I set my plate in the sink and stood there, gripping the counter, trying to get my breathing under control. He was right. That was exactly what I was afraid of. And hearing it aloud—hearing him name the thing I’d been circling around all day—made it impossible to pretend otherwise.
“I’m not your dad,” Seth said from behind me. His voice was closer now, and I felt his warmth at my back, though he didn’t touch me. “I know you loved him. I know what happened to him broke something in you. But I’m not him, and I can’t spend the rest of my life proving that I’m not going to make the same choices he did.”
“I’m not asking you to prove anything.”
“Aren’t you?”
I turned around. He was standing closer than I’d realized, his expression raw in a way that made my stomach twist.
“Every time I come home from practice, you look at me like you’re waiting for bad news,” he said. “Every time I mention the team or the season, I see you flinch. And now you’re telling me that an article about my stats made you spiral for an entire day?”
“I wasn’t spiraling.”
“You didn’t eat lunch. You barely touched dinner. You’ve been somewhere else all night.” His jaw tightened. “That’s spiraling, Tanner. I know what it looks like.”
He wasn’t wrong. I hated that he wasn’t wrong.
“I’m trying,” I said. The words came out thin, inadequate. “I know my fears aren’t rational. I know you’re not him. But I can’t just turn it off because I want to.”
“I’m not asking you to turn it off. I’m asking you to talk to me instead of shutting down and pretending everything’s fine.” He stepped closer, his hands coming up to cup my face. “I’m here. I’m choosing this. I’m choosing you. But I need you to choose me back, and that means trusting me when I tell you what I want.”
I closed my eyes. His thumbs traced my cheekbones, gentle and steady.
“I want to trust you,” I whispered.
“Then try.”
We didn’t talk about it again that night.
Seth cleaned up the kitchen while I pretended to work on my presentation. The apartment felt smaller than usual, the silence between us heavy with everything we hadn’t resolved. I could hear him moving around—water running, dishes clanking, the refrigerator opening and closing. Familiar sounds that usually made me feel at home. Tonight, they just reminded me how much space he’d carved out in my life.
When had that happened? When had his presence become the baseline I measured everything against?
He appeared in the doorway, dish towel in hand. “Movie?”
“Sure.”
We found something mindless on TV—some action sequel neither of us cared about. Seth settled on the couch first, and I hesitated before sitting beside him. He noticed. Of course he noticed. His arm came around my shoulders anyway, pulling me against his side, and I let myself sink into the contact.
This was the part I couldn’t reconcile. How right it felt to be here. How much I wanted this—all of it, the quiet evenings and shared meals and falling asleep wrapped around each other. I’d spent years convincing myself I didn’t need anyone, that letting people close only meant watching them get hurt or hurting them myself. And then Seth had shown up with hot chocolate and patient silences, and something in me had cracked open.
Now I was terrified it would shatter completely.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Seth murmured against my hair.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Just…” He pressed a kiss to my temple. “Let it go for tonight. Whatever’s eating at you will still be there tomorrow.”
He wasn’t wrong. The doubts would keep. The fear would wait. For now, I had his warmth against my side and the steady rhythm of his breathing, and I made myself focus on that instead of everything I couldn’t control.
Later, in bed, he curled around me from behind and pressed his face into the space between my shoulder blades.
“Two more games,” he said into my skin. “Maybe a bowl. Then I’m done. No matter what anyone says.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
