Goalie (Texas Mutiny Book 3)

by M. E. Carter

  Chuckling, I slam the door behind me and race back to my car, still avoiding the puddles. Once my car is running, I slam it into gear and race toward the exit. I get about twenty feet before I come up right behind a car that is going really, really slow.

  “Come on, I don’t have time for this,” I say under my breath, tapping my thumb on the steering wheel. “Can’t you drive any faster?” I glance in their rearview mirror and realize it’s the same old couple from earlier. “Well shit. Never mind then. I guess we’ll just take our sweet time.”

  And we do. At least that’s what it feels like, but probably no more than two minutes later, I’m on the freeway, heading toward Houston University and my new career as a college student.

  Thankfully, it only takes about thirty minutes to get to campus, and since I mapped it out a few days ago, I know the parking lot I need. I grab my schedule off the seat next to me and check the building I’m going to be in.

  “Oliver Hall.” I look through my windshield trying to figure out which building that is before heading out into the rain again. It’s only sprinkling now, but that still doesn’t mean I want to get wet.

  Spying my destination straight in front of me, I grab the new backpack Mari gave me as a congratulations present, and climb out of my car.

  Despite the rain and the fact that this is the summer semester, there are students everywhere. I haven’t been on a college campus in over ten years when I graduated, and it’s wild how my perspective of college has changed. Back then, I thought I was the big man on campus. I was a young adult. I had ideals. And no one was going to stop me because I knew exactly what I was doing.

  Looking at the kids walking across the university, all I notice is how young they are. They’re barely legal drinking age and have no idea what life is going to throw at them, whether they’re successful or not.

  I remember how excited I was to make my place in this world. And here I am, still trying to figure out exactly where that place is. But maybe that’s more accurate for how life really is. It’s a constant attempt at making a place or keeping it. We’re constantly striving for better but never quite getting there, which is not a bad thing. It just means we keep moving that direction.

  I chuckle as I think of how old I sound, even to myself, now. I could tell these kids a lesson or two. Not that they’d listen. Lord knows more than one person tried to share their wisdom with me when I was that age, and I just couldn’t hear it. Such is life, I suppose.

  Oliver Hall is a smaller building than I expected. It’s white brick, two story. But it’s not as imposing as some of the buildings that surround it. I kind of like that it’s not as grandiose.

  The halls aren’t terribly crowded, but they’re far from empty. And interestingly, a lot of the people carrying backpacks appear to be older than me. I follow one of them into a classroom on the right.

  The room is huge, way bigger than I thought could be in a building this size. There are at least twenty rows, each one a step higher than the last so they look stacked. The long white tables stretch from one end of the room to the next on each row so the only way in or out of your row is down the side.

  The front wall of the room is covered in white eraser boards. A podium stands off to the side. And what appears to be a projector screen is bolted into the ceiling.

  Looking around, I find that most of the chairs are empty. I’m still a few minutes early, surprisingly since I had to make that stop at Mari’s, but I expected the room to be more full by now.

  I climb up the steps to the fourth or fifth row and sit down toward the middle, but still mostly on the side. As I pull out my laptop and power up, I realize I’m strangely nervous about being here. I shouldn’t be. We’re all here for the same reasons. But I’ve spent the last ten years making a living off physical activity. It feels different to know I’m about to exercise more of my brain muscles than my leg muscles.

  A tall, dark-haired woman, maybe in her early 40’s walks in and tosses her stuff on the podium. I watch as she pulls out her laptop and plugs it in to a bunch of wires I hadn’t noticed before. Suddenly the words “TAP” and “Professor Angela Johnston” are displayed across the white board behind her.

  She looks at her watch and walks with purpose to the door, where she closes it with enough force that anyone who didn’t notice her before certainly has now.

  “Good morning,” she bleats, as she strides back to the podium. “I’m Professor Johnston. You can call me Professor Johnston. Although from what I understand, I’m more commonly known as ‘The Slave Driver’ in the education department. However, you can still just call me Professor Johnston.”

  Whoa. I’m thirty seconds into my first class and already this is more intense than I anticipated.

  “Since this is a summer class, this room isn’t going to be filled up so there’s no use wasting my voice shouting all the way to the back when there are perfectly good seats up here.” She gestures around the room at the chairs. “So can everyone please find a seat in the first five rows please?”

  For a split second, no one moves.

  “Yes, I said it,” she continues. “Let’s move. All the way down here. That means you, too, all the way on the top row. Move it on down here.”

  I watch as a dozen or so people pack up all their stuff and start moving, thankful that I sat as close as I did. As I watch my new classmates, someone plops down in the seat next to me.

  She’s probably in her mid-twenties. Pretty face. Long, thick hair. Nice rack. She obviously works out.

  “Hi.” She starts pulling things out of her bag and settling in. “I hope no one was sitting here.”

  “No, it was empty.”

  “Great, thanks,” she says with a smile. A nice smile. Full lips. Straight, white teeth. “I’m Kimberly.” She reaches out her hand for me to shake. Her skin is soft and warm.

  “Santos.” I smile back at her. Look at me. I’ve been back in college for five minutes and I’m already making friends.

