Page 159 of Game Misconduct

The blonde woman narrowed her eyes, like she was maybe trying to figure out if she recognized him. Boston fans were usually pretty chill, and Tanner hoped she wouldn’t come over and interrupt their conversation. It was kinda important.

Tanner realized Tom had stopped talking and hurriedly said, “Ohh, gotcha. So they use the word poly?” and hoped he’d still been talking about the Hawaiian people or whatever.

“Yes.”

“Cool. So what does the other poly group use now then? The multiple relationships one.”

“Polyam, usually.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I usually forget, to be honest,” Tom admitted with a crooked smile. “Krista is always reminding me.”

“Polyam,” Tanner repeated so it would maybe stick in his head.

“Anyway,” Tom cleared his throat. “You have questions about how Krista and I figured out were polyamorous?”

“Yeah. So like, don’t tell anyone on the team. It’s a secret. But there’s this guy I’ve been seeing, and he wants to be exclusive, but I’ve neverbeenexclusive with anyone, and it’s got me wondering if I’m actually, like, poly—uh, polyam, or if I just haven’t tried monogamy. Like, ever.”

“Okay, so let me be sure I’ve got this squared away in my head,” Tom said. “Things are starting to get serious with this guy and you’re trying to navigate the boundaries of your relationship.”

“Sure,” Tanner said even though he wasn’t entirely sure he knew what all of that meant?

“And you’ve never been in a monogamous relationship before?”

“Right.”

“Has he?”

“Uhh, I think so,” Tanner said. “I mean, I don’t think he’s ever beensuperserious about anyone, but he tends to focus on one person at a time when he’s dating or hooking up or whatever.”

“Got it.” Tom cleared his throat. “So, well, do you think it’s possible you could love more than one person at a time?”

“Sure,” Tanner said with a shrug. “I don’t see why not.”

“But you haven’t personally had multiple romantic partners at once, right?”

“Right. Well, I haven’t hadanyromantic partners, to be honest.” Tanner grinned. “Your boy has been havingfunnn.”

Tom shot him an amused smile. “Multiple sexual partners?”

Tanner laughed. “Fuck yeah!”

“How would you feel about talking about those experiences with other people with the guy you’re seeing?”

“I mean, I think we need to get better at talking about shit in general, but I’d be fine with that. I think it would be fun.”

“How would you feel about hearing about other partners he had?”

“Oh I’d be up for it,” Tanner said. “I’ve kinda tried talking about it before, but he never seems into talking about it with me. And he?—”

“One thing at a time. How would you feel about him having a primary partner other than you? Someone he lived with and?—”

“I’d fucking hate it!” Tanner said, so forcefully that he felt as surprised as Tom looked.

The blonde woman glanced up again, then looked away.

“Didn’t know that about yourself until now, huh?” Tom asked drily.