Chapter 13 Tanner #2
“Coach pulled me aside after practice.” His whole face changed—brighter, more animated. “Said I’ve been playing some of the best ball of my career. That people are noticing.”
The stone in my chest grew heavier. “That’s great.”
“He asked if I’d reconsidered my plans. About next year.”
My hand tightened on the beer bottle. “What did you tell him?”
“Same thing I’ve been telling him all season. That I’m done after the bowl game, assuming we make one.” Seth shrugged, reaching for his own drink. “He thinks I’m making a mistake. Says I could at least try out, see what happens.”
“But you’re not going to.”
“No.” He met my eyes, something careful in his expression. “I told you, Tanner. Grad school. Athletic training. That’s the plan.”
“Right.” I made myself nod. “The plan.”
I sat there with my beer going warm in my hand, Seth’s words still hanging in the air between us. That’s the plan. I tried to quiet the voice in my head that kept whispering: Plans change. People change. You thought Dad would be around forever too.
We ate at the coffee table because my notes were in neat stacks on the dining table so I could work more tonight.
Seth talked about practice, about the upcoming game, about some freshman who kept messing up his routes.
I listened and nodded in the right places and didn’t taste anything I put in my mouth.
The food was good. I could tell it was good because Seth always picked the best dishes from this place—the green curry with just enough heat, the perfectly crispy spring rolls, the pad Thai that managed to be both rich and fresh.
The kind of order that said I know what you like and I wanted to do something nice for you.
And here I was, pushing it around my plate like a child.
“The freshman’s got potential,” Seth was saying. “Just needs to trust his routes instead of second-guessing every cut. Reminds me of how I was sophomore year.”
“Before you figured it out.”
“Before I stopped overthinking.” He grinned. “Some of us learn that lesson eventually.”
The comment was innocent—directed at the freshman, not at me. But it landed wrong anyway, and I felt myself flinch.
Seth stopped mid-sentence. His fork hovered over his plate, and he watched me push the same piece of chicken around for the third time.
“Tanner.”
I looked up. “What?”
“Where are you right now?” He set the fork down. “Because you’re not here.”
I should tell him. The thought surfaced, and I pushed it down.
What was I supposed to say? “I read an article about your success, and now I’m terrified you’re going to leave me for the NFL?
” It sounded paranoid even in my own head.
Seth had been nothing but clear about his intentions.
He’d submitted grad school applications.
He’d talked about Wilmington like it was certain.
But so had Dad, once. He’d talked about retirement, about coaching youth leagues, about all the time he’d have to spend with Mom and me once he stopped playing.
He’d had plans too. And then he’d gotten one more contract offer, and one more after that, and by the time he finally stopped, his brain was already eating itself alive.
“I saw the article,” I said. “In the campus paper.”
Seth’s expression flickered. “About the season stats?”
“Yeah.”
“I meant to tell you about that. The reporter cornered me after the game last weekend.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I tried to keep it low-key, but she had all these questions about my ‘trajectory’ and whether I had ‘professional aspirations.’”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth. That I’m focused on finishing the season strong and then moving on to the next chapter.” His hand found mine across the table. “Tanner, you know that article doesn’t change anything, right?”
I knew what he was saying. I just wasn’t sure I believed it anymore.
“The scouts,” I said. “She mentioned scouts at the Ole Miss game.”
“There are scouts at every game. They’re there for the guys who actually have a shot at the draft.” He squeezed my fingers. “That’s not me.”
“But it could be.” The words came out before I could stop them. “You’re having the best season of your career. What if—”
“What if what?” His voice had gone gentle, but there was an edge underneath. “What if I suddenly decide I want to go pro after telling you a hundred times that I don’t?”
“People change their minds.”
“I’m not going to change my mind.”
“You don’t know that.”
The silence that followed was heavy. Seth pulled his hand back, and I felt the loss of contact like a physical thing.
“Is that what you’ve been worried about all day?” he asked. “That I’m going to bail on everything we’ve planned because some reporter wrote a puff piece about my stats?”
When he put it like that, it sounded ridiculous. But the fear didn’t care about logic. The fear had been living in my chest since I was sixteen years old, watching my father forget how to tie his shoes, and it didn’t respond to reasonable arguments.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I just— I saw your face in that article, and all I could think about was what happens if you get drafted. What happens if someone offers you a contract and suddenly grad school doesn’t seem as important? What happens if—”
“If I turn into your father?”
The words landed like a slap. I flinched back, and Seth’s expression crumpled.
“Shit. I’m sorry.” He reached for me, but I was already standing, moving toward the kitchen with my plate even though I’d barely touched the food. “Tanner, that came out wrong.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. I shouldn’t have said that.”
