Page 59 of Iron

“You know what the bathroom looks like on a Frontier flight to Fort Myers? It looks like a threat.” Caleb reappears, dropping into the seat beside TJ like his legs have finally given out from sheer overstimulation. “This is insane. This is… TJ, there’s a guy on this plane whose entire job is to ask if I want a warm towel. I said yes. He brought me a warm towel.”

“You’ve flown to tournaments before,” TJ says. “We’ve flown places.”

“On commercial. Middle seat. Elbow warfare the entire flight.” Caleb gestures at the cabin, at the little dish of nuts someone set out that he has clearly already eaten half of. “This is a different tax bracket. This is a different species of flying.”

I catch TJ’s eye. He gives me a look that is equal parts I’m sorry and isn’t he something and I feel the same thing I’ve been feeling for weeks now: low and warm and a little terrifying. I love this. I love watching him watch his friend lose his mind over a leather seat. I love that this is what taking care of him looks like right now, not some big gesture, just a plane and a blanket and getting him back to his own bed in Denver.

“You want a tour of the cockpit?” I ask Caleb. “Pilot’s usually fine with it before takeoff.”

Caleb turns to me with the expression of a man who has just been offered the Ark of the Covenant.

“Gavin.” His voice actually cracks a little. “Gavin, are you serious right now?”

“Go ask him.”

He’s up and gone before I finish the sentence, and TJ laughs, a genuine laugh, quiet but real, and pulls the blanket up under his chin.

“You’ve created a monster,” he says.

“He’s easy to please.”

“He’s gonna tell this story at nursing school. First week, guaranteed. Some poor girl’s gonna ask him to describe himself and he’s gonna say I once flew private.” TJ shakes his head, but there’s something soft under it. “He’s gonna get so much mileage out of this.”

“Let him have it,” I say. “He earned it.”

“He did.” TJ’s quiet for a moment. “Feels weird, though. Him not being out there next year.”

“Feels weird for you or for him?”

“Both, probably.” He doesn’t say anything else, and I don’t push it, just reach over instead and tug the blanket a little higher on his shoulder without really thinking about it.

“Warm enough?”

“I’m fine, Gavin.”

“You’re the color of a golf ball.”

“Golf balls are white. I’m not white-white.”

“You’re pretty white-white right now, baby.”

He rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t argue, and he doesn’t move away from where my hand’s still resting near his shoulder either. Up front, I can hear Caleb asking the pilot approximately nine questions per second, something about altitude and fuel and whether the plane has Wi-Fi strong enough to stream a golf tournament. TJ closes his eyes, and this cabin is exactly where I want to be.

TJ’s apartment is smaller than I expected. Not small, exactly. Normal. A small bedroom, a tiny bathroom with just a shower, a living room with a couch, a kitchenette that doesn’t get used except the microwave. It is the first apartment of a guy in his twenties who’s trying to turn pro, who’s still figuring out what an apartment is supposed to look like when you can finally afford proper furniture.

The bed, however, is a problem.

“This is a queen,” I say.

“It’s a queen.”

“TJ.”

“It fit me fine before you.” He drops his bag by the door, still moving slowly, still recovering, tired, but grinning at me like he already knows where this is going. “You’re the one who’s six feet.”

“Six three.”

“Even worse.”