Chapter 8 #2
He was already moving toward a cabinet in the corner, drawn like a magnet. I followed, fishing quarters from my pocket. Tanner’s whole posture had changed—shoulders looser, face open in a way I rarely saw outside the lab when he was deep in his research.
“This is—” He stopped. Ran his fingers along the side of the Galaga cabinet, and his expression flickered. “My dad used to take me to a place like this.”
He said it casually, but his hand had stilled on the wood.
“Yeah?” I fed quarters into the machine, keeping my voice neutral.
“There was one near our house. Smaller than this. He’d take me on Saturday mornings sometimes, before Mom woke up.
” Tanner gripped the joystick, his knuckles going white for a second before he relaxed.
“He was terrible at all of them. Would lose all his lives in like two minutes and then stand behind me giving bad advice while I tried to beat his high score.”
“That sounds like a good memory.”
“It is.” The game started up, and he focused on the screen, but I could see him working through something. “I don’t have a lot of those anymore. Most of what I remember is from the end. The bad years. Sometimes I forget there were good years first.”
I wanted to touch him—his shoulder, his back, anything—but we were in public, and I didn’t know if he wanted comfort or space. So I just stood close, near enough that my arm brushed his, and watched the pixelated ships descend.
“Maybe that’s part of what this is,” I said. “Finding new good stuff to remember.”
He didn’t answer, but he leaned into the contact, his shoulder pressing against my chest. I let myself stay there.
Tanner was good at Galaga. Better than good—his reflexes were sharp, his movements precise, and he cleared the first three levels without losing a single life. I watched his hands more than the screen, the way his fingers moved with practiced ease, the furrow of concentration between his brows.
“You’re staring,” he said without looking away from the game.
“You’re fun to watch when you’re focused.”
He fumbled the joystick and lost a life. “You can’t just say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” Another wave of aliens descended. Tanner recovered, picking them off with ruthless efficiency. “Because I’ll get distracted and lose.”
“Sounds like a you problem.”
“You’re the worst.” But he was smiling, and when he finally lost his last life—level seven, a respectable run—he turned around with a challenge in his eyes. “Your turn.”
“I’m going to be terrible.”
“I know. That’s the fun part.”
I stepped up to the cabinet and proved him right. My first life lasted maybe thirty seconds before I flew directly into an enemy I hadn’t seen coming. Tanner laughed—actually laughed, loud enough that one of the high schoolers glanced over—and the sound cracked something open in my chest.
“You have to move and shoot at the same time,” he said, stepping closer. His hand covered mine on the joystick, adjusting my grip. “Like this. See?”
His breath was warm against my ear. I missed the next three aliens in a row and didn’t care at all.
“You’re not helping,” I said.
“I’m helping a lot. You’re just easily distracted.”
“Wonder why.”
He stepped back, but not far. We played through my remaining lives—all lost in embarrassing ways—and then moved to the next cabinet. Street Fighter. I was marginally better at this one, but Tanner still destroyed me three rounds in a row.
“Okay,” I said, leaning against the cabinet after my third defeat. “How are you this good at everything?”
“I’m not good at everything. Just games that require pattern recognition and fast reflexes.” He selected his character for another round. “Also, I had a lot of free time in high school. Not many friends.”
“Their loss.”
He glanced at me, a flicker of surprise crossing his face before he looked away. “You really think that?”
“I really do.”
We found a co-op shooter in the back corner and played through four levels before I said what I’d been holding on to all morning.
“There’s something else I haven’t told you about my family.”
Tanner’s character took a hit while he processed the shift. “Okay.”
“You know they’re against football. What I didn’t tell you is that’s not the only reason they’ve written me off.
” I kept my eyes on the screen, picking off enemies as they spawned.
It was easier to talk without looking at him.
“When I was sixteen, my mom found some searches on my computer. Questions I was asking myself about whether I liked guys.”
Tanner’s hands went still on his controller. On screen, his character died.
“She sat me down and told me that whatever I was ‘experimenting with,’ I needed to stop. That our family had a reputation. That my father’s position at the university meant people were watching.
That I couldn’t afford to be confused.” I cleared another wave, my voice flat.
“She said if I chose that path, I’d be choosing it alone. ”
“Seth—”
“So I stopped searching. Stopped asking questions. Dated girls for two years, made sure she had nothing to worry about.” A boss enemy appeared on screen, and I focused on it with more intensity than it required.
