Page 7 of Necessary Roughness

Chapter Three

AT NINE FIFTEEN the next morning, Tanner heard the buzzing of his front gate over the speaker of his cell phone. It buzzed again at nine sixteen, nine seventeen, and nine nineteen. Finally, Harrison stuck his finger in the buzzer and yelled over the speaker, “Open the gate, asshole.”

Jordan had worked him over like they’d been in an MMA octagon. Shit, he hurt. Everywhere. Maybe he needed a day off or something. He’d spend the day trying to figure out how to stick that Icy Hot electro-stim thing onto his own back, order some food from Amazon Prime Now, and watch some shitty TV.

Tanner tapped the button on his phone that let him respond to Harrison. “No fucking way.”

“So you’re afraid of a woman one-third your size? That’s pathetic.”

“I have other things to do right now.”

“Like what? Watching The View? Are you missing Wendy Williams? That’s too bad. You’re getting off that couch if I have to come in there and drag you off it myself.”

“You’re not going to be able to, since I’m not buzzing you in. Tough shit.”

“We’ll see about that,” Harrison shouted in response.

Tanner hit the button that let him see the security cameras on the gate. Harrison had vaulted over it. “Fuck me. Why do I pay for monitoring?” he asked nobody in particular. A minute or two later, Harrison was pounding on his front door with both fists.

“I know you can hear me,” Harrison yelled.

The tri-state area could hear him. Sure enough, his cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen.

“Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck,” he muttered. It was his old lady neighbor. He really wished she’d find a damn hobby besides monitoring what he was doing more closely than the alarm-monitoring company did.

Her voice was quavery. “Tanner? Some guy just went over your fence. Do you want me to call the police?”

“No. That won’t be necessary. Everything is fine.”

“He doesn’t look like he lives here,” she said. Of course Harrison didn’t look like he lived there. Tanner took a deep breath and reminded himself that he really didn’t need an encounter with the overzealous cops of their community.

“I’ll handle it, Mrs. Waterman. Thanks for letting me know. Have a nice day.” He clicked End Call as she sputtered.

He called up the app on his phone that controlled everything in his house and hit the button that opened the front door.

Seconds later, a text came in from his ex-girlfriend Star. He deleted it without looking at it.

Fifteen minutes later, Tanner was loaded into Harrison’s crossover and on their way to the physical therapist’s.

“Don’t think I’m doing this every day,” Tanner said.

Harrison turned into a parking place outside the physical therapist’s office, glanced over at Tanner, and said, “Ready?”

“No.”

“I’ll get your walker.”

What a blast.

He wanted his former life back. The one in which he was able-bodied and could bench press almost four hundred pounds. The one in which he ran a 4.5-second forty-yard dash. The one in which he made $14 million a year before endorsements. He stifled a sigh as he turned in the car seat to heave himself out.

The sooner he accepted the fact that his life wasn’t coming back, the better off he would be. Plus, he had to steel himself for another encounter with the princess of physical therapy. He could only imagine what she was up to today. Maybe she had three little girls braiding her hair before they danced around a starburst painted in the center of the main square in her parents’ kingdom.

Harrison held open the door to the building. “I’ll get you checked in, and then I’m going to do some work while we’re here. Try not to make anyone cry today.”

Tanner stared at him and then clomped up to the front desk. The receptionist looked like she was about to cry, wet her pants, or both. He wasn’t that scary.

“Hello, Mr. Cole. How are you this morning?”

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