Chapter Twenty-Six
T anner woke with Savannah pressed against his side and Miles still in the bed.
For a few seconds he stayed where he was, staring at the ceiling and getting his bearings.
Then everything from the night before came back in a rush.
The bus station. Miles talking him down.
TJ at the house. Savannah crying into his shoulder.
The note. The letter. Running because panic had grabbed hold of him.
He shut his eyes for a second.
Savannah was still asleep, one leg over the blanket and her rabbit half trapped under her arm. Miles lay on the far side of the bed on top of the covers, one arm over his stomach, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, apart from his boots. The room was dim with early light.
Tanner eased himself upright and sat on the edge of the bed. His mouth was dry and his chest felt too tight. He had slept deeper than he meant to, and now there was nothing left to hide behind. No panic pushing him forward. No bus to catch. Just the morning after and everything waiting in it.
The mattress shifted behind him as Miles sat up and rubbed a hand over his face. “You alright?”
Tanner let out a breath. “No.”
Miles looked at him properly then, but he didn’t argue with the answer. “Savannah’s still asleep.”
“I can see that.”
Tanner sat with his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor. His hands were steady now and that should have felt better than it did.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Miles was quiet for a second. “For what part?”
Tanner scrubbed a hand over his face. “All of it.”
“That covers a lot.”
“Yeah.” Tanner looked down at the floor again. “I know.”
Miles moved then, sitting on the edge of the bed but leaving space between them. He didn’t crowd him and he didn’t make Tanner turn and face him either.
Tanner swallowed. “I’m sorry I ran. I’m sorry I took her out like that. I’m sorry I left that note. I’m sorry you had to come find me at a bus station because I lost my head.” Tanner gave a short, humorless laugh and shook his head. “I know how it looked.”
Miles answered without hesitation. “It looked like you panicked.”
Tanner turned to him. “That doesn’t make it any better.”
“No.” Miles kept his voice even. “It makes it true.”
He looked away first. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
“No, but you came back.”
Tanner pressed his lips together. It didn’t feel that simple. He hadn’t come back because he’d calmed down and thought it through. He’d come back because Miles had stood in front of him and kept saying the right thing.
Savannah shifted behind him, making a sleepy sound, and Tanner looked over his shoulder. She settled again with one hand still wrapped in the blanket.
“I thought they were going to take her,” he admitted.
Miles answered the way he always did when Tanner said something he thought should already be obvious. “I know.”
Tanner looked back at him. “You don’t have to keep saying that.”
“I do if you keep talking like I’m not hearing you.”
He sat there for another moment with his hands hanging between his knees. Shame was still there, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been.
“I made it worse,” he said quietly.
Miles rested his forearms on his thighs. “Maybe, but it doesn’t matter now.”
Tanner turned to him. “Doesn’t matter?”
“It happened and now we deal with what’s in front of us.”
That was such a Miles answer Tanner almost hated it on principle. He looked toward the bed where Savannah still slept. “What’s in front of us is CPS.”
“Yeah.”
“And TJ.”
“Yeah.”
“And whatever the hell comes after that.”
Miles nodded. “Yeah.”
A knock sounded at the front of the house. Miles looked toward the hall, then squeezed Tanner’s hand before getting up. Tanner heard the front door open, low voices for a moment, then the door closed again.
A minute later, the bedroom door opened a crack. “Everybody decent?” TJ asked.
Miles looked at him. “You want him to come inside?”
Everything in him still went tight when authority showed up in a doorway, but this wasn’t the night before. TJ had already been here. He had already said what he had to say.
Tanner swallowed. “Yeah.”
Miles looked toward the door. “Come in.”
TJ stepped inside with two mugs in his hands. He looked fully awake, which Tanner resented on sight.
TJ held one mug out to him. “Coffee.”
Tanner took it. “Thanks.”
TJ handed the other to Miles and stayed by the door. He glanced once toward Savannah, then back at Tanner. “How are you this morning?” he asked.
