CHAPTER 44 Miller Banks
Brotherly Competition
I stare up at the ceiling as I lie on the bed.
This was the scene of the crime.
I feel like shit. I feel awkward with Sophie, and that’s one zone our friendship has never fallen into. I hate it.
It feels all wrong.
This trip that felt like paradise just a few days ago has turned into some weird sort of hellish prison. We can’t even get off this fucking boat today because it’s a day at sea, and suddenly I feel some strange combination of homesick and seasick.
I think it’s just nausea from the condom breaking and the uncertainty surrounding that, but I force myself up off the bed and over to the Dramamine anyway.
I pop a pill, and I think about calling Tanner, but I’m not sure I’m ready to confess any of this to anybody just yet. Besides, we’re meeting for a game of basketball in an hour anyway.
One half of me wishes today of all days wasn’t the day that we were forced to be apart. But the other part of me is grateful for the isolation.
It gives me a chance to sit with my thoughts.
Obviously if our accident last night results in a pregnancy, I’ll be there for her.
I just never imagined this is how I’d finally get my shot with her. Everything was going so well for us, and now it feels like we ran into a wall.
My biggest fear in her finding out that I’ve loved her since high school was that it would somehow change our friendship. It didn’t. But I think this might.
Tanner will know something’s up with me. He’ll dig and dig until he gets to the bottom of things.
And that’s why I should probably avoid him. I’m not ready for him to give me his big brotherly advice.
He’s twelve minutes older than me, and somehow that makes him wiser than me. Fuck that. He doesn’t know fuck about shit, and apparently neither do I.
I blow out a breath.
Who the fuck even am I right now? I’m insulting my brother in my own head. This isn’t me.
I need to shake it off, and with that in mind, I head toward the fitness center.
I shouldn’t be surprised to find Asher, Spencer, and Tanner already in there. There’s nobody else in here, just those three men who are all prepping ahead of the looming training camp.
“Where are the other two?” I ask when I walk in.
“I think Grayson is taking a nap, and Lincoln said he wanted to get some work done before basketball,” Spencer says as he runs on a treadmill.
Tanner is lifting weights, and Asher is doing squats.
I hop on one of the treadmills a few down from Spencer to give us each some space. I slip in my AirPods, turn on some indie rock, and I start immediately with a sprint.
“Whoa, dude. You okay?” Asher asks as he moves to stand in front of my machine .
“Fine,” I grunt.
“An immediate sprint? Don’t you need to warm up first?”
I shake my head. “I need to fucking run. Anybody else feel stuck on this boat?”
Tanner sets down his weights and moves to stand beside Asher. “You okay?”
“A bit of seasickness, I think,” I say. It’s a lie, and Tanner will see right through it.
As predicted, he studies me for a second, but he doesn’t say anything in front of Asher and Spencer. Instead, he’ll corner me later and try to get me to talk, but I’ve become pretty damn good at keeping my feelings to myself.
They leave me to my run as they get back to their own workouts, and I increase the incline and slow my pace. I run for thirty minutes, music blasting in my ears as I push everything out of my mind and focus on the task in front of me.
It helps.
By the time I’m done, I’m a panting, sweaty mess, but I do feel a little better.
Except the moment I stop, it all comes rushing back.
What if I got Sophie pregnant last night?
It feels like it’ll be the only thing on my mind for the next month until we know one way or the other.
I can’t have this weighing on me while I’m at camp. I’m a starter, sure, but that doesn’t mean the team will play me if someone with more speed or better reflexes proves himself over me.
I need my focus. Last year, when Tanner lost his focus, he tore his ACL in the first regular season game. It took him out for the entire season.
He’ll be back this year, and I refuse to let anything else come between us. This will be the first full season we’ll get to play together on the San Diego Storm .
Our reservation time for the basketball court is quickly approaching, and the four of us finish our workouts around the same time and head together to the courts, where we find Grayson and Lincoln already waiting for us.
They’re all relaxed while the four of us just finished an intense workout.
We may have pushed it a little harder than necessary since we were working out with our siblings.
Not that we have any sort of sibling rivalry, really, but let’s be honest. It’s six brothers who all played professional football at various times.
Three of us play on the same team. Of course there’s some sort of brotherly competition at play in the background.
