The Season: Rush (Austin Arrows #1) Read Free Page A

be taking Bianca so long? It’s not like my twelve-year-old daughter is putting on makeup or anything. She’s in seventh grade, for Pete’s sake.
    How hard is it to roll out of bed, pull on some clothes and shoes, grab her backpack, and come downstairs? Until this week, I thought the answer was, “It’s not.” In fact, that’s typically a pretty simple feat for my kid.
    Today, not so much.
    I toss back what’s left of my cold coffee before heading to the bottom of the stairs once again.
    “Bianca! The bus’ll be here in two minutes!”
    I pace the entryway anxiously, peering out the narrow window that runs parallel to the front door and then up to the top of the stairs. Back, forth. Back, forth. Window, stairs. Window, stairs.
    Nope, no Bianca.
    I make one more pass as though that’s going to make my daughter magically appear. I even squint—because, you know, squinting always makes people appear faster.
    Nope, still nothing.
    “Shit.” I grab the rail and put my foot on the bottom step. “Bianca! Come on, girl. Bus! One minute!” Or less.
    When I’ve counted to ten and she doesn’t appear, I have to wonder if she’s gone back to sleep.
    I insert a significant amount of impatience into my voice this time. “ Bianca! ”
    One, two, three, four—
    “Can you take me to school?”
    Well, at least she’s awake.
    “Why?” It’s not that I have a problem with taking her to school, but this is the third time this week that I’ve had to, which means she’s missed the bus more often than not. That’s very unlike her.
    “I’m finishing my homework.”
    I sigh. “Why didn’t you do it last night?” I yell back.
    No answer.
    This would’ve been a whole lot easier if I’d simply gone up there, but that would’ve required me to tackle those sixteen steps and … well, I don’t have enough energy to do that unless I’m required to stanch blood flow or administer CPR or … something equally important. Luckily, I’ve never encountered either of those when it comes to my kid. Knock on wood.
    Knowing Bianca’s reason for procrastinating doesn’t matter, I head to my bedroom to change out of the pajamas I’d put on a short while ago. I pull on a pair of thin leggings and an oversized sweater, then slide my feet back into my slippers and return only to hear the bus passing the house. Since there isn’t much time before we have to leave, and I know my kid will be starving by lunch, I grab a granola bar and one of the small bottles of chocolate milk from the fridge. If I leave it up to my daughter, she’ll snatch a bag of chips and a Mountain Dew—certainly not the breakfast of champions.
    After I peek at the clock and pour what’s left in the coffee carafe into my mug, I glance around the kitchen. The dishes from last night’s dinner are still in the sink, which isn’t surprising. If I open the trash can, I’m sure I’ll find that it hasn’t been taken out, either. Bianca and I share those chores most of the time, but last night, before I went back to work, she promised me she would get them done.
    Sometimes, I don’t know what to do with that kid. If she weren’t so freaking awesome, I might be tempted to throttle her.
    “Okay. I’m ready,” Bianca huffs, storming into the kitchen.
    I turn around to take in the sight of my daughter for the first time this morning.
    What the…?
    With my coffee mug halfway to my lips, I stop and stare.
    My kid is only twelve—twelve and a half if you ask her—yet sometime in the last year, she got the crazy notion that she was all grown up. In many ways, she is, I won’t lie. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I’m a single mom and her father has never been in the picture. During a wild and crazy girls’ night in Vegas on my twenty-first birthday, I kind of had a one-night fling with a hot guy I met in the sports book at one of the casinos we visited. Truth is, aside from agreeing to meet up at a club on the strip, we didn’t do a whole lot of