Quitting the Quarterback (The Nash Brothers #4)

CHAPTER 49 Cassie Fields

He Shouldn’t Have that Problem with Rick

We’re walking to the bus stop in the morning when Lily’s little voice asks, “What’s the matter, Mama?”

It’s not like I can tell her, but it’s not like I can put on the facade the way I did when her father and I got divorced. And I’m not quite sure why.

“Nothing, sweetheart,” I lie, brushing away a tear from behind my sunglasses. I told myself I wouldn’t cry in front of the kids, but, well…I can’t exactly help it.

I keep thinking about what after school is going to look like today. Luca has his football practice, and Lily and I usually sit on the side until Tanner comes over and calls for his CC. He flashes that beautiful grin at me, and an ache pulses in me that we share this secret.

Only…that’s not how today’s going to go.

“But Mommy, you’re crying,” she says as I sniffle.

“I think it’s just allergies, honey.” Deep down, I hate the lie. I know it’s healthy for children to see their parents expressing their emotions, but I’m not going to tell a five-year-old that I ended a secret love affair with a patient yesterday and my heart feels like it’ll never be whole again.

It’s the right move. I know it is.

But if it’s the right move, why does it feel so wrong?

I don’t have the answer to that, and as we approach the area where parents gather for our bus pickup, I spot Jess and Katie already chatting with their heads bent closely together.

I haven’t mentioned anything to Jess, and truthfully, I haven’t been the greatest friend to them lately. Usually I drop the kids and bolt to get to Tanner’s house—not because he’s my boyfriend, or was —but because I had a job to do there.

And, yes, it was nice getting there a minute or two early since it elongated our day.

But I don’t have to worry about that this morning since I no longer have a job .

I suck in a shaky breath.

“Morning!” Jess says cheerfully when she sees us approaching.

“Morning,” I say, mustering up everything I have to pretend like I’m okay for the next few minutes. Then the kids will get on the bus, and I can head home where I can have a proper breakdown.

Except Jess doesn’t allow that. I kiss my babies before they leave for school. Katie heads home, and Jess walks with me down the sidewalk back to my place as the grilling begins.

“What’s up, Fields?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I mutter. “You?”

“Lies.” She’s calling me out, and I don’t like it.

I play innocent. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you hanging around here and not darting off to the football star’s house?” she asks.

I can’t help it. I burst into tears .

She stops on the sidewalk to give me a hug. “Oh my God, Cassie. What’s going on?”

I fight my way out of the hug and continue the journey toward home. She’s right beside me the whole way.

I snag my lip between my teeth and bite down as I try to draw the pain away from my chest to focus on something else so I stop crying. It’s not fully successful, but it allows me to blurt out what happened. “Dr. Hayward found out about Tanner and me, and he fired me. Then I broke up with Tanner.”

She gasps. “How’d he find out?”

I press my lips together. “I don’t know for sure. He wouldn’t tell me. But I’d put my money on Alex.”

“That ass!” she yells. “Fuck him! I’ll go find him and kick him in the nuts. God, I hate him.”

“So do I,” I commiserate, and I sort of hope she does go find him to kick him in the nuts. The guy has it coming.

“Are you sure it was him?”

I lift a shoulder. “Who else would it be? He’s been stopping by the house when he has the kids, and he hasn’t found me there.”

“You mentioned in passing that the others at the practice were jealous that you got the VIP patient. Could it have been someone there?” she asks.

I hold a hand to my forehead as I consider the possibility. “Hayward said my car was spotted in Tanner’s driveway for the entire weekend, but Alex doesn’t know where he lives. I mean, I suppose he could’ve checked the hospital records and figured it out…”

“But so could someone at your office,” she points out.

“My former office,” I correct. Everyone was standoffish toward me once I scored Tanner, and the truth is that I don’t know any of them well enough to say whether one of them might’ve been behind this. But I know Alex, and I know he’s capable of something like this.

“Right. Former.”

I blow out a breath. “I don’t know. But either way, it doesn’t really matter. It feels like I lost my job because of Tanner. I’ve lost my identity as someone who’s more than just Mom , and I can’t be with someone when the cost of a relationship is that high.”

Even as the words spill from my tongue, I get a sense of what Tanner’s been through over the last year. He lost his own identity when he found out about his father, and again when football was taken away from him.

The hurt in his eyes when I told him to leave flashes through my mind. I’ve seen it no less than twenty times an hour since I walked away from him.

But like I told him when I tried to convince him that his mom was acting in his best interest, sometimes parents have to do things to protect their kids.

And this is me doing that for them.

They love him. They’ve fallen for him, too. And the more I study it, the more I see that there’s just no scenario based in reality that would see us past his rehab and into the future together.

He’s seven years younger than me, and he’s a famous quarterback. He shouldn’t feel obligated to take on a woman a few years away from forty whose weeknights are filled with baseball and homework and gymnastics and dancing, who has an ex-husband trying to figure out a way to ruin her relationships, who can’t hold onto a job for more than a few months without finding a way to ruin that, too.

It was a simple case of developing falsified feelings for his healthcare provider. Well, he shouldn’t have that problem with Rick .

Jess follows me up to my front door, and I turn to face her.

“I think I’d really like to just be alone right now,” I say.

She rolls her eyes. “Too bad for you then that I have the day off.”

“For what?” I ask, my brows dipping together.

“For taking care of my cousin. Now get inside, and let’s put together an action plan.”

I shake my head. “I appreciate it, Jess, really. But it’s too fresh. I need a minute to figure out where the hell I even go from here.”

She squeezes my shoulder. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

“I’ll be fine.” It’s a lie, and not even a good one.

I don’t know if I’ll be fine. I don’t know how to go to the after-school program and watch him running around with my kids, knowing there’s a divide between us.

I don’t know what comes next for me. Can I even get a job as a physical therapist when I was fired from my previous job for breaking the code of conduct? Would Hayward give me a recommendation, or is my career in healthcare done forever?

I want to show my kids that women can do anything. I want to prove to Alex that I never needed him or his money.

I guess I had a lot of plans, and then I went and screwed everything up by falling for the first guy I slept with after the divorce.

God, I’m such an idiot.

I don’t have a job. I don’t have the man.

But I have two kids who are relying on their mom to show up at the football practice after school, where I have to face the man I’m heartbroken over.

I guess that gives me a solid six hours to prepare.

But when I get there…he’s not there .

The other two former players run practice. They pick some other girl to be the cone commander, and Lily throws an absolutely epic fit.

I end up walking over to the swing set with her and pushing her until she stops crying.

Luca’s in a mood when we get in the car. Lily’s still upset she wasn’t the commander.

I’m exhausted from crying half the day away, and now I’m worried about Tanner since he didn’t show up to practice.

And our night is just getting started.