Chapter 4 #2
Asher laughed hard enough that his ribs hurt. On the other end of the line, Patrick let out this quiet exhale, the almost-laugh he did when he was pleased with himself but wasn’t going to show it.
“You should do that more,” Asher said.
“Do what?”
“Be funny.”
“I’m not funny.”
“You just made me laugh for thirty seconds straight.”
“That says more about your standards than my delivery.”
“See? That. Right there.”
Patrick went quiet. Then he said, “I have this thing on Saturday,” like the words had been sitting in his mouth waiting for an opening. “The Syndicate runs a youth hockey program. They asked me to come skate with the kids.”
“That sounds wholesome.”
“It’s exhausting. And the group I’m working with is a bunch of ten-year-olds.”
“You don’t like kids?”
“I don’t know what to do with them. They ask questions I can’t answer, and that age group is convinced they have it all figured out.”
“So you’re going to skate with a bunch of ten-year-olds who worship you, and you’re dreading it.”
“I’m not dreading it. I’m managing expectations.”
“Yours or theirs?”
Patrick didn’t answer. Asher heard him shift on the other end.
“I’d pay money to watch that,” Asher said. He meant it as a joke. It didn’t come out like one.
Neither of them said anything for a few seconds.
“It’s Saturday morning,” Patrick said. Careful. Measured. “You could always drive down instead of sitting on your ass, you bum.”
Asher’s pulse kicked up. Patrick loved giving him shit about not doing anything because it was the offseason, but this was the first time he’d suggested they meet up. “Is that an invitation?”
“If you want it to be.” Asher wondered if Patrick regretted making the offer or if he was steeling himself for rejection. “Even though I give you a hard time, I know you’re busy getting ready for spring training. You don’t have to come down if you have to focus, I just—”
“Patrick.” As reassuring as it was to hear Patrick rambling, the guy sounded like he was freaking out. Talking until he was out of breath so Asher couldn’t turn him down.
“Yeah?”
“I’ll be there.”
Asher pushed off the couch. If he was going to spend part of the weekend in Chicago, he needed to get packing.
Once he got home, he’d only have a day before leaving for Arizona.
Luckily, he stayed at his parents’ place down there during spring training so he didn’t have as much to lug down as some of his teammates. “Tell me where I need to be and when.”
“Seriously? I… You don’t really have to,” Patrick hedged.
“Yes, seriously. Now stop trying to talk me out of it and tell me where I’m going.”
Asher pulled out both his big suitcase to pack for Arizona and a smaller duffel to pack for Chicago. Maybe he’d head down early to catch the Syndicate game on Friday night. Because, yeah, he had Patrick’s schedule memorized at this point, like a creepy stalker.
Patrick rattled off the address, and Asher opened up Notes on his phone so he didn’t forget it. Shortly after that, Patrick apologized, saying he needed to grab a nap so he was ready for tonight’s game.
Man, must be rough having scheduled naptime before games. Asher didn’t say that aloud. Even though they were both athletes, he was pretty sure Patrick’s job was a hell of a lot more physically demanding than playing ball.
Asher hung up and stared at the ceiling. He’d just agreed to drive three hours to watch a guy he’d met once skate with children. The excuse was garbage, and neither of them had tried to make it better.
The rink was freezing. Asher had shown up in only a denim jacket like an idiot, so by the time he found a seat in the bleachers his fingers were already numb.
Patrick was on the ice.
Asher had watched game highlights on his phone—clips of Patrick clearing the crease and moving the puck up ice.
He’d been planning to drive down for the game, but something had come up.
Video didn’t do it justice. In person, the man moved like the ice owed him something.
Every stride looked effortless, which meant it was anything but.
The kids were out there too, fifteen or sixteen of them in helmets too big and jerseys hanging to their knees.
They swarmed Patrick like he was a jungle gym.
A girl with a ponytail sticking through her helmet grabbed his jersey and said something Asher couldn’t hear.
Patrick looked down at her, and something in his posture shifted.
He made himself smaller without actually getting smaller.
He ran a drill. Skate to the blue line, stop, come back.
Half the kids wobbled. One ate it hard on his hip and bounced right back up.
When a boy with tape holding his shin guards together couldn’t get his crossovers right, Patrick skated over and showed him.
Slow and exaggerated, his blade carving a clean arc.
The kid tried it and fell. Patrick didn’t react.
The kid got up. Patrick showed him again.
Asher’s chest did something inconvenient.
The girl scored on a breakaway drill and came straight for Patrick with both arms up. He held out his glove, and she smacked it so hard the crack echoed across the rink. Patrick looked at his glove. Looked at her. Looked at his glove again.
“Nice shot,” he said. Completely deadpan. Like he was filing a scouting report.
She skated off, beaming. Asher was pretty sure he was too, which was embarrassing for a grown man sitting alone in the bleachers at a kids’ hockey practice.
Then Patrick’s eyes found him through the glass.
It lasted maybe two seconds. Patrick’s stride hitched, and then he was skating again, calling the next drill like nothing had happened. But Asher had seen it. That tiny pause when Patrick registered he’d actually come.
He sat through the rest of the session with numb hands and a grin he couldn’t get rid of.
When a kid wiped out near the boards, Patrick got there first, down on one knee, checking the kid’s helmet strap with hands that were way too big for a child’s face.
Something shifted behind Asher’s ribs, and he decided not to think about it too hard.
Patrick came out of the locker room in jeans and a dark jacket, hair still damp. The scar on his cheekbone was more visible without the helmet.
“You came,” he said.
“You invited me.”
“I made an observation about your schedule.”
“And I observed myself in a car at seven a.m. Weird how that works.”
Patrick’s mouth twitched. Not a smile, but closer than Asher had gotten before.
“You look frozen,” Patrick said.
“Because I am frozen. Denim jacket. Hockey rink. I didn’t think this through.”
“Come on. I’ll make coffee.”
The apartment was exactly what Asher expected. Small and precise. A couch aimed at the window instead of a TV. Books on the side table with cracked spines. One mug on the kitchen counter next to a French press.
“One mug,” Asher said.
Patrick opened a cabinet and pulled down a second without a word.
Asher leaned against the counter and watched him work.
Patrick measured everything like it mattered.
Beans. Water. Ratio. He ground the coffee with the same focus he’d used checking that kid’s helmet strap twenty minutes ago, like every task deserved the same level of attention regardless of stakes.
“You were good with them,” Asher said.
“I ran drills.”
“You showed a kid his crossover four times without getting frustrated. That’s not just running drills.”
Patrick poured the water. Didn’t look up. “I don’t know what I’m doing with kids. I just know what I would have wanted someone to show me at that age.”
Asher took the mug Patrick slid across the counter. Black because Patrick hadn’t asked how he took it and Asher wasn’t about to correct him. It was bitter and too hot, but he drank it anyway.
They ended up on the couch. Patrick at one end, feet on the floor, mug balanced on his knee. Asher at the other end, arm along the back, legs stretched out, taking up as much room as possible because that’s what he did when he was nervous and didn’t know what else to do with his body.
“Tell me about catching,” Patrick said.