One Wrong Move

by Meredith St. James

  "I love her name."

  "Me too," Ronnie agreed softly. "Her last name included."

  "You never regretted giving her my last name?"

  "No, never."

  "Hmm."

  "Travis," she whispered. Stella started squirming, and Ronnie had to let her down. Her little legs carried her as fast as they could over the length of the field. I held my breath when she tripped, but she quickly got up again and kept moving.

  "I was mad when you left. You didn't even give me a chance, y'know? I came to see you in the hospital, and you asked me to leave. I thought you just needed a few days, but then you were gone for real. No one knew where you'd gone or how to get ahold of you."

  "I know." She blinked hard.

  "Nathan was the reason charges got dropped against me."

  "Wait, what?" I'd thoroughly surprised her with that bombshell.

  I nodded slowly. "You know his dad was a big-time lawyer?"

  "I vaguely remember that."

  "Well, Nathan went to his big-shot dad and pointed out that if I went down for the drunk driving, then there was a chance everyone else was going down with me. Nathan was the one that had thrown that party. He convinced his dad that the last thing they needed was anyone poking around in their business."

  "His dad actually went for that?"

  "He did after Nathan admitted we'd only left because he was harassing you. That's why I was helping Kylie address her own partying issues. I sort of felt like I owed at least that after what her brother did."

  "Ugh. Is it awful of me to say I hate that Nathan was the one that took up for you?"

  "I hated it, too." I shrugged. "But not nearly as much as I hated how guilty I felt about what had happened."

  "The accident was partly my fault, too."

  "Oh, I know." And I was more than a little relieved to hear that she'd somehow come to terms with that as well. "The thing I really felt guilty for wasn't the wreck. It was for not protecting you when you'd needed it. I'd never gone to bed without you before. I don't know what the hell I was thinking when I left you up alone that night. I should have stayed with you until you were ready to go to bed, too. We both knew those parties weren't exactly safe."

  She flinched.

  "What?" I asked.

  "I told you to go to bed without me."

  "No, you didn't."

  "Yes, I did." She looked completely certain, but I didn't remember that at all. I'd been drinking pretty heavily that whole night. I tried to scan my brain for any memory of her telling me to go to bed, but it wasn't there.

  Ronnie nervously twirled her finger around her hair.

  "I seriously don't remember that at all."

  "Kylie wouldn't stop following you around the party. I was jealous and pissed off. I left to go to the bathroom and when I came back she was hanging all over you. You didn't even seem to notice her really, but it made me so mad."

  My brain kicked into gear. A flash of a memory overwhelmed me as my mind finally filled in the blanks from the story Ronnie was telling.

  "What do you want me to do, Veronica?"

  "I want you to go to bed, Travis, that's what I want you to do."

  "Are you coming?"

  "Soon," she'd promised.

  "That's really what you want me to do?"

  "Yes! I'm tired of watching her pant after you like a dog."

  I rubbed my aching head. "What a mess."

  "Yeah, what a mess," she agreed. "Where do we go from here?"

  I stared at Ronnie hard. We'd been through a lot in a very short amount of time—or over the span of a long time, depending on how you looked at it. The last few weeks with her had made me start to imagine my future with her in it. Not just as someone I was sharing a kid with, but as someone I was sharing a life with. As a teenager, I'd made a lot of shit choices, but Veronica had never been one of them.

  "I don't want a re-do or a start-over, Ronnie. All I want is to move forward. The way we should have done a long time ago. Can we do that?"

  "I want that so much. Can you forgive me for what I did?"

  "There's nothing to forgive, not really. We were young. I don't think either one of us understood what sort of impact our choices could have. This time around, I think we know exactly what's at stake between us."

  Our eyes both drifted to Stella, who had at some point made herself comfortable on the blanket in the middle of the field. She was fast asleep on the edge of it.

  "I never gave her a nap," I realized. "I was so busy worrying about what to do with our time that I completely forgot I should have let her nap."

  Ronnie tossed her head back and laughed. "I'd say she's out for the night, then. So, how about a movie?" She grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the blanket. "I even brought snacks."

  Wearily, I eyed the movie screen, remembering the story she'd told to go along with the set-up. "You're not actually gonna make me watch a movie in black and white, are you?"

  "Hell no," Ronnie snorted. She reached into the basket and held up a projector remote and a stack of movie cases. "I was thinking action movie marathon."

  Grinning, I reached for her and hugged her against me. It had only been a few days without her, but it had felt like a lifetime. Never again did I want to have to be without her, not for a few days, and certainly not longer than that. Ronnie might not have been perfect, but I really believed that we were perfect together.

  I brushed her hair back from her face. "No more running, right?"

  "No more running," she vowed.

  Veronica

  The late summer sun warmed my skin as I kept my eyes trained on the field. Vinnie had coached football for as long as I could remember. Never had I been as excited to watch him in action as I was at that moment. Stella was balanced on the edge of her seat next to me, the excitement rolling off of her as well.

  Out on the field, her daddy was strutting his stuff.

