“Good. I think.” He lifted one shoulder. “They asked questions I could actually answer. That’s usually a good sign.”
“That’s great.”
“Yeah.”
The silence stretched. His eyes dropped to my side—I’d been holding my arm against my ribs without realizing it, guarding the injury out of habit. I watched him clock the careful way I was standing, the stiffness in my movements.
His expression shifted. The distance was still there, that wall he’d been building all week, but his instincts won out. They always did.
“Sit down,” he said, already moving toward the freezer. “You’re holding yourself like you cracked something.”
“It’s just bruised.”
“Sit.” The word came out sharper than usual, and I sat.
He returned with an ice pack wrapped in a dish towel, the same routine we’d done plenty of times before. But when he handed it to me instead of pressing it to my ribs himself, I felt the difference. He was taking care of me because he couldn’t help it, because that’s who he was, but he was doing it from a distance. Going through the motions without the tenderness that usually came with them.
“Thanks,” I said.
He nodded, stepping back to lean against the counter, arms crossed. “Have you decided? About Thanksgiving?”
“My family wants me home,” I said. “They’ve been calling. A lot.”
“You haven’t mentioned that.”
“I know.” I shifted the ice pack, wincing when it pressed against a new angle of bruised ribs. “I’ve been ignoring them. Hoping they’d stop.”
“And they haven’t.”
“No.” I swallowed. “My dad texted today. Said my mom’s upset. That I’m being ridiculous.” The words tasted bitter. “They don’t support anything I do, but they still expect me to show up and perform the role of grateful son.”
Tanner’s jaw tightened. The absence of his usual warmth sat heavily in my chest. He would have reached for me before, would have said something soft. Now he just waited.
“I’ve been thinking about going.” The words came out before I’d fully decided to say them. “Trying one more time. Maybe if I show up, actually talk to them face-to-face?—”
“Maybe what?” His voice had gone careful. Neutral in a way that wasn’t neutral at all. “They’ll suddenly be supportive? Stop making you feel like everything you do is wrong?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Tanner stepped back, and the distance felt larger than the physical space between us. “You don’t have to go, Seth. You don’t owe them anything.”
“They’re my family.”
“Family that makes you dread picking up the phone.” His jaw tightened. “You deserve better than people who make you feel like a disappointment.”
“I know. But I keep thinking… What if this is the time it’s different? What if I just need to try harder?”
“And what if it’s not different? What if you go home and they spend four days making you feel like shit about everything you’ve chosen?”
“Then at least I’ll know I tried.”
He stared at me, and I watched something in his expression crack. Not anger—something worse. The kind of hurt that doesn't fight back.
"So when you go home." He spoke slowly, carefully, like he was working through it in real time. "You'll sit through their judgment about football. About your major. And the whole time, you'll just... not mention that you’re in a relationship."
"You know why I can't?—"
"I know." His voice cracked slightly, and he turned away, gripping the edge of the counter. "I know exactly why. That doesn't make it easier to swallow. Hunter and John, Lincoln and Nix. That's it. Those are the only people who know about us. You're going to spend four days with your family pretending I don't exist, and you’re okay with that?"