  “Now that everyone is up front where you can hear me…” Professor Johnston calls out. Immediately the room gets silent except for the shuffling of some bags as people finish getting settled. “…I want you to look to the left and right of you. The person next to you will be your study partner for the duration of the class. Yes, most of this is individual work, but most of you haven’t been in college in quite some time, and you’ll need a study buddy.”

  I look down my row and count off my twos. Looks like Kimberly and I are paired off. She seems to come to that realization at the same time I do and smiles again at me.

  “Before you object to me pairing you up with someone you may not know,” the professor continues, “I’ll remind you that when you get a job, your principal won’t ask who you want your teaching partner to be. You’ll just be paired up. This is a good opportunity to learn how to work with someone you may not automatically gravitate toward.

  “Now, if you’ll open up your laptop, you’ll find the website and log in information up on the screen behind me. Go ahead and log in and we’ll begin discussing the latest TAP rubric. This is how teachers are evaluated. Not all schools are TAP schools, but they all have some sort of rating system and regardless of which one they use, these are going to be your basic required measures.”

  I quickly get myself set up so I can follow along with the lesson with a smile on my face.

  I got here on time. I have a no-nonsense professor who’s ready to teach. I already have a study partner.

  So far, my first day of college (again) is going great.

  “What is it with you feeding my kids sugar?” I ask Marcus, as I flop down on the couch. “Don’t you have any vegetables in your fridge?”

  “I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” he reasons as he drops himself down next to me. He won’t admit it, but he’s just as tired as I am after chasing the kids for the last forty-five minutes. “Once they were done running, they practically dropped into their beds. We won’t hear from them for
a while.”

  “Yeah, but it’s going to take us that long to clean up this mess.” I look around trying to wrap my brain around the sheer volume of toys strewn all over the floor. I had no idea my kids had this many toys. Looks like it’s time to clean out again.

  “We’ll just tell them the same thing I told my niece and nephew last weekend.”

  “We’re not telling the kids that any toys left out will come alive when they’re sleeping and will watch them in bed.”

  “Ok, I admit that one backfired on me.” I chuckle and drop my head back on the couch. I’m so tired. “We’ll tell them the toys all want to play hide and seek, but they really like hiding in the toybox so they can be together.”

  “There is no way my kids will fall for that. And I don’t believe for one second your niece and nephew fell for it either.”

  “They would have if I hadn’t said the whole toys coming alive thing first.”

  “Marcus, you are a mess.”

  “But I’m a cute mess.”

  “That you are.” I look over at him and see him zoning out. I bump his shoulder with mine. “What’s up with the jet black?”

  “The hair?” He runs his hands over his soft Mohawk.

  “Yep. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you have a normal color hair before.”

  “Yeah, well, I needed something different. Something a little less flashy.”

  “Are you sure it doesn’t have anything to do with the super hot hairdresser you have to go see whenever you change it?”

  He blushes, which is something I’ve never seen before so I know I’ve struck a nerve. “Maybe,” he confesses without making eye contact.

  “Aw, I think it’s cute you have a crush on Nathan,” I tease.

  “I do not have a crush. It’s more of a…” He waves his hand as he thinks of the words. And then he finally gives up. “Ok, fine. I have a crush on him.”

  I can’t help but laugh at his reaction to being called out. Normally, he’s so forthcoming with his relationships, but they don’t usually matter that much to him. Makes me wonder if there’s more to this than just a crush. But I don’t want to put him on that much of a spot yet. He’s skittish enough as it is.

  “For what it’s worth, he’s a really nice guy.”

  “You think?”

  “I do. And he does an amazing job with my hair.”

  “Another important quality when looking for a man.”

  “You should go for it.”

  He sighs. “I would love to go for it.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “He doesn’t even know I’m alive.”

  “What? How is that even possible?”

  “It just is. He doesn’t act any differently around me than he does with other clients, so it’s pretty obvious.”

  “Well are you sure he’s gay?”

  Marcus looks at me and raises an eyebrow. “Honey, I have the best gaydar known to man. I can spot potential dates a mile away. There is no doubt Nathan is gay.”

  “I’ll just take your word for it. Maybe he’s in a relationship.”

  “Maybe.” I pat his leg in a supportive gesture and he grabs my hand, intertwining our fingers. “Love just kind of sucks.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “Speaking of crushes, you ever gonna fess up to the one you have on your ex-husband.”

  I gasp. “What in the world would make you think that?”

  “Puh-leaze. I see the way you look at him when he’s here. And the way you look when you talk about him. And the way you look when you just think about him. You are smitten.”

  I open my mouth to argue, but then change my mind. There’s no use in trying to convince either of us that my feelings for Santos are anything other than what they are. Instead, I lean my head on his shoulder and opt for advice.

  “What am I supposed to do, Marcus?”

  He turns and kisses me on the top of the head. “I think the first thing you need to figure out is if he feels the same way about you.”

  “Oh, I know he does,” I confirm. “I have no doubt. But I just… I don’t know. Is this just grief talking in the form of desire? Is it real? I don’t know which end is up right now. Not to mention, I’m still really hurt over his betrayals.”

