Page 8 of Endurance
Of course she’d ask.
“Shit that I say when I’m being Tanner Harris, the footballer.”
She puzzles over this comment. “What other kind of Tanner Harris is there?”
I clench my jaw in frustration. Of course she wouldn’t know. How could she? I’ve never showed her any other side of me. “Don’t worry about it, all right? Just know those crap papers don’t know everything.”
She pulls into the narrow parking stall in front of her building. I’ve been to Belle’s flat a few times with Cam since Indie lives with her now. This past month, Cam and Indie seem to be making it their personal mission to make Belle and I be friendly with each other. I guess I can understand why. Belle is Indie’s best friend. Cam is mine. But every time we’re together, we bicker so much that I have to go for a run immediately after I leave her flat or I’d go mad with pent-up aggression.
Belle removes the keys from the ignition, and when I think she’s moving to get out of the car, she turns to face me. “Tanner, there’s obviously another side to you. A side that you showed with Sedgwick. I just can’t, for the life of me, understand why you think hiding behind Tanner the Slutty Footballer is a better choice for your day-to-day life.”
I instantly feel angry. I don’t appreciate her acting like she knows me. I don’t appreciate her acting like she can push me to be a different person. I don’t need anyone else pushing me right now. I need to be left the hell alone.
“Ryan,” I grind out, leaning over to her side of the car. “Just, don’t. Don’t try to be the hero in my story. Don’t try to mother me, or push me, or see the best in me. I am what you see. I was shoved out of a flat naked because I told the girl I was fucking that her sister sucked cock better than she did.”
Her dark eyes turn black with an icy glower. “You are a fucking pig.” She throws herself out of the car and storms up the steps to her flat, leaving me alone with only her tiny cardigan to keep me warm.
“Here you go, Tanner,” Indie smiles, handing me a pair of joggers through the downstairs bathroom door and awkwardly adjusting her glasses. “I thought Cam had a T-shirt here somewhere, but this is all I can find. Do you want one of mine?”
“This is fine. Cheers, Indie,” I murmur as I close the door, reluctant to make eye contact with her when I’m in this state.
I slip into the soft material. It feels good against my balls and shaft. There was a time when walking around naked like Adam and Eve sounded fucking bad arse in my head, but the actual act of doing it is far less thrilling.
I glance at myself in the mirror. I look tired. Being a couple months into the season, I’m usually in bed hours before now. This is not how I treat my body during the season. Normally, my routine is training, team meetings, practicing, eating, sleeping, attending matches. Mix and repeat for months on end. In professional football, we get two months break if we haven’t had a great season, but there are usually FA cup games and international friendly matches that keep us busy even in the off-season. Being a footballer is gruelling. Staying out late and partying after matches is not how I’ve been in past seasons. But without Cam on my team, everything feels different.
A knock on the door snaps me out of my fog. “Tanner, Camden’s on the phone.”
Speak of the devil. I drop my head to avoid eye contact with Indie as I open the door and take the mobile. “Hiya,” I say with a sigh, pressing my back against the door. I don’t need an audience for this conversation.
“Broseph, Indie just filled me in. What the fuck?”
“Don’t have a go at me, all right? I’m fucking shattered as it is and I don’t need to hear it right now, okay?”
“Fine, fine, I won’t. But are you…okay?” he asks, his voice worrisome. The concern irritates me because I don’t like being fussed over like I’m his child.
“I’m fine,” I lie. “Just a dodgy case ofbirdflu.” I force a laugh at my lame joke. “You know the kind. Or, erm…you used to.”
“Right,” Camden replies slowly. “Well, I’ve called Santino. He said he’d pop over to the bird’s flat tomorrow morning by seven with some cash to see if he can get her to sign an NDA and get your stuff back. At least your keys and all that. I just need her address and I’ll text it over to him.”
Santino is our family lawyer and has been working overtime the last couple of months since I can’t seem to stop landing myself in the shit. Without hesitation, I give Cam the address and feel a weight lifted from my shoulders thinking he might be able to get me out of this. Tomorrow I have a strategy meeting with the team at eight in the morning. Then Dad and Booker always come over and go through the footage from the previous match. It’d be nice to have my keys and mobile back before my dad figures things out. I’m just crossing my fingers that he won’t try to call me before then. I can just hear Kat answering the call with something sweet like, “Tanner Harris gave me herpes.”
“Did they get pictures?” Cam asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
He exhales heavily and I swear I feel the compression of my own lungs mirror his. Having a twin can be a nightmare sometimes. There’s a connection between us that makes me feel like I’m never truly alone. Plus, the comparisons are endless. It’s a huge reason I opted to leave my hair and beard long this season. I’ve also been adding more ink to my body just to give me a sense of individuality.
I don’t consider myself a jealous person, especially when it comes to Cam, who’s always there for me. But when he got injured last year, fell in love, and still ended up with the Premiership contract of a lifetime, I couldn’t help but think,What the fuck?
Cam and I had been co-strikers for Bethnal Green for years. I was right side, he was left. We could sense each other’s decisions on the pitch perfectly, often passing without looking because we instinctually knew the other was there. I’ve seen enough match footage to know that watching the Harris twins playing together was a beautiful thing.
Then he had the season of his life last year, scoring more goals than any player in the Championship and Premier League. It was a sight to behold. Everybody was talking about him, so of course he got a major offer. He’d earned it.
But since he fell for Indie and left our team all at the same time, things have been different. Cam’s slot beside me as fellow striker was filled by Roan DeWalt—a South African transfer from Cape Town City—and it isn’t the same. We’re not in sync. I don’t want to be a moaning sap, but I fucking miss my brother. You don’t go from sharing a pitch and a flat with someone every day to seeing him briefly once a week, if our match schedules allow it, and not feel some sense of loss.
However, when shit hits the fan for me, he’s always the first to call. And he never judges. He never makes me feel worse than I already do. He just…helps. So yeah, the good bits of having a twin far outweigh the bad.
“I’ll let Santino know there may be pictures and see if he can do damage control to minimise any exposure,” Camden says, using his business voice. I fucking hate his business voice.
