Page 101 of Breakaway
the door is locked. the key works. use the key.
old man.
use the key, luca.
I set the phone down. After the game he will come through the door. The apartment will hold both of us.
?
Chapter 34: Luca
The key works. It has always worked. The deadbolt turns and the door opens to the kitchen, the balcony, and the ocean through the glass.
We lost five-two. I played nineteen minutes and had an assist and the loss was a team issue and I showered in the visitor's room and told Marchetti I would see him at the hotel in the morning.
Wes turns from the counter. He’s in a T-shirt and shorts and his hair is damp from his own shower and he has cooked. Lime and garlic and the low sweetness of chicken that has been sitting in a pan with the heat turned down. The ocean air comes through the balcony door, warm and salt-heavy the way it came through every night I lived here. Two years of that air moving through this apartment, and the sound of the water is the sound I used to fall asleep to before I learned how to fall asleep to traffic in Atlanta.
I drop my bag by the door. I come to the kitchen. He has plated the chicken with rice and lime wedges and the cutting board is still on the counter with the remnants of the prep.
"Seven-point-eight for presentation," I say.
"You haven't tasted it." He smiles back at me.
"Presentation is a separate category. You know this."
We eat at the table because we have always eaten at the table. The rice is the rice he makes when I am here, the one with cilantro and the pinch of sugar he has been denying for two years.
"Eight-point-one," I tell him.
"For the chicken?"
"For the meal. The chicken is an eight-three. The rice loses a point for the sugar you pretend isn't in it."
"There's no sugar in the rice."
"Wes. There is sugar in the rice. There has been sugar in the rice since the first time you made it for me. I have the spreadsheet."
He puts his fork down. He looks at me. The almost-smile is gone and his hands are still on the counter and I know this look. I have known this look since the first night on the couch when he said my name into my hair and meant it.
"Luca, I want to talk with you about something."
"Okay," I say, confused by how he said that.
"I talked to Kyle this week. About my contract. The buyout clause."
"The buyout clause?"
"The one that says I can end my contract early. Kyle wrote it that way." His hands haven't moved. "I'm going to retire, Luca. At the end of the season."
The sentence arrives and my chest does the thing my chest does.
"No," I say. "You can't do that."
"I can."
"Wes, You're having the best season of your career. You can't retire now, that's insane."
"Well, I think I can retire whenever I want." He smiling when he says this
