Page 91 of Unrivaled

My parents leave me to my spinning thoughts after Ben and I get home, though I can tell they notice, because they keep exchanging looks. And my distraction follows me into the next day, making it difficult to focus on class. I keep missing whole slides in my World History class, so my notes are a mess. All I can do is hope the information is in the textbook, because Dr. Henderson is notoriously unsympathetic to people who miss information because they’re distracted.

Afterward, I bump into Autumn on the sidewalk. She gives me a wide grin at first. “Hey!” Then she almost does a double take, squinting as she examines me closely. “Yeah. You need to talk. Come on. Let’s get a coffee or something.” Grabbing my arm, she starts towing me to the door.

I let out a laugh, but go along with her. “Don’t you have class?”

She shakes her head. “Not right now. I have time.”

“Okay, but I can’t get a coffee. I have to pick up my son from preschool.”

“Oh, right. Fine. I’ll walk with you. But you’ll have to make it snappy.”

The early March sunshine filters through the still bare tree branches as we walk, and I fill her in on everything between Gray and me, starting with when he kissed me the first time since reappearing and ending with the invitation to move in with him here and join him wherever he ends up.

By the time we get to that point, we’re next to a building that blocks my view of where I typically meet Gray so we can pick up Ben together. I’m sure he’s there waiting for me already.

Autumn studies my face as she mulls over everything I’ve told her. “What do you want to do?” she asks at last.

I collapse in on myself, my shoulders slumping, my spine curving. “I don’t know. If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here spilling all these details to you.”

She grins. “Yeah, you still would. You’d just be more settled about it. But I dunno. I think you have a good idea of what you want. If he were staying, would you want to be with Gray?”

“Yes.” The answer pops out, clear and immediate.

She nods. “Okay. Good. So … why not move with him? You’d get to be with him, and it seems like you want that.”

“But what about school? And what about Ben?”

“What about Ben?” she repeats, sounding utterly reasonable. “You’d be giving him regular access to his father, which is important for a child. And you’d make new friends and find a new preschool. Probably the other players’ wives and girlfriends could give you recommendations. I’m sure Gray won’t be the only one with a preschooler, no matter where he ends up.”

She makes it sound so simple. I open my mouth to say something else, but she continues before I can.

“And what about school? Is Gray asking you to drop out?”

I shrug. “He didn’t actually say that. He didn’t mention school at all. He talked about living arrangements, and then Ben came in demanding attention, and we haven’t talked really at all since then.”

She gives me an exasperated look. “Then don’t make assumptions. You said he was basically willing to bend over backward to give you the living arrangements you want. You think he’d object to you finishing your degree?”

“But I’d be leaving. I couldn’t keep going to Marycliff.”

“Yeah, and? Number one, that’s not necessarily true. You should look at what else you have to take and talk to your advisor. You might be able to finish online. And if not, transfer. If that’s the only thing holding you back, there are solutions to that problem. And hey, if it doesn’t work out, if you end up hating Gray and never want to see him again, you can always move back home with your parents, right?”

“I guess,” I say slowly.

She nods, like everything’s solved. “Well, there you go. I think you just solved your own problem.”

Wait. Did I? Could it really be that easy?

It couldn’t.

Could it?

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Gray

I check my phone, wondering what’s keeping Tiffany. She usually beats me to our meeting spot, and she’s always been super anal about being on time to pick up Ben. And for good reason. So that’s why her being late—for her—is so surprising.

Is everything alright? She wouldn’t ditch me … would she?

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