Page 64 of Caught Offside

“So what now?” Asher asked.

“Now I have an offseason. Camp opens in September. Until then, I drive up to watch as many of your games as I can. Except now, you’re closer.” A beat. “And playing at your dad’s ballpark.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m not saying anything.”

“You’re smirking. I can hear it.”

Patrick huffed a laugh. “I have to go. I told Dev I’d meet him at the facility.”

“In June?”

“He and Lindy are doing extra skates this summer.”

“That’s a lot of voluntary ice time with your linemate.”

“Dev doesn’t think of it that way.”

“I know,” Asher said. “I’m just saying.”

“I’ll drive up tomorrow,” Patrick said. “I want to see your new place.”

“Home,” Asher said, trying it out. It still sat strange in his mouth, home meaning Milwaukee now, meaning a place his last name had walked into the room a half-step ahead of him. “Fair warning. The only thing I’ve unpacked is the shitty coffee maker, and it didn’t get better in the move.”

“I’ll bring the French press,” Patrick said, and hung up before Asher could get the last word, which Asher decided to allow.

Patrick drove up the next day and got there early. Asher heard him on the stairs and had the door open before he knocked. And then Patrick was inside, dropping his bag, taking Asher’s face in both hands and kissing him, his palms warm against Asher’s jaw.

“Hi,” Asher said when he could.

“Hi.” Patrick looked past him and took in the apartment: the couch, the boxes still taped shut along the wall, bare windows with the city behind them. The French press came out of his bag first.

They were still unpacking the second box when Patrick’s phone lit up on the counter. He glanced at the screen and went still.

“My mother.”

“You going to answer it?”

Patrick looked at the phone, then at Asher, and Asher watched him decide something. “Fair warning,” he said, reaching for it. “They’re enthusiastic.”

“They’re parents.”

“They’re my parents. It’s different.” He answered on speaker and set the phone back down on the counter. “Maman. You’re on speaker. Asher’s with me.”

Within thirty seconds, Asher understood.

“On speaker.” Sylvie’s voice filled the kitchen, bright and quick, a French Canadian accent moving through English at full speed. “Twenty-eight years, you have never put me on speaker.”

“I know, Maman.”

“Asher.” She said the name like she’d been saving it. “Finally.”

“We know your name and that you play baseball,” Patrick’s father said, somewhere behind her. “Our son gives us nothing.”

Beside Asher, Patrick had his arms crossed and one heel going. Asher had never once seen him fidget.

“Hi,” Asher said. “It’s really good to meet you. I’m a catcher—Milwaukee, as of last week.”