“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.”