The Goal (Off-Campus Book 4)

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I apologize as I slide into a chair at Della’s.

Carin and Hope already have their drinks, and by the pool of condensation on the table, I’m later than I realized. Or they were early. Ever since Jamie was born, I have a hard time getting anywhere on time.

“Where’s the baby?” Carin asks, dismissing my tardiness with an airy wave of her hand.

“She’s with Nana.” I grab the menu, quickly searching it for the juiciest, meatiest thing I can find.

Both girls pout. “We wanted to see the baby!” Hope cries.

“Yeah. The whole point is for you to bring Jamie so we can coo over her. I’m almost done with the booties.” Carin pulls out a mess of yarn that looks nothing like a shoe or even a sock.

“What is that thing?” I lay down the menu to get a better view of the object she’s holding up. It’s kind of like the wool equivalent of Logan’s horrifying teddy bear.

“It’s a sock. Is it too big or too small?” She stretches it out and I vaguely see something shiplike in the mess.

“It’s…are you sure that’s a sock?”

Hope giggles behind her menu.

Carin scowls at me. “Have you ever tried knitting? It’s hard as fuck, thank you very much.” With a sniff, she stuffs the mottled mess in her bag.

“Besides knitting, which I do appreciate, how’s MIT?”

Hope lights up. “Carin knocked beard off her bucket list.”

“Nice.” I give her a thumbs-up. “Tell me about it.”

“Nah, it’s nothing.” Carin lifts the menu up to hide her face.

“Mr. Beard is Carin’s TA,” Hope explains. “She thinks you’ll be pissed.”

“He’s not my TA,” Carin objects.

“Okay, fine,” Hope relents. “He’s the TA in another class, which Carin will likely take next year.”

“Eh. I’m fine with it.” I pick up my menu again and study my choices.

I’m torn between the burger with blue cheese and the Philly steak sandwich. Can I even eat blue cheese? I lower the menu to ask Hope, only to find my friends staring at me.

“What?” My eyes drop to my chest in a panic. “Am I leaking?” No, my shirt is dry, thank God. Those little silicon nip pads are working great.

“We thought for sure you’d be upset over this because of the Dean thing,” Carin explains.

“Dean and I kind of made up.” If me breaking down and Dean giving me awkward pats on the back counts as making up. Which, in my book, does. Plus, as far as I know, he hasn’t said a word to Tucker about the fact that I’m madly in love with the guy.

“Well, that’s good.”

The waitress shows up and we all order. Hope gets a salad, Carin orders soup and salad, and I order the Philly cheesesteak with a side of fries because I’m so hungry.

“How’s med school?” I ask Hope.

“It’s going okay. The course load is crushing.”

“I hear you.”

“Med school is sapping all my energy to the point that I don’t have time for D’Andre. He keeps talking about skiing from sunup to sundown over Christmas break, and all I want to do is lie in front of the lodge fireplace and sleep. I don’t know how you’re doing it.”

“I wouldn’t be able to do it without Tucker. He’s always there. Well, most of the time,” I correct. Because lately, he’s been really busy and I’ve been quietly panicking.

Hope frowns. “Oh no. Is there trouble in paradise?”

“No, not really. He’s doing more than I ever dreamed of, actually. It makes me feel guilty.”

“Oh fuck that,” Carin says. “This is his kid too. Is he slacking off? Because I will kick his ass from here to the harbor for you.”

“No, not at all. It’s…” I pause, hesitant to give my fear a voice, as if saying the words will make them true. But these two are my closest friends, so I give in to the urge. “I think he’s found someone else.”

“No.” Hope denies it immediately. “When would he have the time? You said he comes over almost every night and you see him on the weekends too.”

“That’s just it. Before, he was around all the time, but in the past couple weeks, he’s been really busy.”

“Maybe there’s a bunch of builders trying to get projects done before the snow comes,” Carin suggests. “And so everyone’s working double shifts or something.”

“Maybe.” I heave a sigh. “It’s not just that he’s not around as much. He’s distracted and quiet, more so than usual. I feel like he wants to tell me something but is afraid of how I’ll take it.”

“Just come out and tell him you love him,” Hope orders, shaking her fork at me. “Actually, I’m shocked you haven’t slipped up and done it already. Even in texts and stuff.”

“It’s beyond hard,” I admit. “The other day he was reaching for a glass of water and his shirt slipped up and I almost dropped to my knees with lust. And when he’s with Jamie? It becomes nearly impossible. He was sitting on the couch the other night, feeding her. And I started to say I love you and caught myself, but not before I had the first two words out. I ended up saying I love your socks.”

“I love your socks?” Carin exclaims.

“It’s beyond ridiculous. I know.”

“Why don’t you just tell him?”

“Because if I tell him, then he’ll feel bound to me. He’s so honorable and so decent, he won’t even look at another woman.”

“Just come out and ask him if he’s seeing anyone. If he says no, then tell him you want him all to yourself,” Carin advises. “If he says yes, at least you know. It’s better to know than to drive yourself nuts wondering.”

“Certainty is best,” Hope agrees.

