Page 156 of Game Misconduct

“Yeah. But, like, I wanna help.” Tanner reached out and squeezed Leif’s ass and it shouldn’t be comforting but weirdly, it was.

“Okay,” Leif said.

“Yeah?” Tanner beamed at him. “So you just tell me if my shit makes your shit worse, okay?”

“Uhh,” Leif said, wiping water from his nose. “I mean, it kinda does? But also, I love you too and I want to help you.”

“Help me?”

Leif cupped Tanner’s face and looked him in the eye. “You know you have ADHD, right? Literally all of the signs are there.”

Tanner made a face. “I mean, probably. But, like … so what? I can’t take meds?—”

“Not stimulants.” Leif turned away, reaching for the bodywash. “But there are non-stimulants. We’ll have to look into if they’re allowed but even if they aren’t, there are so many things that would help you. All kinds of systems.”

“I’m bad at those,” Tanner said flatly.

“You make it to practice and games. You alreadyhavecoping mechanisms. You might just not realize that’s what they are.”

“They … sometimes work,” Tanner said. “Sometimes I’m late. And sometimes I forget to call my boyfriend, and I make him freak out that I’m with someone else.”

Leif smiled because Tanner had called him his boyfriend. And he was going to tell the corner of his brain telling him that they weren’t even together and had no idea how to be together when they didn’t even know what they wantedto shut the fuck up. At least for now.

“So I can help you,” Leif said.

“You’ll help me and I’ll help you?”

“Well,” Leif said, “it’s better than neither of us doing anything, right?”

“Yeah.” Tanner flashed him a bright smile. “Ittotallyis.”

Later, when they were dry and buried under a mound of blankets, eating lasagna with crisp edges out of the foil pan and salad from a Styrofoam container that kept threatening to topple over, Tanner smiled at Leif.

He looked so fucking good. Like … relaxed. Way more relaxed than he had earlier.

“So, when did you know you loved me?”

Leif sat back against the headboard. “Uhh, well. Probably the first time we met up here at the apartment. You?”

“Earlier tonight.” Tanner stuck his fork in the pan and scooped up another chunk of meat sauce.

When he glanced up, Leif was staring at him with his mouth open. “What?”

“Tonight?” Leif sputtered. “Like … a few hours ago?”

“More than that,” Tanner said. “Like during the game. When you were getting all feisty with me.”

“That’swhen you fell in love with me?”

“It’s when IrealizedI had fallen in love with you,” Tanner countered. “Pretty sure it happened before then, honestly.”

“Really?” Leif asked.

“Yep.”

“Huh.”

Tanner reached for the open sports drink on the nightstand and tipped it back.