Page 25 of Caught Offside

“Yeah. Early skate?”

“Always.”

“Go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Hey, Asher? You can tell him my name so he quits goading you.”

The silence on the other end lasted long enough that Patrick almost checked if the call had dropped.

“Yeah?” Asher said.

“Yeah.”

Patrick hung up and set the phone on his chest. He stared at the ceiling for a long time.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Six weeks of FaceTime had not prepared Asher for Patrick in person. He’d had the face, the voice, the way Patrick went quiet before he answered. He had not had the shoulders, broader than the screen let on, thicker through the chest. Patrick stood at the counter in a T-shirt that wasn’t doing Asher’s concentration any favors.

Patrick handed him a coffee, black, no sugar. He hadn’t asked how Asher took it, and Asher didn’t say. Again. The coffee was bitter and too hot. It was the best he’d had in weeks.

The Fireflies’ season opened in four days. He’d driven down from Appleton that morning, the truck’s heater finally kicking in somewhere past Milwaukee, and the distance of it kept catching him off guard. Patrick had been fifteen hundred miles away in February, and now he was right here, across a counter, two steps and a bad decision away.

“Your apartment is exactly the same,” Asher said.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Last time I was here, you said you were still settling in.” He looked around. “I figured that meant signs of life eventually. A plant, a poster, something. Not a model unit.”

Patrick looked at him over the rim of his mug. It was the same flat face he gave everyone, except the eyes weren’t flat, hadn’t been since Asher walked in. They were warmer than the gala, warmer than the screen.

“There’s a new book,” Patrick said.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Patrick didn’t ask what he meant. He held Asher’s eyes over the rim of the mug and didn’t look away. Asher’s pulse picked it up before his brain did. Six weeks over a phone had made him good at riding this out. Three feet away, there was nothing to ride.

Asher set his mug down and crossed to him. For six weeks, Patrick had been a face on a screen, something Asher could set on the nightstand and turn off. Now he was right there, warm, close enough to touch, the scar, the stubble, the steady eyes, all of it real again.

Patrick didn’t step back, didn’t reach for his coffee or the counter, none of the small ways people bought themselves an inch of distance. He let Asher stay there, close.

“Hi,” Asher said. It came out quieter than he meant.

“Hi.”

It went straight through him.

Patrick’s gaze moved over him slowly, and Asher held still under it. The back of his neck went warm. He was used to being the one who looked. He didn’t have anything ready for being looked at like that.

“You’re tan,” Patrick said.

“Arizona.”

“I know.” Patrick looked at him a second longer than he had to. “It looks good on you.”

Patrick didn’t trade in compliments. He’d just handed one over without being pushed for it, plain, no joke to take the weight off. Asher looked away to keep his face in order.

He carried his coffee to the living room and dropped onto the couch, arm along the back, legs stretched out, doing his best to look like a guy who wasn’t rattled. Patrick followed and sat at the far end, feet on the floor, mug balanced on his knee. One cushion between them. Asher counted it.