Page 17 of Closing the Distance

The phone rings twice before my older brother, Tanner, picks up.

“Hey, don’t you have a game today?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m driving there now for our pregame meeting, but I needed to call you and…” My voice trails off as I figure out how to share the news.

My brothers and I have been close our whole lives. Tanner is eighteen months older than I am at twenty-nine and Taron is two years younger at twenty-five, but most of our childhoods we acted like three peas in a pod. I should’ve called him last night, but I was still reeling from Lexi’s announcement.

And how epically I fucked up our date.

“And what? You okay, Ty?”

Tanner also plays professional football, but his team doesn’t play until tomorrow, and I know he understands the caution I’ve had with women. But I have no idea how he’s going to take this news.

“Do you remember that woman I told you about back during the preseason?”

“The one who bailed on you the next morning?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure. What about her?”

I open my mouth to speak when I realize there might be an issue with my brothers and I being so close. Will he jump to the same—wrong—conclusion I did about Lexi?

“She’s pregnant,” I blurt, choosing to just rip off the Band-Aid.

There’s sputtering and choking on the other end of the line before my brother’s hoarse voice comes through my car’s speakers. “What the fuck? Give a guy some warning before you drop a bomb like that. I’d just taken a sip of water thinking you were going to tell me you ran into her again and finally got her number. I was notexpecting you to tell me she’s pregnant. Damn, she moved on fast. Maybe you dodged a bullet.”

I rub my jaw, waiting for him to figure it out. It doesn’t take him long.

“Wait…are you telling me she’s pregnant with yourkid?”

“Yep.”

“Fuck, man. Please let me be there when you tell Mom.”

“Fuck you.” I’m not even close to ready to tell my mom about Lexi and the baby. She’s going to have a million questions I likely can’t answer, especially with Lexi freezing me out since our date yesterday. I can’t even be mad about her doing that considering it’s my own fault.

“Are you sure it’s yours?” he asks, his voice low and skeptical. A guy on his team just recently went through a paternity scandal, and I have no doubt that’s what he’s thinking about right now.

And I get it, I do. It’s not uncommon in our industry, but I’m choosing to believe Lexi—to trust that she’s not manipulating me, even if that might be stupid.

“I’m sure.”

“You should get a paternity test done. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman tried to con a pro athlete into eighteen years of payments.” He’s got his big brother voice on, and I fight against an eye roll.

“Lexi’s not like that.”

“I’ve heard you say that about a woman before. I’m sure Lexi is nice and everything, but I’m sorry if I don’t trust your judgment right off the bat. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I don’t want that either,” I admit and then tap the back of my head on the headrest of the driver’s seat while I sit at a red light. “I just found out yesterday, so we’re still sorting everything out, but I needed to tell someone.”

“I’m not trying to rain on your news, but I think you need to be smart about this. You know I’m always here for you, little brother.”

“You know you’re not that much older than me, right? And I’m two inches taller, so I’m not really that little.”

He huffs a laugh. “You’ll always be my lil bro no matter how tall or old we get. Deal with it. So, when are you going to tell Mom?”

“I don’t know.”

---