The Goal (Off-Campus Book 4)

After I get off the plane in Dallas, Mom is waiting at the bottom of the escalator with three balloons. You’d think I was coming home from the battlefield instead of a posh Eastern college.

“Look at you!” she cries.

I pick her up and swing her around before setting her back on her feet. She leans in, the familiar smell of hairspray and ammonia wafting up.

“What should I be looking at?” I tease.

She gives me a sappy mom smile before wrapping one thin arm around my waist and squeezing. “How handsome you are. You look wonderful.”

I shrug as we begin to make our way to the exit. “I feel pretty good.”

“Thank goodness. I thought you’d be depressed over how your season is going.” Our games aren’t televised often, but she follows the results online.

“Is that what the balloons are for?”

“Did you think the balloons are for you? Because they’re not.”

“Is that why the silver one says ‘Welcome Home, Son’?”

“It was discounted. I would’ve bought the ‘I’m the Greatest Mom in the World,’ but it cost five dollars more.”

“Man, the patriarchy is even ruining balloon sales?”

Thrusting the attached streamers toward me, she laughs. “It’s a terrible world, which is why we need balloons.”

“This feels suspiciously like the pink apron incident,” I say in mock protest, but I take the balloons anyway and bend down to press a kiss on the top of her head. Like the pink apron my roommates gave me, carrying a few balloons through the airport isn’t going to dent my ego.

“If I were you, I’d give them all something pink in return.”

I contemplate the pink dildo that Dean likes to take baths with. “That’s not a bad idea. I’ve got to pick up a few gifts before I head back. I’ll make sure everything I buy is either pink or full of glitter. Both, if possible.” Garret and Logan would die laughing at the thought of giving Dean a pink, glittering dildo. I make a mental note to text the guys later.

“You didn’t check a bag?” she asks as we bypass the baggage carousels.

“No, ma’am.” I don’t need to look at her face to know she’s disappointed. “You know I’ve got to get back for practice. Even if the season is sucking wind, I’m still required to lace ’em up. That’s the price of my scholarship.”

My busy schedule during the holidays has always been a source of dismay for my mother, who goes all out celebrating stuff. She lives for Christmas, which is why I made the trek home even though a lot of the guys stayed back at Briar.

“I thought maybe because this is your last year and you guys weren’t doing well, that you’d be allowed to spend the entire break with me.”

“Doesn’t work that way. Besides, soon I’ll be underfoot all the time and you’ll be begging me to leave,” I warn her.

But even as I say it, my mind zips back to Sabrina. She’s going to be in Boston for the next three years. I wonder how we’re going to make that work.

I wonder if she even wants to make it work.

It’d be a lot easier if we’d met last year. Or hell, even last semester, but we’ve only got a few more months where we’ll be in the same zip code, and for reasons I’m not fully prepared to examine, especially with Mom at my side, the coming distance between us bothers the shit out of me.

I fight the urge to climb back on the plane and return to Boston. But I’ll have to settle for texting, phone calls, and maybe if I’m lucky, a little video chatting. I’d like to see how she uses her toy when I’m not around.

I nearly run into Mom’s SUV, lost in my thoughts about Sabrina and her vibrator. I clear my throat. “Mind if I drive?”

She tosses me the keys. “I’d never complain about you being around too much. You know I’d love it if you came back and lived with me.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening. No woman alive wants to go out with a guy who lives with his mom,” I say, holding the door open for her.

She climbs in with a frown. “What’s wrong with living with your mother?

“Everything, and you know it.” Then I lean forward and press another kiss on her forehead to take away the sting.

During the four-hour ride home from Dallas, she catches me up on the local gossip of Patterson. “Maria Solis’s daughter is home from UT. She gets her hair cut in Austin now, but she still has the nicest manners. She stopped in the other day just to say hi.”

