Fixing Tanner (Second Chances Book 3)

by Rachel Del

  Tanner chose the leather club chair directly across from Dr. Schultz and dove in before she even had a chance to ask how he was feeling.

  “My father was cheating on my mother for years. I just found out.”

  Dr. Schultz repositioned herself in her chair. “Did he tell you that?”

  “No, my sister did. Apparently she thought she was helping me by not telling me.”

  “You don’t agree with her decision?”

  “Of course not. I deserved to know.”

  “What happens in a marriage is usually no-ones business but the two people who are in it together.”

  Tanner glared at her feeling suddenly angry. He was angry at his mother for staying with a cheating husband. He was angry at Elle for having waited so long to tell him. But most of all, he was angry with himself because all these years he thought he had escaped becoming his father.

  “What would it have changed if you had known sooner, Tanner?”

  He sat silently, thinking, choosing his next words carefully. “I would have known to be more careful.”

  Dr. Schultz narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean, ‘be more careful’?”

  “If I had known who I was turning in to, I would have gone for help years ago.”

  “You think you’ve turned into your father? In what way?”

  “You’ve said it yourself: I avoid everything, just like him. I have to be in control of everything, just like him. And now I’m an unfaithful prick, just like him.”

  Dr. Anna Schultz uncrossed and crossed her legs. “How is your book coming along?”

  “I think I’m letting it go. I’m going to work on something new, I just don’t know what that is yet.”

  “What made you decide to do that?”

  Tanner had known the question was coming and had even prepared himself for it, but that didn’t stop his heartbeat from picking up its pace. “Leah found out about my research and was less than happy about it. We had a long talk about it and she told me it was the book or her.”

  “And how did you feel when she gave you that ultimatum?”

  In the beginning Tanner hadn’t really thought of it that way. But as time went on he had come to realize that she had done just that.

  “I was really angry at first, but then it began to make sense. Yes, she was disturbed by the content of the book, but I think it was more about her fear of the kind of guy I am.”

  “Care to expand on that?”

  “I’m never going to claim to understand women, but three plus years of research has at least taught me a little. Leah is insecure and afraid. She goes through life just waiting to be let down, waiting to be disappointed in some way, by someone. I think that’s the reason why she has always been so closed off when it comes to relationships. And I think that’s the reason why she waited so long to get serious with me.”

  “And how does that make you feel?”

  “Comforted, actually. Because it means that it’s not entirely about me. It’s about her way of thinking. And that gives me hope that we can find our way back to one another.”

  “I feel like there’s more to the story,” Dr. Schultz noted.

  “The last time I spoke with her I told her that I could fall in love with her.”

  “Wow, that’s great Tanner! That’s a big deal.”

  “For someone like me, yes, definitely,” he began. “Then she told me that I’m lost, and that she can’t love this version of me.”

  “What do you think she meant by that? ‘This version of you.’ ”

  “I think she meant that she could be with me if I weren’t so fucked up.”

  “Does she think you’re fucked up?”

  “She hasn’t come out and said the words but yeah. That pretty much sums up what she thinks of me.”

  Dr. Schultz shuffled in her seat, uncrossing and crossing her legs. Tanner could feel the air in the room change, and knew that something important was about to be said.

  “You and I have been talking for a while now, and we have made some great progress. I’ve witnessed you open up to me in ways that I would have never thought possible. If you want to be a better version of yourself, do it for you, not for anyone else.”

  “My sister suggested I go on an emotional detox: no women, no bullshit… just time to focus on myself.”

  “Your sister is a very smart woman.”

  “My concern is that I don’t know how to work on myself. How does one do that exactly?”

  “I think you’ve already been doing a great job by coming to see me every week. You’ve come farther than you realize. But there’s also writing of course. Write it out. Write out how you feel.”

  Tanner was quiet for a few moments, sorting through his thoughts. “Write it out, huh?”

  “And continue working with me, of course.”

  Tanner looked at her and smiled.

  “There’s a lot of potential in you, Tanner. You just need to learn to let go of the wheel sometimes, let someone else take control.”

  __

  Lily and Nathan stayed in their seats after Tanner left.

  “Well I didn’t see that one coming,” Nathan said. “What do you suppose he meant by ‘I’m finally letting go of the wheel’?”

  Lily shrugged.

  “Do you think he’s giving up on the book because of Leah?”

  “I have no idea. I’ve come to realize that I will never understand the way that guys’ mind works.” She thought of her last conversation with Leah and sighed heavily.

  “What’s going on?” Nathan asked, rotating in his chair to face her. “Something’s bothering you.”

  Lily had been debating whether or not she should fill Nate in since Leah had come to her, but had ultimately decided that it wasn’t her story to tell.

  “Nothing,” she said, shaking it off and forcing a smile. “I’m just tired is all.” And truthfully, she had been really tired as of late. And moody.