Tanner looked into the coffee. “That depends. Is this where you tell me how badly I screwed up?”
“No.” TJ leaned one shoulder against the doorframe. “This is where I tell you what happens next.” Tanner’s grip tightened around the mug and TJ saw it. “Nothing started this morning that wasn’t already true yesterday. You understand me?”
Tanner did not answer straight away, then nodded. “Yeah.”
“Running didn’t help. We all know that. You’re here now and so is Savannah. We work from here.”
Tanner looked between them. “Work how?”
“You need contact with the caseworker today. Not next week. Not after you’ve had time to scare yourself any more than you did yesterday. Today, because the longer this drags on for, the worse it gets in your head.”
“I’m not doing it alone,” he said.
“No,” Miles said at once. “You’re not.”
TJ nodded. “That part’s already covered.”
Tanner looked at Miles. “Covered how?”
Miles took a sip of coffee. “We call this morning. I’m there. TJ’s there if needed. You tell them you’re cooperating and you want the meeting set now.”
Tanner stared at him. “You’ve both already decided this.”
Miles met his eyes. “I decided I wasn’t leaving you to think yourself into another bad decision.”
TJ looked toward the bed again, checking Savannah before he spoke. “Best outcome now is straightforward. You move fast. You show them there’s a legal route starting. You keep doing the practical things you’ve already been doing.”
Tanner’s jaw tightened. “And if I say no?”
TJ’s voice stayed calm. “Then you make it harder than it needs to be.”
Tanner drank some coffee because he needed something to do with his hands. “I hate this,” he muttered.
TJ nodded once. “I know.”
Tanner looked down at the mug again. Yesterday had been him panicking and running, but this morning there was time to see it from the outside, and he didn’t like what that view showed him. “I know how it made me look,” he said.
Miles answered before TJ could. “Stop doing that.”
Tanner frowned at him. “Doing what?”
“Talking about yourself like the only thing that matters here is how bad it looked.”
“It did look bad.”
“Yeah,” Miles said. “It also looked like you were terrified.”
TJ pushed off the doorframe. “Hate all of it later. Right now, the job is simple. Get up. Feed her. Make the call.”
Tanner let out a breath. “Simple.”
TJ looked at him steadily. “Straightforward, then.”
Savannah stirred before Tanner could answer. She rolled onto her back, then blinked her eyes open. She looked at Tanner first, then Miles.
“Morning, baby,” Tanner said, putting the mug on the bedside table.
She rubbed one eye with her fist. “Home?”
“Yeah.” His voice caught slightly on the word. “Home.”
Savannah sat up and reached for him. Tanner took her and pulled her into his lap. She leaned into him at once and put her head under his chin.
TJ stepped back. “I’ll get breakfast started.” He left before Savannah really noticed him.
Miles stood too. “I’m gonna wash my face.”
Tanner looked up. “You don’t have to—”
“I know.” Miles brushed Savannah’s hair back from her face. “I’m still doing it.” Then he left as well.
Tanner sat there with Savannah in his lap and the coffee cooling on the bedside table. Both men had walked out without pushing him for anything else.
Savannah yawned against his throat. “Hungry.”
That, at least, he knew how to handle. “Yeah?” He kissed the top of her head and stood. “Let’s fix that, then.”
By the time he got to the kitchen, Cody was at the stove making scrambled eggs. TJ stood at the counter with his phone and a pad of paper. Miles was pouring juice into a plastic cup. The room looked too normal for the morning they were having.
Savannah lifted her head from Tanner’s shoulder. “Juice.”
Miles held the cup up. “Already ahead of you.”
Tanner put her in the chair Cody pulled out for her. She took the cup with both hands and drank half of it straight away.
“Toast?” Cody asked her.
Savannah nodded.
Cody pointed the spatula at Tanner. “You too.”
“I’m not that hungry.”
“Didn’t ask.”