I nod absently, wondering if I had invited Sabrina to come home with me for the holidays if she would have said yes. I figured the invitation would be unwelcome, not just because she’d view it as a sign we were moving too fast, but because she needs the money from work. Before I left, she was nearly beside herself with happiness about the time and a half she was going to be making.

“You should ask her out.” Mom’s voice penetrates my daydreams again.

“Who?” I ask.

“Maria Solis’s daughter,” she replies impatiently.

I glance away from the road to give her an incredulous stare. “You want me to date Daniela Solis?”

“Why not? She’s gorgeous and smart.” Mom sits back in her seat and crosses her arms.

“She’s also gay.”

Her mouth falls open. “Dani Solis is gay?”

“I guess the appropriate term is lesbian,” I say, remembering my gender studies course.

“No,” my mother protests. “She’s far too beautiful.”

“Mom, beautiful girls can be lesbians.”

“Are you sure? Maybe she’s bi. I know they say kids experiment in college.”

“She took Cassie Carter to prom! You did both their hair.”

“I thought they were friends.”

“They had to go as friends because the prom folks wouldn’t let them attend as a couple.”

The small West Texas town I grew up in is a tad on the conservative side. Dani and Cassie were friends, only ones that kissed and felt each other up in the hallway. And drove every teenage boy in eyeballing distance right out of their ever loving minds. I’d spent many a teenage night fantasizing about the things those two girls did in private. It was probably inappropriate, but the majority of my thoughts from about age ten to seventeen fell into the inappropriate category.

Mom slumps in her seat. She’d obviously worked out an elaborate plan in her mind about Dani and me getting together.

“Remember when I told you that I met a girl?” I say slowly, deciding that I better get this out there now before she starts trying to pair me off with every single girl in Patterson.

“Oh?” Her voice is guarded. “I thought it wasn’t a thing?”

“It is now. Look, you’d like her. She’s got perfect grades, works two jobs, and just got accepted into Harvard Law.”

“Harvard? Isn’t that in Boston?”

The worry is heavy in her voice. I get it. She’s concerned that if I fall for a girl in Boston, I won’t move back home, which is why she sprang the Dani Solis thing on me before we even finished the drive home.

“Yeah. Cambridge.” I can’t even give her assurances, because at this point, I don’t know what I’m doing about Boston, Patterson, or any of it. The only thing I’m sure of is that I want to be with Sabrina.

“How long is law school?”

“Three years.” AKA too long to be separated.

“Your plan is still to come home and buy a business, right? I was talking with Stewart Randolph the other day. You remember him? He owns the real estate business over on Pleasant. He’s thinking of retiring, and that kid of his doesn’t want to move from Austin. It sounds like Randy would be interested in entertaining offers.”

I grip the steering wheel a little tighter. Sabrina asked if anything got to me. Well, making my mom unhappy is on the top of that list. But the idea of buying Stewart Randolph’s real estate business might be a close second. In fact, the actual idea of sitting in Randolph’s office, wearing a tie every day, makes my skin itch. I’ve got some ideas about what I’m going to do when I graduate and being a realtor isn’t one of them, particularly in Patterson, population 10,000.

“I’ll talk to him,” I hear myself saying.

“Good.” At least someone’s satisfied. “Oh, by the way, the Solises are coming to dinner tonight.”

“Jesus Christ, Mom.”

“Don’t curse, John.”

I drag in a deep breath and pray for patience, wondering when I’ll be able to text Sabrina.

*

“My mom has officially dubbed you a ‘good catch.’” Dani takes a seat next to me on the back steps of the small two-story house where I’ve lived all my life.

I tap my glass of sangria against hers. “That’s solid. I’m going to put that on my Tinder profile.”

“She also says that you have a secret cache of money that you’ll shower on me when I provide you the requisite firstborn.” Dani’s grin stretches from ear to ear. She’s clearly loving this.

“My mother told me you were gorgeous and smart.” I stifle a sigh, thinking of the other gorgeous and smart girl who I haven’t gotten to text since I sent her the I landed hours ago.

