Endurance Read online

  Copyright © 2016 Amy Daws

  All rights reserved.

  Published by: Stars Hollow Publishing

  ISBN 13: 978-1-944565-08-4

  ISBN 10: 1-944565-08-6

  Editing: Stephanie Rose

  Cover Design: Amy Daws

  Cover Photography: Dan Thorson

  Cover Model: Adam Spahn

  Formatting: Champagne Formatting

  This book is licensed for personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author. The only exception is by quoting short excerpts in a review. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, please go to www.amydawsauthor.com to find where you can purchase a copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  More Books by Amy Daws

  Acknowledgements

  More about the Author

  Not the One

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Three Years Earlier

  Chapter 2

  Present Day

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Dedicated to my London Lovers Fan Group.

  You guys are the Tanner to my Belle.

  Thank you for loving my crazy.

  THIS IS WHAT SHAGGING THE crazy ones gets me.

  Exhaling heavily, I shift my feet back and forth on the concrete as the cool October night air touches every inch of my body.

  “The least she could do is turn the front step lights off,” I murmur to myself, hunching over and adjusting my grip. “Kat!” I whisper scream at the closed door. All I’m greeted with is more arguing that’s been going on for nearly five minutes now. “Open the bloody door! I’m out here with my fucking cock in my hands for Christ’s sake. This is complete shit!”

  The screaming stops. My eyes widen and I’m suddenly not so sure I want to see what’s on the other side of the door. Maybe standing naked on a London street corner is a better option than facing the raging, fire-breathing dragon that is Kat.

  With a high-pitched squeak, the door swings open and I’m met with eyes as dark as night, hair as wild as candy floss, and a lip with a curl that mimics a dog ready to attack.

  “What exactly do you think is complete shit, Tanner?” She moves forward, forcing me backwards down the steps.

  I look anywhere but her eyes because I’m quite certain they could turn me to stone. “Erm…nothing. I just…wondered if I might…nip in and grab my clothes and then I’ll be off.”

  “You’ll be off all right. But if you think you’re stepping one fucking foot back inside my flat, you’re dead wrong. You called me by my sister’s name!”

  “Right, but you guys look alike—”

  “That was after you told me she sucked cock better than me!”

  “You misunderstood…” I stammer.

  She slams her hands on the frame of the door like she’s trying to stop herself from lunging at me. “Did I misunderstand your request for a threesome?”

  I’m thankful my beard can hide the terrified quivering of my lips that’s not happening because of the cool air. If she senses my fear, I’m a goner.

  “I just thought after the mishap it might help to mend some fences. You seemed upset when you realised I’d slept with your sister, so…” My stammering voice trails off as I take in the psychotic look in her eyes.

  “Tanner Harris?”

  I wince.

  “GET STUFFED!” she screams and slams the door in my face.

  I deflate as all hope of obtaining my clothes, wallet, and mobile crumbles to the cold ground beneath my bare feet.

  “Way to fucking go, Tanner,” I mumble, releasing my grip to push my long hair back from my eyes and then returning my hands to cup my shrinking nutty buddies.

  This is worse than last week when I had to jump from a second level balcony in West Yorkshire because the Spanish bird I met there didn’t tell me she was engaged. How was I to know the Catalan word for fiancé is promès? My dad was not pleased when pictures of me running through a back alley started popping up on Twitter.

  At least she tossed me my stuff.

  It’s brass monkeys out here and my boys need protection from the elements. I swerve my head around, looking for some form of shelter when a set of headlights begin to round the corner. I quickly scurry back up the stone steps to hide behind a pillar as I wait for the car to disappear. “How the fuck am I going to get out of this one?”

  I spot a red phone box about twenty yards away and wonder if I can make a reverse call from it. Most phone boxes are ornamental these days—an iconic landmark for tourists to take pictures in front of. But it’s worth a check considering I don’t think either Kat or her sister is going to come to my aide any time soon. Plus, I really can’t afford to knock on anybody’s door around here. We lost a match at Tower Park today and I could be recognised since I’m near there.

  My three brothers and I play professional football. My younger brother, Booker, and I play together for Bethnal Green F.C., which also happens to be the team our dad, Vaughn Harris, manages. So I know with absolute certainty that I’m in green and white country. Christ, I can even see our stadium from here.

  On top of that, four months ago my twin brother, Camden, put the limelight on all of us even more when his love affair with his surgeon was plastered all over the papers. It was a media nightmare during the time he signed a huge contract with Arsenal. Leave it to Cam to still get the contract offer after a hugely inappropriate snog in a surgical theatre.

  With all the recent publicity, the Harris Brothers have become a household name in the UK. My older brother, Gareth, was even asked to be on Strictly Come Dancing two weeks ago. So to go door-to-door right now and not have my shit blasted all over the Interweb is highly unlikely. I’m officially in the muck, and I have to figure a way out of this without making another headline or my dad will kill me.

