Chapter 16 #2
“Let me. It’s good for you.” A breath, the hum of the Milwaukee house behind him.
“Your dad and I were brand new, and it was moving fast, and somewhere in there, I figured out I wanted the whole thing with him. The forever, the family, all of it. And that terrified me because you can’t lose what you never let yourself have.
So I started backing off. Told myself I was giving him room, being decent about it, letting him keep his head on baseball.
” A dry sound. “I wasn’t being decent. I was running. ”
Asher’s throat was tight.
“And here’s the part I need you to actually hear.
Your dad is the reason I’m not telling you this from an empty condo.
He didn’t let me go. He’s steadier than I’ll ever be.
He picked up the phone, he came after me, he decided I was worth more than my best impression of a man who didn’t care.
If it had been left to me, I’d have run all the way out and spent the rest of my life proud of how clean I left. ”
Pops took a breath, then continued, “I’m not telling you what to do. That’s your dad’s department. I’m telling you what I almost did and what it would have cost me. The version where I keep running is the version where I don’t have Sean. And that’s the version where I don’t have you either.”
“Pops.” His voice came out rough.
“I know what it looks like from the inside. I know it feels like the smart play is to pull back before it can hurt worse.” A beat.
“Because you’re mine, Asher. You got it from me.
The charm, the walking into any room and having everyone love you and still going home alone because you got out before anyone could leave you first. That’s mine.
I handed it to you, and I’m sorry, and I’m telling you straight that it doesn’t work.
It just leaves you alone with how clever you were. ”
Asher took the phone away from his ear and held it against his chest. He could hear Pops’s breathing, tinny and distant, the sound of him waiting.
He brought the phone back.
“He let me back in,” Asher said. “Sort of. He called. He said the right things. He sounds like himself again. He’s there.
But there’s something eating at him, and he won’t tell me what.
I can see it sitting on him. He’ll give me everything except that.
” His throat worked. “He’s behind glass, Pops.
The door’s open a crack, and he stands right there in it and still won’t let me through to help. ”
“I know that glass,” Pops said. “I was the one behind it. Your dad’s the one who stood there knocking.”
“What do I do?”
Pops exhaled. “I don’t know what you do.
I know what your dad did. He stayed, and he knocked, and he was ready to walk the whole time.
Staying isn’t the same as letting somebody grind you down.
He’d decided how long he’d give me, and he meant it, and he turned out to be right.
I was worth the wait.” A beat. “So you decide if Patrick’s worth standing there for.
And you mean it about how long. But you can’t make that call with one foot already out the door, kid. You make it from inside the room.”
“And if he never opens it?”
Pops was silent for a long moment.
“Then you’ll know. And knowing beats wondering. Every time.”
The connection held between them.
“Your dad says hi,” Pops said, his voice shifting back toward the surface. “He also says you should ice your knee.”
“How does he know about my knee?”
“Your dad knows everything. It’s his most annoying quality.”
Asher laughed. It came out thin and unsteady and real.
“Thanks, Pops.”
“Anytime, kid. That’s the whole job.”
They hung up. Asher sat on the couch in the dark, his phone in his hand.
He opened Patrick’s thread. Patrick had promised tomorrow, and Asher had left it sitting there without an answer.
He didn’t type. He wasn’t trying to figure out how he felt about Patrick.
He’d been past casual for months, whatever he’d called it at the time.
What he was deciding was harder and quieter.
Whether he could stand at the glass and keep knocking with no promise the door would ever open the rest of the way.
Whether he could let the draft and everything Patrick kept stepping in front of sit there unsolved and not grab for Milwaukee to make it go away.
He set the phone on the coffee table and sat back. He wasn’t going to call Patrick tonight, and he wasn’t going to run either. He’d stay. He’d stand at the glass and keep knocking, and he’d figure out the rest when he had to.
His phone lit up against the coffee table.
He had it to his ear before he saw the name. Delgado.
“You’re up,” Delgado said. “Navarro’s getting the wrist done Thursday. They want you in Milwaukee tomorrow. This is the call, kid.”
The room tilted. Milwaukee. His dad’s club, the thing he’d been chasing since he was big enough to hold a glove, and it had come tonight of all nights, an hour after he’d decided to stop running from the one thing that scared him worse than failing ever had.
Tomorrow. He’d swing by the park for his gear, throw his things in the car, and drive down to his folks’ in Milwaukee tonight.
Nothing was keeping him in Appleton. In the morning, he’d walk into his dad’s old clubhouse as a big leaguer.
Everything he’d ever wanted, finally. His dad’s team. His own name on a big-league roster.
Before his dads, before his agent, before he’d even taken it all the way in, there was one person Asher wanted to tell first. He picked up the phone and called Patrick.