  “You ready to call it a day?”

  Lily rose to her feet. “I better go talk to Jason and get it over with.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No, it’s okay. I won’t be long. I’ll come to your office when I’m through with him.”

  She snatched her coffee from the table and headed towards Jason’s office. “Jace, you got a second?”

  Jason Wiley looked up from his computer screen and waved her in. “Come in, come in. What’s going on?”

  “Nate and I just met with Tanner Young. As you know, he was supposed to hand in the first few chapters on his new novel a couple weeks ago.”

  “Yes right, is there a problem?”

  “Actually, yeah. He told us he scrapped his most recent idea.”

  “Did he give you a reason?”

  “Not really, but you know how writers are. I realize this is going to mess up the schedule so I wanted to give you the heads up.”

  Jason sighed and steepled his fingers. “This is your guy, Lily. If he needs to be pushed harder then you’ve got to push harder. We need something from him, ASAP.”

  “I understand.” She rose to her feet.

  “Work some of that magic that brought him to us in the first place.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Nathan was sitting on the edge of his desk when Lily walked in. “Everything okay?”

  “Oh you know, he reminded me that it’s my job to push him and make sure he comes up with something. The usual.” Her choice of words made it seem like she was okay, but the shudder in her voice gave her away. “Bringing Tanner onboard was supposed to be a good thing for us, but all he’s done is cause problems and increase my stress level ten fold.”

  “Come on,” Nate said, standing and putting his arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter 21

  August 28, 2015: 10:00pm

  I’m going to write about something that scares me, because if there’s anything that I’d like you to take away from what I write – whether here or in my books – it is th
at there is nothing worth saying that doesn’t scare you even a little.

  I’ve spent the last three years researching for a new novel that I thought was going to be the best I’d ever write. The problem is that somewhere along the way I lost myself in the research and failed to notice that I was hurting people.

  It’s a terrifying thing to wake up one day and be so suddenly aware of all your mistakes and shortcomings. But there’s also beauty in the awakening.

  And let there be no misunderstanding: I am now wide awake. Wide, wide awake.

  - TY

  __

  “What is it about this book, Tanner?”

  He grunted, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s never been this bad. The writer’s block I mean.”

  “Think back to when you began the research. What was it about the idea that excited you?”

  “Everything,” he began. “I could sense that I was really on to something… that the novel could be great. After you write a best seller there is this insane pressure to create something just as good or better. After you write two, well, the pressure is really on.”

  “And what, if anything, has changed now?”

  Tanner was quiet as he thought. What had changed? He still lived in the same modest home and drove the same Honda he had before all of his success. He had bought the Santa Barbara home but couldn’t see how that would have affected anything. He still had the same acquaintances and all of his family members. There was the pressure of signing with a new publisher and the desire – for the first time ever, he noted – to please them. But then again that didn’t seem to add up.

  The biggest change in his life by far was beginning therapy.

  And meeting Leah.

  “Leah,” he whispered, smiling down at his hands in his lap. If he had been looking he would have seen the smile pass across Dr. Schultz’s face.

  “What specifically about her?”

  He responded without skipping a beat. “She makes me want to be a better man.” Then he added, “No, she has made me a better man.”

  “You’ve always been a good man Tanner, you’ve just been hiding behind a mask for so long that you forgot. I think you’ve just realized that you never needed it in the first place.”

  Silence filled the air between them.

  “I don’t need to write this book anymore,” he said, more to himself than anything. And without a doubt he knew it to be true.

  Three years ago he had been a lesser man, driven by little more than sex, booze and monetary success. But when he looked at himself in the mirror that night he knew he had become a better version of himself.

  And he owed it all to Leah.

  __

  Summer released its sticky grip on the city and moved mercifully into fall.

  It had been nearly two months since Tanner had last seen Leah, though she had consumed his thoughts the entire time.

  She had been right: he was lost. Which was why he had spent the last four months sitting in a therapists’ office trying to change that. He had given up drinking and stopped all research for his book. He was working on giving up the need to control everything in his life. He was facing down the demons of his past, shedding the mask that he had been wearing since Manny’s death.

  He was, in every definition of the word, working on himself and trying to find the answers.

  The one thing – the only thing – that he needed then was for Leah to believe in him. Without her on his side it would be too easy to slide back into his old ways.

  He’d heard in passing that she was dating someone new. Putting aside the hurt he felt knowing that she had so quickly moved on, he’d had to remind himself of how amazing she was. How truly one of a kind. Of course she was going to find someone else.

  Though he still had a long way to go in becoming the kind of man that she deserved he knew in his heart that he wouldn’t stop until he was.

  And then… he would go to her.

  __

  “Have you heard from him at all?”

  Leah almost didn’t have to say anything at all; her eyes had given her away. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “How’s he doing?”

