On the field, the Blazers poured out of the dugout and sprinted from the far reaches of the field, colliding in the middle in a pile of brothers. Hats flew and champagne did what champagne does when it’s shaken hard on purpose. Someone found the camera with both hands and shouted words that the network wouldn’t have time to censor.
The booth went feral and the crowd did too. The broadcasters called it heroic, iconic, the kind of play kids would be recreating in their backyards tomorrow. They replayed CJ’s catch, and Evan watched like it was new, even though he knew that leap well. He knew the way CJ’s body had coiled and launched, and his reckless faith in his legs and his timing. He’d seen it on college fields where the fences were chain link and the metal halide lights buzzed like insects. Back then, CJ would make a play just as improbable, then whip off his cap and look straight at Evan, grinning, waiting for Evan’s approval like it meant more coming from him than anyone else.
The broadcast found CJ twice more in the chaos. Once with his arms around a teammate’s shoulders, laughing with such unguarded joy that Evan’s chest ached as if he’d tried to run without warming up. The second shot was him alone for half a breath, eyes closed, chin tipped up as if he’d slipped out of the noise and finally dropped a weight he’d been carrying since he was twelve.
Evan turned the volume down to nothing, and the apartment settled into quiet. His phone lit up, but he didn’t reach for it. It lit again, and because he was a masochist sometimes, he flipped it over and looked.
Matt Caldwell.
Not just his agent. His friend. And CJ’s.
The three of them had spent three years tangled together in the kind of friendship that could only be forged on bus rides, road trips, and the exhausting intimacy of college baseball. Matt had been there for it all, and he was the only person who knew the truth. When he’d caught Evan and CJ in the middle of the baseball field, he’d advised them to be careful, then tucked their secret away and never mentioned it again. And when CJ had ended things and Evan had stopped talking about him entirely, Matt figured out how to stay friends with both of them.
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
