A second message from his sister followed.
Natalie
Tell him to answer. Mom’s been asking me every 20 minutes, like I’m
on the plane with him.
Also, I want pictures of the apartment.
CJ laughed despite himself. Some things never changed. His family had always been loud and overwhelming. Group texts with them could move at the speed of light, withconversations overlapping until nobody could remember who had started talking first. Growing up, there had always been noise somewhere in the house. If Ryan wasn’t yelling at a game on television, then Natalie was fighting with her boyfriend, or his nephew was racing through the living room at full speed, with someone yelling at him to slow down.
Even the hard years had been loud. Ryan had been diagnosed with leukemia when he was fifteen, Natalie was fourteen, and CJ was five, and it had dictated so much of CJ’s childhood that hospitals and medication schedules felt as familiar as baseball fields. He’d never felt forgotten, but he’d learned early on how to stay flexible and how to be easy. Easy kids didn’t need extra attention. They entertained themselves in waiting rooms and cracked jokes when everyone looked tired.
Ryan was seventeen when he went into remission, and two weeks after that, Natalie confessed she was pregnant. She was sixteen when she became a mother, and seven-year-old CJ had learned how to be easy in a different way. As he got older, there were years when he spent almost as much time carrying a sleepy toddler around as he did playing baseball.
His thumb hovered over the keyboard before he snapped a picture of the stacked boxes and sent it to the chat.
CJ
Made it.
Three dots appeared instantly, then four separate messages appeared at once.
Ryan
That’s a lot of boxes.
Mom
The dog misses you
Dad
Mom says wear sunscreen.
Natalie
I still want apartment pictures.
CJ shook his head and smiled. The trade still pissed him off. Chicago had been home. The Blazers had been his team, and he’d thought he was their right fielder. If he’d been asked six months ago where he hoped to finish his career, San Diego wouldn’t have even cracked the top twenty answers. But there was at least an upside. For the first time in years, he was playing for a team less than an hour from his hometown. Close enough to visit on a day off or after a day game. Close enough for Sunday dinners when the schedule worked in his favor. Maybe it wasn’t the team he wanted, but it was closer to the people he needed.
“That will be enough,” he whispered, pushing to his feet.
He ran the shower just shy of scalding, hot enough to burn his skin and for steam to curl so thick it fogged the mirror. He stayed under the water until he couldn’t stand it anymore, and by the time he crawled into bed, the sheets were soothing against his raw, reddened skin.
He shifted onto his side, then flopped over to the other. The silence pressed in around him and his mind started making room for memories he didn’t want—Evan’s laugh in the dark as his breath coasted across his skin, the brush of his mouth on that spot behind CJ’s ear that made his knees weak, promises whispered like a vow. CJ flipped his pillow and buried his face in the cotton pillowcase like he could hide from the memories. He couldn’t, and he opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling.
Sleep hadn’t come easily in years, and he fell into the pattern he’d learned to survive: sleep two hours, wake, sleep two hours, wake. When dawn came, it felt more like a reprieve than a punishment. He waited for the sky to be painted in pink, orange,and gray before he gave up trying and got out of bed. He made coffee strong enough to strip paint and then pulled on jeans and a hoodie. A ball cap completed his look, and he almost recognized the man staring back at him.
In the back of a rideshare, CJ sat low in the seat and stared quietly out the window as the freeway took them over the mostly still water of the bay. The teal letters of the training complex sign flashed past the window, and the driver steered to the entrance CJ directed him to. The guard at the gate almost fell over himself waving the car through the gate when he realized CJ was inside.
Inside the front door, a security guard pointed him toward the team area of the building, and he followed the echoes of voices and equipment down the hallway. He slowed when he reached the massive workout room, its glass wall giving a full view inside. Every weight rack and treadmill had been pushed to the edges, leaving the center open for a maze of makeshift exam stations.
The place was spotless and fluorescent lights bounced off the polished floor. It was bigger than any team facility he’d ever seen. Chicago’s setup had always been serviceable, but this was next level. CJ caught the faint tang of disinfectant mixed with the clean bite of air-conditioning, and he couldn’t help thinking that this was what billionaire ownership bought you—top-of-the-line everything, right down to the smell of the place.
“Hartman.”
CJ tore his eyes away from the glass and turned toward the sound of his name. A guy in a team polo shirt waved him over to the check-in table and stood to hand him a clipboard.
