Chapter Thirty-One
C hapter Thirty-Two
The house was too quiet after they got back from the courthouse.
Savannah had kicked off her shoes in the hall, demanded toast even though she’d had snacks on the way home, then crashed on the sofa with her rabbit tucked under her chin before the second slice was done.
Miles had lifted her, carried her to bed, and shut her door softly behind him.
Tanner stood in the kitchen with the papers from court on the table in front of him.
He’d read the top page three times already.
Interim kinship placement confirmed. Follow-up date.
Conditions. Standard wording. The same kind of official language that had made him sick all week.
Only this time it had ended with Savannah staying here.
Miles came back into the kitchen and stopped next from him. “You should sit down.”
Tanner looked up at him. “I’m fine.”
Miles glanced at the papers, then back at Tanner’s face. “Sit down, Tanner,” he said softly.
Tanner wanted to argue, but he was too tired to do it, so he dragged a chair out and sat. Miles put a glass of water in front of him and Tanner took it without comment and drank half of it.
For a while neither of them said anything. Tanner sat staring at the papers until the print blurred. “It’s done,” he said.
“For now,” Miles answered.
Tanner nodded. “Yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I keep waiting for it to hit me properly.”
“It will at some point.”
“I don’t mean the good part.” He looked at the papers again. “I mean the other bit. The one where I remember they can still show up with another form or another meeting or some new thing I didn’t plan for.”
Miles leaned one hip against the counter. “They can.”
Tanner chuckled. “You’re not very comforting.”
“You don’t like comforting.” Miles smiled at him. “Do you? You prefer honesty.”
“That’s true.”
“You’re allowed to relax now.”
Tanner looked at him across the table. “I don’t know how.”
“No but you can learn.”
He picked up the top page again, read the same lines for the fourth time, then put it back down. “I need a job.”
Miles didn’t jump in. “Alright.”
“I mean actual work. Not just odd jobs. Not waiting around for somebody to need a fence fixed or boxes moved.” Tanner looked down at his own hands.
“And I need to do my GED. I can’t keep pretending I’ll get around to it when everything settles down, because everything doesn’t settle down on its own. ”
Miles stayed quiet for a second. “That for CPS?”
Tanner shook his head straight away. “No.” That answer mattered enough that he looked up and made sure Miles heard it properly. “For me,” Tanner said, and because there wasn’t any point pretending otherwise, “For us.”
A month ago Tanner would have choked saying words like that. Now they came out before he could stop them.
Miles’ face changed just slightly at that. “Good.”
Tanner let out a breath. “There’s a sentence I didn’t think I’d ever say.”
“Which part?”
“Any of it.”
That made Miles chuckle. Tanner sat back in the chair and looked at Miles. Work. GED. Actual plans that reached further than the next appointment, or the next form, or the next meal.
It was later, once Savannah woke up hungry again, that Cody and TJ arrived. They knocked once and then came in carrying two takeout bags and a carton tray of drinks.
“I bring peace offerings,” Cody announced. “And fries.”
Savannah, now fully awake, ran at him on sight. “Cody!”
He caught her mid-charge. “That’s the welcome I deserve.”
Tanner took the bags from him before grease soaked through. “You didn’t have to.”
Cody rolled his eyes. “You all need a new phrase.”
TJ shut the door behind him. “It’s an ongoing town issue.”
Cody handed Savannah back, stepped into the kitchen, and clocked the court papers on the table. “So, you’re still standing.”
“Apparently,” Tanner said.
“That bad, huh?” Tanner gave him a look. Cody lifted a hand. “Right. No speeches.”
The food helped and so did Cody and TJ talking about everything and nothing.
Cody wiped his hands on a napkin and said, “You thought about work yet?”
Tanner looked at him. “You and Miles coordinating now?”
“No. This is just the town being nosy.” Cody leaned back in the chair. “Sarah needs help at the diner. One of the weekend girls bailed last week, and Pete’s nephew lasted two shifts before he decided mornings were disrupting his flow.”
