Chapter 23 Tanner #2
“That the hardest part isn’t leaving. It’s figuring out who you are when the thing you’ve been doing doesn’t define you anymore.
” He pressed a kiss to my temple. “He said when he retired, he spent a year feeling like a ghost in his own life. Like he’d lost the only version of himself that mattered.
And then he found the advocacy work, and Nixon, and a new way of being useful. ”
“That sounds like Lincoln.”
“He said I’m lucky to have figured it out young. That most guys don’t know what they want until it’s too late to get it.”
“He’s not wrong.”
“No.” Seth pulled me closer. “I know exactly what I want.”
The days leading up to New Year’s passed in a blur of warmth and noise and the kind of easy intimacy I hadn’t known I was missing.
I caught Seth and Lincoln on the back porch one morning, coffee cups in hand, deep in conversation about the Breakers’ training protocols and how they compared to what Seth had learned in his coursework.
Lincoln was nodding along, occasionally interjecting with observations from his playing days, treating Seth like a colleague rather than a kid.
“He’s good for you,” Lincoln said to me later, when Seth had gone inside. “Steady. That’s not nothing, after everything you’ve been through.”
“I know.”
“Does he know what he’s getting into? The Riddell work, the travel, the way you disappear into research for days at a time?”
“He knows.” I watched through the window as Seth helped Nixon with dishes, his sleeves rolled up, laughing at something Hunter said. “He’s patient.”
“That’s rare.” Lincoln followed my gaze. “Don’t take it for granted.”
Hunter and I picked up where we’d left off, the shorthand of a lifetime’s friendship slotting back into place. We played video games until three in the morning, argued about movies, lay on his living room floor and talked about everything and nothing.
“So,” Hunter said one night, when Seth and John had gone out for beer and we were alone. “You love him.”
“Yeah.”
“And he loves you.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re moving here after graduation.”
“That’s the plan.”
Hunter was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “I’m happy for you, Tanner. I didn’t know if I would be, when I first saw you two together. I was scared. Scared he’d hurt you, or you’d hurt yourself trying to love someone who reminded you of everything you’d lost.”
“I was scared too.”
“And now?”
I thought about Seth’s hands on my skin, his voice in my ear, the way he looked at me like I was worth keeping.
“Now I’m still scared,” I said. “But I’m more scared of living without him than I am of what might happen if I stay.”
Hunter reached over and squeezed my hand. “Your dad would be proud of the man you’ve become. And I think he’d like Seth too.”
The words landed somewhere deep, in the place where grief lived alongside hope. “Thanks.”
“I mean it. You’re the bravest person I know.”
“I’m really not.”
“You are.” He sat up, looking at me with an intensity that made me want to look away.
“You watched your father die for years. You held your family together when everything was falling apart. And when you finally had a chance to run away from anything that reminded you of it, you chose to run toward someone instead. That takes guts, Tanner.”
“It takes desperation.”
“Same thing, sometimes.”
New Year’s Eve, the house filled with people again.
Lincoln and Nixon, Mom and Frank, Hunter and John, a handful of Breakers teammates I half-recognized from games I’d watched on mute. Music and laughter and the pop of champagne corks at midnight, everyone counting down in a ragged chorus while the fireworks lit up the harbor.
Seth found me on the back porch just after the ball dropped, the party noise fading behind us as the door closed.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year.”
He kissed me then, slow and deep, tasting like champagne and the chocolate cake Nixon had made. When he pulled back, his eyes were bright with anticipation.
“I have a question,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Next year—when you’re here for grad school, and I’m doing my training program—I want us to find our own place. Not just roommates anymore. Something that’s actually ours.”
The word ours hit me somewhere behind the ribs. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He cupped my face in his hands. “I want it to be real. Not just sharing space because it’s convenient. I want to pick out furniture together, argue about what color to paint the walls, build something that’s about us. Not just two guys splitting rent.”
“I want that too.” My voice came out rough. “I want— God, I want everything.”
“Then let’s take it.” His thumb traced my cheekbone. “We made it through the hard part. The rest is just details.”
“Famous last words.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.” I pulled him closer, pressing my forehead to his. “I know you are. And the answer is yes. To all of it. To whatever comes next.”
He kissed me again, harder this time, and the want that had been simmering all week finally caught fire.
