I didn’t. I just said Asher wanted to talk and told him the same about Brayden. “Not sure,” I lie. We take the elevator up to Asher’s floor, spend a minute finding the right number. I raise my hand to knock, then pause. It’s possible this will end in fireworks.Or an explosion. Only one way to know.
I rap my knuckles against the door. Noise from inside—Asher’s footsteps echoing as he’s coming to meet us. My heart feels like it’s doing the same: banging against my ribs so loud it has to be audible.
He opens the door. He’s wearing his normal street clothes: jeans, ripped T-shirt, hair curling down across his forehead. For a moment, I feel overdressed—I told Brayden we were going out and selected clothes accordingly. Until Asher gives me alook that begins at my feet and sweeps upward, not hiding his appreciation of my body.
Brayden, still behind me, wraps an arm around me and tightens it at my waist. “You gonna invite us in?” he asks.
“Her, yes. You, maybe.” But Asher stands aside and lets us through the door.
Inside, the apartment is the opposite of our house in Atlanta. Art hangs in every available wall space, most of it prints in inexpensive frames. A few of the frames hold newsprint, carefully laid out and professionally mounted. I squint to see the byline on one article.Eva Adler. Asher’s mother, I assume.
The rest of the furniture is a hodgepodge: the living room has a mismatched armchair and sofa next to a scratched-up midcentury end table that holds a seventies lamp. A mission-style coffee table sits off to one side beneath a large, mounted television and a shelf overflowing with a mix of books—paperbacks with bent spines and hardbacks with titles in Serious Literature font. A few are turned out, their covers displayed like art. Asher told me he dreamed of a place he could fill with beautiful things. This one isn’t quite there, but it’s closer than Brayden and my house by a lot.
That doesn’t explain why Asher still has this apartment though. “Are you moving back to Chicago in the offseason?” I ask.
His lips tug at that, like he can hear the question I’m really asking.Are you leaving Atlanta—leaving me?“I was subletting to a guy on the team, but he found another place. Figured it didn’t make sense to find a tenant for another few weeks.”
“Why didn’t you stay here last night?” Brayden asks. I can hear the question behind his too:Why didn’t you keep your hands off Savannah?
“Huh.” Asher stands in the center of his living room, thumbs casually laced through his beltloops. But there’s nothing casualabout the look he’s giving Brayden—either of us really. “I thought you liked knowing I was right next door.”
“You should leave us alone,” Brayden says.
“And yet here both of you are.” Asher gives me a look, his version ofCan you believe this guy?that’s a very slight pinching of his forehead. It’s possible that thistalkwill end up with them at each other’s throats. “Here, let me get you a drink.”
“I, uh…” Brayden trails off like he doesn’t want to finish the sentence. In the past few weeks, the strongest thing I’ve seen him drink is club soda. It’s possible it’s a training thing and he’ll be right back at it when the season’s over. It’s possible that it’s not and he doesn’t want to explain that to Asher—or to me.
“I have soda,” Asher says. “Seltzer. Kombucha.”
“The one that smells like feet?”
Asher shrugs and doesn’t deny it.
“Figures,” Brayden says.
“So that’s a yes on kombucha?”
“Ha ha.” But Brayden carries himself over to where Asher is opening his fridge. I follow, waiting as they inspect the offerings, the beverages Asher mentioned along with several bottles of water and a few splits of champagne.
“Your tenant leave these?” Brayden asks.
“No.” As if Asher picked those up earlier knowing that Brayden might be in his apartment. “Here, try this.” He hands Brayden a can of nonalcoholic seltzer that Brayden inspects.
“That works.” Brayden says it a little stiffly, as if he’s realized Asher didn’t just buy this stuff but bought itfor him. “Sav, you want champagne?”
“Will that—” I don’t want to saybother you. I expect his shoulders to go even more bunched.
Instead he leans. Kisses my hair. “It’ll taste better from your mouth anyway.”
Asher hands me the split of champagne and takes out a bottle of water for himself. There’s music playing, I realize, something low and sultry. I meet Asher’s gaze over the neck of my opened champagne and get his knowing look.
I told Brayden we came here totalk. I should…get around to that, at some point. First, I settle myself on Asher’s couch, sipping my champagne. Watching the two of them navigate around one another: Brayden leaning on the kitchen island. Asher putting his hand next to his on the island’s tabletop. Brayden flinching back, then glancing down at the splay of Asher’s fingers.
Finally, Brayden takes a long sip of his drink. “Thank you.” Said quietly enough that I can barely hear him.
Asher smiles—not that smirk like he has a fishhook stuck at the edge of his mouth—but something closer to what he did that first night we were together. “Not a problem.” He pads back into the living room, leans against the side of a nearby armchair. After a moment, Brayden follows, sitting next to me on the couch.
No one says anything for a long minute: a silence I recognize, not from school, but from having sat in on enough of my father’s business deals.No one shows up to a business negotiation expecting to lose,but everyone knows the possibility is there.
