Page 9 of Caught Offside

Patrick

The exit was to my right. I checked.

Asher sat with his back against the headboard, blanket pooled around his waist, and read it three times. No emoji, no LOL, no punctuation beyond the period. It was a stupid conversation, but Asher had drawn a blank on how to open that line of communication safely.

He was grinning. He could feel it, wide and stupid and impossible to stop.

You checked? Then why did you walk around like you were lost at the end of the night?

Maybe I was distracted. Happens to the best of us. Were you seriously stalking me?

Found something more interesting than listening to my parents schmooze old rich people. Sue me.

Damn. Thought maybe you were interested in me, but it turns out you were just zoning out and trying to stay awake. I see how it is.

What are you even doing up this early?

Flying out to Vancouver. What’s your excuse?

Some asshole DM’d me at ass-o’clock.

I’m sorry, princess. Did I interrupt your beauty sleep? And who has notifications on for their DMs, anyway?

Not all of us are hotshot hockey players. You’d be surprised at how few messages I get.

You’re right. You might not be in the big leagues yet, but I thought you’d have plenty of admirers.

Does it make me tragically uncool now that you know that’s not the case?

Nah, makes me a leader instead of a follower.

The texts didn’t stop.

Asher couldn’t have said when it crossed from joking into a habit. He sent Patrick a photo of the Fireflies’ pitching machine with the caption: She pulls left and makes a noise like a dying animal, but she’s mine. Patrick responded with a photo of the Syndicate’s parking garage in gray morning light: This is the most interesting part of my day. Asher wrote back: That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever read, and Patrick replied: I meant the part where you messaged me. Asher read it four times looking for irony and couldn’t find any.

By the end of the week, Asher wasn’t counting the gap between messages anymore because there wasn’t one worth counting other than when Patrick was busy doing hockey things. He texted the way he spoke, with a dryness that made the occasional joke land harder because it arrived without warning. Asher sent a highlight clip of a play he’d made last season after receiving one from the previous night’s hockey game.

Patrick

You dropped your elbow on the throw. It’s costing you velocity.

Are you scouting me right now?

You sent me the video.

He texted Patrick from the batting cage, from the weight room, from the drive-through where he got coffee every morning. He texted from his couch in the dark. Asher seriously needed to get himself back on a decent schedule before heading out to spring training, but he was having more fun bantering back and forth than he’d had in a long time.

Patrick asked how Asher decided between a fastball and a slider when the count was full. Asher’s response was quick. When he asked Patrick what it felt like to read a two-on-one, Patrick wrote three paragraphs. Asher saved the screenshot because it was cute to see how long-winded Patrick got when he was talking about hockey.

You responded with a freaking essay.

You asked a good question.

I ask a lot of good questions.

You do. You’re like a toddler.

He was learning Patrick’s rhythms. The long afternoon silence meant it was naptime before the game. The messages came in a burst after ten p.m., when Patrick was home and whatever wall he kept up during the day came down brick by brick in the dark. Patrick never used exclamation points or emoji.