Chapter 17
TANNER
Iwake up to the smell of coffee and the feel of my boxers tightening all over again.
Des is already out of bed, which I should’ve expected. He’s not the type to linger in messy moments. Especially ones that involve…whatever that was last night.
We made a glorious mess. I’ve never come that hard, as if Des reached inside me and pulled the orgasm out with his bare hands.
I’ve gotten by with my own hand for the past two years, but nothing compares to the touch of another person, especially one who cares about you as they’re giving you pleasure.
I stare at the ceiling, my chest heavy in a way I can’t quite name.
It wasn’t just a blow job, or a hand job, or kissing.
Oh God, the kissing. I always suspected Des was a good kisser.
Girls would gossip about it in school. And the ladies were right.
Those full lips were forceful but generous.
Des took lead but made sure it was good for both of us.
Flashes of last night cut into my vision. It was Des—my best friend—touching me like I was something delicate and important. His hands were careful. His mouth reverent. And I—
I liked it too much.
And that’s the problem.
Because I know Des. He doesn’t want this. Not this. He doesn’t want four kids and school drop-offs and PTA meetings. He wants martinis, award-winning ad campaigns, and expensive decor. He wants space, freedom. Control.
I’m the opposite of control. I’m junk drawers and noisy dinners and couches with food stains. I’m exhaustion and compromise and still trying to figure out who packed the wrong lunch into the wrong backpack this morning.
Des isn’t built for this life. And he’s made it clear, over and over again, that he never wanted it.
Which means last night…was a blip. A lapse.
A one-time thing. The thought of being Des’s husband is becoming less of a farce and more of a dream scenario to me.
But if I tell Des that I have these feelings for him, that each second I see him with my kids and each time he flashes me his confident smile my stomach flips like a hammock, he’ll panic.
Because that’s not what he wants. I don’t want to lose him.
I push the thought down and get out of bed. In the shower, I run through the hot footage of last night and jerk off as fast as I can before one of my kids starts looking for me.
I get dressed and check my phone. It’s quieter now.
No more frantic work emails and Slack messages.
An email from an old coworker Rodrigo who was also laid off.
He informs me there’s a job fair happening today.
Oh, right. On top of fighting through feelings for my best friend, I’m also trying to get a job so my kids don’t go hungry.
Downstairs, Des pulls waffles from the toaster and distributes them to plates for the kids.
Dean helps Lulu butter toast, while Lena and Davy cut up fruit.
Des wears an apron over his black sweatshirt and jeans, a casual Saturday outfit that his aura still manages to make seem chic. I want to kiss him so badly.
“Waffle?” he asks.
“Yeah. I’ll take two.”
“I have to go into the office for a few hours today to work on that Silq Cosmetics pitch with my team. I’ll be back by the afternoon.” Des drizzles syrup over waffles and hands them to Dean.
“My coworker emailed me about this job fair today. I don’t know if I should go.” I shuffle to the coffeemaker and pour myself a mug.
“You should. When I get back today, I’ll watch the kids and make them dinner. I actually found a recipe for slow cooker tacos I’m curious about trying.” His eyes go to the slow cooker sitting atop the fridge amid half-empty boxes of water and juice and old art class projects from the kids.
“You know how to use a slow cooker?” I ask.
“You just dump a bunch of stuff in there and hit cook. If I can handle omelets, slow cooker tacos will be a piece of cake.”
I admire his confidence. I love using the slow cooker, but getting tasty meals in there can be deceptively hard sometimes.
“Okay. Tacos sound good.”
“Great. So you’ll hang with the kids in the morning, and I gotcha covered for the afternoon.” Des pulls my waffles from the toaster and drizzles them with syrup, making deliberate concentric circles. He puts them on the kitchen table then whips off his apron.
“Sounds like a plan.”
“I gotta run to the office.” He hangs the apron on a hook in the pantry and grabs his car keys from the counter.
