Page 48 of Man Advantage

Then he looked.

Ford had come. He was at the far end of the big table with a full beer in front of him, asking Novo about the truck he’d been thinking about buying. That was all it took. Novo had the floor for ten minutes, and nobody down that end asked Ford a single thing. He was good enough at it that in October, Cole would have bought it too. A cramp. A bad landing. A guy who’d be in on Saturday.

Ford shifted in his chair and went white. It lasted as long as a blink. He covered it with the first pull of his beer and asked Novo what he was paying for the truck.

Cole’s hand closed on his glass. He was half out of his chair before he caught himself. He sat back down and put both hands flat on the table until they were still. Nobody had seen either thing. He laughed at whatever Novo said next, and the laugh came out of him like it belonged to somebody else.

“How’s the house?” Leo had a fry in his hand and Dawson’s arm along the back of his chair.

“Fine.”

“Yeah?” Leo waited him out. When nothing came, he leaned in with his voice under the table noise. “Dawson’s mom asked him if you and Callahan are a thing.”

Cole turned his glass a quarter turn on the table.

“I told her you rent his spare room.” Leo picked up his beer. “Figured you’d want to know she asked.”

Cole drank. It was his second, and it would be his last. He rolled when the cup came to him, paid when he lost, and sat there being glad Ford had gotten up, the same as everybody else at the table.

Across the table, Ford caught his eye and held it as long as he could afford to. Then he turned back to Novo.

The house was dark. Ford came in behind him and stopped in the middle of the kitchen with his keys still in his hand, like he’d walked in there for something and couldn’t remember what.

Cole took his face in both hands.

Ford shut his eyes and leaned into it. His skin was cold. Cole stood there holding his head up and felt how much of it he was taking.

“Upstairs,” Cole said.

He got Ford out of his clothes and into bed, turned the lamp off, and got in behind him.

“Theo called Friedman from the tunnel,” Ford said.

Cole didn’t move.

“He’s not waiting for June. I’m in Green Bay at ten.” A pause. “I’ve been telling myself since October I had till summer.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not okay.” Ford turned over. “I went down tonight, and I didn’t know if I was getting up. Twelve years, I’ve always known. Tonight I lay there and didn’t know.”

Cole found his face in the dark and held it. His own hand wasn’t steady.

“Then we deal with it,” he said. “That’s what you told me on Sunday.”

“That was about you.”

“It’s not a different rule for you.”

Ford went quiet long enough that Cole thought he’d let it go.

“I’m scared,” Ford said.

Cole’s thumb stopped moving on his cheek. A year in this house, and Ford had never once gone first.

“Yeah,” Cole said. “Me too.”

Ford moved in against him and stayed there. Cole got an arm around him and held on. He didn’t fill the silence.