CHAPTER 41 Tanner Banks
A Distraction While We Wait
Cassie is coming at seven, and we’re meeting my parents at seven thirty. I’m ready to go at six and debating whether we’ll have enough time for sex when my phone rings.
It’s a number I don’t recognize, and I can count the times I’ve answered a number I don’t know on one hand…but something compels me to pick up.
I wish I hadn’t.
“Hello?”
“Tanner?” the voice on the other end asks.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Eddie Nash. Uh, your father,” he says.
I can’t think of a single word to say in response to that.
“I just wanted to see how you’re doing. Spencer says he’s checked in with you and you’re doing well, but I wanted to know for myself.” He’s rambling a bit, and since I found out about him, I’ve sort of put him into an unlabeled box in my mind. I’ve spent so much time feeling anger at my mom for lying to me about him that I haven’t really allowed myself to feel emotions toward him .
He didn’t want us. He chose his other family. We weren’t anything to him other than a monthly expense. Allowing myself to think about that sort of fucks with my head, so I push it back into that box.
“I’m fine,” I grunt. It’s a lie. I’m not fine. My knee is all fucked, I’m meeting my lying parents for dinner, and I’m angry that I’m not prepping for a game tomorrow.
I wonder how much of that this man would understand. I know of him, but it’s not like I looked up his career. I know he was a cornerback for the Giants for a number of years, and I know he had four boys before our mom had Miller and me. I know he was married a long time, and now he’s divorced. I wonder if we had anything to do with that. I wonder what his ex-wife knew and what he hid from her. I wonder if there are more of us out there. I wonder if his monthly expenses got too high to handle when he was blacklisted from the league for being an asshole.
I really don’t have much to say to him. I don’t care if he understands me or not.
“All right. Well, if you need anything—”
“What?” I interrupt him with a hiss. “You’ll be there for me? To be honest, this feels like nothing more than a desperate attempt to try to get something out of me, and I have nothing for you.”
I surprise even myself with those words.
Potentially he has things for me. Like Cassie once said, for example, knowing his medical history could be important someday, or maybe he has tricks of the trade when it comes to the sport we both love.
Or maybe he even has answers to the questions that have swirled through my mind since we found out the truth. Maybe I should ask rather than make assumptions .
But I don’t currently find myself in a place where I want those answers.
“Thanks for calling,” I say, and I end the call. I realize my hands are shaking as I set the phone down, and I draw in a few deep breaths as I try to push him to the back of my mind.
But I can’t.
Maybe his call came at the perfect time. Maybe I can head into this dinner tonight and get the answers I clearly so desperately seek.
And that’s why I invited Cassie to come with me.
It has nothing to do with my knee and everything to do with the fact that when she’s in the room, somehow I find myself calm. Centered.
Maybe it’s her age. Her experience. The way being a mother has rubbed off onto her in other ways—patience, and a firm hand, and this tender way she responds to me and my needs.
I’m starting to rely on her for more than just my physical therapy. I’m starting to need her in other aspects of my life, too. It’s a scary thought since we haven’t really talked about what lies beyond my rehabilitation, though I’ve thrown around some ideas in my own mind.
Could she work with me as my full-time trainer? Could I hire her privately beyond the rehab part of my PT to work with me and ensure my knee stays strong?
Could I ask her to move in with me?
We’re not there, obviously. She has more than just herself to consider.
Am I destined to fuck up my future kids and stepkids because of the way I was fucked up well after the statute of limitations should’ve run out on mommy issues?
Is that all this is for me? I’m having issues with my own mother, and so I’m clinging to the first person I find who is the very definition of a good mother ?
Somehow I doubt it. There’s something very real and very pure between Cassie and me, and it has nothing to do with any of that.
But she’s also seven years older than me. I’m turning thirty soon, and she’s turning forty in a few years. Is there too much of a gap between us to sustain something long-term? And how will my career affect any of that?
It’s too early to tell. For now, she’s my physical therapist, and that’s all the outside world needs to know.
I push thoughts of Eddie Nash back into that unlabeled box, but when Cassie walks in and finds me sitting on the couch, she immediately knows something is up.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
I blow out a heavy breath. “Eddie Nash called.”
