I shrugged, eyes darting to the window, the empty stadium beyond it. “Okay.”
He picked up a folder with the Railers logo, my name on the front.JARI LANKINEN. I winced. “So, I've been sent reports from previous teams, three so far, right?” I nodded, and he paused, and I didn't know what to say. “Must be hard, moving so much.”
“I guess,” I said, and I was about to walk, expecting him to start summarizing what they all said, but he opened the folder and showed me that the only thing in there was blank paper. He laid it on the desk, then came around to sit on the chair opposite me, so the desk wasn't between us.
“I never read what others say, and I don't care what anyone else thinks,” he murmured. “So, how about we start from the beginning, and I get to know you so you can stop bracing yourself?” Dan didn’t push. He waited for me to talk as if he had all the time in the world.
My chest clenched. “Does it matter if I just tell you the same things I told them?”
“It matters toyou,” he said.
My jaw worked. I glanced down at my hands instead of his face. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“That’s okay,” Dan said, and damn it, he sounded sincere. “We start wherever you want to.”
Fuck.
FOUR
Cam
After a grueling workout,I crossed the empty parking lot at the complex, sweat damp under my fleece despite the cold, and my thoughts kept circling back to Jari. I kept spiraling around this crazy mix of attraction and worry about him. What was it that Kirby was always saying? That it’s not my job to fix everything and everyone on the planet. That I needed to step back and let others solve their own dilemmas, but…
Fuck. He hadn’t seen the way Jari had stood in the corridor, shoulders too rigid, eyes shuttered as if he were bracing for a hit that never came. A week had passed since I’d seen him, but the look in his eyes hadn’t loosened its grip on me. It followed me into sleep, surfaced in the quiet moments. He was drowning in something heavy—I knew that distant, hollow appearance too well. I’d lived it secondhand with Kirby, watched my cousin claw his way through depression until the right meds finally gave him air again.
Jari's expression made me feel as if he was stuck in that same dark place, and it ate at me. I wanted to help, to fix it—but I didn’t know how, and maybe it wasn’t my place. I’d thought of talking to the Railers, but that seemed a massive breach ofetiquette. Who was I to shine that kind of light on another athlete? I wasn’t a doctor. Just a guy who’d learned the hard way that sometimes caring is all you can offer, and even that can feel like too much.
The corridor. The way his eyes had gone flat with pain he was trying not to show when I’d asked him about the photo. It hit me low and hard, a visceral punch I hadn’t been ready for. I’d seen injuries. I’d seen fear. This was different. I cared what Jari was thinking about and what he was feeling—more than was sensible because I'd seen something in him that spoke to my need to fix things.
That was all. Nothing about his gorgeous eyes or his soft lips or the insane need I had to tug him into my arms and hug him hard.
Fixing things ain’t all that.My mom’s voice cut through the instinct to want to help Jari, and she was right, but sometimes all I could do was stand there, see it, and not look away.
Stay focused. Today is game day. Head in the game.
I slowed my jog and focused on the best view of the HP&L Field. The city had poured millions into the complex—modern steel wrapped around a century of baseball history—and it showed. Harrisburg had been in love with the game since the 1880s, and I felt it every time I passed through the gates. Beyond the diamond, the hockey arena squatted low and loud, and next to that, the skeleton of the new football stadium climbed toward the sky, all girders and ambition.
“Morning, Cam,” Mike called from the outside gate, coffee balanced on the hood of the security cart. Mike had three kids, and his eldest, Sam, lived and breathed hockey, which I teased him endlessly about.
“Morning,” I said, easing to a walk. “How are things?”
“Good. Megs says to say thank you for the signed bat and merch you handed me.”
“It's all good, although using my stuff to raise money for your son'shockeyteam…” I clutched my chest as if I was wounded, and Mike snorted a laugh.
Mike scoffed. “Might be cheaper if Sam liked baseball, but jeez, Cam…” He puffed his chest out in pride. “He might be only fourteen, but he's already skating circles around kids twice his size. Scouts at every weekend tournament. Even the Railers are watching him.”
“That’s so cool,” I said, and I wasn’t lying—I’d followed Mike’s son's progress in the last several years I’d been talking to his dad, and I was proud of the kid. Still, I had to up the banter to our usual snarky levels. “All that talent, wasted on hockey.”
“Whatever, Slugger,” he said, grinning as he waved me through.
People around here knew me. I’d learned a lot about all of them—made it my business to know their kids’ names, which nights they worked late, who liked what sport. Knowledge and routine mattered. Superstition mattered more. Hence, today’s visit to the hydrotherapy center on game day.
I stopped for a moment, stretching out old muscles as Yanni hustled to catch me up, and staring over at the half-finished football stadium. In two years, the city would add pro football to the mix—the Express, an expansion team built to match Harrisburg’s rail-town soul. Every franchise here carried that legacy. The Railers’ steam engine. The Iron Horses’ steel stallion. Soon, a high-speed train stitched across football helmets.
The new stadium would seat seventy thousand—nearly double HP&L Field’s capacity and worlds bigger than the hockey arena’s eighteen. Times had changed. Football ruled now. Baseball followed. Hockey trailed both. Soccer? Still knocking at the door.
“Hey, sorry, man,” I heard Yanni call as he caught up to me, and we did the complicated bro-hug thing the fans loved. Yanni Kallias, my catcher and second-best buddy, was a striking man. Swarthy, blessed with that Greek male beauty and flair. Tall, handsome, outgoing. Straight as a bamboo cane. Black wavy hair, deep brown eyes, he could have givenER-era George Clooney a run for his money if he’d chosen acting. Thankfully for me, he had baseball in his blood. We’d been battery-mates since my first year on the Iron Horses. When he was out with an injury, my pitching always suffered, and that is no reflection on our second roster catcher. Nolan Deshane was a fine catcher. He just wasn’t Yanni. “I thought I'd set my alarm for nine, but I guess I had other things on my mind.”
