Chapter 11 Tanner
TANNER
The email came while I was brushing my teeth.
I’d gotten into the habit of checking my phone first thing—a terrible habit, one that usually left me spiraling before I’d even had coffee. But this morning, standing at the bathroom sink with toothpaste foam dripping down my chin, I saw the subject line and forgot how to swallow.
Decision: Graduate Program Application - Wilmington Institute of Technology
I stared at it for so long that the screen went dark. My thumb hovered, trembling, over the notification.
“You okay in there?” Seth’s voice drifted down the hall. “You’ve been quiet for like ten minutes.”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t move. My heart was doing something violent behind my ribs, and I was certain that if I opened this email, it would say no.
Of course it would say no. My research was good but not groundbreaking, my grades were strong but not exceptional, and there were hundreds of applicants with better credentials and fewer emotional breakdowns on their transcripts.
The bathroom door creaked open. Seth appeared in the mirror behind me, rumpled from sleep, wearing boxers and nothing else. His eyes found the phone in my hand.
“What is it?”
“Wilmington.” The word came out garbled through toothpaste. I spat, rinsed, and tried again. “The decision. It’s here.”
He went still. “And?”
“I haven’t opened it.”
“Why not?”
“Because if it’s a rejection, I want to enjoy not knowing for a few more seconds.”
Seth crossed to me in two steps, wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, and rested his chin on my shoulder. In the mirror, we looked ridiculous—him half-naked, me with toothpaste still on my lip, both of us staring at a phone screen like it held the answers to the universe.
“Open it,” he said.
“What if—”
“Open it.”
I opened it.
The first line read: Dear Mr. McBride, We are pleased to inform you—
I stopped reading.
“Tanner.” Seth’s arms tightened. “What does it say?”
“I got in.” The words didn’t sound real. “I got in. Full funding. Research assistantship. I got in.”
Seth spun me around and kissed me hard enough that I stumbled back against the sink. When he pulled away, his face was split into the biggest grin I’d ever seen.
“I knew it,” he said. “I fucking knew it.”
“You didn’t know anything. You’re not on the admissions committee.”
“I knew.” He kissed me again, softer this time. “Your work is too good. Anyone who looked at it would be an idiot not to want you.”
The praise landed somewhere beneath my sternum, warm and unexpected. I wasn’t used to people believing in me like this—not since Dad, and even then, by the end, he couldn’t remember what I was working on from one conversation to the next.
“I need to call Lincoln,” I said. “He wanted to know as soon as I heard.”
“Call him. I’ll make coffee.”
Seth disappeared down the hall, and I sank onto the edge of the bathtub, phone clutched in both hands. The email was still open, the words still there. We are pleased to inform you. I read them three more times before I believed them.
Lincoln answered on the second ring.
“Tanner. Tell me good news.”
“I got in. Wilmington. Full funding.”
The whoop that came through the speaker made me pull the phone away from my ear. In the background, I heard Nixon’s voice asking what happened, then Lincoln’s muffled response, then what sounded like actual cheering.
“I knew it,” Lincoln said when he came back on. “Didn’t I tell you? Your father would be—” He stopped, the way people always stopped when they remembered. “He’d be proud, Tanner. So damn proud.”
My throat closed. I pressed my free hand against my eyes and breathed through it.
“There’s something else,” Lincoln continued, his voice shifting into something more businesslike. “I talked to my contact at Riddell. David Holloway— He’s their head of R&D.”
I sat up straighter. “You mentioned him in Wilmington.”
“He’s interested. Saw the data I forwarded and wants to meet with you. Talk about your research, see if there’s potential for collaboration.”
“Collaboration?” The word felt foreign in my mouth. “Like…they’d want to use my designs?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out. I’m working with him now to figure out how to get the two of you in the same room. I think you’d do better with that than meeting over Zoom.”
My brain was struggling to keep up. Grad school acceptance and a meeting with Riddell’s R&D department in the same morning. Three months ago, I’d been sitting on my kitchen floor, unable to move. Now people were flying across the country to talk about my work.
“Lincoln, I don’t—” I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes. And, Tanner?” His voice gentled. “This isn’t charity. Your work has merit. David wouldn’t waste his time if he didn’t see potential. But I want to make sure you’re protected. If they’re interested in licensing anything, you need to be compensated. That’s why I want to be in the room.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to.” A pause. “Patrick was my best friend for fifteen years. He’d haunt me if I let his son get taken advantage of by corporate lawyers.”