Without thinking, my lizard-brain self taking control, I give Des a quick kiss on the lips. “Have a good day. See you later.”
It’s quick, effortless, one of the millions of moments that make up a marriage.
“Wish me luck with cracking this Silq pitch.” Des calls out to the kids.
“Good luck!” The kids yell back.
“You should get Skibidi Toilet to be the brand’s mascot,” Dean shouts and flicks a blueberry in his mouth.
“Who’s that?” Des asks.
“Don’t ask,” I warn him. I truly believe kids should be banned from using the internet until they’re thirty.
The job fair is being held in the gymnasium of the MacArthur Community Center, which some people have taken to calling the Bea Arthur Community Center.
I love the center, but I hate it here.
I’ve got my résumé printed on decent paper, my blazer is only a little wrinkled, and I’ve practiced saying things like “I’m pivoting back into the workforce with leadership experience and strong problem-solving skills.”
But no one’s biting.
One recruiter looks at my résumé and frowns. “You don’t have a master’s?”
“It’s not required for my field.”
“Mmhmm,” she says, already sliding my résumé into a pile I know she won’t revisit.
The next guy doesn’t even ask a question. Just glances at me, sees my age, sees the graying hair at my temples, and says, “You may be too overqualified for currently open positions.”
I plaster on a smile and thank him for his time.
By the time I leave, my feet hurt, my jaw aches from all the fake grinning, and I feel like someone’s stapled “TOO OLD, TOO LATE” across my forehead.
I need to find a job. My kids deserve to see their dad working.
Katie was the ambitious one in our relationship.
She used her grit and drive to make partner at her firm.
She quickly began outearning me, and I never flinched.
I never had that toxic masculine insecurity.
I was flipping proud of my wife. She was a badass, and I was happy to be on her team.
I’m not built like her or Des. I don’t have their ambition.
I strive to be content. I wanted to be a dad with a good job.
I wanted to make enough to give my family a solid life; I never longed for a mansion.
I wanted to be the little league coach, the one who taught them how to ride their bikes, the one who’d ride the roller coasters with them.
I’m the one who encourages their passions and whatever ambitions they may have.
Being an anonymous office drone worked because it allowed me to have that balance to be a dad. But now I’m jobless and fighting in an awful employment market.
I can’t slack on ambition. I have to do this for my kids. Finding a new job while in my forties is going to be a challenge. Ageism is real and it sucks. But that just means I have to fight harder. I sit in my car and close my eyes, trying to summon the ambition of my late wife and current husband.
The day gets better once I get home. Des greets me with a quick, effortless kiss that immediately washes away all the unpleasantness of the job fair.
“How’d it go?” Des asks.
“I’m not one for cursing, so I’ll just say not well.”
“Don’t worry. You’re going to find something.” Des pulls me into a hug and rocks us. It melts my stress away, as does looking into those swoony eyes of his. “Send me your resume. I’ll look it over.”
“Yep.” I pull back before I let myself get lost in his warm hug forever. “Davy! Time to go to practice!”
Davy hops up from the TV. He’s got his hockey bag and is ready to go. The dad locomotive never stops.
He’s all wiggly excitement in the backseat, chattering about the new hockey moves Des taught him.
I let his energy wash over me. It helps.
Practice is at Summers Rink, the same place where The Comebacks play. It smells like old skates and freeze-dried sweat. I love it. Familiar. Predictable. I watch Davy push onto the ice to join his teammates.
Griffin waves from near the penalty box, dressed in his referee gear.
He’s been volunteering at practices for a few months now.
Before we made him join The Comebacks last spring, he hadn’t touched a hockey stick or an ice skate in over twenty years.
He lost his eye in a pivotal high school game and had to kiss his NHL dreams goodbye in an instant.
But now that he’s rediscovered his love of the game, he’s wanted to get more involved.
He might be blind in one eye, but sees all on the ice. The kids and coaches don’t second guess his calls. The eye patch and grizzled bear and hulking frame make him one intimidating ref.
