I stare at him, this kid—thisman—who’s been carrying so much weight I never saw.
“She raised you by herself?".
“Mostly, yeah. My dad helped out where he could, when she let him. But her reasoning was that she had a supportive family, and he had no one. He came back to visit when he could afford it, but it was hard for him emotionally, too, because his family wouldn’t even see him after he came out. Apparently, they offered to help my mom financially, but she told them to fuck off. She didn’t want me to ever be around that kind of toxic bullshit. They moved away a couple of years later. I’ve never met them.”
“Whoa,” I say softly. “Your mom sounds kind of amazing.”
“Oh, she totally is. She worked her ass off. Sales job for this boring paper company, traveling all the time. She never finished college because she had me at nineteen. So she spent the rest of her life trying to prove she was as good as everyone else with their degrees.” His mouth twists. “I watched her hit the glass ceiling over and over, but she kept going. Kept working. And she never, ever complained.”
The hotel room is so quiet I can hear the faint hum of the heating unit, the distant sound of traffic outside.
“Are you close with your dad now?” I ask.
“Yeah, pretty close, considering we’ve never even lived in the same city,” he snorts. “He still lives in New York. He got married a few years ago to a guy named David. They both work in theater. He’s a good guy.”
“But you don’t ever talk about him,” I say, because I’ve never heard Tanner mention his dad. Not once.
“Not in hockey.” Tanner’s voice goes flat. “Press doesn’t know he’s gay. None of my teams knew. It’s… simpler.”
I get it. I hate that I get it, but I do. Hockey’s changing, but it’s not there yet. And having a gay dad who works in the theater, like every stereotype ever? That’s the kind of thing that makes people question you more. Makes everything harder.
“Okay,” I say quietly. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’re so good at this. At taking care of people.”
Tanner looks at me, and in the dim light, his eyes are darker than usual, almost gray.
“I watched my mom work herself to the bone, Lou. We had my grandparents, but she was stubborn and determined to do it on her own as much as she could. She was always tired and stressed. And I realized pretty early that she was carrying a lot more than other moms were.” He pauses. “So I decided I wasn’t going to be another problem for her to solve.”
My chest tightens, and it’s not from the injury.
“If I got hurt, I hid it,” he says. “If I was sad, I fixed it myself. I learned how to be low-maintenance. I learned to take care of my own shit so my mom didn’t have to worry. And when my grandpa got sick, I stepped up because that’s what you do.”
I stare at him, this twenty-three-year-old kid who’s spent his entire life making himself smaller so other people didn’t have to carry him. Who learned to be useful, because if he was useful, he wasn’t going to be a problem someone had to solve.
“Tanner,” I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. “You know you’re not, right?”
He blinks. “Not what?”
“You’re not a problem someone needs to solve. And while I appreciate what you’re doing right now, you don’t need to take care of me to prove this team needs you. To prove you deserve to be here. You do.”
His mouth opens, then closes. He looks away, and when he turns back to me, there’s something raw in his expression that makes my heart squeeze in my chest. But it’s only there for a moment before he regains his composure, and his mouth quirks up in a small smile. “You’re high on pain pills.”
“I’m serious, Tanner. You belong here. You belong on this team.”
He clears his throat, and our gazes lock in the low light. For a moment, we stare at each other like this is the first time we’re actually seeing the person in front of us. “Thank you,” he says softly.
He clears his throat, looking down at his hands, and the moment is broken. “You should get some sleep,” he says, his voice less guarded than I’m used to hearing it.
“So should you.”
The pain medication must be hitting my bloodstream because things are starting to get fuzzy around the edges again, so I nod and let my eyes drift shut.
“Thank you, Louis.” His voice is barely a whisper. “I needed to hear that.”
“Just speakin’ the truth,” I mumble before allowing myself to let go.
Chapter 8
Tanner
