so hard when we essentially held the keys to the kingdom. My father, a self-made millionaire, was the new king of the city and owned so much of the East Coast it was hard not to feel like the princess he was dying to make me. I worked hard to ensure I didn’t act like it, at least, but Taylor hated it when I did.

  “I know you don’t, but spying on the team and writing about them isn’t a good idea. I’ve heard stories about the team, Mal…” She stalked closer so we were eye to eye.
She quieted her voice too, like she wanted to be sure I heard her. “I’ve heard dangerous things about them, and you need to be careful.”

  “All the more reason for you not to go alone!” I stood, swinging my hand toward her. This was ridiculous.

  “I was invited, so I’ll be fine, but if you go snooping where you shouldn’t…I think that will end poorly for you, and I worry about you.” Her eyes pleaded with me to drop this, and for some reason, the look there made me wonder what she knew but wasn’t telling me.

  I held her gaze and slowly nodded my head in understanding.

  I’d drop it for the time being, but there had to be a way to get into that party.

  Chapter Four

  “You coming home this weekend?” my little brother Kyle asked, sounding a little too hopeful for my liking.

  I knew my sixteen-year-old brother liked when I was home, mostly because it distracted my mom from wherever it was he was sneaking off to.

  “I’m planning on it. I have something tonight, but tomorrow I’ll be there.” I grabbed the tennis ball my boss kept on his desk and squeezed it. He kept it around so he could bounce it off the wall while he made orders and bullshitted vendors about prices, but I always grabbed it when I needed to release some stress. It seemed to work better than the calming breaths Marcus still swore by.

  I hated the texture. It wasn’t leather, it wasn’t the right size or weight…I twisted my hand, seeing the scar that ran down the back from my pinky to my wrist. The surgeon had done a shit job on it, leaving the raised flesh looking more like the threading on a baseball than skin.

  Frankenstein. That was the name my teammates called me when they wanted to be dicks. I could still grip a ball, but I couldn’t throw like I used to. I’d been going to physical therapy appointments for half the year, working to get the functionality back in it. For the time being, I supported the team, stepped up to bat, played an outfield position…but that was basically it. Elias ruled the team, was now the starting and prized pitcher of the Devils…and I didn’t give a fuck. I had plans for the asshole.

  I blinked, focusing on the conversation.

  “Just…don’t do that thing where you talk to her about the house. She hates when you bring it up,” Kyle cautioned.

  Yeah, I already knew my mom was over me talking about selling the house, but she couldn’t afford the mortgage and I worried about her. I was so close to dropping out of school and moving back to help them out. I thought maybe I should…thought maybe it was what my dad would have wanted.

  No matter what, stick it out, Dugger. Just stay at it and finish well.

  “Yeah, I know,” I muttered in response.

  “’Kay, well, I gotta go. You still want me to do that thing tonight, right?”

  Shit. I was such an idiot for asking this of him, but… “Yeah, be careful. He can’t get seriously hurt.” My words were tight, careful. Incriminating.

  “I know. Not my first job, bro.”

  I let out a heavy sigh, wishing I was letting out a lungful of smoke. “Don’t fucking tell me that, Kyle. Don’t do that to Mom.”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t run anything when you were my age. I read the walls in the school locker room—Decker ‘Dugger’ James is written all over those fucking things.” He laughed, and it loosened something in my chest.

  I missed him.

  I thought of his light green eyes that were like mine, but different. His lighter hair matched our mother’s, and he was tall but still gangly. He was good though. Deep down, he was good. Better than me. The thought of him running deals or fixing races made my skin crawl.

  “Yeah, well maybe Scotty should just handle it.”

  My little brother scoffed. “Scotty would kill him.”

  That was true. I let out a heavy sigh.

  “Okay, just be careful.”

  “Will do, see you tomorrow,” he signed off and hung up.

  I squeezed the tennis ball a few more times before grabbing my apron and returning to my shift.

  Chapter Five

  I clasped my side as I limped home, hair matted to my cheek, sweat glistening on my reddening face. It wasn’t great and I was likely seconds from an early death, but I was out of options.

  When I got really stressed out, I ran. It probably wasn’t healthy to associate running with the stressful moments of my life, but here we were, me running like a murderer was after me, all so I could work out a way into that party.

