Epilogue
Patrick had done more first days of training camp than he could count, and this was the first one he’d driven to with a good-morning text still sitting on his phone.
The rink smelled of rubber and cold, the chemical bite of a fresh sheet underneath.
He stepped through the tunnel into it. The ice was September ice, cut sharp, like the Zamboni driver had been waiting all offseason for someone to notice.
Training camp had an energy the regular season didn’t, looser.
The returning guys carried themselves with the easy confidence that came from doing this September ritual for years.
The new faces—two draft picks, a trade acquisition from Winnipeg, a free agent defenseman Patrick had already watched tape on—moved through the room with the careful awareness of people trying to take up the right amount of space.
Patrick dressed in his stall. Left skate then right, tape check, gloves, helmet.
The stall itself had changed. The strip of photos tucked into the edge of the nameplate above his head was new.
Three of them, printed small. One from Appleton: Asher in the dugout, mid-laugh, his catcher’s gear pushed back on his head.
One from Milwaukee: dinner at Sean and Mason’s, all four of them at the table, Mason’s arm slung around Asher’s shoulders, Sean visible in the background doing something precise to a brisket.
One from Montreal: Asher on the porch with Patrick, both holding beers, Asher’s expression caught between delight and mild terror because Patrick’s father had just finished telling the story about five-year-old Patrick trying to fight a goalie during a peewee game.
The photos were small enough that nobody would notice unless they were looking, which meant Pruitt noticed within the first hour.
“Fonty.” Pruitt materialized at the edge of the stall, squinting at the strip. “Nice pics.”
“Thanks.”
“Mavericks are looking good, by the way. I’ve got them winning the division.”
Patrick looked at him. “Since when do you watch baseball?”
“Since your guy started catching for them, obviously,” Pruitt said like Patrick was the one being weird. “Is he coming to Kubara’s cookout? Families, kids, the whole thing. Tell him to bring the dads. I have questions for Mason Atley that only Mason Atley can answer.”
“I’ll ask.”
“That’s a yes.” Pruitt straightened and looked at Patrick a second longer than usual. “Good for you, Fonty.”
He walked away before Patrick could respond. Across the room, Olivier caught Patrick’s eye and raised an eyebrow.
Patrick finished dressing and headed for the tunnel.
The first skate was conditioning, no puck, no systems. Barlow blew the whistle, and they went, line to line.
Patrick’s legs were good. He’d trained through the summer, but the discipline had been interrupted: whole homestands spent in Milwaukee, the I-94 drive north that had quietly stopped feeling like a chore.
He finished the skate and filed off with the group. In the tunnel, Dev fell into step beside him.
“Good summer?” Dev asked.
“Yeah. You?”
Dev’s answer came a half-second late. “Yeah. Good. Quiet.”
The delay was unlike Dev. Patrick glanced at him.
Dev’s expression was neutral, but his gaze had drifted.
Patrick followed the trajectory and found Eli Lindqvist fifteen feet ahead, walking beside the new acquisition from Winnipeg.
Lindy was laughing at something, his head tipped back, his gear bag over his shoulder.
Dev looked away. The motion was controlled but not fast enough to be casual.
Patrick recognized the architecture.
“You good?” Patrick asked. The question carried more than its words. A door opened with the same quietness Dev had used when he’d opened one for Patrick in this same hallway six months ago.
Dev looked at him. A flash of something unresolved and raw that surfaced and submerged in the span of a breath.
“Working on it,” Dev said.
They reached the locker room. Lindy was already at his stall, the one beside Dev’s. He looked up when Dev sat down.
“Good skate,” Lindy said to Dev.
“You too.”
Two words each, and that was the whole exchange. Patrick looked away.
He pulled out his phone while he unlaced. A text from Asher, waiting.
First day back. How’s the ice?
Same ice. Team’s good. Pruitt found the photos.
Already?? I figured you’d get at least a day.
He has a gift.
Did he chirp you?
He said good for you and walked away.
He also invited you and your dads to Kubara’s cookout. He has questions for Pops.
Pruitt and Pops in the same backyard. Nobody’s ready for that.
Patrick set the phone on the shelf and finished undressing.
Pruitt was already narrating something to the draft picks who hadn’t yet learned that engagement only encouraged him.
Kubara sat in his stall with the same watchful quiet, the captain’s awareness.
He caught Patrick’s eye. The look was the same one he’d given Patrick in January.
Patrick gave him a nod. The nod was enough between them.
He showered, dressed, and checked his phone.
Game tonight. Come if you can. I’ll leave a ticket.
