Page 28 of Caught Offside

Crossing the kitchen would have taken nothing. Asher had his weight half off the counter when his phone buzzed.

It was Pops, a photo of him mid-laugh that Asher had set months ago. He glanced at Patrick. Patrick was slicing peppers again, eyes down.

He answered the FaceTime call. Pops was on the couch in Milwaukee, tan, grinning, a glass of something amber in his hand.

“Hey, kid. You back from the desert?”

“Got in yesterday. I’m in Chicago.”

“Chicago.” Pops’s eyebrows climbed. He sipped. “Visiting anyone I know?”

And there it was. Pops already knew the answer and was going to make Asher hand it over anyway because that was the toll for being his son.

“I’m at Patrick’s.”

The name landed. Pops’s grin spread slowly, the one he got when he was enjoying himself too much to bother hiding it. “Patrick. So the hockey player has a name.”

“He’s had a name the whole time. You’ve just been insufferable about it.”

“I’ve been patient. Different thing.” Pops leaned toward the screen. “Is he there? Am I meeting him right now? Is this happening?”

Patrick answered from the kitchen, not looking up from the cutting board. “Hi.”

Pops mouthed something at the screen that Asher didn’t need sound to read, then managed, almost evenly, “Hi, Patrick.”

He waited for the chopping to start up again before he came back to Asher, grinning. “You drove all that way your first day home.”

“It’s not that far.”

“Uh-huh. Too tired from traveling to drive down and see your dear old parents, but you’ll make it all the way to Chicago for him. Which is farther than us, by the way.” Pops looked entirely too pleased with the whole thing. “Fine. I won’t say another word. I’m going to be extremely cool about this.”

“You’re being the least cool I’ve ever seen you.”

“This is the coolest I’ve ever been. Ask your father.” Pops held the screen a beat too long, the grin softening into the thing he did instead of saying he was glad. “Have a good night, Ash.”

“Night, Pops.”

He hung up and set the phone down, feeling what he always felt after talking to his pops, loved and a little steamrolled. The steamrolling was its own kind of love he’d miss the day it stopped.

“Sorry. He’s⁠—”

“He seems nice.”

“He’s the best.” Asher scrubbed the back of his neck. “It’s a good thing he has my dad to ground him or he’d probably still be getting himself into trouble.”

“You’re lucky to have the two of them.” Patrick tipped the peppers into the pan. The oil hissed. “From what you’ve told me, I think you’re a good mix of them.”

Something warmed in Asher’s chest. Usually when he was compared to his dads, it was his play on the field, his future potential. But Patrick saw beyond all of that, and this might have been one of the first times he didn’t mind being compared to them.

They sat down to eat, and inside a minute, Asher’s foot had found Patrick’s under the table. Patrick didn’t move his.

“This is stupid good,” Asher said around a forkful, pointing his fork at the plate like evidence. “You eat like this every night?”

“Most nights.” Patrick didn’t look up from his plate.

“By yourself.”

Patrick lifted one shoulder. “I like cooking.”