“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 thatif, 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.
37
PACE – MID NOVEMBER
I Love Her
The sight of the Audi parked at my house when I arrive home fuels the irrational adrenalin I’m experiencing. It feels like waiting for the kick-off of a trophy game rather than coming home.
The thing is, last night, or rather the early hours of this morning, when I drove home from the airport, I forgot that the working week hadn’t started yet and Annie doesn’t live with me full time. She lives with me in the middle of the week and last week she didn’t live with me at all.
After being desperate to see her the whole weekend, I turned up to a home in darkness. To a tidy lounge and the smell of cleaning chemicals mixed with fragrance sticks. I didn’t tread on a kids’ toy when I walked through my front door, or hear the laughter or tantrums of Nelson, Annie and Betty. No one rushed to tell me how their day had been or smiled for no other reason than to welcome me home.
