"Yeah. It is."
"Chemistry's hard to manufacture. When it's real, you protect it." He set his glass down. "It's leverage for your extension talks. Teams pay for trust."
"Thompson made the offer in November. I told him I'd take time."
"Time's reasonable, but it has limits."
The conversation followed its usual design. Dad laid bricks, mortared with certainty, and the wall climbed. Leverage. Legacy.
Dad waved dessert away. Coffee arrived instead. Dad took his black, which he'd taught me to do at fourteen becausesugar is a crutch and cream is a disguise.
"Let me be direct," he said. As if everything before had been indirect.
"The extension isn't only about money. It's about positioning. You sign. You play, and you build. And when it's time to step away, you step away with a body of work they will remember."
"What if the fit isn't right?" I asked.
"The fit is always right when you're winning."
"That's not what I mean."
My hands were in my lap. Flat against my thighs.
"If I'd said no. Really said no. NotI need time. NotI'm evaluating. If I'd told you years ago that I didn't want this, would you have listened?"
A server started toward our table, read something in the air between us, and reversed course.
"No is a phase, Kieran." Dad's voice was steady. "It's not a plan."
I stopped breathing for a second. Not dramatically. Just a pause in air.
"Okay," I said.
Patrick read the word as agreement. He reached for the check.
"Think about the timeline. Let's get something moving in the next few weeks."
"Sure."
He signed the check without looking at the total. At the door, he hugged me again. Same duration. Same hand on the shoulder blade.
"I'm proud of you, Kieran. You know that."
"I know."
He got into a black car idling at the curb. Didn't look back through the window.
I stood on the sidewalk in a suit jacket that was insufficient against the wind. My father had flown to Chicago to tell me that yes was the only proper answer. No was a phase.
I'd saidokaybecause saying anything else would have required him to see me, and Patrick Mathers had never once looked at his son and seen someone other than a continuation of himself.
I drove to Heath's.
Two knuckles, twice.
Heath opened the door in boxers and a Wisconsin Badgers t-shirt. His hair was flattened on one side. He'd been sleeping. The apartment behind him smelled like dish soap and the warm, dusty smell of old radiators.
He looked at my face and stepped to the side.