TJ snorted as he shook his head. “His flow.”
“I’m so glad I missed this stage of growing up. Horses are much easier.”
Cody and TJ smiled at each other. “Freya does love you more than anyone else.”
“That’s because you feed her all the apples.”
He’d heard bits of Cody’s past and knew he didn’t often talk about it. “The diner?” Tanner prompted.
Cody shrugged. “It’s work. Cash coming in. People already know you, so it’s not starting from zero, and Sarah is good people.”
Tanner thought about it. The diner meant being seen. It meant being in the middle of town instead of passing around the edges of it. It meant regular hours, regular faces, regular reasons for people to talk to him. Every part of that made his body tense.
Cody saw it. “Or don’t. I’m not forcing you.”
Tanner stared at the table. “I’ll be shit at it.”
“No, you won’t, but you might hate the first week until you learn everything.”
“That’s not much better.”
“It’s the truth. First weeks can be tough.”
Savannah reached for a fry, found the carton empty, and looked at Tanner, pouting. Tanner handed her the last onion ring instead. She accepted it with a sigh.
Miles took a drink, then said, “You said running’s done.”
Tanner glanced at him. “Using my own words against me is low.”
“Still works,” Miles shrugged.
Tanner looked back at the table. The diner. The GED. Real things with schedules and people. He could already feel the instinct to duck them both and keep life small enough that nothing new could reach in and ruin it. That instinct had kept him moving for a long time and had built nothing.
“When does she need someone?” he asked.
Cody grinned. “Tomorrow morning if she can get it. But if you want to start after the weekend, I can tell her that too.”
Tanner grimaced. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
Tanner rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and looked at Savannah. She was sitting on her knees on the chair, eating the onion ring in small, determined bites. Safe. Here. Not packed into a car and driven somewhere else.
“Fine,” he said. “Tell Sarah I’ll come in and talk to her.”
Cody pointed at him. “That’s a yes. Don’t try to back out later by pretending I misunderstood. TJ’s here as a witness.”
“I just said it.”
“I’m still covering my bases.”
They left twenty minutes later after extracting a promise from Savannah that she’d save Cody a drawing next time and telling Tanner he’d text Sarah before he got home. Once the door shut behind them, the house went quiet again and this time Tanner didn’t mind it.
Savannah started yawning halfway through her cartoon.
Miles took her to brush her teeth and put her in her pajamas while Tanner cleared the kitchen and stacked the court papers properly in the folder instead of leaving them spread across the table.
He tucked the folder into the drawer by the fridge where the important things lived now.
School forms. Doctor letters. Appointment cards.
When Savannah was asleep for the second time that day and the lights were low, Tanner stood at the back door with his hands in his pockets and looked out at the yard. It needed cutting again.
Miles came up beside him but didn’t crowd him. They stood there for a minute without talking and then Miles said, “I love you.”
Tanner turned his head. “You do?”
Miles kept his eyes on the yard. “Yeah, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Tanner swallowed once. “Yeah.”
Miles glanced at him then. “That all I get?”
Tanner’s mouth twitched then he smiled. “You already know I love you.”
“I do.”
Tanner leaned one shoulder against his. “Good.”
The next morning, after Savannah was dropped at preschool, Tanner walked to the diner with an apron folded under one arm because Cody had texted to say Sarah kept spares but “turn up looking prepared and she’ll like you more.
” Tanner hated that he’d taken the advice.
He hated it more that he’d ironed the damn thing first.
The bell over the diner door rang when he stepped inside. It was between the breakfast and lunch rush, quiet enough that only two tables were occupied. Sarah was behind the counter with a pen tucked into her hair and an order pad in her hand. She looked up, saw him, and nodded toward the back.
“Coffee first,” she said. “Then we talk.”
Tanner stood just inside the doorway for a second with the apron in his hand and the smell of coffee around him. This town had been the place he came back to because he’d run out of better options. Somewhere along the way it had shifted while he wasn’t watching.
He walked to the counter and put the apron down. This time, he was choosing it too.