The laugh that escaped me was wet around the edges. “He probably would.”
“Damn right. Now go celebrate. You’ve earned it.”
After we hung up, I sat on the bathroom floor for a long time, phone dark in my lap. The tile was cold through my pajama pants. Steam from Seth’s shower still clung to the mirror, and somewhere in the apartment, I could hear him singing off-key to whatever was playing on his phone.
This was real. All of it. The acceptance, the meeting, the man in my kitchen making coffee like it was the most natural thing in the world.
For the first time in longer than I could remember, the future didn’t feel like something to survive. It felt like something to want.
Seth insisted on celebrating.
“It’s Tuesday,” I said. “We have class.”
“Skip it.”
“I can’t skip—”
“You got into your dream program, and you’re meeting with Riddell. Skip class.” He was already pulling on jeans, moving around the bedroom with the easy efficiency of someone who’d made up his mind. “We’re going to breakfast. Real breakfast, not coffee and whatever’s in the fridge.”
“There’s nothing in the fridge.”
“Exactly my point.”
We ended up at the diner three blocks off campus—the one that looked like it hadn’t been updated since sometime in the mid-seventies and the waitress who called everyone sugar.
It was mostly empty this time of morning, just a few truck drivers at the counter and an elderly couple sharing a newspaper in the corner booth.
The smell of bacon grease hung in the air, and the coffee was already brewing, rich and dark.
Seth ordered enough food for four people.
Pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and a side of biscuits because “You can’t not get the biscuits, Tanner, that’s illegal.
” I watched him charm the waitress into bringing extra honey butter and thought about how different this felt from every other morning of my life.
Three months ago, breakfast had been whatever I could force down between anxiety attacks.
Six months ago, I’d been counting Dad’s medications and trying to remember if he’d eaten anything that day.
A year ago, I’d sat in this same diner alone, staring at my phone and wondering if I should call Mom again or if it would just make things worse.
Now I was sitting across from someone who looked at me like I mattered, ordering more food than two people could reasonably eat, celebrating something I’d been afraid to even want.
“You’re staring,” he said.
“You’re interesting.”
“That’s my line.”
I smiled into my coffee cup. Under the table, his foot found mine, pressed against it with familiar warmth.
“I talked to Coach yesterday,” he said, reaching for the syrup. “About the bowl game situation.”
My stomach tightened. Three more games in the regular season, then the bowl if they made it. More weeks of watching him come home bruised. More weeks of ice packs and careful movements and pretending I wasn’t terrified every time he walked onto that field.
“What did he say?”
“We’re projected for the Independence Bowl. December twenty-sixth.”
“That’s the day after Christmas.”
“Yeah.” He met my eyes. “I was thinking— Wilmington for Christmas. Then I’ll fly out for the game and come back after. We could do New Year’s together.”
The careful way he said it made something loosen in my chest. He was planning around me. Building a future that had space for both of us.
“I’d like that,” I said.
His whole face relaxed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I poured more syrup on my pancakes, thinking. “What about Thanksgiving? That’s only a few weeks away.”
Something shifted in his expression. Not quite a flinch, but close. “What about it?”
“I’m going to my mom’s. It’ll be quiet. Just the two of us, probably. You could come if you want.”
Seth’s fork paused halfway to his mouth. He set it down, reached for his coffee instead. The pause stretched a beat too long.
“That’s—” He cleared his throat. “That’s really nice of you to offer.”
“But?”
“I should probably go home.” The words came out flat, rehearsed. “See my family. It’s been a while.”
I watched him not meet my eyes. Watched him grip his coffee mug like it was the only thing keeping him anchored to the table.
“You don’t sound excited about that.”
“I’m not.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “But it’s one of those things, you know? Family obligations. Can’t avoid them forever.”
Going home for the holidays was a minefield for me, but I couldn’t imagine being filled with dread at the thought.
I debated trying to convince him he didn’t have to be miserable, but the tense set of his jaw said the subject wasn’t up for discussion.
I didn’t push because I didn’t want to ruin this. Not today.
“The offer stands,” I said. “If you change your mind.”
His shoulders dropped. He reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Thank you. Really.”