I set my plate in the sink and stood there, gripping the counter, trying to get my breathing under control. He was right. That was exactly what I was afraid of. And hearing it aloud—hearing him name the thing I’d been circling around all day—made it impossible to pretend otherwise.
“I’m not your dad,” Seth said from behind me.
His voice was closer now, and I felt his warmth at my back, though he didn’t touch me.
“I know you loved him. I know what happened to him broke something in you. But I’m not him, and I can’t spend the rest of my life proving that I’m not going to make the same choices he did. ”
“I’m not asking you to prove anything.”
“Aren’t you?”
I turned around. He was standing closer than I’d realized, his expression raw in a way that made my stomach twist.
“Every time I come home from practice, you look at me like you’re waiting for bad news,” he said. “Every time I mention the team or the season, I see you flinch. And now you’re telling me that an article about my stats made you spiral for an entire day?”
“I wasn’t spiraling.”
“You didn’t eat lunch. You barely touched dinner. You’ve been somewhere else all night.” His jaw tightened. “That’s spiraling, Tanner. I know what it looks like.”
He wasn’t wrong. I hated that he wasn’t wrong.
“I’m trying,” I said. The words came out thin, inadequate. “I know my fears aren’t rational. I know you’re not him. But I can’t just turn it off because I want to.”
“I’m not asking you to turn it off. I’m asking you to talk to me instead of shutting down and pretending everything’s fine.
” He stepped closer, his hands coming up to cup my face.
“I’m here. I’m choosing this. I’m choosing you.
But I need you to choose me back, and that means trusting me when I tell you what I want. ”
I closed my eyes. His thumbs traced my cheekbones, gentle and steady.
“I want to trust you,” I whispered.
“Then try.”
We didn’t talk about it again that night.
Seth cleaned up the kitchen while I pretended to work on my presentation.
The apartment felt smaller than usual, the silence between us heavy with everything we hadn’t resolved.
I could hear him moving around—water running, dishes clanking, the refrigerator opening and closing.
Familiar sounds that usually made me feel at home.
Tonight, they just reminded me how much space he’d carved out in my life.
When had that happened? When had his presence become the baseline I measured everything against?
He appeared in the doorway, dish towel in hand. “Movie?”
“Sure.”
We found something mindless on TV—some action sequel neither of us cared about. Seth settled on the couch first, and I hesitated before sitting beside him. He noticed. Of course he noticed. His arm came around my shoulders anyway, pulling me against his side, and I let myself sink into the contact.
This was the part I couldn’t reconcile. How right it felt to be here.
How much I wanted this—all of it, the quiet evenings and shared meals and falling asleep wrapped around each other.
I’d spent years convincing myself I didn’t need anyone, that letting people close only meant watching them get hurt or hurting them myself.
And then Seth had shown up with hot chocolate and patient silences, and something in me had cracked open.
Now I was terrified it would shatter completely.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Seth murmured against my hair.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Just…” He pressed a kiss to my temple. “Let it go for tonight. Whatever’s eating at you will still be there tomorrow.”
He wasn’t wrong. The doubts would keep. The fear would wait. For now, I had his warmth against my side and the steady rhythm of his breathing, and I made myself focus on that instead of everything I couldn’t control.
Later, in bed, he curled around me from behind and pressed his face into the space between my shoulder blades.
“Two more games,” he said into my skin. “Maybe a bowl. Then I’m done. No matter what anyone says.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I didn’t answer. He held me tighter, and I felt him take a breath like he was going to say something else. The pause stretched—long enough that I tensed, waiting. But whatever he’d been about to say stayed trapped behind his teeth.
“I need you to trust me,” he said finally. “That’s all I’m asking. Just trust that I know what I want.”
I should tell him I did. Should give him the reassurance he was asking for. But the words stuck in my throat, and all I could do was grip his arm where it lay across my chest.
“I’m trying,” I whispered.
“I know.” His voice had gone rough, and I heard something underneath it—disappointment maybe, or resignation. “I know you are.”
The silence that followed felt heavier than before. His breath was warm against my neck, his body solid behind mine, but the space between what he needed and what I could give felt insurmountable.
I turned in his arms, found his mouth in the dark. The kiss was desperate, an apology for all the things I couldn’t say. He responded, but there was something careful in it now—like he was holding part of himself back.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said when we broke apart.
It sounded more like a question than a promise.
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that love was enough, that his promises would hold, that the future we’d imagined was still waiting for us on the other side of the season.
But the doubt had settled into my bones, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was coming. Something neither of us could see yet.
I fell asleep with his arms around me and woke up three hours later from a dream I couldn’t remember, my heart pounding, his name on my lips.
He was still there. Still holding on.
I pressed closer and tried to convince myself that it would be enough.