Page 42 of Caught Offside

“You leave in the morning,” Patrick said. “You’ve got your road trip. I’ve got an apartment to go sit in.”

“You make it sound so appealing.”

“I’m a romantic.”

Asher laughed and let him have the deflection. Pushing Patrick had never once gotten him anywhere, and he didn’t actually want the answer tonight. He wanted the ankle in his hand, the lights low, the hard part put off until morning. He let himself have that.

Later they went to bed, and in the dark, Asher felt Patrick let go of the day, breath slowing, the tight set of him easing off, the guard all the way down—which Patrick only allowed when he was sure Asher was asleep. Asher stayed awake for it on purpose. It was the most unguarded Patrick ever got, and he wasn’t about to sleep through it.

He lay awake long after Patrick’s breathing went slow beside him, his hand flat between Patrick’s shoulder blades, feeling it lift and fall. Whatever was coming, Patrick wasn’t going to let him in on it tonight, and for now, Asher had no moves left but to stay quiet and follow his lead.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Patrick got home a little after one, and the quiet met him before he had the door shut behind him.

He’d had the apartment three years and had never once heard it this empty. A week away had changed the acoustics. He stood just inside the door with his bag still on his shoulder and waited for the place to feel like his again, and it didn’t.

He set the bag down. Asher’s running shoes were by the door, scuffed and mud-caked, the laces loose, where they’d sat for a month. Patrick had walked past them every day without a thought. He looked at them now and the week came back at him in pieces: the cramped rental, Asher loud in a kitchen too small for him, the rooms filling up just because he was standing in them. Patrick had come home to a place that fit him exactly and found it a size too big.

He’d lived alone for a decade and called it a preference. The apartment was spare and ordered and entirely his, nothing in it he couldn’t pack into the car in an afternoon, and that had always suited him. A week with Asher had made it harder to be proud of.

He unpacked the bag. Toiletries to the bathroom, the clothes into the hamper, the charger coiled and set on the counter, every object back where it belonged. Halfway through it, he caught himself listening for a second set of sounds in the apartment and stopped, the shirt still in his hands, and stood there until the impulse passed.

He finished unpacking. There was nothing else he had to do. That night he lay in the dark on his own side of a bed that had too much room on the other and didn’t sleep much.

Marc called just before nine the next morning. Patrick was already up, at the counter with coffee he didn’t want.

“You’re up,” Marc said.

“I’m up.”

“How was Wisconsin?”

Patrick didn’t answer that. “You didn’t call about Wisconsin.”

Marc took a breath and set the pleasantries down. “No. I talked to Ostrowski’s people yesterday. The cap picture firmed up over the weekend. It’s not moving the way we wanted.”

“Tell me.”

“They’re leaning toward protecting Harmon.”

Patrick set the mug on the tile. It made no sound.

“It’s not final,” Marc said. “The list isn’t due for twelve days. But you told me once you’d rather have it straight than have it gentle, so I’m giving it to you straight. As the board sits this morning, they keep Harmon, they leave you unprotected, and there’s a good chance the Suns take you. They’re going to need power. That’s where it is.”

“Harmon’s cheaper.”

“Harmon’s cheaper, younger, and signed for longer. On a spreadsheet, he’s the easy keep.” Marc paused. “Your year was better. Everyone in that building knows it. It doesn’t matter because nobody in that building is making this decision with their eyes. They’re making it with a calculator.”

Patrick stood and walked to the window. The lake was a flat gray seam between the buildings, the sky over it still going from gray to white.

“There’s a way out of it,” Marc said. “You already know what it is.”

He did. “The no-move.”

“The no-move. You sign long-term, for less than you’re worth, and we get the clause written in. They can’t leave a no-move exposed—that’s the rulebook, not me being clever. You take the choice out of their hands, you hand them cap room doing it, and you show the whole league you picked Chicago on purpose.” He let it sit. “It costs you though. Close to two million over the life of it. Real money, not paper.”

“It costs you too.”