He shook his head and reached for me, pulling me closer. His mouth found mine before I could form the question.
The kiss tasted like avoidance. Like something he didn’t want to talk about, couldn’t talk about, not yet.
I kissed him back anyway.
Later, in the dark of his bedroom, I listened to him breathe and tried to quiet my mind.
Everything I’d wanted was falling into place. The grad program. The research opportunity. The man lying beside me, his arm heavy across my waist, his face slack with sleep. This was the life I’d been afraid to imagine. The one where things actually worked out, where the universe stopped taking and started giving back.
It felt fragile. Like if I looked at it too directly, it might shatter.
Seth made a soft sound in his sleep and pulled me closer. His breath was warm against the back of my neck. Outside, the wind had picked up, and I could hear it rattling the window frames.
Three more games. Then the bowl. Then he’d be done, and we’d figure out the rest together.
His family would still be there in a few weeks, waiting to make him feel small. For now, I let myself have this. The warmth of him. The quiet of the apartment. The improbable reality of being happy.
I fell asleep counting the days until the season ended, and for once, the numbers felt like a promise instead of a threat.
12
SETH
The door swung open and noise hit us like a physical force—cheers, whoops, someone pounding on a table in rhythm with the bass thumping from the jukebox. A wall of heat rolled out, carrying the sharp bite of spilled beer and the greasy comfort of fried food. Bodies packed the entrance, gray and gold everywhere I looked, and the second we crossed the threshold, hands were already reaching for us, pulling us into the chaos.
Sixty-some people packed into Maguire’s back room—teammates, girlfriends, a handful of alumni who showed up to every home game victory celebration like clockwork. Someone had commandeered the jukebox and cranked it to a volume that made conversation impossible unless you were shouting directly into someone’s ear. The air smelled like beer and hot wings and the musk of guys who’d showered fast and not thoroughly after a game.
We’d beaten Ole Miss by fourteen. Clean win, no major injuries, defense holding them to field goals in the second half. The kind of game that felt like proof we belonged in the conversation for a decent bowl bid.
Tanner hovered at my shoulder as we pushed through the crowd. His hand brushed my lower back—brief, accidental-looking—before he shoved both hands into his jacket pockets.
“You good?” I asked, leaning close to be heard.
“Fine.” His jaw was tight. “Just a lot of people.”
A lot of football people, he meant. A lot of guys in Gray Wolves gear, rehashing plays, slapping each other’s backs, existing in a world that had taken everything from him.
I shouldn’t have asked him to come. The invitation had seemed like progress at the time—proof that we could exist in each other’s worlds, that he didn’t have to hide from mine. Now, watching him scan the room with his shoulders up around his ears, I wondered if I’d pushed too hard.
“Landry!” Terrence appeared out of the crowd, two beers in hand. He thrust one at me and nodded at Tanner. “Your roommate came. Nice.”
“Tanner,” I said because Terrence had a habit of forgetting names. “You remember.”
“Yeah, yeah. The engineer.” Terrence grinned at Tanner with the easy warmth he showed everyone. “Landry talks about your work sometimes. The helmet stuff, right?”
Tanner blinked, his eyebrows lifting. “He talks about it?”
“When he’s not being a pain in the ass about film review.” Terrence clapped my shoulder hard enough to slosh beer over my knuckles. “Come on, Davis is doing his Scooter impression, and you’re missing it.”
He disappeared back into the crowd. I wiped my hand on my jeans and turned to Tanner.
“You don’t have to stay. If it’s too much?—”
“I’m fine.” His voice had gone flat in that way it did when he was performing okay instead of feeling it.
I waited. Didn’t push, didn’t fill the silence. Just let him know I wasn’t going anywhere until I understood what he needed.
Tanner’s gaze swept the room—the press of bodies, the gray and gold everywhere, the celebration of a sport that had taken his father from him piece by piece. I watched him take it in, watched him breathe through whatever memories were clawing at him. When he looked back at me, some of the tension had loosened from his jaw.
