“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 leadingup 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.