  After checking to see if the coast is clear, I jog down the darkened path to the box. I swing open the door, ready to rush inside for warmth, and nearly topple over when I step on something.

  A deep, throaty voice croaks from beneath my foot, “Oi! I’ve got this box claimed so bugger off!”

  “Fuck, mate. Sorry. I didn’t see you there.” I step back, holding the door open with one hand and struggling with my twig and berries in the other.

  The scratchy voice resonates from under a mound of blankets. The man looks to be in his sixties, having a scraggly grey beard and big round eyes. He props his elbow on the large
canvas bag that he was using as a pillow. His gaze falls to my hand. “Blimey, boy! You’re buck naked. Did you know that?” He lumbers up to more of a sitting position and props the door open with his boot, freeing my hand to cover more of myself.

  “I’m aware of my clothing status, thank you. I was hoping this box had a phone in it.” My teeth begin to chatter from the cold.

  “These don’t have phones in them anymore. Everybody knows that,” he harrumphs.

  I purse my lips. “Right, well, as you can see, I’m a bit desperate. Just…forget you saw me.” I turn to leave, giving him a proper shot of my arse as I go. Time to knock on some doors.

  “If you need to make a call, why don’t you just ask?”

  I pause mid-step and quickly turn on my heel to look back at the man. He’s waving a small flip phone in the air at me.

  “You have a mobile?” I ask.

  He shoots me a lopsided grin. “I may be homeless, but you should never be without a mobile, boy.” When he holds it out to me, I note his dirty fingernails and calloused hands. Mine look practically feminine in comparison. Regardless, I grab the mobile and he mumbles, “Here, I’ll give you some privacy.”

  “No, you don’t have to get up,” I argue, feeling like the biggest prat for uprooting this guy from his…home.

  “Do I need to remind you that you’re without trousers?” His voice is firm, but I swear I see mirth in his eyes.

  I wince and nod, feeling completely emasculated by this homeless man as we switch places. As I close the door behind myself, I note that it smells like our stadium changing room after a horrid and muddy game.

  I exhale. All right, Tanner. Now, who do you call?

  I have a big family. Three brothers, one sister, and a dad who pretty much runs my career. But as the token family screw up, even this is a new sort of low for me. Normally, Camden is my go-to since he’s my twin and we live together. Doing things for each other sort of comes with the territory, but he’s travelling with his team this week. Since Booker still lives at home with our dad in Chigwell, I know it’d take him at least thirty minutes to get here. And big bro Gareth plays for Man U, so he’s at his Manchester flat.

  Christ, if I call my sister, Vi, about this, she’ll have my balls on a skewer. She’s eight months pregnant as it is, so I really can’t get her riled up over something like this. Not only would she be raging pissed, but she would be disappointed, and that’d be worse than the humiliation of being cold and naked in public.

  I don’t know any of my teammates’ numbers by heart, so that leaves only one more option. I punch in the last number I can recall.

  “Hello?” a female voice answers.

  “Who’s this?” I ask when it’s not the voice I was expecting.

  “You called me. Who’s this?” the female voice bites back.

  A knowing doom creeps over me.

  “This is Tanner. Is that you, Ryan?” Definitely not the doctor I was looking for.

  “Tanner? Oh, how lovely.” Her voice is flat and monotone. “Yes, you guessed right. Well done. Gold star!” Her forced patronising tone is unmistakable and has become quite natural in all of our exchanges.

  “Why are you answering Indie’s mobile?” I ask, doing nothing to hide the annoyance in my voice.

  Indie is whom I was hoping to get a hold of. Indie is kind and good and decent. She also happens to be head over heels in love with Camden, so I know she’d have mercy on me. Her best friend and flatmate, Belle Ryan, on the other hand, will be less inclined to sympathise.

  “Indie’s in the bath. She told me to watch her mobile and only bring it in if Camden calls,” she snaps. “You might share DNA with the man, but you’re nothing like him.”

  A leer breaks across my face. “I don’t even want to know what you mean by that because, knowing you, it’s sure to be an insult.”

  “Another gold star, Harris.”

  “All right, can you just go get her,” I huff. “It’s an emergency.”

  “What’s happened? Did you twist an ankle climbing out some girl’s window again? Oh! Did her husband catch you this time and beat you to a bloody pulp like you deserve? Or did you call her by the wrong name while you were balls deep and she threw you through a closed window? Indie’s your doctor for football, Tanner, not an STD clinic for whatever sideshow escapades you get into in your personal life.”

  I bite back a growl and reply, “I’m stuck and I need a ride before someone sees me and calls the paparazzi. It’s…an urgent matter.” I glance down at my birthday suit and can’t help but feel that I’ve reached a new low with this one.

  She huffs. “Give me the address. I’ll tell her.”

