Quitting the Quarterback (The Nash Brothers #4)

CHAPTER 57 Tanner Banks

The Man Who I Never Got to Call Dad

My parents arrive Wednesday afternoon, and I head over to Lincoln’s place for dinner.

With them.

Spencer and Miller are in San Diego since they play tomorrow night, but the rest of us—Lincoln, Grayson, Asher, and me—are meeting up at Linc’s place along with Missy, my parents, and some of the Nash in-laws for dinner.

It’s a huge family affair, the kind reserved for weddings and funerals, I suppose. I arrive at the same time as my parents, and Missy greets us at the door.

I brace myself for…something. Fireworks. Awkwardness. I don’t know what.

But to my utter shock, Missy pulls my mom into a hug. A hug .

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” my mother says to Missy. “And for, well, everything.”

“Water under the bridge, Sandra,” Missy says. “Our families are merging, and whatever brought us here is in the past. But we can make a better future. For our boys. ”

Mom hugs Missy again, and it really does feel like it’s in the past. It’s quite the model of forgiveness, and I take it as the kind of example I want to model myself. Charles gets in on the hug, too, though he’s more reserved than usual.

The Nash boys share memories of Eddie as we sit around a huge dinner table, and it’s allowing me to see a completely different side of the man who I never got to call Dad .

From the sounds of things, his entire life was football. It’s not surprising that Miller and I found our way there, too. Maybe he pulled strings behind the scenes for us, but I think that’s something I never really want to know the answer to.

I glance over at Charles and think about how utterly weird this must be for him. He’s quietly listening to the memories of the man who biologically fathered the children he would go on to raise as his own, and I can’t imagine the sort of feelings he has rushing through him.

I think about Luca and Lily and how I formed an attachment to them over a short period of time. I could only dream about how that could grow and thrive if given the chance, but maybe I’ll never know. And there’s a distinct difference there. They have a dad. He may have treated his wife like garbage as he broke up his family, but he’s still very much a part of his kids’ lives—as he should be. It’s his place to be.

But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t have found my place in there, too.

And that’s a place I intend to fight for.

We stay far too late drinking and laughing at Lincoln’s house, and I ride with my parents back to the hotel we’re all staying at.

“How are you doing with all of this?” my mom asks me from the backseat while Charles drives. She made me sit up front since my legs are longer.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “The whole thing is just…” I trail off.

“Strange?” Charles supplies, and I nod.

“Yeah. I sort of just want to get through the funeral and move forward, you know? I love having four new half-brothers, but over the last year, I guess I realized that it never really mattered who biologically fathered me. What matters is the family that raised me, and I’m sorry it took me so long to see that,” I say.

I hear my mom sniffle in the backseat, and that damn lump is back in my throat.

Charles reaches over and pats my leg. “It doesn’t matter how long it took. I’m just happy that’s where you landed.”

My mom reaches over the seat to squeeze my shoulder. “Whatever got you there, I’m just glad to have my boy back.”

I set my hand over hers on my shoulder. “I never went anywhere, Mom.”

I hang out with my parents in Vegas, which makes for a much different trip than the last time I was here. Miller and Spencer catch the first flight on Thursday to Vegas. Miller texts me when they land bright and early a little after eight, and less than a half hour later, I’m meeting him for breakfast at a restaurant in the hotel.

He invited our parents, too, and they’re meeting us. But we gave ourselves a fifteen-minute buffer to check in on each other first.

We hug at the entrance to the restaurant for a long time, neither of us wanting to let go as we cling to what’s familiar in this very strange situation.

“I thought we had time,” he admits quietly once we finally part.

“So did I,” I say.

We head into the restaurant, and we’re taken to a table, and before I even glance at the menu to figure out what I want to eat, Miller says, “Really makes you think about how life’s short, doesn’t it? How we’re not guaranteed anything.”

“Yeah,” I murmur. I glance up at him and find him studying me, and I have a feeling I know what’s coming. I jump in before he can. “So are you going to shoot your shot or what?”

He chuckles. “Take your own advice, man.”

“It’s easier to give it than to take it.”

“Exactly. I was about to tell you to call Cassie,” he admits.

“I’m going to. I’m going back home on Saturday. Asher’s birthday is tomorrow, so I said I’d stay and hang out. But when I get home, I’m going straight to her place.”

“What’s the plan?” he asks.

I reach into my pocket and finger the box in there. I wasn’t about to leave it in my hotel room, but I don’t really want to carry it around with me, either.

And then I decide to keep it to myself. I tell Miller everything, but there’s a reason why I felt compelled to bring this to Vegas with me. I didn’t want it at the house I share with my brother. I didn’t want him asking questions when I wasn’t ready to answer them.

So maybe this one thing deserves to be kept under the vest a little while longer.

“I don’t know yet,” I say instead. “What about you?”

He sighs a long, deep sigh. “I can’t exactly tell Sophie how I’ve felt about her all this time.”

“Why not? It’s only been…” I glance at my watch as I calculate in my brain. “What, fifteen years?”

His jaw tightens. “Aside from you, she’s my best friend, and she has been for half my life. I can’t blow that. And besides, she’s seeing some guy.”

“Doesn’t it kill you to hear her talk about whoever she’s seeing? How do you do it?” I ask .

“I’m a masochist.” He shrugs, and I chuckle. “The truth is that I just want her to be happy.”

“With you though. Right?”

“Shut up,” he says petulantly. “I keep trying to find someone who compares, but nobody does.”

I shake my head and clench my jaw. “All for some chick you’ve never even fucked.”

He glares at me, and I wait for him to lecture me on how it would be making love when it came to her, but he glances over my shoulder, and we both see our parents are here. He stands and greets them with a hug for each of them, and that’s the end of that conversation.

I tease him, but the truth is…I feel bad for him. I know he’s been in love with Sophie since we were freshmen in high school, but how do you tell your best friend that? They grew close, but she had a boyfriend. When she split with him, Miller had a girlfriend. He split with her to shoot his shot with Sophie only to find her making out with another dude.

Their timing has always been off, and that’s how it’s been for the last fifteen years.

Maybe someday they’ll get it right. I hope for his sake they do…but if they don’t, I hope Miller can fall for someone who makes him happy.

Because that feeling of falling for Cassie is one of the single greatest events of my life even though it happened during one of the darkest.

After breakfast, the four of us will head together toward the funeral home where we’ll pay our last respects to the man we never knew, the man who duped everyone who will be in attendance, the man who hurt so many of us yet still has people who loved him and showed up for him at the end.

We walk through the hotel lobby on our way out, and my parents head to the valet with Miller while I hit the restroom before we go. I’m walking through the lobby toward the valet station when I hear a voice.

“Tanner?”

I freeze, and then I slowly turn around and glance up only to find myself face to face with Cassandra Fields.