Page 14 of Endurance
“It was Vi’s. She said she wouldn’t let me hold the baby when it’s born if I didn’t bring you there.”
Booker has always been wrapped around our sister’s finger. Not that we all aren’t to an extent, but the two of them have a bond that’s different than the rest of us. I think since he’s the youngest, Vi’s favoured him all these years and has been softer on him, more gentle. But that softness didn’t affect his game. As the goal keeper for Bethnal Green, Booker is one of the smartest and bravest players on the pitch. You have to have balls of steel as the keeper. He needs to know everyone’s role on the pitch and have complete confidence when he’s stuck between those posts. His mental strength has always impressed me. The older he gets and the better he gets, the less he seems like the baby. Not that he looks like the baby anymore as it is. He’s nearly the same height as me and I swear every time I see him, he’s gained more weight. He trains harder than anyone on the team. I think the reason he hasn’t moved out of Dad’s house is because it is a great place to train and focus on nothing but football.
Bloody hell, what if Dad makes me move home?
“I think it’s for your own protection.” Booker’s words release me from my panic. “She knows Dad won’t skin you alive if she’s there. He’d be too worried about sending her into early labour.”
I nod, nervously chewing on my lower lip. I think I’d rather have Dad skin me than see Vi’s look of disappointment.
“You’ve got to come up with a plan, Tanner,” Booker adds. “You need to figure a way out of this. Make it go away.”
“How? It’s already out there for the bloody world to see!”
“Well, change how it looks. Make it not look so bad…Make up a story or something, I don’t know.”
I crouch over and rake my hand through my hair, catching it in all the tangles. Having my dad as my team manager sucks in this kind of scenario, but I know he’d give any other player the boot, too. It’s just harder to take when it comes from your dad.Fuck me, I feel like I’ve been through hell and back, and I haven’t even seen the worst of it yet.
Thinking of my own personal hell, a flash of inspiration strikes and I pull my mobile out of the bag only to see that it’s dead. I’m hoping that’s not a bad omen, so I ask Booker for his instead. “You have Santino’s number saved?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I need to talk to him before he talks to Dad. I think I have an idea.”
Having five children in a family, there’s always some sort of argument someone is having with someone else. When Cam was single, we constantly squabbled over women. He’d try to nick the girls I was putting time in with at the clubs just because he could. Or he thought he could. So, a while back, we declared the Bacon Sandwich Rule.
As kids, Vi used to make us the best food. Swedish pancakes were her specialty, but there really wasn’t a bad meal she cooked. As a result, my brothers and I—being the disgusting animals we were—used to lick the food to call dibs on it so no one else would eat it. I wouldn’t even be hungry and I’d lick the shepherd’s pie so none of my brothers could have it.
I’m not proud.
Eventually, we applied the Bacon Sandwich Rule to women. If I licked her first, she was mine. Again, no pride. Vi found out about our rule a year ago and was livid. She called us womanising whores with no morals and made us feel guilty because she thought she’d raised us better than that. She’s only a year older than Cam and me, but she’s always seemed decades more mature. She pretty much had to be the grownup after our mum passed away. So right now, I feel like a guilty child on my way to Mum’s room to face the music and receive my punishment. Our little bacon sandwich quarrel seems trivial compared to this situation. This is like the worst walk of shame times a billion.
Vi’s place is essentially the Harris High Court. It’s where Camden and I always go to settle our arguments. She gives us a knock on our heads for a dose of reality. Then we have to accept the hand she deals and leave it all there when we leave.
So my goal right now, as I ride the eleven levels up to her penthouse flat, is to have a plan that will instantly calm her nerves and take away all the anxiety she’s probably currently suffering.
She’s got my niece in her after all.
When the lift doors open into Vi and Hayden’s flat, Booker and I are greeted by the crotch-sniffing pervert that is Bruce. Bruce is an enormous Saint Bernard that Vi inherited from a neighbour a couple of years ago. He was our little insurance policy that she was safe when she moved out of Dad’s house and into a flat all on her own. Now that she’s engaged to Hayden, I’m far less worried about her.
“Hey, Tanner,” Hayden says, striding over to the lift with Bruce’s leash in hand. “Booker.”
Hayden looks at me like I’m walking down death row.
“Is she raging?”
“Oh, she’s raging, all right,” he replies with a smirk playing on his lips. “But I think I calmed her down for you. She’s out on the terrace with your dad and Santino.”
“Bugger,” I say with an exhale. “I was hoping we beat Dad here.”
Hayden gives me a sympathetic smile and hooks the lead on Bruce to take him for a walk. I’d do anything to be that dog and go with him right now so that the only thing on my mind was sniffing butts and chasing birds.
Not all that dissimilar to my life now.
Knowing I need to face the music, I make my way out to the terrace. Vi is stretched out comfortably on one of the loungers, her hands on her pregnant belly while Dad and Santino stand near her, talking quietly.
“Tanner,” Santino says with a jovial tone that does not fit the mood. “Good to see you, mate.”
“We saw more than we ever needed to in those pictures,” Dad adds. I eye him for a minute, trying to get a read on how angry he is. His normally broad, muscular frame seems hunched and curled in.