  Vinnie had already given me the run down. Travis was good, but the scouts weren't sure about him yet. Whether or not he'd be able to get drafted before his senior year was yet to be seen. I was torn about it, myself. I'd follow Travis anywhere, but I had to admit that I'd developed a soft spot for Kelley. Wren and Travis were back for good now that we were so close to the semester starting. Laurel had loosened up a little—though her choice in clothes hadn't—and had managed to merge seamlessly into our little group.

  I'd spent so many years struggling to make friends. It was a little ironic that the place I'd finally found my people was in a city known for being snooty and elite. Life was funny that way.

  "The team looks really good, don't they?"

  I turned to find Gabby walking down the stadium stairs to join me. She'd had a meeting about one of her books possibly getting turned into a movie. I hadn't been sure that she'd make it, even though Vinnie had adamantly told me she would.

  "Your meeting is already over?"

  "Not exactly." She laughed. "I told them I had somewhere to be, that they'd have to call me to hash everything else out. No way was I missing the entire first practice."

  Technically, neither of us should have been there. Officially speaking, it was a closed practice. There were definite perks to being related to the head coach.

  I'd gotten to meet John Kasey for the first time before the practice had started. When I'd introduced myself, there had been a knowing gleam in his eye that told me he already knew exactly who I was. He'd given Stella an equally warm welcome, baby-talking with her in a way that I hadn't expected from a grown man.

  "The team looks good. I know Vin was worried about how they would feel about him coming in unexpectedly, but they all seem to like him."

  "That's good." Gabby squinted out at the field. "I can't say I'm surprised, though. He mentioned none of the staff had many nice things to say about the last coach. I figured the players would feel about the same."

  It was funny hearing Gabby be so knowledgeable about my brother's job. From the time I'd met her, I'd assumed she had
no interest in what he did. I should never have judged her like that. Not only did she keep up with all the details of Vinnie's job, but she genuinely liked the sport, too. I wasn't sure if I'd ever met anyone who knew more about football than Gabby did. She probably could have coached the team herself if she'd wanted to.

  "How was the first night in the new apartment?" My cheeks heated. "That good, huh?" She laughed.

  "I missed you guys," I admitted softly.

  "We missed you, too. I think it'll be good for the two of you to have some space. You can figure out your all's own way of doing things. It's hard to do that when you're stuck working around other people."

  I knew exactly what she meant. It was something all of us had been doing. I'd been forcing Gabby and Vinnie to plan their lives around Stella and I. I'd been planning my life around them. Travis had been planning his life around the other guys in the football house. She was right, it was hard constantly having to figure out what other people's plans were.

  That was why Travis and I had gotten an apartment together.

  My parents hadn't been thrilled by the news that Travis was back around and moving in with me. Gabby had helped to smooth things over with them. She seemed to have a knack for it. In the end, my parents had offered to help us pay for the apartment. I think their guilt about rarely visiting had played a part in that.

  "What did you decide about the art classes?"

  I made a face. "I'm not gonna do it."

  "Are you sure?" Gabby seemed surprised. I knew everyone had been guessing that I was going to cave and end up enrolling at the last minute.

  "I'm gonna stick around at The Burgundy for a while. Hazel's been helping teach me to cook."

  That time, Gabby made the face.

  "I'm not that bad!" I protested with a laugh.

  "If you tell me you're thinking about becoming a chef then I might have to stage an intervention."

  "Gosh, no. I like working for Hazel, though. Much more than I like the idea of being strapped into a schedule of going to classes every day. I like art well enough, but I don't really want to make a career out of it. I'd like to go back to school at some point, but not until I've decided what I want to do. There's no use wasting money for me to get a degree that I don't even end up wanting in the end."

  "I think that's smart. And hey, if you ever want to try your hand at writing romance novels…"

  My cheeks flushed all over again. I'd gotten a sneak peek at the new book Gabby had been working on. It was absolutely filthy. There was no way I could sit and write something like that myself. It had given me some interesting bedroom ideas to try out, though.

  "Wave! Wave!" Stella started shouting.

  I glanced down at the field to find Travis and Vinnie side-by-side waving to us. Gabby and I both raised our hands to wave back. Stella had us both beat, waving both of her hands so excitedly that she nearly fell out of her seat.

  My heart had never felt more full. I'd gotten everything I'd ever wanted.

  Travis

  "She's not ready," I insisted.

  "No, you're not ready."

  "Same thing."

  "That's not even remotely the same thing."

  Ronnie rolled her eyes at me as I tried to block the door to the school. I was considerably bigger than her—especially with all the muscle I'd put on since I'd started training with a pro team—so it was working out quite well for me. At least, it was until she kicked me in the shin.

  "Sh—" Ronnie glared. "Shoot," I spit out, instead of the word I'd actually been about to say.

  "This is happening today. We're not having a do-over of yesterday."

  I whistled casually like I had no idea what she was talking about.

  "Don't even start with me. Half a dozen other parents ratted you out. If you were gonna be sneaky about it then you probably shouldn't have honked and waved as you drove by."

  "She wasn't ready."

  "She's ready."

  "That's not what she told me yesterday." I crossed my arms with a smug smile on my face.

  "Because you bribed her by telling her you'd get her ice cream if she said it."

