Chapter 18
PACE – EARLY OCTOBER
Plausible Deniability
Brazil is four days of insanity. I’m sure S?o Paulo is an incredible city but all I see of it is the view flying in on the Bears’ plane, the city’s high rises that we stay in and give press interviews from, the populated city streets as we’re bused out to a youth football camp and to our own facilities for this international game against the Chargers.
It’s the first time I’ve been away for an international game and thought that I’d like to come back to explore a place, to travel, as a non-player.
I have another season on my contract after this one. Increasingly, I find myself wondering what life will be like without the game and who I’ll be if I’m not Number 89, starting tight end for the Bears.
We extend our unlikely winning run with another narrow victory, thanks to a pick six from our cornerback and our linemen stepping up big time to give Lamar more time in the pocket than most quarterbacks get in a season.
Unbelievably, we’re four and nothing.
There are signs that Lamar is starting to figure out his own game, which is a positive among the crap.
Rather than trying to step into Tommy’s boots – that look increasingly unlikely to be worn again this season – the quarterback coaches and my offense are working hard to figure out how we can gel better.
He isn’t Tommy, we know that, and we need to start focusing on what the kid does well rather than what he does reasonably well.
It’s a strange road trip and I’m tired and sore on the travel back to Texas. The mood in the camp isn’t great either, despite the win, because we all know we’ve been lucky to scrape points so far this season.
My uncommon grump doesn’t shift until I walk into my house and see ten life-size cutouts of myself, Colton, Max and some of our teammates in my lounge. Tamara came through for me.
I sink into my bubbling tub, candles flickering. But instead of focusing on the Sunday night game on my flat screen, my mind wanders to the place it’s gone a lot over the last few days.
Annie.
I don’t often look on social media. I’ve had a few run-ins with the public for my off-field antics and there’s been a lot of shit said about me in the past. Some true, some not so much.
What I do know is, social media is where souls go to die.
But I’ve been drawn to it the last few days because I’ve been watching to see how this whole thing with Annie and Auston plays out.
Jax’s PR has helped shift focus and keep things as contained as possible but there’s only so much magic that can be done when there are multiple viral reels.
To be clear, it’s Auston who looks like and who is the jackass in this situation and I’d approximate more than 90 percent of the comments on the reels agree. But the other comments are the ones I can’t stand to see.
She got what she wanted, he’ll have to pay for that kid for the next eighteen years.
She knew what she was doing.
Probably told him she was on birth control.
It’s poison. Not one of these people knows Annie. Anyone who does wouldn’t believe she tried to trap a footballer.
Annie’s the woman who scuffs boots, who breaks in horses, who bakes pecan pies and looks after kids and families who need respite, even though it’s Annie who needs a break.
So, as New England score a second touchdown on my big screen, I dry my hands and message Annie on my little screen.
Me
How’re you doing, Annie Quinn?
I get typing dots so I know she’s there, yet her usual quickfire response along the lines of fine, peachy or okay doesn’t come.
I wait and watch the dots, until eventually…
Annie Sunshine
Say, Tanner Pace, you once promised me if I ever needed a laugh, you’d be the guy to come to. That offer still stand? Because I sure could use a laugh.
I hate this for her. Fucking hate it. But I did make her that promise once, as I held her hand in one palm, her waist in the other and twirled her around a barn floor for the spring dance at Sunshine Ranch. She remembers my words. She remembers that dance.
Me, too. Only, I don’t know, the memory is hitting different tonight.
Since spending time with her. The dance I offered because I didn’t want her to feel left out suddenly has a different connotation.
I’d like to be the guy who walks her onto a dance floor.
The man entitled to kick the ass of the idiot who left her and who’s putting her through the ringer, again.
I can’t be Annie’s dance partner for so many valid reasons – our age gap, guy code, that it’s patently obvious that she might not be over her ex, no matter what she tells me, the fact she hates the limelight and I’m that personified.
But if there’s one thing I’m known for, it’s bringing the party and playing the clown.
I switch the football for an episode of the Gilmore Girls and make sure my member is hidden by bubbles – because if her brother ever sees this and I’ve accidentally sent her a dick pic, my life won’t be worth living.
I snap a picture and send it to Annie with a message…
Me
Sorry, cowgirl, I can’t help you. I’m mid-nighttime routine.
It’s a good while later when she eventually responds with:
Annie Sunshine
Exactly what I needed. Thank you. But next time, give me a heads up and we can press play together.
I ditched my round of golf with the guys after the ninth hole and I’ve been on the ranch for the last half hour undetected – so much for security.
But Annie doesn’t know I’ve been here until she comes out from the barn with a surprising spring in her step, dropping a horse brush in a bucket as she runs my way.
She needs a laugh, so that’s what I brought with me, but she seems happy.
At least she does until she gives my blacked-out SUV a once over from under her cowgirl hat.
I’m getting used to the way Annie’s mind works and though she turns that big wide smile back on for me, I know she thinks I brought the SUV to hide from prying eyes. She’ll see the truth soon enough.
Meanwhile, I’m rooted to the spot because I swear this woman gets prettier every time I see her.
She’s wearing one of her check shirts tucked into the kind of tight-fitting jeans that are making my jeans tighten, and what seems to be her favorite pair of boots.
I’m pretty sure I skip my next breath as I watch her brush rogue tendrils back from shining plump lips and I think, I’d like to do that.
Control her hair, run my fingers over her lips that I know are soft to touch.
She snaps me back from the place I absolutely shouldn’t be going when she says, “Good idea. Any outsider would only suspect Colton coming home.”
“I don’t care who sees me come to the ranch, Annie. Not for my sake, anyhow.”
“Right, it gives me plausible deniability when I get accused of trying to screw another pro.”
She’s stone-faced as she speaks and I know I’ve put my foot in my mouth but she rocks her shoulder against mine and winks.
And damn, you’d think I’d been let out of jail after a life sentence because the things that move does to me…
“You’re earlier than I was expecting, I’ve just started grooming the horses but Nelson is napping, so I’m good to go straight out if you like?”
Go straight out? I’m jittery over here. Because all I can think is, if people want to talk, let’s give them something to talk about, which is the last thing we’re going to do.
But I could use a beat to come round and so I ask Annie to show me the horses, which, as it turns out, is an even worse idea.
“You want to be firm,” she says, coming around my back and placing her hand over mine on the brush handle as I stroke it over the glossy brown coat of her mare, Maisie.
“Like this?” I ask, the break in my voice a dead giveaway that Annie has got me wound tighter than a tie-down rope.
Her left hand sears my shoulder through my shirt but it’s not a burn I want to fight.
Her body is barely grazing mine but I feel the warmth of her against me and fuck I like it, more than like it.
While the smooth motion we’re making along Maisie’s torso is calming, my heart rate is soaring like I’m about to play in the Big Game.
I’ve spent days thinking about her, about how I want to crush Auston for hurting her and putting her back in the public eye, but I haven’t questioned whether I have any other motive for hating him. Until now.
He doesn’t deserve her but he won her. And I’m not saying I deserve her but damn I’d do my utmost not to hurt her. To protect her, and Nelson.
But I can’t have her and maybe for the first time in my life, I’m jealous of someone else. Of what he had before the reckless dick threw it all away.
Fuck.
I clear my throat. “How about that driving lesson?”