Chapter 11
PACE – LATE SEPTEMBER
Nothing Untoward
I’m in agony from last night’s game. My joints are swollen and I wince through an injection in my knee from the team doc, but as soon as Annie answers her phone, it seems like those NSAIDs kick in.
“Tanner Pace,” she says with that southern drawl of hers that makes her elongate the vowels of my name and make Pace sound like it has two syllables.
“How’re you doin’, Annie Quinn?”
The doc’s eyes shoot up to mine when he hears me say her name and I’ll remember to explain to him after the call that yes, I’m speaking with Quinn’s sister but no, there isn’t anything untoward going on.
“Why, I’m just peachy. Good game last night. I particularly enjoyed that show-pony move you pulled through your legs.”
I chuckle. “Football’s nothing if not a showman’s sport. I’m in the training facility getting patched up from the game but I could be out at the ranch by four, if that works for you and Nelson?”
“You don’t have to give me a lesson today. You only landed back in the state this morning.”
“The hell I don’t. You’re my project.” If last night’s defense couldn’t break me, I’m sure I can survive another session with Annie.
I hear the smile in her voice as she tells me, “Well now, that might be the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Laughter rocks my body so hard, I receive a tut from the doc. “I’ll see you at four?”
“Four it is. D’you want to stay for dinner?”
“Dinner?” Now I’m staring right back at the doc’s beady eyes. “With you?”
“And Daddy and Nelson, Colton and Sas, too, if they’re around.”
Oh. “If it’s carbs, I’m in.”
“I’ll make certain it is.”
I don’t realize I’m smiling at my phone until the doc tells me, “If you’re looking starry-eyed over Quinn’s sister, you’re skating on some real thin ice, Pace.”
Am I? Or do I just enjoy her company?
Sure, I’ve been looking forward to today and thinking about how to make driving fun for her.
Been thinking about her, it, lessons, making her smile, hearing that laugh, watching those half-moons draw on her mouth and contemplating how those pearl snaps close over her tits.
How she’d look in a bikini on a beach in Florida. Fuck.
I’m still moving stiffly but better after the physios have had their hands on me.
The game debrief was as expected – we were lucky to win.
In an ideal world, Lamar would have had years of sitting under Tommy’s wing and learning the enormous role of leading the offense as a quarterback at pro-level.
But the game often doesn’t go as planned.
Everyone is behind Lamar but hoping and praying for a miraculous recovery from Tommy, who currently can hardly walk.
I’ve been on the phone with him on my drive out to Sunshine Ranch, encouraging him to get back to the training ground as a sounding board for Lamar.
He’s feeling low, he sounds low, and I think he needs what all of us team guys do – to be in the fold, cracking jokes and goofing around, being involved with the game we all love.
I get my usual one bark from Bear when I park, then he’s wagging his tail and waiting for me as I open the car door. “Hey, Bear.”
He throws himself on the lawn, all four limbs held out from his stomach for a scratch. “Yeah, alright, I got you, boy.”
“Howdy, Pace,” Sonny calls from beneath his cowboy hat, tugging off leather gloves, dirty from whatever work he’s been doing.
“Sonny.” I give him a two-fingered salute. “How’re things?”
“Busy, busy. Good result last night.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Lucky win, though. Playing that way won’t win championship games.”
One sad day, Sonny Quinn’s eulogy will read:
Beloved husband, daddy, grandfather and friend. Timelessly tactless and stoic. A die-hard Bears fan.
“We’re working on it, sir.”
He nods once, firmly. “Annie’s inside giving Nelson a snack. I’ll come watch him once I’m cleaned up so you can take her for a ride.”
That simple statement shouldn’t make a grown man blush but damn it does. I only hope Sonny can’t see into my mind and the downright inappropriate thoughts I’ve been having about Annie these past few days.
I need to get laid. No emotion, just a quick release of testosterone. Enough to remind me that picturing Annie in those tiny denim skirts and cowboy boots while my right hand was wrapped around my dick last night was… not okay.
“Annie Bannie, Nellie Bellie?” The smell of good home cooking hits me when I step inside the kitchen. Today, it’s roasted garlic I’m getting on the nose.
“We’re in the lounge,” Annie calls. I find her sitting at the dining table feeding Nelson something that looks like mashed root veg.
“Looks like he’s wearing more than he’s eating.” I’m referring to the coating of food smeared over almost every inch of him. It’s a warm day and he’s wearing nothing but a diaper and dirt.
Ten minutes later, Annie’s reversing us away from the house in her sparkling new car and turning us onto the dusty track to filthy it right up.
“You’re driving well,” I tell her.
It’s true, relatively. She’s much more comfortable in this car than Sonny’s truck. She’s not clunking between gears and with less to think about without a shifter, she’s remembering to check her mirrors and signal.
We’ve got the windows down and the air outside is thick, muggy. Clouds are building and the sky is darkening despite the time of day. “We should head back before the storm breaks,” I say.
