Chapter 36
ANNIE – EARLY NOVEMBER
Small
I watch the game against LA with Daddy at home on the ranch, mostly staring at the screen without truly processing what’s happening beyond Tanner having a dire game.
This is the first time I’ve sat down without the respite families or Nelson this weekend and in not focusing on something else, my mind is finally wandering to the bombs dropped on me last week – first by the media, then the man himself by text, then my brother.
Auston wants to play for the Bears. An hour away from the ranch. Me. Nelson.
I have no idea what that means or how I’m supposed to interpret it. I have no idea because Auston hasn’t replied to my messages, let alone called to speak with me like a man.
Every quiet hour is reminiscent of old times between us.
The way he’d want me incessantly when he was here, always sneaking touches, messaging me to meet him in secret.
Then he’d go back to college and… silence.
When he started playing for the Archers, he’d visit the ranch for weeks at a time in the off-season, take his fill.
Then he’d be gone for months and I’d convince myself it wasn’t me but his training schedule.
I felt small.
I feel small now.
Every time the screen switches from the Bears game to the Archers, Auston is having his best performance of the season, ironically. The Archers are up by fourteen and it seems to me Auston is fighting to show his club and their home crowd how much he wants to stay in St Louis.
“Annie, for the love of all things mighty, would you stop biting those nails before you draw blood?” Daddy asks, again.
“Sorry. It’s just— Daddy, what am I supposed to make of all this?”
He’s sitting in his leather chair, with its dipped seat and worn-out back from years of watching sport in it and refusing to replace it. He keeps his eyes on the television but holds up a wagging finger, which makes Bear bark – boy’s got my back.
“Come here, Bear,” I say, and I slip down to the rug where the dog lies across my lap. I’m instantly soothed by his soft fur under my fingertips.
“You told me to keep my opinions to myself and give you the headspace you need to figure this out on your own,” Daddy says. “That’s what I intend to do.” Finally, he looks at me. “Unless you want my opinion because believe me, darlin’, I’ve rehearsed it enough times.”
I can guess it with ease.
“No.” I sigh. “This is for me to figure out.”
“Well, you and these boys, too.” He nods to the game, where the Bears’ defense is back on the field and the disparity between the two sides is growing.
I can’t help wondering whether I’m causing some of the problem. My neocortex tells me no, why would my personal life be causing the Bears’ offense to suck?
But there’s a much louder part screaming that I had one of the best nights of my life in Dallas. I know it wasn’t a first date but it felt like it. The way I read about in books and watch in romcoms – the hot-shot guy sweeping the small-town girl off her feet.
I know we’ve pinky promised to be friends.
But the way Tanner looked at me, the way he stared at my mouth, kissed every inch of my body and the sheer magic he worked between my thighs.
The way he’s always near when I’m around, whether I’m interviewing his teammates for my project, or when we’re home and he finds excuses to be in the same room as me.
I don’t want to crush on another footballer who’s in the limelight I’m running from, but my amygdala is strong.
It’s irrational. It’s making me ask the question, what if?
What if when he said he likes me, I hadn’t brushed him off and walked away?
What if the way he likes me is enough for us to get through all the other crap?
Because the way I like him is getting closer to something much more every day.
Tanner has become a great friend, a mentor, a therapist, a support system and he’s the only person who could help me unpick this whole thing with Auston.
But I don’t know if I want to keep talking about Auston or any other man with Tanner.
I don’t want him to see me as young and indecisive.
Emotional and reactive. Easily influenced. Small.
That’s why I’ve stayed here at the ranch all week. Because how can he see me as anything different when the evidence speaks for itself?
“Annie, you’re doing it again. I swear, darlin’, I’ll have Bear here chew those nails right off if you don’t stop.”
I scowl at Daddy. “Bear would sooner bite you on the ass. Wouldn’t you, buddy?”
His bark makes us smile for the first time tonight.
Daddy gives up on the game at the two-minute warning in the final quarter and heads to bed.
Bear continues to sleep in my lap, where I’m staring at a family photograph on the coffee table – Mama’s favorite of the four of us – and wishing she was here.
She was opinionated and she’d call things as she saw them, but she’d do it all with empathy and good intentions.
She could light up any room she walked into and the Mama-shaped hole I have in my heart is aching.