Her response of Yay! Glad to hear it isn’t providing me with my necessary Sabrina daily intake. I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder, because I miss the shit out of her.

“And you said?”

I jerk my attention back to my friend. “That I thought you were a lesbian and Mom replied that maybe you were bi.”

This sets Dani off. She folds in half, laughing so hard that the sangria spills all over the rim.

I lift the glass out of her hand so I don’t get showered with the drink, and set it on my other side. It takes a while for Dani to get her shit together, so I finish my drink and then down the rest of hers.

“Tuck, I’m sorry,” she gasps, wiping a wine-drenched hand across her face. “The idea of Mama Tucker hoping that I’m bisexual so we can pair up is just too funny.”

“Good thing I’m confident about my appeal,” I say dryly. “Or all this cackling might’ve made my balls shrivel.”

Dani sobers up immediately. “Oh hell, did I offend you? Do you…have feelings for me?”

“Nope, and I’m not saying you aren’t a babe, because you are, but I’ve known you swing a certain way since we were in junior high.”

“Yeah, I’ve always known.” She bites her lip. “Was your mom upset?”

“She didn’t think less of you, if that’s what you’re asking. She’s just disappointed.”

Dani gives me a pensive nod. “Patterson is so small-minded, you know? I’m okay for a visit, but I could never live here.” She punctuates her declaration with a shiver of distaste. “I’m surprised you’re coming back.”

“Why’s that?”

“Tuck, you play hockey.” She says the last word like it has extra meaning, but I’m dumb, so I have to ask for an explanation.

“There’s a hockey team in Dallas,” I remind her. “It’s not that unusual.”

“It is too. This is a football state, but no, you, a Texas boy, love the ice and cold. I’m surprised you aren’t staying up in Boston.”

I kick out my legs and peer up at the darkening sky. Patterson’s one of those relic towns—once it was self-sustaining, but nearly all of the small businesses were squeezed out by regional stores that offered cheaper prices and more choices. Most folks who live here either farm or work at the tractor plant two towns over. Living in Boston is something I’ve thought about, but every time I’ve brought it up to my mother in the last four years, she’s rejected the idea.

“Mom loves it here. This is my daddy’s house that he bought when they were married.” I pat the steps. “She doesn’t want to leave it.”

“So there’s no one you met at Briar? You spent four years there and are just coming home to settle in and be Patterson’s number-one realtor?” She holds up her index finger and deepens her voice.

Gotta admit, that doesn’t sound good. “You know about those plans too?”

“Yeah, that was part of the sales pitch. Along with your huge bank account, you’d be able to keep me in luxury for the rest of our lives by selling houses in this place. The good news for your mom is that every single girl in Patterson would give their left tit to be John Tucker’s woman.”

There’s only one girl I want to slap that label on, and I’m not entirely certain she wants it.

“I’ve got a girl back in Briar,” I confess. Talking about Sabrina makes her feel a little closer. Man, I’ve gotten sappy. I guess I don’t care that I am, because I pull out my phone. “Wanna see?”

Dani nods eagerly.

I thumb to a picture I took of Sabrina at a pub where we grabbed dinner the last time I drove up to see her. Her dark hair is loose and cascading down her shoulders, and her eyes are gleaming impishly because she’d just smacked my ass as we were leaving.

“Jesus, she’s hot!” Dani grabs my phone to pinch and zoom, first on Sabrina’s face and then the rest of her body. “Are you sure she’s not bi? Because it’s a crime that she has to suffer through life with a man.”

“Hey, I’m good with my tongue.”

Dani gives me a somewhat contemptuous look. “No man is ever as good at oral as a lesbian. It’s a scientific truth.”

“Yeah? Then spill your secrets, Solis. If not for me, then for poor Sabrina.”

Dani’s lips curve into a sexy smile. “You know what? I will.”

And then she proceeds to give me a very graphic lesson in what makes good oral.