On another day Tanner might have snapped back. This morning he just took the plate Cody pushed into his hands and picked at the toast while Savannah ate eggs.
The others kept the conversation light while she was there.
Cody asked if she wanted strawberries. Miles found a clean spoon because she had decided she wanted that instead of the fork.
TJ stepped into the hall to take a call and came back looking tighter around the mouth, but he said nothing in front of her.
Tanner noticed anyway. He also noticed Miles watching him too.
When Savannah slid off the chair and wandered into the living room looking for her rabbit, everything changed.
TJ put his phone on the counter. “I spoke to the caseworker’s office.”
Tanner froze. “You did?”
“They can meet this afternoon,” TJ said. “Two o’clock.”
Tanner stared at him. “Today?”
“Yes.”
The “no” rose up in him straight away. Too fast. Too soon. Not enough time. He swallowed it and looked toward the doorway where Savannah’s voice drifted in from the living room.
Miles spoke before Tanner could say anything. “It’s better.”
Tanner looked at him sharply. “For who?”
“For you.”
Tanner let out a short laugh. “Doesn’t feel that way.”
“No, because you’re scared.”
Cody cut in. “You can be scared and still go.”
Tanner looked at him.
Cody turned then and folded his arms. “You’re already in it. Dragging it out won’t make it any better.”
There it was again. Tanner looked at TJ. “Where?”
“The office downtown. Private room, not the front desk.” TJ kept his voice even. “I can meet you there or pick you up. Your choice.”
Tanner’s hand tightened around the edge of the table. “I’m not going in there on my own.”
“You’re not,” Miles said. The answer came so fast Tanner turned to him. Miles held his gaze. “I’m going with you.”
Tanner looked between him and TJ, then back down at the table. He hated this part. No one was shouting. No one was forcing his hand. They were just standing there waiting for him to do the hard thing instead of the stupid one he’d already tried.
“What do I say?” he asked finally.
TJ pushed the pad of paper across the counter. “The truth. That Savannah’s been with you. That you’ve been caring for her. That you panicked yesterday, and it won’t happen again. That you want the legal process started now.”
The page had a name, a number, a time, and an address written on it.
Tanner stared at it. Yesterday had been movement. Today was forms, and meetings, and rooms where decisions got made.
Savannah wandered back in clutching the rabbit by one ear and leaned against his leg. He put a hand on her shoulder.
He looked at Miles. “You’re staying?”
“Yeah.”
He looked at TJ. “You too?”
“For the meeting,” TJ said. “If you want me there.”
Tanner answered before he could think about it too much. “Yeah.”
Cody reached over, took Tanner’s untouched second piece of toast off the plate, and pointed it at him. “Eat that.” Tanner stared at him. “You’re no use to anybody at two o’clock if you pass out from coffee and nerves.”
That got a small chuckle from him. He took the toast back and ate it while Savannah leaned against his leg and muttered to her rabbit.
Miles picked up his keys. “I’m heading home to shower and grab a change of clothes.”
Tanner looked up too fast. “What?”
Miles’ expression didn’t change. “I said I’m going with you, but I’m not wearing yesterday’s shirt to do it.”
“Oh.”
Miles slipped the keys into his pocket. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
Tanner hated the part of himself that needed to ask the next question, but he asked it anyway. “You will?”
Miles looked at him for a second. “Yeah.” Miles stepped closer, crouched a little, and looked at Savannah. “I’m borrowing your Tanny for a meeting later. You keep an eye on him till then.”
Savannah considered that seriously. “Okay.”
Miles touched the top of her head lightly and straightened. At the door, he looked back at Tanner.
“We’re handling it,” he said, then he left.
Tanner stood in the kitchen with Savannah pressed against his leg and the paper still on the counter in front of him. Two o’clock. A name. A room. A process that had stopped being something he could avoid by not looking at it.
Savannah tugged at his shirt and held the rabbit up. “He needs breakfast too.”
He picked Savannah up and kissed her temple. “Alright,” he said. “We do this.”