That’s what I’m thinking as my phone rings ten minutes or so after the game, startling the dog, who sulks off upstairs, probably to lie on guard by Nelson’s crib.
“Tanner Pace,” I answer, my pulse rate notching up.
There’s an uncommon pause that makes me wonder if he’s pocket dialed me, then he asks, “How’re you doin’, Annie Quinn?”
It might be the most downbeat I’ve ever heard him.
“I’m going to take a wild guess that I’m doing better than you. You got hit hard a couple times tonight.”
He scoffs and there’s a ruffle that makes me think he’s rubbing his beard. “Probably the least of my concerns. That might be the worst game I’ve played in a Bears’ jersey.”
“I can’t sugar coat that one for you, hun.”
He chuckles and though it sounds thick and heavy, I prefer it. I hear someone calling out in the background and Tanner telling them, “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, give me a minute.”
“You should go, you have a flight home to catch and I’d… I’d really like to see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah?” I hear his smile in his words and it makes my lips curve in response.
“Yeah. I can even run you one of your secret candle and salt tubs, maybe put a little Gilmore Girls on the flat screen for you.”
“The new season of Nobody Wants This is out,” he says, and I can’t help hearing the irony in the title.
“You can’t watch that in the tub because I want to watch it with you.”
“Deal,” he says, then again to someone in the background, “One minute.”
“You better go,” I tell him.
“I know, I just want to make sure you’re okay. I should have called you before the game. On Thursday or Friday even. I’m trying to give you space, too, you know?”
“I do and I appreciate it. But you’re the only person alive that I’ve wanted to talk to about it all.”
“I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this shit all the time, Annie. I hate it for you. And I hate that… you knew the media had it right and you felt like you couldn’t tell me.”
“It’s complicated, Tanner.” I blow out my next breath, admitting to myself that I’m conflicted about all this, when it ought to be simple. Auston’s no good for me. Toxic. But now I have a baby boy to put before myself. “Hey, if a girl will drop her panties for any—”
“Stop it, Annie. Don’t make out like you’re someone you’re not. You cared about Auston and he made you think he cared, too. He’d have been mad not to.”
I dig my teeth into my lip because finally, the situation is making my eyes glaze.
“Yeah, I’m coming, I’m coming,” he says, and I hear him moving with the phone, wind against the receiver.
“Annie, what does the best-case scenario look like to you? I’m on your side either way and to the extent I can exert influence, I will.
The trade is far from a done deal. The deadline’s in three weeks and that’s a long time in football. ”
“This is about the team and the game, Tanner, not me and Nelson.”
“The hell it isn’t,” he mutters.
The answer to the question I’ve been wondering silences me. Why? To what end?
“You there, Annie?”
It sounds as if he’s getting on a coach, other players talking around him.
“The fact is, Auston might be what the Bears need. That’s much bigger than me.”
“What if he was in Texas?”
“Honestly, I’m trying to play out the scenario that he’s here and wants to have Nelson on the weekends and take him to the park or for ice cream and—” I puff out my cheeks.
Saying it aloud makes it real and really darn heavy in my heart.
“I don’t even know the right questions to ask myself, let alone how to answer them.
Do I want to be with him? No. But do I want Nelson to come from a broken home? No.”
I shake my head, trying to stop my eyes from filling.
“I’ll always have unfinished business because it was never ended on my terms, but I know I don’t want him romantically in my life.
The problem is that if, and it’s a huge if, he could be a decent daddy to Nelson, then I’ve got to be supportive of that. Don’t I?”
I hear my brother in the background, “Shuffle up, man.”
I know Tanner’s got to hang up before he says, “Let’s talk properly tomorrow.”
“Okay. Rest up and remember it’s only one game.”
“Yeah.” He sighs. “Speak soon.”
It’s not how he usually ends our calls, so I know it’s for my brother’s benefit that he’s hiding who he’s speaking to. Another man I’m hiding from my family. One of many reasons that I need to get over whatever this yearning is when he’s not nearby.
“Sweet dreams, Tanner Pace.”
Almost immediately after I hang up, a message comes through from him:
Sweet dreams, Annie Quinn.
As I stare at the screen, I don’t feel small. I feel taller than the trees, rooted and stable. Calmer than I have since this latest media shitstorm kicked off.