  I give her the directions before we hang up without so much as a goodbye. I’m actually surprised she offered to give Indie the message. My relationship with Belle Ryan is difficult at best. In the early days of Cam and Indie getting together, Belle and I did some heavy flirting that I was certain would turn into heavy petting and eventually heavy shagging. The sexual chemistry between us was intense.

  But all of that was before my brother decided to fall in love.

  A few months ago, Cam and I were at a pub called Old George with Belle and Indie, and just when I was about to seal the deal with the crazy hot Dr. Ryan, I saw Camden dancing with Indie. And it wasn’t the kind of dancing I’d seen him do a thousand times before with a thousand other birds at various clubs around London. It was the kind of dancing you feel ashamed to be watching because it was such an incredibly private moment. It was like they were Greek gods atop Mount Olympus and we were all watching from the lowly human plane. I couldn’t bring myself to turn away, but what I saw between them made me horribly uncomfortable.

  It was love.

  My brother—the knicker-dropping, smirking sod that is Camden Bloody Harris—was in love.

  A Harris Brother doesn’t toss out that emotion freely either. We only have two loves in our lives. Our sister and the gorgeous game of football. Nothing more.

  So, Indie Porter becoming a permanent fixture in my brother’s life pretty much puts a NO ENTRY sign on Belle Ryan’s sausage warmer. I’m a “shag ‘em and bag ‘em” type, and doing that with her would get my arse kicked by both my brother and Indie. My sister would be there at the end to finish the job.

  But, bloody hell, it’s not for lack of wanting. Belle Ryan is hot enough to resurrect adolescent wet dreams. She’s tall and curvy in all the right places. Her body is the kind of shape that hourglasses are inspired by. As it is, I’ve never been one for the skinny birds. They just seem too frail. Too weak. Too breakable. Belle, on the other hand, looks like the type that could give it as good as she takes it. She has gorgeous muscled legs that I’ve fantasised wrapped around my face; a trim waist that accentuates the perfect swells of her arse; and tits that make me want to cry over the fact that I’ll likely never see them. I’m a proper boob bloke, too, so it really is a shame because she’s sporting a lot more than a handful. Top her off with long, nearly black hair and dark eyes to match, and Belle Ryan is a sexy, crazy-hot mystery that my body begs to uncover.

  But I can’t uncover her because, as soon as I did, I’d be done and that would hurt Indie. And I never want to hurt Indie. I’ve become close to her the last couple of months. Since the start of our season, she’s been shadowing Bethnal Green F.C.’s team doctor. She used to be a surgeon with Belle at The Royal London Hospital, but after everything erupted in the media over her snog with Cam, she decided to leave there and shift her focus to sports medicine. She’s good at it, too. The entire team loves her and not in the perverted way that Camden was worried sick over. He asked me to look after her and make sure the guys treat her with respect. Now I see her like a younger sister, and the aftermath of hurting her best friend is a place I intend to avoid.

  So, after mine and Belle’s flirty moment at the pub, I flipped the switch on her. I turned off the Harris charm and backed off. Since then, she’s been hostile toward me. It’s a bit of a nuisance becaus
e Indie is constantly with my brother, so Belle and I have been thrust together a lot. And it’s not the horizontal thrusting that I excel at. She gives me a look like she wants to use my balls for a rousing game of Yahtzee.

  The problem is that her acting like a raging bitch toward me every time we see each other doesn’t ward me off of her. It only pours fuel on my fire. I’ve always liked the crazy ones, something my brothers give me a lot of shit about. It’s that fire in their eyes that erupts when you least expect it. The unpredictability. You never fully know how they’re going to react. It could be great, or it could be fatal. I guess I have a fetish for that sense of danger. On top of all of that, Belle’s a surgeon so she’s crazy smart along with all that hot anger.

  I’m a striker with a wide open net.

  I SHOULD GO TELL INDIE.

  I should go tell Indie.

  I should go tell Indie.

  Bugger it.

  I’d rather torture Tanner Harris.

  Plus, Indie’s exhausted from the match today. It was a miserable autumn day and she sat out on that pitch the entire time, tending to all those sweaty footballers’ whiney needs. It’s nearly eleven already; she’s off the damn clock. And I’m quite certain Camden wouldn’t want her going out at this time of night to help his git of a brother. I may be a tad overprotective, but Indie’s my family and she’s the one person I try to look out for. Between having her first real boyfriend and all the travelling she’s been doing with the Bethnal team, she’s a walking zombie these days. I never realised how late she stays up studying at night until she moved in with me a few months ago. I suppose changing professions like she did is what’s prompted the extra work.

  I’ve been pretty knackered, too, since I started my fellowship with Dr. Miller at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Operating on foetuses in-utero is fucking mind-blowing work. It’s intense and terrifying and heavy, but so bloody incredible. Nothing makes you feel closer to God than holding a developing baby’s tiny hand while they remain inside the uterus, breathing in amniotic fluid and still attached by the umbilical cord. It’s like waffling between two worlds, standing over a border, or going toward the white light. It’s an adrenaline rush like no other.