  My smirk fell. Damn, our kid was a total tattletale. She was never getting bribery ice cream from me again. Actually, that was a total lie. No doubt I'd be trying the same thing within a week. I liked the whole schtick that we got going every time Ronnie deemed something Stella and I had done together as naughty.

  "What if she gets cooties?"

  "That's not a real thing. Now, stop stalling. This is happening."

  "It didn't yesterday," I reminded her.

  "Which is exactly why I'm here today instead of trying to send you by yourself again."

  Ronnie had asked me to take Stella to her first day of pre-school the day before because she hadn't been able to get off work. I'd taken the initiative to feed her ice-cream at ten in the morning, instead. I'd somehow managed to convince myself that starting pre-school was basically a one-way highway to my little girl getting her first boyfriend, and going to high school, and then getting married and leaving me forever. Yeah, I'd taken quite the leap in my mind.

  When everyone had gotten home that night, Ronnie hadn't been thrilled. She'd known something was up when I never sent the first-day videos I'd promised her, and her suspicions had been confirmed when all the neighborhood mommies had started texting to see why I'd done a drive-by with Stella instead of dropping her off.

  "Maybe we could try again tomorrow?" I suggested hopefully.

  A gentle tugging on the hem of my shirt drew my attention. Stella was standing next to me with a very serious expression. She'd recently gotten glasses to help correct a minor eye issue, which only made her look even more mature than usual.

  "Time for pre-school, daddy."

  "Do we have to?" I over-exaggerated my pouting until she giggled.

  "You don't have to do anything," Ronnie said. "But Stella is going to school."

  Stella nodded to confirm that she was on board with the plan. "Traitor," I leaned down and whispered.

  "I heard that." Ronnie rolled her eyes at me.

  Ronnie took Stella's hand in hers to guide her into the building. I followed them in, still prepared to make a quick getaway with my baby if the chance arose. Not that I would get the chance, considering Ronnie kept a tight grip on Stella. She'd grown used to my shenanigans, so much so that she's started to predict what I was going to do before I ever did. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she'd anticipated me letting Stella skip the first day all along.

  The pre-school room was the first door we came to. Ronnie kneeled down in front of Stella. "Are you ready, sweet pea?"

  "I'm really ready, Mommy."

  Agitation had started to slip into Stella's voice. She was probably getting tired of us raising such a fuss. She'd been asking about starting school for the past six months. Ronnie and I were the ones that had struggled to get on-board.

  "Are you sure you don't want to go get ice cream again, instead?" I pleaded.

  "No." Stella started backing away towards the classroom door.

  The teacher—probably having heard us in the hallway—stepped out of the room. "Oh, Stella. We wondered if you'd be showing up today!" The woman shot a pointed look at me. Fuck, I'd have to remember how gossipy the new town was. It didn't look like I'd be getting away with anything any time soon.

  "Hi, Ms. Leslie," Stella greeted the woman sweetly.

  "Come on in honey, we were just getting ready to read a story."

  Stella bounced right into the room, her plain black backpack getting slung all over the place in the process. We'd tried so hard to convince her to pick out a more colorful one to match what her classmates would have, but she'd refused. Just like her parents, Stella seemed to have no interest in fitting in. It had become a source of pride for the two of us.

  "We love you!" Ronnie and I both called out at the same time. We turned to each other and shared a laugh. We'd become quite the helicopter parents together. We were gonna h
ave to get used to letting go a little now that Stella had reached pre-school.

  Ah, who the hell was I kidding? Helicopter parents for life.

  Want to be the first to hear about new releases and special offers? Subscribe to the Meredith St. James newsletter.

  Also by Meredith St. James

  The Kelley University Series

  One Good Play (Kelley University #1)

  Kelley University #3 — Coming Summer 2018

  ONE GOOD PLAY

  (KELLEY UNIVERSITY #1)

  She’s gotten used to being on her own. He feels like he’s constantly surrounded. One good play could bring them together, but only if their fears don’t tear them apart.

  Wren expects Kelley University to be like every other place she’s ever been: a passing adventure. What she wasn’t counting on was Carter Scott.

  As a starting quarterback, Carter is used to getting far more attention than he likes. All he wants is a quiet year with no more questions about his plans to go pro. That’s before he sees Wren for the first time.

  They don’t make sense together. She’s a well-traveled social butterfly. He’s an introvert content to stay in one place. Sometimes opposites attract.

  But Wren’s past can’t stay buried forever. When her secrets threaten everything the two of them have built, she’ll have to decide if she’s ready to stay—or if it’s time to go.

  Carter

  I could never get used to seeing a front lawn littered with half-empty beer cans and sorority girl vomit. I dodged a group of giggling coeds on the walkway leading up to the front door.

  “Carter Scott is very hot!” one of them shouted out in a singsongy voice that grated on my nerves.

  It was the same stupid chant the cheerleaders had started the first time I took the field freshman year. All I’d wanted was to be taken seriously on the football field. It was the one place where no one could force me to sit through yet another painfully drawn out conversation. People were always so freaking chatty. All people except for me, it seemed. That stupid cutesy chant had somehow made me seem more approachable. That was enough to make it officially the worst thing that had ever happened to me.