Annie maneuvers in a three-point turn like she’s done it plenty of times before and I tell her as much.
“I think you’re giving me confidence. I knew I could drive, I just needed…”
“Confidence?”
She glances up to me through long lashes and it takes all my willpower to look away when she smiles in a way that lights up those melting chocolate irises.
We aren’t quick enough getting back to the house. The heavens burst, making it difficult for Annie to drive. Thunder roars nearby and lightning cracks around us.
She rolls up her window, the distraction causing her to sway in the car enough to have me worried. “Scoot over, Annie, I’ll drive us back the rest of the way. I’m all for you getting experience in bad weather but this is dangerous.”
“I’m fine. You said yourself, I’m driving well.”
But the downpour is meteoric and the tires are losing grip under the muddy track. “Annie, come on, this isn’t safe.” She can barely see through the windshield.
“I’ve got to drive in the rain sometime.”
“Would you quit being so stubborn, Annie Quinn? Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“I’m not some damsel in wet weather distress, Tanner,” she snaps, in a way that’s unlike her, as if there’s something else eating her but I’ll be damned if I know what.
“All you men think you know what’s best for me, that you can tell me what to do and I’ll just—” She takes a hand off the wheel to click her fingers.
The car sways, again. “Poof. Bow to you.”
She’s speeding up as her temper rises for whatever unknown reason but she’s also gripping the wheel as if she’s afraid.
“Annie, I’m only asking you to pull over and let me drive us back to the ranch.
” I eye the road, watching as dirt sprays out from the tires. “You’re acting crazy. What’s going on?”
“Oh good, so now I’m crazy.”
“Jesus, Annie, no.” I brace myself as we lose traction, slamming my palm on the dash. “Would you stop the goddamn car?”
She looks at me and that fire, that anger, dissolves into something else.
Pain? Hurt? Then she does the opposite of what she should do and slams her brake pedal to the ground.
The car slides, it swings, it turns through ninety degrees.
Annie takes her hands off the wheel, screams and squeezes her eyes tight shut.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! I’m going to diiiiiiie!”
“Open your eyes, Annie, for Christ’s sake.”
She does but not until the car has slid to a stop. My heart is hammering in my chest, the contents of my stomach leaping into my mouth and back down again.
What I’m thinking is… what in the eff just happened? But I have enough mental capacity to know that’s not what Annie needs. Instead, I take a breath and ask her as calmly as I can feign, “How’re you doin’, Annie Quinn?”
Her anger, her anguish, her fear, all turn into a spurt of laughter, so hard and infectious that I end up laughing with her, my sore intercostals screaming at me.
“I’m sorry,” she says eventually.
I shake my head. “What am I going to do with you? Come on, let’s switch and I’ll see if I can get us out of this mess.”
Rain still pounds on the car, loud and heavy. It bounces off the ground, kicking up dirt. And Annie… makes to open the car door. “You’ll get soaked through,” I yell above the storm. “Climb over me.”
I realize as soon as she moves that this is a terrible idea. Butt to my lap, her denim skirt rides up her thighs as she slides across me. That garment I’ve thought about too often lately. I ought to sit on my hands but I help her to my seat holding the curve of her waist.
Her foot slips, landing her right down on my crotch, and I’m silently thanking the lord that I chose to wear jeans that might hide the stirring of what’s underneath them.
Because then she shifts one leg to the side of me and winds up fully astride my thigh, back to my chest, every nerve ending in my body waking up, even as I remind myself that this woman is off limits.
My body must act of its own volition, my palm connecting with the heat of her smooth, golden thigh.
I’m so fucking lost to the simple touch that I don’t clock my error until her breath catches and she rocks backward into my chest. I’m engulfed by sweet cinnamon, freshly baked bread and something brighter, floral.
It’s not the darkly deep intoxicating scents I’m used to on women I meet at night.
It’s all Annie. Better. More. I want to fucking devour it.
She turns across her shoulder to look at me and the heat I feel where our skin connects is in her eyes, too. God fucking damn it, I’m totally hot for Quinn’s sister. Quinn’s significantly younger sister. Who needs a friend, not a horny playboy.
But there’s a silent crackle as our gazes lock and it’s louder than the rain hammering on the roof. Dangerously loud as I stare at her lips and she fixes her attention on mine.
I want to kiss her. Fucking eat her lips and—
I cough, killing the moment, if it was a moment. Reminding myself that I am the grown-ass man here, the driving instructor, the family friend. And Annie is not in a place to be messed with. She deserves better than me lusting after her.
“All set?” I ask, voice croaking, as I help her shimmy to one side of me on the passenger seat, then take my turn to move.
I don’t dare to look down and draw attention to my member as I get behind the wheel. I only hope he isn’t as present as he feels.
I park us outside the house and we decide to sit for a few minutes to wait for a break in the deluge. We’re watching the rain bounce off the windows and pound like rattling sticks against a drum, the silence between us now deafening and awkward.