Chapter 13
PACE – LATE SEPTEMBER
Veteran. Teammate. Bachelor
“Electricity’s out,” Sonny explains.
“Oh no,” Annie says. “We’ll have to grill and rustle up a salad if it doesn’t come back in time for dinner. But, Daddy, is it really dark enough for candles?”
“It’s pre-emptive, darlin’.”
“Alright then.” Annie side-eyes me in a way that has me fighting back amusement again, because while the sky has darkened with thick clouds, she’s right, there’s still plenty of daylight coming into the lounge.
“Oh, and Colton’s going to stay in the city tonight,” Sonny says. “He’s going to take Sas out for dinner and spend time with her tomorrow.”
My first thought is, he can’t be spending all day with her because Sas and I have a meeting to go through a contract for a new endorsement deal.
My second thought is, our group dinner tonight has become a dinner by candlelight with Annie, her dad and Nelson.
My third thought is, “How will you get into the city for college tomorrow?”
I know she made it so that her college schedule would fit around Colton’s training but having a game on a Monday night has switched our usual Tuesday off day to Wednesday this week.
In ordinary circumstances, Colton would have been driving her into the city with him and bringing her back to the ranch after training.
Annie looks to Sonny, but he shakes his head. “I have some errands to run locally and I’ve got someone from the water company coming to see about some pipes on the land. But we can get you a cab there and back.”
A cab? All that way? With a stranger?
My brain doesn’t fully engage before I say, “I’ll come get you in the morning and bring you back after training.”
“Now why would you want to drive all that way?” Annie asks.
It’s not the drive that’s a problem. An hour or so in a comfy car, listening to my music or a podcast, is no hardship.
But I do have that meeting with Sas and I was going to fit in nine holes with the guys.
The Bears’ Comms team has arranged to bring some merch to the training facility for me to sign for various charity auctions, too.
So yeah, it would be tricky to fit in going back-and-forth, but a cab is impersonal. She’ll be forced to make small talk with someone she doesn’t know. Worse, the driver might be one of those busybodies from town.
“I could stay here tonight, if that’s okay with you, Sonny?” The words literally run out of me like verbal diarrhea. “For the convenience.”
He doesn’t look too convinced but he doesn’t say no either.
“Ah– Bah– Is that okay with y’all?” Annie stutters, frowning at her dad.
Am I being overly familiar, again? Am I putting my nose in to help where it’s not welcome?
“We’ve got a guest bedroom,” Sonny tells me, that gravelly voice seeming deeper than ever, and the way he’s eyeballing me is sending another message, too. Don’t you dare try anything funny with my daughter.
I get it. Not that I was going to try anything funny with Annie.
The car moments aside, I’m being sensible around her.
I know how unwelcome any approach would be to her and her family.
I’m on the same side as them, Team Wrap Annie Up in Cotton Wool and a Chastity Belt Until She’s Recovered from Auston.
The electricity kicks back perfectly timed for me to see Annie’s cheeks flush pink in the most adorable way. For a nanosecond, something inside me twists.
Does she… like me? No, hell no. The shift between us in Nelson’s room on Sunday night. The fizz I felt in the car when she slid across me, when I held her face and her gaze. Those glitches were on me.
Guest bedroom for one time and one time only.
I’m simply helping a woman who needs a break.
Annie has already prepped a veggie lasagna, which she slips into the oven to reheat. I mess around with Nelson, rolling him balls and getting that hand-eye coordination working – or not working as it happens.
Meanwhile, Annie roasts garlic in a pan and tips it on top of pre-prepared flatbread.
Everything about her in the kitchen is easy, like the way she sings along to the radio as she stretches out bread dough, and the way she wiggles her hips to the country beats, all the while encouraging Nelson and chatting to me through the hatch window to the lounge.
Sonny is out marshaling the land to check the electric fences but he’s made us leave the candles burning, just in case, and the scent of citronella is as strong in the house as the smell of Annie’s cooking.
“I love this place,” I say absent-mindedly.
“You do?” Annie asks, telling me that I spoke my thoughts aloud. “Isn’t it a little too small town for a guy like you?”
“A guy from Arizona who grew up in a tiny three bed with his mom and sister?”
“I didn’t know that.” She stops doing what she’s doing, giving me her full attention. “I assumed a guy with a personality as big as yours came from, you know, the sort of upbringing that gives you confidence.”
“I got the kind of upbringing that instils hard work ethic and the idea that you can cover a lot of shortcomings with a big personality. Whether you’re not the smartest guy in school, or you’re the only kid without the big-name brands on his sneakers but still turning out to the football field for every practice because his mom made sure he got there.
Single moms don’t have it easy, Annie, I know that, but the best ones do a damn good job all the same. ”
She fixes her gaze on me, staring at me in a way that makes me unable to take my eyes off her. I don’t know which one of us is saying we see the other, but that’s the message passing between us.
“That’s why you’re so keen to help me out.” She looks away quickly, as if the tone of the room has shifted entirely. “You make a little more sense to me now, Tanner Pace.”
I don’t know why, but the words coming from her mouth feel almost sad. Did she think I was here for something more? Am I?
I want to tell her that my mom isn’t the only reason. She’s Colton’s sister, I respect everything she’s got going on in her life and I love the Quinns. I love it out here on the ranch and the non-profit for a good cause.
But there’s more to it now and I know that.
I like Annie. Who she is. What she reminds me of and represents. Just her. Being around her and watching her be. The way her skin flushes when she’s embarrassed and the way she thinks she’s failing at everything when she’s doing a fucking incredible job of juggling a hundred hefty balls.
