“Okay?”
“Okay.” He kissed me, soft and brief, then settled back against my chest. “I’m going to hold you to that. The fixing it part.”
“I’m counting on it.”
His breathing slowed. His body went heavy against mine. I stared at the ceiling, listening to him drift off, and thought about Thanksgiving. My mother’s voicemails. The choice I’d have to make soon.
Four more games. Then a bowl, maybe. Then decisions about next year, about Wilmington, about how to build a life that had room for the person sleeping on my chest.
My phone sat dark on the nightstand. Tomorrow, there would be more missed calls, more questions I didn’t want to answer.
But that was tomorrow.
Tonight, I pulled Tanner closer and let myself have this—the weight of him, the warmth, the impossible reality of someone choosing to stay.
Whatever came next, we’d figure it out.
I was starting to believe that.
11
TANNER
The email came while I was brushing my teeth.
I’d gotten into the habit of checking my phone first thing—a terrible habit, one that usually left me spiraling before I’d even had coffee. But this morning, standing at the bathroom sink with toothpaste foam dripping down my chin, I saw the subject line and forgot how to swallow.
Decision: Graduate Program Application - Wilmington Institute of Technology
I stared at it for so long that the screen went dark. My thumb hovered, trembling, over the notification.
“You okay in there?” Seth’s voice drifted down the hall. “You’ve been quiet for like ten minutes.”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t move. My heart was doing something violent behind my ribs, and I was certain that if I opened this email, it would say no. Of course it would say no. My research was good but not groundbreaking, my grades were strong but not exceptional, and there were hundredsof applicants with better credentials and fewer emotional breakdowns on their transcripts.
The bathroom door creaked open. Seth appeared in the mirror behind me, rumpled from sleep, wearing boxers and nothing else. His eyes found the phone in my hand.
“What is it?”
“Wilmington.” The word came out garbled through toothpaste. I spat, rinsed, and tried again. “The decision. It’s here.”
He went still. “And?”
“I haven’t opened it.”
“Why not?”
“Because if it’s a rejection, I want to enjoy not knowing for a few more seconds.”
Seth crossed to me in two steps, wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, and rested his chin on my shoulder. In the mirror, we looked ridiculous—him half-naked, me with toothpaste still on my lip, both of us staring at a phone screen like it held the answers to the universe.
“Open it,” he said.
“What if?—”
“Open it.”
I opened it.
