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TJ stepped inside with two mugs in his hands. He looked fully awake, which Tanner resented on sight.

TJ held one mug out to him. “Coffee.”

Tanner took it. “Thanks.”

TJ handed the other to Miles and stayed by the door. He glanced once toward Savannah, then back at Tanner. “How are you this morning?” he asked.

Tanner looked into the coffee. “That depends. Is this where you tell me how badly I screwed up?”

“No.” TJ leaned one shoulder against the doorframe. “This is where I tell you what happens next.” Tanner’s grip tightened around the mug and TJ saw it. “Nothing started this morning that wasn’t already true yesterday. You understand me?”

Tanner did not answer straight away, then nodded. “Yeah.”

“Running didn’t help. We all know that. You’re here now and so is Savannah. We work from here.”

Tanner looked between them. “Work how?”

“You need contact with the caseworker today. Not next week. Not after you’ve had time to scare yourself any more than you did yesterday. Today, because the longer this drags on for, the worse it gets in your head.”

“I’m not doing it alone,” he said.

“No,” Miles said at once. “You’re not.”

TJ nodded. “That part’s already covered.”

Tanner looked at Miles. “Covered how?”

Miles took a sip of coffee. “We call this morning. I’m there. TJ’s there if needed. You tell them you’re cooperating and you want the meeting set now.”

Tanner stared at him. “You’ve both already decided this.”

Miles met his eyes. “I decided I wasn’t leaving you to think yourself into another bad decision.”

TJ looked toward the bed again, checking Savannah before he spoke. “Best outcome now is straightforward. You move fast. You show them there’s a legal route starting. You keep doing the practical things you’ve already been doing.”

Tanner’s jaw tightened. “And if I say no?”

TJ’s voice stayed calm. “Then you make it harder than it needs to be.”

Tanner drank some coffee because he needed something to do with his hands. “I hate this,” he muttered.

TJ nodded once. “I know.”

Tanner looked down at the mug again. Yesterday had been him panicking and running, but this morning there was time to see it from the outside, and he didn’t like what that view showed him. “I know how it made me look,” he said.

Miles answered before TJ could. “Stop doing that.”

Tanner frowned at him. “Doing what?”

“Talking about yourself like the only thing that matters here is how bad it looked.”

“It did look bad.”

“Yeah,” Miles said. “It also looked like you were terrified.”

TJ pushed off the doorframe. “Hate all of it later. Right now, the job is simple. Get up. Feed her. Make the call.”

Tanner let out a breath. “Simple.”