“Oh, Tanner,” she says softly. She sits beside me and touches my good leg. “Are you okay?”
I press my lips together as emotion seems to clog the back of my throat. I’m surprised by the emotion I feel over it. It shouldn’t affect me, and part of me wants to talk to my brother about it, but he’s out of town for a game, which just feels like one more thing to add to the list of offenses against me.
I’m doing my best not to take it personally. I know in my heart that it isn’t personal, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
Football is where I always channeled everything I was feeling, and maybe that’s why I never acknowledged that I actually do have emotions. I didn’t have to bottle them up when I could leave them out on the field.
I can’t do that now, and it’s all starting to catch up with me.
“No,” I admit. “I don’t want to go to this goddamn dinner. I don’t want to get caught off guard by Eddie Nash. I don’t want to be stuck on this couch when I should be with my teammates preparing for tomorrow’s game.”
“I know,” she says softly .
I glance over at her. “The only good thing out of all of this shit is that it means I get time with you.”
“There’s the positivity I’m looking for,” she says, and she offers a small smile. “If you don’t want to do dinner, then we don’t. We decline, and we stay here. It’s probably better for you not to go out to dinner anyway. The logistics are tough with a wheelchair, and you’re only five days out from surgery. You need to stay home resting, and you can blame me for that if you decide to cancel.”
She’s right. I don’t know why I didn’t consider that before. I pick up my phone, and I text my mom.
Me: My physical therapist said I need rest. She doesn’t think a restaurant is a good idea.
I show her the text before I click send.
“Do you think you should call her instead?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t want to.”
“You’re so stubborn.”
My phone vibrates with a reply, and I roll my eyes when I read it. “Guess who I get it from.”
Mom: That’s fine. We’ll come to your house instead.
Cassie presses her lips together. “Do you need me to say no dinner at all?”
I shake my head. “No. Let’s get this over with.”
“Want me to distract you while we wait?” She raises her brows, and a rush of blood travels straight to my cock.
“Oh yeah. Most definitely,” I say, and I’m about to reach down and pull my cock out when she starts to talk.
“Okay. Luca was so excited about the camp. We had a playdate with some other kids from school, and—”
I clear my throat.
“What?” she asks.
I shake my head with a wry laugh. “Nothing. I just…misinterpreted what you meant by a distraction, I guess. ”
Her brows crinkle together, and I look down at my cock, which is still getting harder at the promise of the sort of distraction I was thinking of, and she glances down there, too.
Her eyes are wide when they meet mine. “Ohhhh,” she says.
“Yeah. Oh.”
She laughs. “Well, I can do that, too.” And then she proceeds to reach into my shorts, pull my cock out, stroke it a few times, and slide her lips down over it.
“Oh, fuck,” I murmur. I shift my hips up into her mouth as she takes me to the back of her throat right here on the couch. She sucks on me, and I groan at how good her mouth feels. “Yes, baby, suck on me just like that,” I say, and I set my hand on the back of her head.
Now this is exactly the sort of distraction I needed. This woman’s mouth on my cock? Perfection.
She bobs her head up and down as she takes me deep, and I hold her in place for a few beats as she swallows around my cock. My mind clears and my body relaxes for the first time in days.
“Fuck, yes, Cass. That feels so goddamn good. Take my cock like the good girl you are,” I mutter as she lets go to take in a breath of air, and then she licks around the tip before she slides her tongue up and down my shaft.
Fuck, she’s good at this. She sucks one of my balls into her mouth while she jerks off my shaft, and that’s it. My complete undoing.
I come hard all over her hand, grunting her name through the entire release as she strokes my cock through the whole thing. She licks her way back up my shaft when I finish coming, and my legs start to tremble as relief filters through my system.
She gets up and rinses off her hands at the kitchen sink, and she returns a minute later to the seat she just vacated. “Was that more along the lines of what you were thinking? ”
I laugh as I pull her against my chest. “Absolutely. And, you know, I can’t get on my knees to return the favor, but you’re always welcome to sit on my face.”
She laughs. “I will take you up on that…but after dinner when you’re ready to go again.”
Hell. With her? I’m ready to go again right now.