  I had considered wearing a disguise, acting like a vendor of some kind, but I was fairly certain it wasn’t normal for beer vendors to attend team parties. I could have gone as a player, but I’d have needed to up my makeup game quite impressively. I thought maybe I could just try my luck at showing up and stay until I got kicked out…which was the current plan. Taylor refused to hang with me, which was rude, in my opinion, but I also understood it on a strange level.

  Opening my front door, I hobbled inside and nearly collapsed. I’d run six miles, and I was not a runner. It had taken me half the day, which was pretty embarrassing, but whatever. I could run the six miles; I didn’t think how fast really mattered. Unfortunately, I felt like my heart had caught fire and was about to plop out of my chest any second. I was breathing so hard I didn’t realize my stepsister was missing.

  Finally recovering, I flipped to my stomach and started crawling down the hall to her room.

  “Tay?” She should have been getting ready for the party. “Uh…Taylor, where are you?” I pushed her bedroom door open, but from my vantage point, it looked empty. Then I heard moaning coming from her bed. It wasn’t the happy kind of moaning, so I got to my feet and made it to the side of her mattress.

  Her room was a mixture of teal and white with a few golds thrown in, all perfectly designed on my father’s dime. My bedroom was a mashup of different thrift finds I’d acquired over the years, and the striking differences made me want to laugh. I wasn’t very good at spending my father’s money, and while I may have resented Taylor for having zero issues with it, at least her things matched and looked nice.

  “Tay, you okay?”

  A lump in the blankets revealed little except the blonde strands of her hair. I tentatively touched where her shoulder should have been and tried to get her to look at me.

  “Taylor?”

  She finally lowered the blankets.

  “Mal, I feel like death.” She sniffed and wiped her reddening nose with a Kleenex.

  No…she couldn’t look like this. “What happened?”

  “I think I must have just caught a bug. I have no idea, but there’s no way I can go tonight.” She blew her nose and coughed into her shirt.

  My heart turned to goo. My little stepsister didn’t do well with sickness, mostly because she was so spoiled, but also because her mother wasn’t very maternal when it came to things like this. I knew from when we were younger that she just wanted someone to take care of her.

  “Want me to call Bev, see if Gareth can come get you? It’s Friday, so you can go recover at home where they can take care of you.”

  Bev and Gareth maintained my father and stepmother’s estate while doing whatever else they needed. Bev cooked all the meals and cleaned the mansion, and Gareth drove my father and stepmother wherever they needed or wanted to go. They were really good to us, and I knew they’d come get Taylor in a heartbeat if needed.

  “Or I can take you myself if you want,” I offered, realizing she might not want anyone to see her like this.

  “No, I want you to go to the party tonight. I want you to get your story and come home and tell me about it. I will call Bev and see if she wouldn’t mind driving over some soup or something.”

  An objection was already on the tip of my tongue. Regardless of how badly I wanted into that party, taking her place wasn’t an option. I started to shake my head when Taylor reached over to the other side of her bedside table and grabbed her card.

  “Here…first, sanitize this so you don’t get sick.” She shoved the card in
my hand. “Then, I want you to call Hillary and have her come do your makeup and hair…and wear that one black dress you have in the back of your closet.”

  “It’s too—”

  “Short, I know,” she finished for me, shaking her head. “It looks like sin on you, and you don’t even know it. Do not wear that godawful shapewear you like to wear with it.”

  “It’s slimming…” I shrugged.

  “You don’t need it, and if you end up getting my home run, you don’t want him to have to use a knife to get you out of it.”

  I snorted. “I’m not taking your home run.”

  She swiped her matted hair away and let out a small laugh. “You want the story, Mal…go be the annoying reporter you are and scoop them. It’s not like they will ever give me a redo…that’s never happened, so we might as well put the card to use.”

  Her blue eyes stared at me, making sure I caught how serious she was. I let out a heavy swell of air, realizing she was right.

  “Are you sure?” I hated taking this from her, but then again…maybe this was a blessing in disguise if the guy on the other end of the card was a bad person or she could get hurt or something.

  “I’m sure. Go have fun tonight, and I will hopefully still be alive when you get home.”

  I stood, pushing some of her hair to the side. “Call Bev—you know she’d want to come take care of you.”

  My stepsister nodded weakly and turned over, pulling the covers over her head.

  I tucked a piece of rogue hair behind my ear and tried to stay calm. Running through the list in my mind, I shuffled forward in line. A massive three-story house loomed ahead of me. Bass boomed from its core, and plastic red cups were tilted up high in almost every direction I looked. Girls were giggling, wearing dresses so short I could see their ass cheeks, which looked cold.