I walk over and lean on the boards beside him.
“Hey, man. Davy looks good out there.”
Davy swooshes around the ice with excitement and energy, each push-off from his skate fortifying him. He loves hockey in a way I don’t know if I ever did.
“He’s been working hard. Doing drills with Des afterschool.”
“Is he trying out for the traveling team?”
“Yep.” I refuse to think about the added cost of competitive hockey. I’ll find a way to afford it.
“In my unbiased opinion, I think he has a great shot at making the team. He’s great out there. Fast, determined.”
“He gets that from his mom.”
We watch in companionable silence for a moment before he clears his throat.
“How are things going with your husband?” he asks with a smirk. “Are you guys ready to clobber each other?”
“Actually…I hooked up with Des.”
Griffin turns slowly, his thick eyebrows raising. “What?”
It’s probably something I should keep to myself, but I’m dying to discuss with someone, and Griffin isn’t the gossipy type.
“Last night,” I say. “After movie night. We were sharing the bed, and…it just happened.”
“You’re sharing a bed? How seriously are you taking this?”
“My couch—it’s a long story. We were just supposed to share the bed, but stay on our side.”
“Holy shit.” Griffin whistles.
“I feel insane.”
“I hooked up with a twenty-something shithead hockey player, so I’m no better.” He cracks a smile. That shithead is his wonderful boyfriend Jack, and the two of them are adorable together, even if it’s hard to imagine the words “Griffin” and “adorable” in the same sentence.
“It’s a little weird. Do you think Des is freaked out about what happened?”
“Nah.” Griffin answers with such ease I do a double take.
“You think so?”
“He’ll be onto his next conquest very soon,” Griffin says. “We’ve always wondered if you two would eventually hookup. You know, such good friends and all that. To be honest, I didn’t think he had it in him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugs. “I mean, Des is Des. Mr. Bachelor. Mr. Cool. You’ve seen the people he dates—sorry, hooks up with. They’re like…baristas who model on the side. Personal trainers with six-packs and no interest in talking about feelings.”
I rub a hand over my face. “Yeah, I know.”
“You’re not his usual type.”
“I’m not anyone’s usual type,” I mutter.
“Hey.” Griffin’s tone softens. “That’s not what I meant. I just… I’m surprised Des would cross that line. I guess he figures you’re cool with it.”
“Yeah.” I gulp a lump back in my throat.
“Des doesn’t do family.”
I know. God, I know. But it still stings hearing it out loud.
Griffin bumps my shoulder. “Look, if it was good and you’re still cool, then no harm done, right? He probably thinks it’s fine. You know, casual. No big deal.”
That’s Des. Mr. Casual.
I force a smile. “Yeah. Right.”
But something inside me curls up at that.
Because it was a big deal. To me, at least. And maybe I hoped—just a little—that it was something more to him too.
“These tacos are amazing,” I say.
Des beams with pride as he stuffs another hard shell taco for his plate. The six of us sit around the dinner table. The kids gobble up dinner. Davy talks about practice and tryouts. It’s chaos. It’s messy. It’s loud. But it’s home.
I find Des above the din. He looks like he belongs here.
And it’s killing me that I know he doesn’t think he does.
Because when I picture something real, something long-term and rooted and warm, I picture this. I picture him. And that’s a problem.
Because the more I try to push the feelings down, the more they come clawing back to the surface.
“What did I tell you?” Des takes another bite of his homecooked meal and moans with exaggerated glee. (A different moan than the one from last night, thankfully.) “I told you to trust me.”
He winks at me.
And for a second—just one—he looks at me like maybe he’s wondering the same things I am. Like maybe it did mean something to him, too.
Then he looks away, and the moment passes.
But I still feel it in my chest. Like the echo of a shot that almost went in. And I’m scared as hell it’s gonna cost me more than just the game.
Yeah, I trust him. But I don’t know if I can trust myself.