Page 3 of Mr Nice Guy

I let out a snort of laughter. “Ironic considering I was also the only guy in our frat, apart from you, who identified as gay.”

Skyler just smirks at me. “You might not realize this, but you just proved my point.”

CHAPTER2

TANNER

Ilet out a grunt of annoyance when my phone goes off during Izzy’s occupational therapy session. I always make sure to turn it off during all of her appointments, because I don’t want to get distracted and miss things, but clearly I forgot about it this afternoon. I retrieve it from my inside breast pocket and am about to ignore the call and turn it off when I see the name on the screen. It’s one of my lawyers, and generally speaking if a lawyer is calling it’s not news I want to wait to hear.

“Sorry, I’ll just be a second,” I tell Edie, Izzy’s OT, as I rise from my chair. She gives a tight smile and returns her attention to Izzy’s word recognition exercises.

I quickly stride from the room and answer Leona’s call before it goes to voicemail. “What’s up?”

“I’ve spent the past two days being pestered by Sullivan Stapleton because apparently you’ve been ignoring his requests for a meeting?”

I groan and run a hand over my face. I should have just ignored the fucking call. “I’ve already given him a meeting and told him I’m not selling. Nothing’s changed in the past four weeks.”

“Apparently it has,” she says. “They’ve got a new offer for you.”

“The answer’s still no.”

“Just hear them out, Tanner,” she says with a tired sigh. “I do not need Charlie Campbell crowing about how I can’t get his buddy a simple sit-down.”

I give an exasperated shake of my head. Honestly, sometimes it seems as thought the partners in some of the top tier law firms are competing against each other in blood sports rather than practicing law. “Fine,” I finally relent. “But don’t start counting your billables from the sale. It’s not happening.”

She lets out a cackle of laughter. “Well, damn, there goes the new kitchen.”

“Bye, Leona,” I say wearily.

“Monday morning okay for the meeting?”

I let out a heavy breath. “Yeah, okay. Fine. You don’t need to be there, though. I can tell them to fuck off just fine on my own.”

She laughs again. “Alright, I’ll set it up. Bye, Tanner.”

I end the call and return to the OT room to see Izzy has moved onto some physical exercises. Fortunately, she’s doing some balance ones that I’m already familiar with, so it doesn’t look like I’ve missed anything new.

“Well done, Izzy,” Edie says with an encouraging smile. “You’ve been practicing, haven’t you?”

For a long moment I don’t think she’s going to answer; she often has trouble putting words together when she’s busy concentrating on something else, and at the moment all her attention seems to be focused on keeping her balance as she walks slowly along the low, narrow platform, turning carefully when it zigzags. But then she says one word that makes me smile. “Lots.”

And it’s true, she does practicea lot.Between myself, my two older kids—who are both in their early twenties—and Izzy’s nanny, Kit, we’ve got every day of the week well and truly covered. We all know how important all the different types of therapy are to make sure Izzy can live as happy, and healthy, and long a life as possible.

I continue to watch with pride as my little girl moves through the rest of her exercises. I’m especially proud of her when she doesn’t even bat an eye at Edie correcting her movements, which is something that will often result in either an all-out tantrum, or at the very least a fierce scowl and a declaration of “I know how!” My girl has a stubborn streak, that’s for sure, and she doesn’t particularly like it when things are done differently than the way she’s used to. Either we’ve just been lucky today, or Edie’s found a better way of explaining to Izzy why she needs to be corrected.

Once the session is over, Izzy waves goodbye to Edie and takes my hand as we exit the room. “I was good today.”

“You were very good,” I agree, smiling down at her.

“Can Jazz do swings?”

I let out a breath of amusement. My son Jasper—Jazz—is probably Izzy’s favorite person in the world, and vice versa. I’m sure she can’t wait to tell him about her OT triumph when he comes over later today, and I have no doubt he’ll be happy to oblige her with a trip to the park. “I’m sure he’d love that. As long as it’s not raining.”

It’s early October and, like it often is in New York in the fall, the weather has been pretty amazing lately. We did have some showers yesterday afternoon, however, so you never know.

“Sunny, Daddy,” she says when we get outside, her arm lifting to point at the sky in case I’ve missed the glaring light up there.

“But weather can change, baby girl. Hopefully it stays like this and you and Jazz can go to the park. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

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