Patrick had spent the summer on the road north, up for every homestand, back to Chicago when the team traveled.
His French press lived on Asher’s counter now.
The last homestand before camp, Sean had made the brisket again, and Mason had pulled Patrick aside after the meal and said, “It’s been a long damned time since I’ve seen both of them this happy.
You have a part in that. I just thought you should know. ”
Tonight was a weeknight, and training camp had an early morning skate. Driving up meant watching Asher work a big-league game and pointing the car south again in the dark, home in the small hours and back on the ice by morning.
He typed back.
Leave two. Dev might come.
Across the locker room, Dev was at his stall with his phone in his hand, the screen dark against his palm. Lindy had left, his stall empty, the space beside Dev open. Dev stared at the dark phone with the expression Patrick had seen in the gym in July.
Patrick walked over and sat on the bench beside Dev’s stall.
Dev looked at him. “Eli asked if I want to get dinner tonight.”
“Again?”
“Again. Different restaurant. Same question. Same three-hour deliberation on my end.”
Patrick waited.
“It’s just dinner,” Dev said.
“It’s never just dinner.”
Dev exhaled. He looked at his phone, then at the empty stall beside him, then back at Patrick.
“When did you figure that out?” Dev asked.
“January. At a gala. A man I’d never met told me about aged gouda in scrambled eggs, and I spent the next six months pretending the ground wasn’t moving.”
Dev’s composure cracked. A fissure, the suggestion of a smile.
“Go to dinner,” Patrick said.
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s exactly that simple. And it’s exactly that complicated. Both things.”
Dev studied him. Patrick held the look.
“You’re different,” Dev said. “Since the winter. Since him.”
“I know.”
“It’s a good different, Fonty.”
Patrick stood. He clapped Dev on the shoulder, brief, firm. Dev’s hand came up and gripped his forearm. Two beats passed. Then he released.
“I’ll think about it,” Dev said.
Patrick grabbed his bag and headed for the parking lot.
His phone lit up.
Done. Will call, under your name. Section 108.
My dads will beat you there. Pops has been ready since breakfast.
Patrick found Section 108. Mason and Sean were already there, just like Asher had said they’d be.
“Patrick.” Mason slid over to make room. “You made it. He’s catching a kid who throws ninety-six and has the command of a lawn sprinkler, so this is going to be educational.”
Patrick sat. Down on the field, behind the plate, Asher dropped into his crouch.
Patrick knew what being good at something felt like from the inside of his own body.
Watching it from the stands was different, and a summer of games hadn’t worn it down.
Asher framed a pitch on the corner and stole the call.
Between innings he jogged off, found the section without looking, and tapped his chest once with his glove, the same thing he’d done at every game Patrick had made it to, small enough that nobody around them knew what it meant.
Sean saw it.
“He’s calling a good game,” Sean said. He delivered it level and low, the praise built right into the assessment. “Better than I did at his age. I was all stuff and no plan.” A beat. “Don’t tell him I said that.”
“I tell him everything you won’t,” Mason said. “It’s a whole system we have.”
“I know. It’s why I married you.”
Mason grinned at the field. Sean didn’t look away from his son.
Asher came up in the fourth, dug in loose-shouldered, and ran the count full.
Then he drove a ball into the right-center gap and pulled into second with his helmet low.
Sean stood and clapped with his hands above his head.
Mason whooped loud enough to turn the row in front of them.
Patrick was on his feet between them, yelling.
Asher found the three of them from second base and grinned.
Much later, in Asher’s apartment with the game on mute and the leftovers gone cold, Asher put his head on Patrick’s chest.
“Your season’s about to eat you,” Asher said. “It’s going to suck looking up and not finding you.”
“My rink has stands too.” Patrick’s hand moved slowly through Asher’s hair. “Your season ends in October. Mine’s just getting started. Time for you to repay the favor.”
“A whole winter of hockey.” Asher tipped his head back to look at him. “I’m getting a jersey with your number on it.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” Patrick said.
But that was later. For now, Asher stood on second base in the big leagues, on the team his father had worn for a generation, having earned every inch of it himself, and he looked up into the stands and found Patrick.
Leo traded palm trees for lake-effect snow, a downtown with one bar, and a mechanic who won't look him in the eye. Will Leo settle in with his new team? Find out in Hard Check.
Long before Asher was even a glimmer in their eyes, Mason and Sean forged a friendship as minor league players. Little did they know they’d wind up rivals in the big leagues. Read Wild Pitch to see what happens when Mason drops a truth bomb on his buddy, changing both their lives forever.