And that only comes flying to the surface as we take the basketball court. I can’t imagine what other places it might come to the surface. The five of them are all married already. Some have kids already. I guess those things aren’t a competition, but if they were, I wouldn’t be winning.
It’s sure to prove an intense game of three-on-three—Tanner, Lincoln, and Spencer against Grayson, Asher, and myself.
It’s fairly balanced in terms of size and speed, and before tip-off, I glance at the fence surrounding the courts.
People have gathered. They already knew the Nash and Banks brothers were on board this ship, and they’re about to witness the six of us playing a game in the same space together.
This has never happened before, but we’re six pro athletes. There’s no way in hell this isn’t about to get vicious as fuck.
It’s probably a terrible idea given the fact that we need to be in tip-top shape in less than two weeks, but fuck it all. Let’s fucking go.
Grayson manages to snag the ball first, and even though basketball isn’t our sport, it’s still one we all tried out at some point. Grayson is the tallest, and I’m the fastest with Asher just behind me, so we easily make our way back and forth across the court.
People are taking pictures and cheering for their favorites. Tanner and Asher seem to be the most popular names I’m hearing, though I hear everyone’s at some point, including my own.
It’s a tight game, and we only reserved the court for an hour. We decided we’d play to the end, and with less than ten seconds left on our game clock, the score is eighty-two to eighty-five. Tanner’s team is winning.
Grayson tips Lincoln’s shot, and somehow, I end up with the ball. I could sprint across the court for an easy layup, which would give us only two points—or I could try for a three-pointer to tie up the score.
My quick thinking pushes me to opt for choice number two, and I find myself at the three-point line as I square up.
I hear my brothers running toward me from behind, and I shoot.
The ball seems to pause mid-air, and then it hits off the backboard.
It bounces to the rim, on the backboard again, around the rim, and finally drops through the net.
The crowd gathered around the courts goes wild, and Asher holds up a hand for a fist bump on his way by.
We’re tied up with three seconds left on the clock, and somehow this game of pickup basketball with my brothers feels as important as a playoff game.
I realize it’s not. It’s just for fun. But the pride of winning will stay with us for the rest of this cruise.
Or the rest of the day, at least. Until lunchtime, maybe.
Lincoln throws the ball in to Tanner, and I’m right on top of my twin, making sure he has exactly zero space to move.
He’s struggling, and that’s when Asher comes out of nowhere, steals the ball just as Tanner is dribbling, and runs it to the hoop for a layup right as the buzzer—a small bell, actually—sounds .
The crowd is cheering, and I’m yelling with Grayson and Asher as the three losers look on at us, all six of us panting as we try to catch our breath after the strenuous exercise of the last hour.
We all slap hands as good sportsmen do, and then we agree to meet up in a half hour for lunch so we all have time to head back to our rooms for a quick shower.
It was another hour that I didn’t think about what happened last night.
I needed that.
Maybe the more time passes us by, the less I’ll think about it.
I take a quick shower and head down to the dining room. I arrive first, and Tanner shows up just after me.
“What’s going on with you?” he asks.
My brows dip. “What do you mean?”
“You know you can’t hide shit from me, so stop pretending.” He sounds exasperated.
“Nothing.”
“You and Sophie barely looked at each other during breakfast,” he says.
“You were watching?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Just quietly observing. Is everything okay?”
I chew the inside of my cheek for a beat before I say, “I’m just worried we want different things, and I’m not sure how we can make it work if that’s the case.”
“What different things?” he presses.
“I don’t know. Different futures. Like maybe she wants kids, and I don’t think I do.”
“Is that something you have to decide right now?” he asks.
“I guess not,” I mutter. “But shouldn’t we be on the same page for that kind of shit? If we’re not now, we might never be. And now we’re in this place where if we don’t move forward together, then I might be losing her forever.”
“Get out of your head, man. Enjoy it. You finally landed her, and now you’re sabotaging things before you ever even get off the ground.”
“It’s what I do.” It feels like it, anyway. It feels like things are always going fine or at least in the direction of fine, and then I look ahead, see the potential problems, and shut it down before I have to deal with those problems.
And nobody knows that better than Tanner.
“It doesn’t have to be.” His voice is gentle, and I guess it gives me something to think about.