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“What happened to the blonde?” Alex asks when I’ve finally made my way back to the table.

“I left her slutty ass on the dance floor,” I say.

He shakes his head and chuckles. “What’d she do?”

“Told me she’d do whatever it took to wake up in my bed tomorrow. Wanna head back to my place and hit the good scotch I’ve got saved?” I ask, nodding toward the door.

“Sounds good to me.”

I wake feeling dazed and annoyed at the blaring of my cell phone, which is ringing loudly from somewhere in the vicinity of my sofa. My head is pounding, and I don’t remember passing out in the TV room last night.

“Dude, find that phone and shut it the fuck up before I break it into a million pieces,” Alex grumbles from under a throw pillow on the other couch.

“I’m trying. I don’t even know where the fuck I am right now. Give me a fucking minute.”

Whoever is on the end of that incessant ringing had better be fucking dying. I shouldn’t joke about that though.

I manage to detangle myself from the mess of throw pillows and blankets and get up to follow the shrill ringing of my phone. I find it on the kitchen counter. Naturally, it stops ringing as soon as I get my hands on it. I pick it up to see notifications for twenty missed calls and thirteen text messages. Is the world fucking ending? The majority of the calls are from Davis, but training camp doesn’t start until next week, so I don’t know what the hell could be so fucking important.

I don’t get to check a single message before the phone starts ringing again.

“DUDE! Shut it the fuck up,” Alex yells.

“Hello?” I say as I answer.

“Tanner, where the hell have you been? Please tell me it isn’t true.” He rushes through his words all in one breath, sounding as if the world is about to end.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask confused. It’s too early for this shit, and I’m way to hung over for guessing games.

“Are you under a fucking a rock? Turn on SportsCenter, NFL Network… hell, check your fucking Twitter, man. You’re trending. You’re pretty much the number one googled person right now! Please tell me it isn’t true. I’m a damn good agent, but I’m not a fucking magician.”

“What the fuck? I only got back from Hawaii two days ago. I haven’t done shit, Davis. Not here or there,” I tell him as I head back to the couch to search for the remote.

Davis babbles on and on, but I don’t hear a word he says once I see the headline being run on ESPN.

“According to a source close to Garrison, he broke off relations with his girlfriend after finding out she was pregnant,” the anchorman says. “It was after a shift at her second job as a waitress at a local sports bar, she was hit by a drunk driver, which resulted in the death of the couple’s unborn son. As we already know, this happened the night Garrison and the Jets won the Super Bowl. The same source has stated that Garrison’s ex had picked up that second job because Garrison had refused to have any involvement with or provide any financial support to the baby, claiming he didn’t know whether or not the child was his. It was later confirmed that the child was, in fact, Garrison’s. Does anyone else see the irony in this situation? Garrison is the face of The Tony Mathis Foundation, a charitable non-profit that supports underprivileged children.”

I gasp. “What the fuck?” Where the hell did this story come from? There are only a few people who know any of the information being reported, and I don’t think any of them would’ve done this.

“TANNER!” Davis yells from the other end of the line.

I’d forgotten I was still holding the phone to my ear.

“Yeah?” I ask as I stand in front of the TV, staring.

“How legit is this story?” he asks, the worry evident in his voice.

I sigh. “It’s pretty accurate,” I admit dejectedly. “There’s no point in refuting it. I doubt Ashley put this out there, but if she decides to back this up when she’s undoubtedly tracked down, I won’t lie.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do anything about this without trying to spin it as a lie,” he says.

“It is what it is at this point, Davis.” I hang up.

There’s no point in arguing with him, and he knows me well enough to leave me be for now, but he does text me another important piece of information that hasn’t been flashed across the TV screen yet.

Davis:
Mathis is meeting later today to discuss cutting you from the foundation.

One mistake has now officially cost me everything I care about. One mistake has cost me my son, my girl, and now my reputation. What else is left?

“Tag, where the hell did this come from?”

I look up from my phone to find Alex staring at the TV in utter disbelief just as I had been.

“I have no idea,” I say, shaking my head. I scroll through my texts to see who else has been trying to get ahold of me since this news hit. Most of the messages are from Davis, but a few aren’t—one from mom, one from my dad, and a couple from my sisters. The one that stands out the most though is from Melissa.

Melissa:
I told you I always win. Have a nice life, Tanner.

“That crazy fucking bitch,” I say through gritted teeth as I turn to Alex and hold up my phone for him to see. I’d taken her threat as a bluff, and weeks have passed since I kicked her ass to curb. That’s what I get for not giving the bitch enough credit, but I hadn’t thought there was a thing she could do to me. I never saw this coming.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. I can’t believe her. She knows how much your reputation means to you. She couldn’t get her way with Ashley, so she went to the fucking press. What are you going to do?” he asks, seeming just as stunned by this turn of events as I am.

“There’s nothing I can do, Alex. It’s true. Who knows if Ashley’s going to jump on this bandwagon or not? If she does, she can more than prove it’s all true and that I did unintentionally kill my own son.”

“You know that’s not true,” he says angrily.

“But it is. Just ask Ashley. She’ll tell you all about it.”

