Page 53 of Caught Offside

He didn’t type. He wasn’t trying to figure out how he felt about Patrick. He’d been past casual for months, whatever he’d called it at the time. What he was deciding was harder and quieter. Whether he could stand at the glass and keep knocking with no promise the door would ever open the rest of the way. Whether he could let the draft and everything Patrick kept stepping in front of sit there unsolved and not grab for Milwaukee to make it go away.

He set the phone on the coffee table and sat back. He wasn’t going to call Patrick tonight, and he wasn’t going to run either. He’d stay. He’d stand at the glass and keep knocking, and he’d figure out the rest when he had to.

His phone lit up against the coffee table.

He had it to his ear before he saw the name. Delgado.

“You’re up,” Delgado said. “Navarro’s getting the wrist done Thursday. They want you in Milwaukee tomorrow. This is the call, kid.”

The room tilted. Milwaukee. His dad’s club, the thing he’d been chasing since he was big enough to hold a glove, and it had come tonight of all nights, an hour after he’d decided to stop running from the one thing that scared him worse than failing ever had.

Tomorrow. He’d swing by the park for his gear, throw his things in the car, and drive down to his folks’ in Milwaukee tonight. Nothing was keeping him in Appleton. In the morning, he’d walk into his dad’s old clubhouse as a big leaguer. Everything he’d ever wanted, finally. His dad’s team. His own name on a big-league roster.

Before his dads, before his agent, before he’d even taken it all the way in, there was one person Asher wanted to tell first. He picked up the phone and called Patrick.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The best news of Asher’s life came in at a dead sprint, no hello, no breath, just his voice cracking down the middle the second Patrick picked up. After a week of bracing for the worst, Patrick wasn’t ready for the best—not Asher’s, not delivered like this, not crashing into the gray middle of his afternoon.

“I got the call! Navarro’s going in for surgery, and I have to report tomorrow.” A ragged, disbelieving laugh. “Patrick, I’m going to the show.”

For one clean second, it was easy. The whole grinding week fell away, and Patrick was glad, all the way through.

“Asher.” His voice cracked on it, and he let it. “You did it. You actually did it.” He was on his feet without deciding to, grinning at the empty apartment. “You’ve earned this since before I knew you. They’re getting the best catcher in that whole system, and they don’t even know it yet.”

“I keep waiting for someone to call back and say it’s a mistake.”

“It’s not a mistake.” He said it hard, like he could make it true by saying it. “They’re lucky to get you, and I need you to actually hear that.”

Being happy for Asher was the easiest thing he’d done in a week. That part he could do with his whole chest.

It was the next part that he failed.

“Come up,” Asher said. “First game’s tomorrow. Come watch me do this.”

Patrick felt himself pull back before he could stop it. The game was three days before the draft, and he couldn’t promise Asher a future he wasn’t sure he had.

“Let me look at the schedule,” he said.

The brightness in Asher’s voice dropped a notch. “Yeah. Okay. Look at the schedule.”

They talked another minute, smaller than before, and hung up.

Patrick set the phone down in the silent apartment. Asher had called him with the best news of his life, and Patrick had handed him a maybe and listened to the joy leave him in real time. All week, he’d told himself that pulling back a little at a time was the merciful version, a slow loss instead of a sudden one. There was nothing merciful in the sound Asher’s voice had just made.

He didn’t sleep. By the time the windows went gray, he couldn’t stand the apartment, so he went to the gym—not for the workout, but because it was the one room where his body knew what to do without him.

The door opened. Dev came in with two coffees. Dev came to the gym with a bag and a water bottle, never coffee. Two paper cups meant something was coming.

“Figured you’d be here,” Dev said. He held out a cup.

Patrick took it. “You brought me coffee.”

“I brought us coffee. You’re a beneficiary of the fact that I passed a place on the way.” Dev sat on the bench against the wall and stretched his legs out.

They drank in silence for a few minutes.

“Lindy texted me this morning,” Dev said.