Page 47

TWENTY-THREE

MILLIE

It was totally unfair I’d stayed sober all night and still woken up feeling like shit.

Worse than shit. It didn’t help that Tanner hadn’t been next to me when I knew we’d fallen asleep together. I never heard him leave.

I shouldn’t have looked in the mirror either. I clearly hadn’t done a very good job of removing my makeup, seeing as half of it was now down my face. Or maybe that was from the tears.

I couldn’t even find my phone to tell me what the time was, and glancing out of the window, it was too gloomy to see the sun to figure it out.

In the end, I decided I probably shouldn’t venture out of my bedroom without having a shower first because if anything could help rid me of the anxiety curling in my belly, it was standing under a torrent of scalding water.

It kind of worked. I definitely felt marginally better as I dressed in a pair of cozy sweatpants and a hoodie—the best attire for staying in all day, which I fully intended to do .

I walked into the kitchen, hoping Tanner might be in there, but I found Radley instead doing her best impression of Martha Stewart—or Lux —cracking eggs into the KitchenAid bowl as the beater slowly spun.

“Hey.” She smiled. “You want some cupcakes?”

“Um, is that even a question?” I pulled out the stool on the counter to sit, only to walk around to the coffee machine instead. I definitely needed coffee. “Have you seen my phone?”

She shook her head. “No, sorry.”

“What time is it?”

“Just after two,” Radley replied.

I paused from reaching for a coffee cup and turned to her. “In the afternoon ?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I would have woken you, but I figured you needed to sleep.”

I must have slept for twelve hours. Maybe that’s why I felt so terrible, I’d had too much sleep. Was that a thing?

“Where are the guys?”

“Um…they got called into the stadium for a meeting, but went to the gym first. Parker wanted to sweat out his hangover.” She chuckled, nodding to a note on the counter propped up on a fresh vase of pale pink roses I hadn’t noticed. “Tanner left you that.”

Pushing my nose deep into the petals, I inhaled deeply then turned my attention to the piece of paper.

Hey, Mills,

We found out this morning we’re being sequestered at The Mark for the duration of the series. Shepherd wanted us all together under one roof. I came in to let you know, but you were fast asleep, so I left you and the bump to get some rest.

I love you, your smoothies are in the fridge.

Tanner x

I turned the note over. There was nothing else.

“What does this mean? Sequestered ?”

“Did he not tell you? It’s why they got called in. They were told to bring their travel bags with them. Lux said Shepherd’s taken over the top five floors of The Mark and he wants them to acclimate.”

“ Acclimate ?” I spat out. I’d never heard anything so ridiculous. “Acclimate to what? The Upper East Side?”

“I guess.”

“So they’re not coming back here at all? He left? Tanner left?”

She shook her head. “Apparently not. That’s what Lux said. They’ll be back once the series is done. Super annoying, I wanted to be with Lux after each game.”

“But that’s insane .”

“Yeah, I know. Why do you think I’m making cupcakes? They’re a distraction from my annoyance.”

“Are we allowed to go there?” I tried to keep the panic from my voice, but it was hard.

“I doubt it. You know how weird Penn Shepherd gets.”

What the hell. Why did this have to happen now ?

Why did Tanner have to leave two days before the series started just to be a couple of blocks across the city? Why did he have to leave without me having the chance to say goodbye? Or sorry for being such a pain in the ass .

Sorry for being so horrible.

Our ultrasound was in a week. What if he wasn’t allowed out to it?

And where was my goddamn phone so I could call him?

“Are you okay?” Radley asked, taking the note from me and reading over it. “Did you guys have an argument last night?”

“Yeah, I think so.…Maybe.” I glanced back down at the note. “I don’t know.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean, I was pissed at him because of what he told Parker. I can’t just tell him I love him because that’s what he wants to hear. And you know what his response was? He said he wasn’t going to apologize for loving me.” I threw my hands in the air. “Who says shit like that?”

Radley snorted loudly. I expected her to hug me or something, but she laughed instead. “You’re so dramatic.”

“What does that mean?”

I never found out the answer because the buzzer from the concierge desk rang, and Radley answered it. I would have asked her what they wanted, but I managed to distract myself by reading Tanner’s note again. And again.

How was I going to be able to see him?

It was only when the elevator doors opened that I remembered the buzzer had gone in the first place, and in walked the person I wanted to see second most in the world right now.

