He took my keys and put them on the counter next to his own. He filled the kettle and put it on the burner, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed while it heated.
"Sit down," he said.
I sat on the couch. Elbows on knees. Head forward.
He brought two mugs and settled at the other end. The tea was grocery store chamomile. It tasted like warm paper. I drank it anyway.
"My father was here," I said. "Extension talk. Timeline talk. Legacy talk."
"How'd it go?"
A brief laugh came out of me. No humor in it.
"He told menois a phase."
Heath's mug paused halfway to his mouth.
"I asked if he would have listened if I'd told him years ago that I didn't want this." I set my tea on the coffee table. "He said phase like he was reading a weather report."
"What did you do?"
"I said okay. I've been saying okay for twenty-three years."
The radiator clanked.
"He doesn't see me. He sees a continuation of himself that happens to be twenty-three."
Heath sipped his tea.
"I had a plan. Leave clean. One more season, sign nothing, walk into grad school. But the plan depends on a version of me that wants nothing right now. Only later. Only after."
Heath set his mug on the floor. Slow and precise.
"Can I say something?"
"Yeah."
"Your dad's wrong, but you already know that, or you wouldn't be sitting on my couch at one in the morning in a suit." He pulled at a loose thread on the cushion.
He reached over and took my hand. His fingers were warm from the mug. Mine were cold. He didn't remark on the difference. He just held on.
Heath had scabbed knuckles from a blocked shot two games ago. Mine were clean. I never blocked shots with my hands. I blocked them with positioning, the geometry of a body trained to be where damage didn't reach.
Heath took damage. I took evasive action. And somehow, at 1 AM on his secondhand couch, those two strategies were holding hands.
"I don't know what to do," I said.
"You don't have to know tonight."
"My dad would say—"
"Your dad's not here."
I leaned sideways until my shoulder touched his. He wrapped an arm around me.
"Stay," he said.
We didn't move to the bedroom. At some point, his breathing changed. He was asleep within minutes, a skill I'd never developed.
