Page 98 of Breakaway
"How long?"
"Since the first dinner. Since the night he rated Austin's boat and you were smiling and I thought: this man is going to followthat kid wherever he goes. It's just a matter of when he lets himself know it."
"That was two years ago."
"You're slow, Wes. It's one of your best qualities."
I almost laugh. The sound catches in my chest and comes out as a breath.
"So what does this look like?" he says.
"I don't know yet. The contract runs through next year but the buyout clause is clean."
"Have you told Luca?"
"No, I needed to say it to myself first. I needed to hear it as mine."
"That is the clearest thing you have ever said about your own life."
"Thanks, Kev."
"I mean it. Seven years of two-word answers and you just gave me almost a paragraph. I'm writing it down."
"Don't write it down."
"I'm absolutely writing it down. This is historic. Wesley Mercer articulated a feeling. I'm framing it."
"You're not framing it."
"I'm framing it and putting it on my desk."
The laugh comes this time. Small, rough, real. Kevin hears it because Kevin hears everything.
"I'm proud of you." He says it plain. The way he says things when the thing is true and the truth doesn't need a story. "And I'm glad you called me."
"I don't call enough."
"You don't. But you called today."
"Yeah."
"Call me after you tell him."
"I will."
"I'm holding you to that. If I find out from Austin, I will be professionally offended."
"You'll hear it from me."
"Bye, Wes."
"Bye"
I stand on the balcony with the phone in my hand and the screen goes dark and his feet are on the sand. The wallpaper. The photograph I took on our first trip to Aruba, the toes at the waterline, the sand smooth and dark. I have been looking at this photograph every day since he left. On planes and in hotel rooms and in locker rooms and on this balcony.
I pick up the camera bag from the counter. Unzip it. The camera is where I left it. I take it to the balcony and the light is wrong, still flat, still overcast, and I press the shutter anyway. The image on the screen is gray water and gray sky and the railing in the foreground and this time there is something in the frame. I cannot see it yet. But it is there.
I put the camera away and call Kyle.
