Page 82 of Payoff Pitch
The past few weeks have been a little crazy. Arizona is gone on the overseas bathing suit campaign. Ripley is going through some personal struggles. Struggles that truly shocked us to the core. Kam has had a few photoshoots, but she and I have spent a lot of time with Ripley lately helping her nurse a broken heart. I’ve also been able to help with Harper more consistently as we establish the off-season schedule.
As for Tanner and me, we spend nearly every night he doesn’t have Harper together. And even when she’s at his house, there are plenty of stolen moments for kissing and touching. We’re insatiable for each other and it keeps getting better and better. I’ve never experienced this level of pure, unquenchable need for man, and he seems to feel the same about me.
We don’t go out in public, but it’s not only sex between us. We talk and watch movies. Sometimes I cook for him, and sometimes we get takeout. Our boundary lines have very quickly become blurred. I can’t deny that I have real feelings for him.
He mentioned that they rent a cabin in Vail, Colorado to ski every winter. Apparently, they celebrate Christmas Eve andChristmas morning as a family unit here in Philly, but then he takes Harper to Vail for a week. Fallon flies out on his last night there. He then flies home, and she stays out there with Harper for another week.
He invited me to come with them. With Harper bringing Dylan this year, needing the extra help is an easy excuse for me to join them. I’ve never skied and am excited at the prospect, but I’ve never gone that long without Kam. I told him I need to talk to her about it. He mumbled something about codependency being unhealthy. I’m not sure he’s wrong, but it’s still a conversation I want to have with her before I commit.
Even though she’s away, Arizona begged all of us to spend Thanksgiving at Quincy’s so that Layton wouldn’t be alone. He’s been in a state of depression since she left. He was originally supposed to go with her, but his injury threw a wrench into those plans.
We tried to talk my father into flying in, but he won’t leave my mother, and she barely leaves the house at this point.
It’sthe night after Thanksgiving. Ripley packed up and went home to her mother’s in California. After some prodding as to what was the matter with her, she dropped a bombshell on us that she’s pregnant. She’s emotional and said she needs to get out of town for a yet-to-be-determined amount of time. I have no idea what this means for our team, but her mental health is more important right now, and she wants to be with her mother.
It’s just Kam and me. I’m nervously fidgeting, knowing I need to talk to her about Colorado. She sighs at me. “Spit out whatever it is you have to say. You’re sweating like a cucumber in a convent.”
I scrunch my face in disgust. “Ew. That’s gross. I’ll never look at a cucumber thesame again.”
She crosses her arms in waiting.
I sigh. “I want to talk to you about Tanner.”
“Ooh. Are you ready to give me all the juicy details yet?”
She obviously knows I’m having sex with him at this point since I sleep there all the time, but I haven’t indulged her FBI-level inquisitions for details as of yet.
“No dirty details for you, but he asked me to go skiing in Colorado with them the week after Christmas. I know we’ve never been apart that long but—”
“Maybe…you should go.”
If she grew a third eye right now, I think I’d be less shocked than I am at that response.
“What? Really? I thought you were going to throw a fit.”
“It sounds like fun.” She twists her mouth nervously. “And…umm…Cheetah asked me to go home with him for Christmas. I was planning to talk to you about it.”
I think my jaw must drop to the floor. “Seriously? Are you together?” I know she occasionally has sex with him, but I haven’t known her to do anything more than sleep with someone in over a decade.
She shakes her head. “No, no. Nothing like that. Don’t give me that damn hopeful look. He has, like, a hundred siblings who are all married with kids. His mother constantly pesters him about getting married. Apparently, she’s even got the woman picked out. Cheetah asked me to come home with him to pretend to be his girlfriend for the week. I told him I’d let him know. I can’t imagine spending Christmas without you, and the prospect of flying without you is making me sick to my stomach, but he promised me an all-expenses paid trip to Jamaica afterward if I go with him.”
“Wow. His family lives in Texas, right?”
“Yes. I think near Galveston.” She nervously runs her hands through her hair. “I don’t know if I can do it. Fly without you. Be without you for that long. I haven’t slept since he asked me.”
“You haven’t slept in twenty years.”
She smiles. “True.”
I rub her back. “You should definitely go, and so should I. This could be good for us, Kam. We’re too old to have never spent time apart. We’re eventually going to have to learn how to do that.”
Tears sting her eyes. “You’re my soulmate, Bails. You jump, I jump.” She tugs at her collar. “I’m sweating just thinking about it.”
I hug her. “I know. You’re my soulmate too, and I’m equally nervous, but we need this. We both know it’s time. It’s probably way past time.”
We both have tears streaming down our cheeks when my FaceTime rings. I pull away and look at my phone to see that it’s our father. It’s odd that he’s calling us considering we spoke with him yesterday.
“It’s Daddy.”