Page 27 of Caught Offside

They walked the lakefront. It was cold and gray, the wind coming off the water hard enough to make Asher’s eyes sting. He was glad for it. It was easier to say things into a wind that was already making your eyes water.

“Delgado’s got me starting opening day,” he said. “Which should feel like something. Except I started last year too, and the year before.”

“You want the call-up.”

“I want to stop being the guy with potential. Four years. At some point, potential is just a polite word for hasn’t done it yet.” He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. The wind went straight through the denim. “The reports are right, that’s the thing. Strong arm, good instincts, inconsistent bat. I go a month where everything clicks and then two weeks where I can’t catch up to a fastball.” He kicked a stone off the path. “And then there’s the name.”

“Tucker.”

“Tucker-Atley, depending which dad they’re pulling stats for.” He watched the stone vanish into the gray chop. “Dad threw a no-hitter. Pops made All-Star teams. And I’m twenty-three in Triple-A, and every scouting report opens with their numbers before it gets around to mine.”

He’d told this story before, to teammates, always with a joke on the end so nobody had to do anything with it. This time he left the joke off. Patrick walked close enough that their arms brushed through the jackets and stayed there. He didn’t say a word about it being fine. With Patrick, Asher didn’t have to fake fine. He could just say it.

“I don’t want it handed to me. I want to earn it. I want somebody to call my name and mean me, not my last name.” He pushed a breath out through his teeth. “And I’m scared the potential’s all there is. That I top out as a guy people had high hopes for.”

Patrick was quiet a while, then asked, “What’s between you and it?”

“Just Navarro. Good hands, bad knees, on the downhill slide but not washed up yet. I’m next up, which means the best season of my life might not matter unless his body quits on him.” He watched the water ripple with the wind. “And some nights I catch myself hoping it does. Hoping a guy I’ve never had a problem with gets hurt so I can have his job.”

He hadn’t said that to anyone. Not even to Pops, who’d understand it better than anybody but would still remind him he shouldn’t be hoping for someone else to get hurt. Saying it to the lake and to Patrick didn’t make it better or worse. It just put it down for a second, and his shoulders came down half an inch with it.

They walked in silence, the path curving along the breakwater, where the waves threw spray over the stones.

“You know you’re good,” Patrick said.

“I know I can be good.”

“No. You’re good.” He said it like he was correcting the record. “The inconsistency isn’t a talent problem. It’s confidence. You think everyone’s measuring you against your dads. Maybe they are. But you’re doing it to yourself, harder than they ever could. The real question is how you get out of your own head.”

Asher looked at him. Patrick was watching the lake, not him.

The reflex was to deflect, flip it into a joke, make Patrick laugh and move them both past it. Asher had the line half-loaded, but it didn’t come. Patrick had said the thing he worked hardest to keep anyone from saying, and made it sound simple. For once, Asher had nothing funny to put in front of the truth.

“You already know the answer to that,” Patrick said.

Asher’s feet had stopped. So had Patrick’s. The wind flattened Asher’s jacket against his chest and pushed Patrick’s collar up against his jaw. Asher’s hand was out of his pocket before he’d cleared the decision, closing around the zipper pull at Patrick’s throat. The metal was cold. Under the fabric, Patrick’s chest rose.

He’d run out of angles a while ago. There was no joke to set this down gently, no line to make it deniable, only the want, his hand on Patrick’s jacket, and Patrick not stepping back. So Asher quit waiting for a right moment that wasn’t coming, and kissed him.

Patrick went still against his mouth, one breath, long enough that Asher’s stomach dropped. Then his hand came up to the side of Asher’s neck, cold from the wind, and he kissed Asher back like he’d stopped fighting it.

Neither of them let it run long. They were on a public path, the gray lake beside them. When Asher pulled back, Patrick didn’t go far, forehead nearly against his, eyes shut.

Patrick said something then, low, in French. Three words Asher didn’t know, said mostly to himself.

“What was that?”

“Something my mother says.” Patrick straightened. “It’s not important.”

It was the first thing he’d said all day that Asher didn’t believe. He let it go.

“Okay,” Asher said. His pulse was everywhere.

Patrick opened his eyes. The set had gone out of his jaw.

They started walking again, shoulders nearly touching, and this time, Asher let the quiet be.

Back at the apartment, neither of them brought up the lakefront. Patrick started dinner. Asher leaned against the counter and watched, and spent most of it thinking about kissing him again. Patrick caught him at it twice and didn’t say anything.