Page 122 of Game Misconduct

And sure, he would have hooked up with Elijah if his head wasn’t really full of Leif or whatever, but even if Elijah had been seventy-eight, Tanner would’ve smiled and tried to make him feel good about himself.

But people always assumed that being friendly was the same as trying to get into someone’s pants.

In the food court, everyone ordered a shitton of tacos and by the time they’d mowed through them all, Tanner’s belly was full even though he was still picking at the chips and mango habanero salsa in front of him.

He was in a great fucking mood. He’d sent Leif the pictures from the tar pits—he agreed that the drowning mammoth—mastodon?—was really sad—and he said he was envious because the tacos looked delicious.

Tanner was just about to make a really bad joke to Leif about eating tacos when Jesse called out, “Hey, where the fuck were you, dude?”

Tanner looked up to see Tom standing there.

“Sorry, I got held up,” he said. He looked kinda weird. Freaked out or something.

“Hey. What is it?” Jesse asked with a frown, leaning forward. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Tom sat, then reached out, playing with someone’s discarded straw wrapper. “Uhh, you know why Krista and I left California, right?”

“Yeah. A weird stalker fan, right?” Tanner asked, cramming another chip in his mouth. He was too full for this, but they were. So. Damn. Good.

He couldn’t stop.

Tom nodded. “Sort of. It’s more complicated than that. Krista and I, we’re, uh, poly. Um, polyamorous.” He glanced at the guys at the table. “You all know what that means, yeah?”

Kady looked up from the small container of churros he’d been eating. Tanner was thinking about going back for some of those because they looked really good. “Yes. Is like Mandy and me.”

“Uhh,” Anker said. “Kady, I think you might not quite have that?—”

“No,” Kady said, jutting out his jaw. “I love Mandy. Mandy loves me and Lauren. Lauren loves Mandy and husband Jake. Poly. Many loves, yes?”

Tanner squinted at him, trying to work out what he meant. “Mandy is bi and dating a woman who is married to a man?”

“Yes. All very happy. 10/10, no notes.” Kady folded his arms across his chest and glared around the table like he was daring them to argue with him about it.

Jesse frowned and spoke to him in Belarusian before he nodded, looking surprised. “Yep. Checks out in both languages. Kady and Mandy are poly. Jake and Kady aren’t romantically involved but they do hang out and play video games together, I guess? Everyone’s happy with this arrangement.”

“Huh,” Connor said.

Tanner smiled at Kady. Very cool. He’d had no idea Kady and Mandy had a poly relationship.

A bunch of the guys were still sitting trying to work out what it all meant.

Tanner reached over and stole a churro from Kady, who smiled at him, his shoulders not up around his ears anymore. Perfect. He just needed to see that everyone was going to treat him like normal.

Connor shook his head like he was trying to wake up, then turned to Tom and said, “Uh, anyway. You and Krista are poly, like, uh, Kady and Mandy, apparently?”

“Yeah. It’s … we’re happy, you know? It’s always gone well in the past but last season things got … complicated. We got involved with this woman and she turned … uh, I don’t like to use the word crazy. But, uh, it was bad. There were threats and we had to move houses and then the head office had to be told because it was escalating and … yeah. That’s why I requested a trade and we moved across the country. Krista took her kids to her parents’ place in Massachusetts, and I followed as soon as the trade went through.”

“And do the Harriers know about all this?” Connor asked with a frown. “Like, security, head office, all that?”

“Yeah. Gavin’s known since the beginning. I don’t thinkeveryoneknows about the poly stuff but all the important people do, including security.”

“You didn’t tellus,” Tanner pointed out. Rude! They were teammates! They were supposed to know stuff like this about each other.

“Dude, let people have some fuckin’ privacy, assbag,” Crawford said, slugging him in the upper arm.

“You’re an assbag,” Tanner shot back, punching Crawford in the thigh.

“Look, I don’t mind telling you guys,” Tom said. “You’re cool. I just didn’t know how it would go over at first. And then it felt weird to just drop into conversation, you know?”