Page 111 of Tanner

“Do what?”

“Answer the words I said instead of the ones I meant.”

Miles leaned back in the chair. “Then say the ones you meant.”

Savannah knocked the tower over with a delighted shout and started building again. Tanner watched her for a second, then looked away before the tightness in his chest got any worse.

“I don’t trust it,” he said.

“The meeting?”

“The whole thing.” He folded his arms hard across himself. “Them. Courts. Social workers. All these people in rooms deciding what’s reasonable. What’s stable. What counts.” He swallowed. “And I don’t trust this either.”

Miles’ face didn’t change. “This meaning what?”

Tanner let out a breath. “Any of it going right.”

Miles spoke carefully. “You think if you start believing it might work, that’s when it goes bad.”

Tanner looked at him. “Yeah.”

“That’s honest.”

“It’s not useful.”

“No,” Miles said. “But it’s honest. Tomorrow’s the first legal step. Interim placement keeps her with you now, temporary guardianship gives the court something formal to work with, and after that it moves toward permanent.”

Tanner stared at him. “You could’ve said that before.”

Miles nodded once. “Yeah. I could have. I didn’t because I thought if I started talking about courts and legal steps too soon, you’d hear Savannah being taken and run before anybody could help.”

Tanner hated that he was right. He pushed off the doorway and went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, stared at the inside without seeing anything, then shut it again. Miles didn’t follow. That was a deliberate choice and Tanner knew it.

He stood with both hands on the kitchen counter and tried to get his breathing under control. It annoyed him that he even had to think about breathing now, that this whole process had dragged him back into the version of himself that expected the floor to give way if he put too much weight on it.

Miles came to the doorway after a minute. “You want some coffee?”

“No.”

“Tea?”

“No.”

“Water?”

Tanner turned to look at him. “Are you trying to fix me with drinks?”

“I’m trying to get you to stop standing there going over everything.”

He ran a hand over his face and leaned back against the counter. “Miles.”

“I’m serious,” he said.

“I know.”

“If this goes wrong—”

Miles cut in before he could finish it. “Then we deal with what actually happens, not the worst thing your head can come up with.”