05
STEFAN
There’s no doubt about it: Ryan Caulfield’s a softie now.
The years took out all the fire I thought he had in him.
Maybe I was wrong all along. Maybe I just wanted to see fire in him as a kid when, in fact, he was always destined to be a guy whose life is spent on the bleachers and not on the field.
Or I’m a dick, and I’m being too hard on him.
That’s very fucking possible.
“You can pick anything that looks alright, really,” Ryan tells me from halfway across his bedroom. “My bigger clothes are in the back of the closet since I don’t really wear them as much.”
I lean into his closet and thumb through his wardrobe like it’s a clothing rack in a thrift store. Polos. And polos. And more polos.
Look, surprise, yet more polos.
And plaid.
“I’ll give you some privacy,” Ryan tells me, then goes for the door.
“Really?” I call back at him. “We changed a zillion times in front of each other in the locker room.”
“Uh, I know. Just thought, like, uh—”
“Seriously, you’ve seen me in nothing but a jockstrap. Stay and talk to me while I figure out what the fuck polo I want to put on, since that appears to be my only option.”
He chuckles. “Well, y’know. It’s … school, dress code, and …”
“Having trouble forming sentences back there, bro?” I call back to him.
Then I whip off my towel and toss it at the bed.
“Shit!” he exclaims. “A little warning, please?”
I smirk, then turn around to catch him staring at my bare ass. His eyes shoot up to meet mine, then he spins away, red-faced, and glares at the wall.
“Alright. There. Now I’ve seen you naked,” he tells that wall. “Improvement from the boy-sized jockstrap, I guess.”
“Oh, I never fit boy size,” I shoot back at him.
Despite appearing scandalized by my towel removal, Ryan snorts with one dry laugh, then folds his arms and shakes his head, fighting off a smile.
I pull a red polo off the hanger, since it caught my eye. A pair of jeans comes with it. I toss them to the bed before asking, “Got some boxers I can steal?”
He bites his lip and half-turns toward me.
Only to discover that I’m full-on facing him now.
His eyes flit up to the ceiling at once. “Aren’t yours clean?”
“Nah.”
“I thought it was just your jeans and shirt that got all the beer and blood.”
“Beer must’ve soaked through. Dude, why are you staring up at the ceiling?”
Ryan rolls his eyes and huffs. “Get dressed, Stefan.”
He’s leaving himself wide open, really. I mean, he’s just way too easy to taunt. He always has been. “C’mon, Caulfield. Don’t lie. You totally want to take a peek.”
He chokes on another laugh. “I’ll pass. Thanks.”
“You totally want to see what all the girls went crazy for back in the day. It’s the stuff of legends, man. Half the writing on the bathroom walls was about what I’m packing.”
“Someone let all the baseball fame go to his head,” he shoots back at me, smirking and still staring at the ceiling.
“Which head? Listen, all I’m saying is, I’m having doubts that your boxers are even gonna be able to contain what I got.”
“You going to stand there naked in another dude’s bedroom boasting about your big junk all morning?” he retorts. “Or do you actually plan to get dressed at some point?”
“So you admit it’s big?”
He snorts and shakes his head, then turns away finally.
I go for the pants and start pulling them on one leg at a time. Yeah, they’re on the smaller side, but apparently he has a bigger waist than me because they zip up with room to spare. The red polo is another story, proving to be quite an endeavor to put on. My biceps make work of the sleeves, stretching them to the max, which is nothing compared to the way my thick, broad shoulders make the damned shirt feel like it was bought from Baby Gap.
Ryan, whether from curiosity or just judging from the sounds of my dressing, turns his head slightly toward me, then faces me all the way. He gives me a once-over, then wrinkles his face. “Uh, what about underwear?”
I shrug as I grab the towel off the bed. “Decided to free-ball it. How’s your shirt look on me?”
He swallows hard, gives me one quick look, then teeters his head from side to side. “I guess it’s a little … hmm. Looks fine.”
“Good.” I head out of his room and into the bathroom, tossing the towel over a rack to dry. I catch a glimpse of myself in the big bathroom mirror. Ryan’s red polo literally looks like it’s glued to my chest and arms. All I need to do is pop my collar and I’ll be my cocky high school self all over again. I give myself a smirk, then run a hand through my hair, fussing it up.
Still got it.
“Where are you staying?”
Ryan has emerged from his bedroom and stands in the hall by the bathroom door. I lift an eyebrow at him. “Huh?”
“You … got a place?” he asks quietly. “Or are you just visiting? In town for the weekend or something?”
“Nah.” I push out of the bathroom and stroll into his living room, which I didn’t get a good look at. “I recently moved back home with my parents and Rudy. Sold all my shit from my condo in Frisco. Too cold, anyway. I hate dealing with the snow.”
“So you’d rather deal with fire?”