I give them a tight smile and change the subject by asking Carin more about the hot, bearded TA she’s currently banging. She happily obliges, although all the sex talk reminds me of how little of it I’ve had lately. It was hard to find a position that was comfortable before I had the baby, and now that the six-week ban has been lifted, I’m not sure I want Tucker seeing my body. He’s used to hot, college girls with zero body fat and abs of steel. I’m more like abs of Jell-O at this point.

Our food finally arrives. I dig in, under the pretense that I’m starving, but mostly I’m hiding from my friends because I don’t agree with their advice. Knowing Tucker loves someone else will break me.

I’d rather go my whole life in limbo than have him tell me that he’s fallen in love with a woman who isn’t me.

*

When I get home, Nana is napping with Jamie, allowing me to get a few hours of studying in before dinner. Ray’s on the sofa, blaring the television, which means I can’t read in the kitchen. I’m getting tired of being shut in my cramped bedroom with the crib, my twin bed, and a thousand and five baby items, but I don’t have much of a choice. Sticking a pair of earplugs in, I manage to read through all of my crim law and torts before I hear the thin wail of my hungry child.

“You home, Sabrina?” Nana calls through the door.

I hop up and greet her. “Yup. Got home a couple hours ago. You two were sleeping.” I reach out and pluck Jamie from her arms. My baby doll whimpers and roots around, mouthing me over my shirt. “I better feed her.”

“You do that. I’m going to run to the store for a few things. We’re almost out of milk and cheese.”

“’Kay.” I start to close the door, but Nana stops me.

“You should get out of there,” she says, peering over my shoulder into the confined space. “You’ll go nuts.”

“It’s fine,” I reply, even though she’s right. The room is feeling smaller every day.

She shrugs, her body language telling me that it’s my funeral.

Before I get the door closed, I hear her yell at Ray. “That TV is too loud, Ray. It’ll hurt the baby’s ears.”

He mumbles something indistinguishable. I’m sure it’s some variation of “fuck the baby.”

Three more years. Three more years and then I’ll land that BigLaw job and get the hell out of this place.

Nana and Ray exchange a few more terse words—her voice is sharp and his is angry. The energy in this house is so damn negative.

I cuddle Jamie closer to me. “We’re going to get out of this place soon.”

She cries, a plaintive, hungry sound. I unbutton my shirt and pull it to the side, bouncing her in my arms as I do. She keeps crying, though.

A moment later, Ray pounds on my door. “Shut that fucking baby up. My game is on.”

I close my eyes and pray for patience. Jamie shouts her annoyance and I look down to discover that the silicon nipple pad is hindering her efforts to feed. I rip it off and throw it on the dresser.

Ray knocks again. “I’m talking to you, Rina!”

I wrench open the door, Jamie latched on to my boob, and confront the asshole. “She’s a baby, not a machine. I don’t turn her on and off at will, okay? And it’s not like I enjoy hearing her cry, you asshole. I’m doing everything I can to make her happy.”

“Doesn’t look like you’re good at anything but being a suck toy,” he grunts. His hot beer breath washes over me.

Anger burns in my gut. I swing the door closed, but it bounces back toward me as he slams his hand against it.

“Get out,” I order. I don’t want this man anywhere near my daughter, and I don’t care if I have to kick him in the balls to make that clear.

Ray’s not much taller than me and is skinny as a rail, but he manages to kick the door out of my hand and stalk forward.

I back up, my legs hitting the mattress. “Get out,” I repeat.

My heart starts beating rapidly. Ray has never been violent, never raised a hand to me, but in this moment, the look in his eyes makes every hair on my body stand on end. I clutch Jamie closer to me. She whimpers and I force myself to loosen the hold.

“Your tits are huge.” His tongue peeks out from between his lips.

I draw one side of my shirt closed. But the other one still has Jamie latched to it.

“What’s that milk taste like?”

A chill races down my spine. My milk is sweet, but the fear tastes like copper against my tongue. “You need to leave right now,” I growl.

“You’ve got two tits and only one mouth on ’em.” He reaches toward me, slowly and creepily.

I scramble backward, keeping a protective hold on my daughter. “Stay away from us, Ray. I mean it. Come any closer and I swear I’ll rip your eyes out.”

“Why don’t you give me a taste? I’ve been thinking about what a juicy piece you must be. And I’ve had your mama and your grandma. Why not the youngest? It’ll be my Ray Donaghy hat trick.”

I reach behind me in search of a weapon, but the need never materializes. Instead, there’s a roar at the door, and then a six-foot, three-inch torpedo launches itself at Ray and spins him around.

Tucker drives a fist into Ray’s face before the bastard even realizes there’s another person in the room with us.

I huddle in the corner, drawing a blanket up over my chest as if to cover Jamie’s eyes from the scene in front of her. Tucker throws Ray against the wall, lifting my stepfather’s skinny ass up with one strong hand against his throat.

“You sick fuck. You’re lucky my kid and woman are in this room right now or I would fucking end you.”

His grip tightens, and as much as I think Ray deserves to have the snot choked out of him, I don’t want Jamie visiting her daddy in a Massachusetts state prison for the next twenty years.

“You should really wait until after I’m done with law school to kill Ray,” I tell Tucker, weak with relief.