  “I know that, honey. I’m not sure that hurt ever really goes away. It just kind of dulls over time.”

  “That’s not encouraging at all.”

  “Sorry. But not really. I won’t ever sugarcoat things for you.”

  “So then tell me honestly what I should do? How can I ever feel comfortable in a relationship with him? How can I ever completely let it go?”

  “Does anyone ever let it go completely?” he asks with a shrug. “You’ve already forgiven him, but unless you were to get amnesia, there’s no way to totally forget. But I think the better question is what you do with those memories when you do remember? Do you let them beat you down? Or do you push them aside and remind yourself that it’s not the current reality of the situation? Only you can decide that part.”

  I stay snuggled next to Marcus as I think through my relationship with Santos. I think about all the wonderful times we had together. Going to games. Traveling around the country. Buying our first home. My pregnancies. When the kids were born. More than ten years’ worth of memories, and all of it includes laughter and love.

  But it doesn’t negate the heart ache I still feel. It’s getting easier to let it go, but sometimes it creeps up on me. “I just don’t know if I can ever let it go completely,” I whisper. “And as petty as it sounds, what would people say? My mother, for one, would go nuts.”

  “With all due respect to your mother, fuck her.”

  “Hey!” I say, as I slap him on the leg playfully.

  “I’m serious, Mariana. Who cares what she thinks? Who cares what I think? It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. It matters what you think. When it comes to your relationships, especially your relationship with him, you don’t have to justify anything to anyone.”

  “That makes me really nervous,” I say. “You know I don’t like conflict, so just the thought of having to hear her confront me practically gives me hives.”

  “I know. And I understand where she’ll probably be coming from. You know I’m not his biggest fan because of what he did to you. Even though I’m thrilled it brought you next door. But every relationship is different. The vast majority of relationships never recover after infidelities. Especially to this magnitude. But some of them can.”

  He turns to look at me. “Mari, what if yours can?”

  I look at him intently, grasping what he’s just said to me. He makes a lot of valid points. I don’t have to justify this to anyone except myself. And the question remains, what if my relationship can recover? What if we’re one of the lucky couples that can survive after infidelity? And will I ever forgive myself if I don’t take the chance to find out?

  I look around the waiting room, shoving my wallet back in my pocket after paying the obligatory twenty-dollar co-pay. It’s not a lot, but it adds up when you have a weekly therapy appointment.

  With my knee shaking up and down, I recognize I’m nervous. Really nervous.

  Mariana has never asked for us to go see Justin together, but she did this time and wouldn’t tell me why. Just said there are things we need to discuss. It worries me that she wants to cut the amount of time I’ve been spending with the kids. I know I’ve been at her apartment a lot lately, but it didn’t seem like she minded. I can’t believe I read the situation wrong and I don’t understand why she can’t just tell me this outside of therapy.

  The door flies open and Justin stands there with his normal relaxed look on his face. “Hey guys. Come on in.”

  Mari smiles and greets him like everything is normal. I just mumble a hello as I walk past him.

  “How’s school going, Santos?” he asks before we even sit down on the couch. So much for getting Mari’s bombshell announcement out of the way. Maybe I don
’t really want to know what she has to say. Maybe it’s ok to delay it.

  “Good. Busy.” I settle next to Mariana, not looking at her for fear of what I’ll see. “I’m taking an intense class on teacher ratings systems right now and I’m adding on a kinesiology and ESL class next semester. I’m going to be busy, but so far I like it.”

  “When do you start your student teaching?”

  “Supposedly, the same day the teachers all go back to school, so in just a few weeks.”

  “That’s cool. Have they matched you to a school yet?”

  “Nah, I’ll find out my assignment closer to time.” I can feel myself relaxing the more we talk about my classes. When I decided to quit soccer and become a teacher and coach, I knew I’d enjoy it. But the more involved I get, the more my excitement grows. “I talked to my advisor yesterday and they really try to place you in the school district you live in, so I’m hoping to be placed around here.”

  I lean back and stretch my arm over the back of the couch, chancing a glance at Mari. She’s smiling at me which both relaxes me more and confuses me. I don’t understand why she would be smiling if she has bad news for me.

  “Oh, that would be great.”

  “Yeah. I’m excited to get in the classroom and start working with the kids. Middle-schoolers crack me up.”

  “It’s so funny to hear you say that,” Justin says. “I’ve had a lot of teachers as clients over the years and only a very few like middle-schoolers.”

  Thinking about kids that age makes me smile. “I know they’re full of drama at that age, but it’s such innocent drama compared to high school. And they’re just… how do I explain it? They’re just squirelly and funny. They crack me up.”

  “And they’re way more independent than the younger kids,” Justin adds.

  “Oh, for sure. I love helping my own kids with potty breaks and stuff, but other people’s kids? No thanks. Plus, I can’t coach soccer in elementary school so it works for me.”

  I look at Mari again, now that I’ve mentioned how much I love being with our kids. I’ve just given her the perfect segue to tell me if she’s cutting my contact with them down to just what the order gives me.