“When she found out about the first guy I hooked up with freshman year—one of her colleagues saw us leaving a bar together—she called to tell me I’d made my choice. ”
“She gave you an ultimatum when you were sixteen?” His voice had gone sharp.
“She gave me a choice. That’s how she’d frame it.” I took down the boss, level complete. “So coming out to my family isn’t about finding the right moment. It’s about deciding whether to lose them permanently or keep pretending.”
Tanner set down his plastic gun. On screen, the next level started without us. “You’ve been carrying that for seven years.”
“On and off.”
“That’s not on and off. That’s survival.” He gripped my elbow, brief and fierce. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“It’s fine. I’ve had time to make peace with it.”
“Have you?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. On screen, our abandoned characters were getting destroyed by enemies that neither of us was fighting.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get food. I’m starving.”
The diner Tanner led us to was three blocks away, a squat brick building called Mae’s that had clearly been serving the same menu since 1975.
The inside was warm and smelled like bacon grease and burned coffee, country music playing low from speakers that crackled on the high notes.
We slid into a back booth with cracked red vinyl seats, and a waitress with steel-gray hair and a name tag that read DOROTHY appeared before we’d even opened our menus.
“What can I get you boys? Coffee’s fresh, biscuits just came out.”
We ordered too much—eggs, bacon, a short stack for me, French toast for Tanner, and a basket of those biscuits with honey butter. Dorothy called us both “sugar” and kept our cups full without being asked.
Halfway through my pancakes, my phone buzzed.
Hunter
Glad to hear you finally got your shit together.
I showed Tanner the message. He groaned around a mouthful of French toast.
"I'm going to kill him."
"You texted Hunter, didn't you." It wasn't a question.
"Last night. After you fell asleep." His face went pink. "He's been talking me off the ledge for weeks. I figured he deserved to know it worked."
"And I’d bet he told John."
"They share a bed. They share everything." Tanner stabbed at his French toast. "He's going to be insufferable about this."
We’re trying. Don’t make it weird.
Hunter
Too late. Already weird. You two should come to Wilmington for fall break. We’ve got room.
“Hunter’s inviting us for fall break,” I said.
Tanner set down his fork. “Both of us?”
“Yeah.”
He considered it, chewing slowly. The fall break coincided with our bye week—no game, no practice until the following Tuesday. Four days where I wouldn’t come home bruised.
“I want to show Lincoln my prototype data,” he said finally. That made sense. Not only was Lincoln Sims one of Patrick’s former teammates, he was also invested in player safety. “And I haven’t seen Hunter in months.”
“You sure? It’s a lot of togetherness.”
“Togetherness with people who know about us and don’t care.” He picked up his coffee and took a long drink. “That sounds kind of nice. Not having to be careful.”
“Then it’s settled.” I typed back a confirmation and set my phone aside.
Under the table, Tanner’s knee pressed against mine. Neither of us moved away.
“This is really happening,” he said. “Us.”
“Looks like it.”
“And you’re okay with that? Even knowing how scared I am?”
I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine. We were in a back booth, mostly hidden from view, but it still felt like a declaration.
“I’m okay with all of it,” I said. “The scared parts. The complicated parts. The parts where you need space and the parts where you need me close.”
Tanner’s fingers curled around mine, holding tight. “We’re both a mess, you know.”
“Yeah. But our broken pieces fit together pretty well.”
He huffed a laugh. “That’s either profound or the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said.”
“Probably both.”
We stayed in that booth until Dorothy started giving us looks, our hands tangled together across the table like we had nowhere else to be. Outside, the afternoon light had gone golden, filtering through the diner’s smudged windows.
Eventually, we paid and headed back into the October air. The walk home felt different from the walk there—lighter, somehow. Like we’d crossed an invisible line and come out intact on the other side.
At our building, Tanner stopped with his hand on the door.
“Thank you. For the arcade. For knowing I’d like it.” He met my eyes. “For paying attention.”
“That’s what this is supposed to be, right? Paying attention to each other.”
“I’m still figuring out the rules.”
“There aren’t rules. Just us, trying not to fuck it up.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“Yeah.” I reached past him and pulled the door open. “But at least we’re terrified together.”
He shook his head, but he was smiling as he walked through. I followed him up the stairs to our apartment, watching the late-afternoon sun catch the red in his hair, and thought about how strange it was that the scariest thing I’d ever done was also the thing that felt most right.
We had a lot to figure out. A season to finish, families to navigate, futures to build. But for right now, we had this: a Sunday afternoon, a shared apartment, and the fragile beginning of something worth protecting.
It was enough. It was more than enough.