He squeezes Ray’s throat once more before letting the creep drop to the floor.

“Come on,” Tucker barks, turning to me. His pupils are dilated and his nostrils flare as he struggles to gather his composure. “We’re out of here.”

I don’t argue.

*

“How long has that been going on?” Tucker demands as he pulls out of the driveway. I turn away from Jamie’s gurgling, happy face and meet his grim expression.

“Ray being an asshole? Since the beginning of time. Him trying to feel me up while I was feeding Jamie? That’s the first.”

Although his creepiness must have always been in the back of my mind or else I wouldn’t have felt compelled to hide in my bedroom all the time.

“You can’t stay there,” Tucker says flatly.

I drag a shaky hand over my face. “I don’t have another option at this point. Babies are expensive and my bank account is bleeding out. Hope gave me this diaper cake and it had like two hundred and fifty diapers—I laughed when I counted them. Well, I used that up in the first three weeks. And you’re living with Brody, who pretends his bedroom is a Cirque de Soleil tryout, complete with the accompanying soundtrack.”

“I know.” Tucker bites his lip. “I wasn’t ready to do this because I wanted to wait for the right time, but I’m going to have to.”

I gnaw nervously on the inside of my cheek. “The right time for what?”

Is he breaking up with me?

Oh God.

I fight the urge to vomit all over the inside of Tucker’s clean truck.

“For this.” He stops the pickup in front of a corner bar. It’s classic Boston with its redbrick exterior, green awning and a postage-stamp sized patio toward the rear.

“I can’t drink while I’m breastfeeding,” I remind him.

“Yeah, hold that thought,” he says, and then slides out of the truck.

As he’s pulling Jamie out of her carrier, I climb down and meet him on the sidewalk. “We can’t bring a baby into the bar.”

“We’re not.” He places his hand on my lower back and steers me toward the side of the small building. There’s a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. “Go on,” he says when I hesitate.

“Did you rent an apartment?” I try to keep the worry out of my voice. It’s his money and he should do what he wants with it, but renting a place by himself because I’m having problems at home seems like a waste of his money. “Because Ray’s all talk and no action.”

“Right. Like him attacking you in your bedroom was all a bunch of words.”

“He was drunk.” Jeez. Why am I even making excuses for that psycho?

Tucker gives me another shove. “Are you going to drag your ass upstairs or do I have to carry the both of you?”

“I’m going.” I cave. The doorknob turns under my hand and I notice a freshly installed electronic keypad.

“It works via near-field communications,” Tucker informs me.

“English, please.”

“It unlocks when a paired device is close to it. That way if you have your hands full, you can still get in.”

“Cool,” I say faintly. And that’s only the first of many surprises.

Upstairs, I find a huge two-bedroom apartment. The kitchen is small and the appliances are old, but there are windows everywhere. The living room is filled with dust and exposed brick.

“I’ve been tearing down the drywall.” Tucker gestures at the walls. “I haven’t touched the bedroom because I figured you’d want a say, but the stuff in here was rotting. Come on.”

This time he takes the lead. Down the hall are two bedrooms. He pushes open the first one, drops the carrier inside the door, and then kneels down to pull sleepy Jamie out. The little pill always falls asleep in the car.

I creep toward the door as if there’s a serial killer behind it. But the only thing I find is a beautifully decorated nursery.

“Oh my gosh,” I breathe.

It’s painted a pale pink. White curtains hang over the big windows. An off-white crib sits against one wall, and a dresser with a changing table is pushed up against another. Between them is an upholstered glider, one that I’d sighed over and posted on my Instagram account.

I shoot an astonished look at Tucker, but he’s too busy loving up Jamie. God, he’s too gorgeous for words. His biceps is bigger than her head, but he’s as gentle as a lamb with her.

That whole picture is Tucker, though. Strong, steady, with exactly the right touch to make his ladies melt. I know I do.

I wrench my gaze away from his bent head so I don’t launch myself at his poor unsuspecting frame. To my right, at the end of the room, a door sits slightly ajar. I head over to investigate and find an en suite bathroom. It’s too much.

“What’s going on? Did you win the lottery?”

He gives me a crooked smile. “Nope. I bought a bar. This came with it.”

“This?” I wave my hand around the room. “The pink room, the crib, the electronic keypad entry!”

“Okay, the building came with an apartment. I’m not done with the renos up here. That’s going to take a while. I was hoping to surprise you around November when the bar opened.”

Feeling weak, I lean against the wall. “I don’t know what to say.”

He strides across the room and tucks a hand under my chin. “Say that this is home. For you, Jamie, and me.”

I close my eyes so he can’t see the emotion in them—the relief, the gratitude, the overwhelming love I have for him. I don’t deserve him. Not one bit, but for some reason he wants me in his life.

I turn my face into his palm and press my lips against the warm skin. “I love this place. It’s amazing. You’re amazing.” And because I can’t help myself, I rise up on my tiptoes and throw my arms around his neck. “Thank you.”

One muscular arm clutches me close while the other holds our baby close. “This is going to work,” he murmurs. “You’ll see.”

I hope so. God, I hope so.