“Sure, fire, if that’s what you call the heat down here.” Behind his sofa—which is so small, it might as well be a loveseat—there’s a small table with some figurines set up on it. I lean down to get a better look. “Dragons?”
He’s at my side. “Yeah. I kinda collect them.”
I pick one of them up. “Heavier than they look.”
“Solid iron, that one. Those two are marble,” he says, pointing with a shaky index finger, “and these ones are glass. I like when light shines through them. They project prisms at the walls.”
I nod, then set it back down. It makes a loud thud. “Didn’t think the years would turn you into a collectibles type of guy. Got a collection of classic vinyls somewhere, too?”
He laughs. “No. Just the dragons.”
I look up and meet his eyes. “Fire.”
“Fire,” he agrees, his eyes drifting down to my lips as his facial features tighten.
He’s still not comfortable around me. We’re like two strangers with a half-remembered past hanging between us. Every now and then, I manage to spark a glimpse of excitement in his hazel eyes, but otherwise, he looks awkward as hell to be around me. I’m just some strange, washed-up athlete in his house.
Did I really freak Ryan out last night or something? How far gone was I? I don’t even remember taking the first drink.
“You alright?” he asks me.
I guess my face went all serious on him. I straighten up and give him a shrug. “Sure.”
Ryan steps back and purses his lips in thought, then tilts his head as he considers me. I’m about to ask him what’s going on when he says, “You know, if you’re having issues at home …”
I wrinkle my face, defensive at once. “The fuck?”
Fear strikes his eyes. He shakes his head. “I … I don’t mean to make any assumptions. But—”
“Things are fine at home.”
“I’m just saying, you went to Beebee’s for a reason, and—”
“To get a damned drink, obviously.” Yeah, Stefan, a drink or four or forty. Who the hell am I fooling? I don’t even remember how I got to Beebee’s.
“Stefan, we may have not been involved in each other’s lives for a while now,” Ryan asserts, “but I know you. I … know you. And getting wasted as hell and breaking into fights with strangers at a bar …? That’s not you. That’s not you by a long shot.”
I squint my eyes at him. I want to fight back, but I can’t.
Why can’t I?
There’s something about the way he’s looking at me that roots me to the floor. Suddenly I’m not the cocky shit I was a second ago. I’m not the cocky shit anymore because beneath this softer, older version of Ryan, there’s still the guy who knew me better than I knew myself—the guy who changed my fucking life.
And possibly saved it last night.
I remember that one time after a high school game when I was so angry, I nearly punched my teammate Joel in the face. I threw my water bottle across the whole locker room and punched one of the lockers so hard, I left a dent that I would keep walking past and noticing for years to come.
That day when I got so angry, Ryan pulled me outside. I could have even put a fist in his face with the way he was trying to talk me down. But then, out of nowhere, he grew a pair, grabbed my face, and turned it toward his. “Get ahold of yourself,” he barked. “No one wins a game by throwing shit or blaming people. You taught me that. Take responsibility for your own damned actions. That crazy kid throwing tantrums in the locker room? That isn’t you, Stefan. Not by a—”
“Long shot,” I mutter, remembering his words back then. He even said the same thing to me that day.
“Yeah,” says Ryan, now twenty-five, puffing up his chest as the confidence returns to his face. “Not by a long shot. I know you, Stefan. Something’s going on. You don’t have to go about it alone.”
I look Ryan in the eye. The man who looks back at me is still my teammate, my buddy, my friend I could lean on, even when I insisted that I could do everything on my own.
“My truck.”
Ryan furrows his forehead. “Sorry?”
“It’s still in the parking lot at Beebee’s. If you take me back, I can get my truck and … get out of your hair.”
The excitement in his eyes deflates. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he looks disappointed that I’m already leaving.
“I can take you,” he finally agrees.
I slap a hand onto his shoulder and give it a squeeze. “Thanks, Caulfield. I … appreciate all this. What you did for me. I could’ve wound up dead or in that dumpster.”
“Thankfully, neither.” Ryan gives me a tiny smile, then turns away to grab his keys off the kitchen counter.
Five minutes later, we’re in his car. My dirty clothes are balled up in my lap and the radio’s blasting some dumb shit with a dumb repetitive beat. Ryan keeps his eyes on the road, and I listen to the crap without complaint. For all I know, it’s his new favorite band.
I catch myself tapping my thighs to the rhythm, then stop.
The parking lot looks vastly different during the daytime. Thankfully, my truck wasn’t towed. I hop out of Ryan’s car and fish my keys out of my dirty clothes to unlock my truck.
“You good?” calls Ryan, who’s gotten out of his car and leans against the hood of it, waiting.
I spot a loose baseball in the bed of my truck. I pick it up and, without warning, pitch it his way.
Completely by reflex, Ryan raises a hand and catches the ball perfectly. The healthy smack it makes in his palm reverberates across the parking lot like a crack of thunder. From the wide-eyed look on his face, even he’s shocked that he caught it.
Apparently, he’s still got it, too.