“Mom, what are you doing here?”

She dropped her bag on the floor and opened her arms. “Tanner called, he invited me up as a surprise for you. He thought you girls would like the company. ”

Of course he did.

Predictably, my tears started up again. I needed to start walking around with a box of tissues.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” she asked, almost crushing me in a hug I desperately needed.

“I don’t know. I don’t know .”

“It’s hormones, but also Tanner did something,” added Radley over the whirring of the KitchenAid.

“Okay,” my mom replied. “Well, I’m here and we can fix whatever needs fixing, but first go and get dressed.”

I glanced down at my sweatpants—black Lions ones that Tanner had gotten for me in a size that fit my bump.

“I am dressed. And I need to find my phone,” I replied, my eyes scanning the apartment again.

“Not for what I have in mind.” She smiled. “We’re going to do some shopping for my grandchild. Radley, are you coming?”

“Oh, thank you, but no. I’m going to stay and finish these cupcakes, then I have to study.”

“Okay, but join us if you change your mind.” My mom turned back to me and snapped her fingers. “Millie, go and get dressed. Hurry up.”

Radley might be baking to distract her from her annoyance, but I doubted there were enough clothes or money to distract me from mine.

“ C ’mon, tell me what’s happened?”

I’d thought perhaps she wasn’t going to ask.

We’d spent the last three hours buying every item of baby clothing she could find, in every size they came in. It was a good thing the furniture was arriving for the nursery next week, because we currently had nowhere to store anything.

I thought perhaps with all the shopping she might have forgotten I’d cried the second she arrived, and we would head home without having a conversation I wasn’t sure I wanted to have.

But then I decided I was too hungry to make it back to the apartment without eating, so here we were in a cute little restaurant not far from where Tanner was currently being held prisoner as we chomped on fries dipped in ketchup.

I sighed deeply. “Nothing…”

One of my mom’s eyebrows raised. “Nothing?”

“Tanner keeps telling me he loves me.” Yep. It sounded as dumb out loud as it did in my head.

She picked up her wine glass and took a long, slow sip. “Okay, and how do you feel?”

“About Tanner? Or about him telling me he loves me? I don’t know, is the answer to both.” I added before she could say anything.

She leaned back against the soft, burgundy leather booth we were sitting in and crossed her arms. I could tell from the way she was assessing me, her hazel eyes roaming over my face, that this wasn’t going to be a quick talk.

Maybe I should order a drink too.

“Your father…he was gone a lot. And when he was home, he couldn’t talk much about what he’d been doing…

he made up stories…when you were little, it didn’t matter so much, like his story about being the star quarterback.

But as you all got older and he’d return with scrapes and cuts, bruises or anything , you were paying attention more—” She glanced up at the waiter with a smile as he topped up her glass of wine.

“Mom, what are you trying to say?”

“I loved your father, so much… love …he was my whole world. We met when we were barely older than you, and I couldn’t ever imagine us not being together. But he joined the army, and it wasn’t long before he was snapped up into the job that took him.”

Before I could stop it, a lump thickened in my throat. “I know?—”

“But with your father being away all the time, out of contact, I always felt anxious. Days and weeks of hearing nothing was the life for me. Loving him came with a cost, one that eventually took him from us. But while I miss him every day, when he died, the fact he was always away made it easier to get through my day. I wasn’t used to the house with him in it. ”

A fat tear rolled down my mom’s cheek before she could snatch it away.

“And until I met Doug, I didn’t realize that anxiety in a relationship wasn’t the norm. Doug is present, he talks to me about his day, he’s safe . And it made it so easy to fall in love with him.”

“Yeah, Mom.” I sniffed, wondering where she was going with this. “I know .”

She nodded. “The couple of times I’ve met Tanner, I can tell he’s a talker.”

I chuckled through another loud sniff. That was an understatement. “ He is.”

“And you’re not used to it. You’re not used to someone so open and present.

Your male role model always disappeared for weeks with no contact.

Even if you understood why he disappeared, I think it took its toll on you.

” She paused, stepping close enough to me that she could run her hand over my belly.

“I think you like Tanner, more than you care to admit, but you’re scared, because of what happened with Daddy. ”

We were both silent for a second, staring at each other until a sniveled sob burst out. I found myself wrapped back up in my mom’s arms while she let me cry on her shoulder. And this was a legit cry, not a hormone-inflicted one.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”