I don’t say that and I won’t say that because it’s better not to muddy the waters. Better for us both to agree that this is a guy helping a woman out of empathy for what his own mom went through. A man being a good buddy to his teammate.
That’s exactly what I need to be. There can be no blurring of lines. Colton is my split end, my offense, and he’s been burnt by a supposed friend breaking guy code once before. Not me. I’m older and wiser and I’ve learned my lesson about women and putting my brothers before them.
Plus, I’ve been smacked one too many times for unknowingly taking the wrong girl to bed. I’ve had one-night stands splashed across the front of TMZ because I was used for a cheap buck – not that I was complaining about the using but the cheap buck making stings.
Everything I do gets scrutinized on social media and that’s why I’ve stopped it in recent times.
I’ve stopped searching for the easy lay.
I either go with someone in the same shoes – who doesn’t want to have their own fame used as clickbait – or I settle for a celebratory salt bath instead.
Life’s too short to fight keyboard warriors and I hated seeing what they did to the Quinns and Colton and Sas last year.
Add it to the list of reasons Annie is perfectly safe around me, no matter how hot she looks in a denim skirt, checked shirt and cowboy boots. Even if I had one, two, or three small blips in the car there earlier. She’s strictly in the friend zone.
Annie’s cooking is sensational – wholesome, hearty, tasty – a man could get used to it. We eat around the table, where Sonny and I talk football as Annie continually mops pasta sauce off every inch of Nelson.
When she puts Nelson to bed, Sonny continues to tell me his concerns about how our quarterback isn’t doing so well in his first starting year.
It’s not news to me but the reality is we don’t have another option.
All we can do is train hard with Lamar because we don’t have Tommy to step in, not now, maybe not even next season.
Sonny offers us a glass of his finest bourbon when Annie comes back downstairs. I refuse on account of not really drinking during the season. “The older I get, the more I have to look after myself,” I tell them.
“Tanner, you’re thirty-four years old. You’re still young,” Annie tells me.
“Says the spring chick in the room,” I say, chuckling. “I know I’m not old outside the game but I don’t have too many playing years left and if I can look after myself, maybe I get an extra season or two.”
“Wise man. The Bears need you, son,” Sonny tells me.
I’m glad he turns away to hand Annie a drink because his words lodge themselves in my throat.
It’s not like I’ve never been called son before.
Coach Roy has called me son sometimes, as have the other coaching staff.
But there’s something about Sonny saying it, in this place, while we’re sitting around his lounge, that makes me feel invited and welcome, and part of the Quinn pack.
I’m not an overly emotional guy, so his words bring with them a hefty dose of discomfort. I’m grateful for Annie slumping down on the sofa next to me and curling up her feet as she steals the television remote from her dad.
“Darlin’, if you think we’re watching Gilmore Girls—”
“Oh, Daddy, come on, you and Tanner are talking football anyway.”
He gives her the death stare, making Annie laugh, and instead of the Gilmore Girls, she finds a rodeo, which we can all agree on. “Hey, Daddy, did you know that Darcy Pace is Tanner’s sister?”
“Well now, I did not, but I know how much you and your mama love to watch her ride.”
With Annie next to me on the sofa, close but not touching, we watch rodeo and talk about my sister’s status as number one, until Sonny calls it quits and goes to bed.
Again, he gives me the don’t you dare stare right before heading up the staircase and I give him a subtle nod.
I know the boundary line. I won’t so much as peer over it, let alone step cross it.
With Sonny out of the picture, I take hold of the controller and hand it to Annie. “Don’t tell anyone but I’m good with an episode of Gilmore Girls. It’s one of my guilty pleasures when I’m having a salt bath after a big game.”
Annie laughs so hard I end up covering her mouth with my hand to stop her from waking Nelson, and it does stop her from laughing.
In fact, it stops us both from doing anything as her gaze pierces mine and I realize my fingers are pressed to the lips I’ve looked at and wanted to taste too many times tonight.
As my hand lingers and I helplessly run my thumb across her bottom lip, I’m mesmerized by the flicker of candlelight in the blacks of her eyes.
I suddenly, thankfully, snap to.
I’m Tanner Pace. Veteran. Teammate. Bachelor.
Despite the comfy mattress on the Quinns’ guest bed, I can’t get to sleep, because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here.
This was a bad idea. I’m thinking about Annie tucked in her bed, yards away from me, and I know I can’t.
I shouldn’t be picturing her in bed ever.
And I shouldn’t be here because that move on the sofa, my thumb feeling the softness, the warmth of her lips…
that was seeing the line and powering right over it.
This is the one and only time I will stay over at Sunshine Ranch.
Since I’m lying awake anyway, when I hear Nelson cry in the early hours of the morning, I go to him to let Annie sleep.
“Hey, buddy,” I whisper. “How’re you doing?”
He pulls himself up to stand in his crib and holds up an arm to me. Fuck me, this kid is a heartbreaker already.
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to lie him back down, stroke his hair and shush him back to sleep, or pick him up and give the kid a cuddle.
Hell, I’m not sure if I’m even supposed to be speaking to him but he wants me and I’m not going to refuse a chubby little face like that with his mama’s big, beautiful eyes and a button nose.
So I reach down and pick him up onto my chest, taking us both to sit in the rocking chair.
I kick my feet up on a stool and lie back, listening to Nelson’s breathing calm and trying to slow my own to encourage him back to sleep.
It’s like having the warmest soft toy in the world comforting me during my restless night.
I lean my head back and close my eyes, serenaded by the soft snores of a baby boy.