We barely made it through the sliding door, his hand warm and insistent on the small of my back as he guided me inside. The party noise swelled around us—laughter and clinking glasses and someone’s terrible karaoke—but Seth was already steering me toward the hallway, his fingers laced through mine.
“Where are we going?” I asked, even though I knew.
“Somewhere quieter.” His voice was low, rough at the edges.
We passed Hunter and John slow-dancing in the kitchen, Nixon refilling champagne flutes, a cluster of Breakers players arguing about something on the TV. No one seemed to notice us slip away.
The guest room was at the end of the hall, far enough from the party that the noise was just a distant hum. Seth locked the door behind us and turned, his eyes dark in the dim light from the window.
“Come here,” he said.
I went.
He kissed me against the door, hands sliding under my shirt to find warm skin.
I arched into the touch, chasing more, always more with him.
The desperation of the last few weeks had faded, replaced by something steadier—the bone-deep certainty that we had time.
That this wasn’t the last chance, just the next one.
“What do you want?” Seth murmured against my throat.
“You.” I tugged at his shirt. “Naked. Now.”
He laughed, the sound vibrating against my skin. “Bossy tonight.”
“It’s a new year. I’m trying new things.”
We undressed each other slowly, savoring each newly revealed inch. When we finally tumbled onto the bed, nothing between us but skin and breath and want, I felt the last wall inside me give way—the final holdout, the part that had been braced for this to end badly.
Seth rolled me onto my back, settling between my thighs with a grin that made heat pool low in my stomach.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi yourself.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.” I pulled him down for a kiss that turned filthy fast, our hips grinding together until we were both breathless. “Now stop talking and fuck me.”
He reached for the lube we’d stashed in the nightstand earlier—optimistic planning that was about to pay off—and slicked his fingers while I watched, my cock twitching against my stomach.
“You’re staring,” he said.
“I’m appreciating the view.”
“Appreciate faster. I want to be inside you before someone comes looking for us.”
I spread my legs wider, pulling one knee toward my chest. Seth’s breath caught.
“Fuck,” he said. “You’re—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m beautiful. Get on with it.”
He pressed one finger inside me, and I immediately grabbed his wrist.
“More,” I said. “We don’t have time for slow.”
“Impatient,” he murmured, but he was already adding a second finger, stretching me faster than usual.
“There’s a party full of people who are going to notice we’re gone.” I rocked down against his hand. “Third. Now.”
He obliged, working me open with efficient strokes while I squirmed and demanded more.
When he finally pushed inside me, we both groaned. He was big enough that it always took a moment to adjust, but the stretch was good—grounding, real, proof that this was happening.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Move.”
He moved. Slow at first, deep grinding strokes that hit every nerve ending, then faster as we both chased the building heat.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him deeper, meeting each thrust, and somewhere along the way the desperation turned into laughter—actual laughter, breathless and giddy.
“What?” Seth panted, grinning down at me.
“Nothing. Just—” I kissed him. “This. Us. I’m happy.”
His expression softened into something so tender my chest ached. “Me too.”
He shifted his angle, and suddenly, I wasn’t laughing anymore. I was moaning, fingers digging into his shoulders as the pleasure built and built. He reached between us to wrap his hand around my cock, stroking in time with his thrusts.
“Come on,” he said. “Come for me, Tanner. Let me see you.”
I came with his name on my lips, my whole body arching off the bed. He followed a moment later, burying himself deep and shaking through his release.
Afterward, we lay tangled together in the wreck of the sheets, breathing hard, covered in sweat and cum and too satisfied to move.
“We should clean up,” Seth said eventually.
“In a minute.”
“The party’s still going.”
“They can survive without us.”
He laughed, pulling me closer. “Happy New Year, Tanner.”
I pressed my face into his shoulder, breathing him in. Outside, I could still hear the faint pop of fireworks, the distant cheer of people celebrating. Inside, there was just this—warmth and breath and the steady beat of Seth’s heart under my ear.
“Happy New Year,” I said.
We’d made it. Through the grief and the fear and the endless dark months where I wasn’t sure I could keep going. Through his injury and my panic and the silence that almost swallowed us whole. Through all of it, somehow, to here.
A room full of people I loved. A future taking shape. A man beside me who saw every broken piece and chose to stay anyway. His family was still a wound without a clean edge, and my grief would never fully disappear. But this was enough. More than enough.
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