Quitting the Quarterback (The Nash Brothers #4)

CHAPTER 42 Cassie Fields

Playing House with a Football Player

The absolute one eighty of his personality from when I arrived to now is nearly comical.

He was a tightly wound ball of stress, but he’s not anymore.

I pat myself on the back for that genius idea even though it was sort of his idea, and I pull up his favorite restaurant to place our dinner order. He texts his mom to see what she and his dad want to eat, and they arrive shortly after we place the order.

“Oh,” she says in surprise when I open the door. “What a lovely surprise. Is Tanner doing okay?”

I nod. “He’s doing well.” I gesture for them to head into the family room, and I hear the greetings ahead of me as I lock the front door. I wonder if she’s wondering why I’m here, but if she is, she doesn’t say anything. At least not with me in the same room.

I join them and find his mom sitting beside him in the place where I was sitting before they arrived, and I take a spot on the opposite end of the L-shaped couch so I can keep an eye on Tanner .

“Dinner should be here soon,” Tanner says a little awkwardly.

“Honey, I know you have questions, and—” His mom cuts herself off as she glances at me. “And, well, I thought tonight I could answer whatever you need to know.”

“I really don’t. You made a choice, and you’re sticking by it, and you’re the one who wants to keep talking about it,” he says.

“Because you keep pushing me away. We used to be so close, and now I feel like we’re worlds apart.”

“We weren’t really all that close if you felt like it was okay to lie to me for my entire life,” he snaps.

“Don’t talk to your mother like that,” Charles warns.

Tanner turns to him next. “Or what? You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t do. Not when you were her accomplice.”

“It’s not like that,” Charles says, raising his voice. “We made a choice when you boys were very, very young. We decided together that I would be your father in all the ways that mattered. Don’t act like I wasn’t there for you every step of the way, Tanner. For you and your brother. We didn’t make that decision lightly, and it wasn’t always easy. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

I hear the emotion in his voice, and for just a second, I try to put myself in his shoes.

I really don’t think they acted out of malice. The opposite, in fact. They acted from a place of love, and I felt that the last time they were here, too.

But Tanner can’t see it. Of course he can’t. He isn’t a parent…but if he was, I think he’d be more apt to see it, too.

Silence fills the room for a few awkward moments, and then I say, “Why don’t you tell them about your youth football program?”

He launches into some details about the program. I learn quite a lot about the program as he talks, and I hear the passion in his voice about it. He’s excited about this, and it’s a project that will feed his soul as he spends the next several months without the game he loves so much.

He’s still talking about it when dinner arrives, and I grab plates and set the food out for everyone before I help him over to the table.

His parents ask him questions about it, and it feels like they’re closer than Tanner would like to admit.

I get that he feels betrayed. I get that he’s hurt by the lie. But maybe I can help him see how much these two care about both him and his brother, and maybe someday he can find it in his heart to forgive them.

“I have several former players already on board, and as soon as the school district approves the plan, we’ll be able to pilot the program at Cassie’s son’s school,” Tanner says.

“Oh, you have a son?” Sandra asks.

I nod. “Luca. He’s seven, and I also have a little girl, Lily, who is five.”

“They’re both great kids,” Tanner says, and I sense a bit of pride in his voice.

“You’ve met them?” Sandra asks.

“Cass brought them here a few weekends ago. Lily is really attached to her mom, and I’ve been eating up her weekends,” Tanner says.

Sandra and Charles exchange a glance.

“Is their father in the picture?” Sandra asks.

“We’re recently divorced,” I say quietly. “They go to his house every other weekend, but they live full time with me.”

“That must be hard,” Sandra says quietly, and the understanding in her voice makes me think once again about how, as mothers, sometimes we’re forced to make decisions for our kids, and all we can do is hope we’re doing right by them .

Sometimes we don’t find out the answer to that until they’re nearing thirty, and other times the answer is obvious right away. I wish there was a guidebook to all of this because when I’m apart from them, I feel like I’m failing them. At the same time, I know it’s important for them to see their mom working hard and reaching her own goals.

Except I’m not sure that’s what this is.

I’m not even going into an office. Instead, I’m playing house with a football player seven days a week for six hours a day, and now I’m sitting at dinner with his parents when I should be at home playing Chutes and Ladders with my kids.

He doesn’t need me here as his physical therapist, yet I’m here. I know it’s more than a doctor-patient relationship at this point, but the more time we spend together outside of our work times, the higher the chances become that we’ll be caught.

Especially when an ex-husband swings by on a Saturday night in some ridiculous attempt to try to win his family back only to find his ex-wife out with another man.