Chapter 31

Ashley

Today has been an emotional roller coaster, to say the least. Only now do I fully understand how Tanner must have felt when he realized he’d made the mistake of leaving me. I would sell my soul to fix all of this for him, and I’m angry at myself for being so stubborn for all these months. Unfortunately, after the news had broken, it still took Quinn slapping the shit out of me for me to realize what I had to do. Quinn’s words still haunt me even hours later as I drive to Melissa’s.

“How can you just sit back and let this happen to him, Ashley? What the fuck is wrong with you?” Quinn had yelled while we watched Tanner’s life implode on the morning news.

“He did this himself. It isn’t my fault,” I said. That was when she got in my face and slapped me—literally bitch-slapped me.

My hand shot up to cover my cheek, and tears welled in my eyes.

“What the fuck, Quinn?”

“‘What the fuck’ is right. That man made one mistake that he’s tried to make up for tenfold, and you still insist on nailing him to the fucking wall,” she screamed.

“He killed my baby!” I shrieked back, unable to keep my tears at bay.

“
He didn’t kill your baby.
Fate did. The drunk driver that hit you did. Tanner did no such thing, but he’s let you blame him time and time again while silently keeping all his grief inside because you’ve been too damn selfish to let him mourn the death of his son!”

I’d never seen her so livid—ever.

“Why are you taking his side?” I cried, falling to my knees in the middle of our living room. The pain that shot through my bad leg made me cry harder.

“Because. You. Are. Wrong.” She stomped her foot after each word.

My tears couldn’t be stopped, and neither could Quinn’s words.

“Alex and I watched him break down over your unconscious body, holding your stillborn son. He stood there telling that sweet little baby how amazing his mother was and that he couldn’t have been luckier to have you. He apologized to him, said it was his fault that Daniel didn’t make it. He took full responsibility then and has continued to without so much as a peep because he thinks it’s his penance for losing his mind for a short period of time. He tried to make it up to you over and over, proving repeatedly that he was worthy of redemption, and you only proved that you weren’t. He loves you unconditionally, and you’re going to let his life fall apart because you’re a selfish stubborn bitch!” Tears streamed down Quinn’s face.

I’d known that she and Tanner had developed a close friendship over the last few months, but I’d never thought she would take his side over mine.

“Did you know that he told Alex he would’ve gladly switched spots with you in that car or that he would have stepped away forever if it meant you and Daniel would have made it out okay? Did you know how badly you broke his heart when you forgave Jason for all the horrible things he did but wouldn’t even give Tanner the time of fucking day? He practically gave up his life for you by being there every day, even when you treated him like total shit. Who do you think set that settlement in motion for you? I sure as hell didn’t. That was Tanner. He wanted to make sure you had a cushion so you could heal without worrying about money.” She shook her head at me in disappointment. “I talked to Alex this morning. He said Tanner won’t even let his agent try to get him out of this. He won’t do anything about it because he said it’s the truth. That’s what you’ve been telling him for months.”

Each word she spoke weighed down on me more than the last. I know she’s right. I needed someone to blame, and that role had been filled by Tanner. I hadn’t known half of the things Tanner had done and said until she’d told me. Now that I did, everything Dr. Paterson had been shoving down my throat all clicked into place. I’ve made a grave mistake, and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to fix it.

I’d called Alex immediately after Quinn’s scolding to get all the information I could. Apparently, the foundation is meeting today to make their decision about Tanner’s position as spokesman, and it isn’t looking good. The board finds it extremely unethical to keep him on with allegations likes these. Donors will start to pull their funding if a man whose abandonment of his own child led to the child’s death is the face of their organization.

According to Alex, the story came from Melissa—that fucking bitch. Alex told me that she and Tanner had had it out after she got back from France a few weeks ago, when he’d confronted her about her surprise visit to me. She must not have liked being thrown out of his life and had decided to destroy the one thing that means the most to him: his reputation.

Now that I know all the facts, I have work to do. I have to make it to that board meeting before they make a decision, but first, I’m making a detour to that backstabbing twat’s house to tell her just what’s going to happen. Thanks to Alex, I have the address in my GPS, and I’m working on getting my ass over there as fast as my neglected BMW can get me there.

She opens the door to her apartment with a snarky smile on her face… until I slap her the same way Quinn slapped me. It would have been nice to knock her the hell out though.

“You think you’ve won, don’t you? Guess again, bitch. You can’t break him. I won’t let you. Thanks for making us stronger. We’ll see how great your life is after tomorrow,” I say, a smile now on my face. I leave her standing there in the doorway, holding her cheek staring at me in confusion. The easy part is over.

Getting into that board meeting is the hard part. Once I get to the foundation headquarters, the stupid bimbo secretary won’t let me in to see the board.

“I’m sorry. It’s a private meeting. Board members only,” she says.

“We’ll see about that,” I reply, setting my jaw. Refusing to give up, I stomp and yell and make a huge scene.

It doesn’t take long for one of the higher-ups comes to find out what the hell’s going on in the lobby. “What is all the commotion about?”

“Sir, it is imperative that I speak with the board before they make their decision,” I say firmly.

The dipshit in the suit gives me dirty look. “They aren’t taking character witnesses.”

I fold my arms across my chest. “I have a press conference scheduled in an hour. I suggest you let me speak to them before I speak to the press.”