2. Evan #3
Evan knew Matt was still in touch with CJ and that they got together whenever he was in Chicago for work or negotiations. Evan knew they still traded texts and checked in on each other the way old friends did. Matt didn’t hide that from him, and Evan had never asked him to.
Which meant Matt wouldn’t text him after a moment like this without knowing exactly how the knife would twist.
Matt
You watch the game?
Evan
Yeah.
The reply came fast.
Matt
Hell of a game. Hell of a catch.
He still has that magic.
Evan’s jaw tightened, and he set the phone down, then picked it up again, fingers restless.
Evan
You sound like the booth. He’s got enough people puffing him up.
Matt
Yeah, except I remember when you were the one he looked to for that after plays,
good or bad.
The words hit harder than they should have, sharper because they were true.
A memory surfaced of CJ storming into the dugout after a throw gone wide, jaw set, eyes hard, before he’d learned to control his temper.
Only to find Evan waiting for him with some low-voiced reassurance that no one else ever heard. Matt wasn’t wrong.
Evan
That was a long time ago.
Matt
Doesn’t feel like it when I watch him tonight.
Evan swore under his breath and shoved the phone under a couch cushion like he could smother the conversation. The cushion muffled the phone’s next buzz, and Evan was definitely a masochist because he pulled it out to look at it again.
Matt
Word is CJ might be on the trade block this winter. Could be interesting.
A dozen versions of himself lined up in his mind, each with a different answer.
The funniest one typed wild and sent an emoji that made him hate himself.
The honest one said don’t do this to me.
The most professional said we’ll see what the market does.
The scared one put the phone face down again and went to brush his teeth like a kid who thought he could erase the day with mint.
Evan
I heard. Not my problem.
Matt
It never is until it is.
Evan didn’t answer. Not because he’d decided to ignore it, but because sometimes the only honest reply was no reply at all.
He got up and carried the empty containers to the trash, rinsed his hands, and leaned on the sink with his head down for a count of eight.
He thought about Rosa warning him not to let his head make a movie and realized he was terrible at following instructions.
All his head had done was make movies tonight.
On his way back to the couch, he flicked the TV off, sending the apartment into darkness except for the city.
He stood there until his eyes adjusted, then he lowered himself to the floor and leaned back against the couch, knees bent, forearms resting across them.
A posture he hadn’t taken since he was twenty and thought it was his best angle in pictures.
The phone buzzed again. Not Matt. His mother this time. He hovered his thumb over the message before moving it away. Talking to her never brought about anything good.
He let his head tip back against the edge of the couch.
The off-season stretched out in front of him, and he could see the version where he slept late, lifted hard, hit and swam, and hung out with friends.
Where he didn’t think too hard and showed up to spring training with his legs under him again, always ready with a smile and a laugh.
And he could see the version where he got too far inside the quiet and forgot to put the noise back.
He closed his eyes and saw the movie Rosa had warned him about.
A panel show and pregame theatrics, and a profile in right field that a camera loved because sometimes bodies made for games were also made for lenses.
He saw Chicago navy and light blue. And he saw the kids they’d been, sons of different towns and backgrounds, bonded over the same bad jokes in batting cages where stinging hands came from moving too slow and the days never had enough hours.
He saw the version of himself that hadn’t been left standing there, watching CJ walk away.
The version that hadn’t been cut loose and left to hold all the what-ifs alone.
His phone buzzed again.
Matt
One more season down. Congrats.
Evan almost typed you too because agents had seasons, different but just as relentless. Instead, he typed nothing and clicked his phone dark, listening to the city breathe.
Tomorrow, he would work out. He would answer texts in a tone people read as cheerful, and he would send his mother a picture of the beach and tell her he was fine before agreeing to send her more money.
He would call Rizzo and say, “Fine, Arizona. You can teach me to slice a ball onto someone’s patio and then apologize to them with my wallet.
” Tomorrow, he would take his mitt out of his duffel to oil the pocket and respool the laces.
Not because they needed it but because the ritual honored the hunger.
Because tonight, he’d watched a game end and a man he’d once loved lift a trophy he’d coveted since childhood. And he told himself with the kind of stubbornness you cultivated as a catcher, that tomorrow he was going to focus on doing what he could to bring a championship to San Diego.
Whatever had happened in Chicago had nothing to do with him.