  Lily looked up at her sister. “I haven’t seen or heard from him much, but I think Nathan has heard from him once or twice, though he always says he could never get much out of him. From what I gather he’s still not writing.”

  Leah’s mouth formed into a flat line. “What does that mean? Is he in jeopardy of losing his contract?”

  “I don’t know. That’s not my decision to make.”

  Leah looked down at her hands. “I still think about him a lot, after all this time. Is that normal?”

  Lily grunted. “There was never anything normal about your relationship with Tanner. But you loved him, and that doesn’t just go away because he disappointed you.”

  “I feel like such a hypocrite. I was mad at Tanner for cheating when we weren’t even together. And now I’m with Sam and all I’ve been able to think about is Tanner.”

  “You’re not a hypocrite,” Lily said. “You’re human.”

  “Do you know what I do every time I find myself thinking of Tanner? I remind myself that I’m with someone now who really cares about me. Someone who would never do the things he did,” she said. “Tanner and I could never work.”

  “You’ll never know unless you try, Leah.”

  “I want to say that we’re too different for it to work but the truth is that we’re too alike. We’re both loners and we both have a fucked up sense of what relationships looks like.”

  “It’s really sad that all you can focus on is what dad has been like since mom died,” Lily said. “Don’t you remember anything else? What about all the parties they threw together? The family road trips? The way we’d catch them reading together in bed? That’s the way I choose to remember their marriage.”

  “I know… you’re right. But it’s not as easy as that, you know? I can’t just shut off those feelings.”

  “I understand that.”

  “And mom and dad aside, look at you and Thomas!”

  “Thomas and I may have thought that we were right for each other, but look at me now. All you have to do is see Nate and I together and its obvious that he is the man I’m meant to be with,” Lily said. “Thomas and I were together so that we could have Ben. That was our purpose.”

  Leah smiled, albeit sadly.

  “I don’t want you to look at my past and think that’s how every relationship turns out, because if you look at it that way, yeah, I set a pretty horrible example.”

  “Your marriage may have been a shitty example Lily, but the strength and maturity that you’ve shown throughout it all is inspiring, really.”

  She looked over at Nathan, who smiled at her, the look in his eyes telling her that he agreed.

  “And seeing you now, with Nate… it’s just a reminder that second chances do exist.”

  Nathan, who hadn’t said a word since she had arrived, turned to look at Leah. “Something tells me that Tanner has had a bit of a rough go in life. And while from the outside it may look as though he has all his shit together, he’s struggling. What he really needs is someone to believe in him.”

  Lily reached out and gave Nathan’s hand a light squeeze, a gesture that made Leah’s heart swell. After all Lily had been through she couldn’t have been happier with the way her life had taken a turn in the past few months.

  Nathan was everything that Thomas could never be… everything that Lily deserved.

  She wanted to feel that happy with her life, too.

  “Life is so short,” she mused.

  “It really is,” Nathan said.

  “I honestly can’t think of a better reason than that to try to forgive Tanner and see if have some kind of a future.”

  Lily tried to hide her smile. “And what about Sam?”

  Leah looked down at her hands and then sideways at her sister. “I can tell myself that he’s the safe choice… the smart choice – because he
really is – but that’s not going to make me stop thinking about Tanner.”

  Lily could no longer contain her smile. Regardless of what she had been through with Tanner and how she felt about him, she truly believed that people could change. And she wanted more than anything for her sister to experience the kind of love that she felt for Nathan.

  “Go,” she said.

  Leah looked up at her sister. “What?”

  “I said go. Go to him.”

  Leah wasted no time tracking Tanner down, which wasn’t terribly hard as she had heard he had barely left his house in months.

  As she walked up the familiar front steps and rapped her knuckles on his door, Leah took deep breaths trying to calm her nerves.

  It took a few moments, but she could hear his footsteps along the hardwood floor.

  The Tanner that opened the door was not the man she remembered. He was not the man she had spent the last two months trying and failing to get over. And he was certainly not the man that she had fallen in love with.

  Chapter 22

  Tanner was a completely different person.

  “Leah.”

  If the way her name sounded coming from his lips wasn’t enough, the intense gaze that he had set on her had her knees feeling suddenly weak.

  “Come in,” he said, stepping aside.

  Leah willed her legs to move. One foot in front of the other, she thought to herself.

  She stepped through the doorway and allowed him to lead her down the hallway and into the living room. Papers and books were strewn about, half empty cups of coffee on every flat surface. The place smelled as though he hadn’t opened a window in weeks; not bad, per se, just his smell.

  She stopped in the center of the room and turned to look at him. His hair had grown longer, it nearly covered his green eyes now, and it was obvious that he hadn’t shaved in days. He wore loose grey sweats and a white v-neck t-shirt that clung to his body in all the right places, and his eyes looked heavy and dark as though he hadn’t been sleeping much.