Page 166 of Offside

MAREN

Cole’s backyard smelled like chlorine and charcoal and whatever was in the punch bowl that nobody had asked about yet, and the Phoenix Sidewinders were taking up most of it.

This had not been the plan. The plan had been a small end-of-season thing. Ryan, Eli, maybe Griffin. Cole had invited himself and then somehow invited everyone else, which was so entirely Cole that nobody had even questioned it. By noon his backyard—Scottsdale modern, resort pool, the inflatable flamingos still deployed from last season looking slightly weathered and entirely unbothered—was full of hockey players, one sports agent on a FaceTime in the corner, and Paige, who had driven in from Tempe specifically to witness all of this and was keeping a running commentary under her breath.

The pool was the main event. Iris had decided that Griffin’s shoulders were the superior vantage point and had been up there for the better part of an hour, directing their water battle against Cole with the calm strategic authority of someone who had clearly been studying the game. Cole was losing and seemed delighted about it. Danny had attempted to join Team Cole and been immediately dunked by a four-year-old’s well-timed splash, which Kasperi documented on his phone and would absolutely be posted by midnight.

Eli sat on the pool steps with his feet in the water, watching Iris with the expression he always wore when she was happy—the one he couldn’t help and didn’t try to.

I was at the patio table with Paige.

“She’s planning the offensive,” Paige said. “Look at her. She’s pointing.”

“Griffin does whatever she tells him.”

“Everyone does whatever she tells them.” Paige watched Iris issue what appeared to be tactical instructions to Griffin, who nodded seriously. “She’s going to run this city someday.”

“She’s already running this backyard.”

Theo was at the far end of the patio, leaning against the railing with a glass of the good wine he’d brought because Cole’s beer selection, in Theo’s words, was a personal affront. He’d been quiet most of the afternoon, which wasn’t unusual, but there was a particular quality to it today. He pulled out his phone, read something, and went very still. The stillness that was different from his usual contained quiet—something tightening behind his eyes. He pocketed the phone without comment. Looked back at the pool. His jaw was set.

I made a note of it without saying anything. Whatever it was, it wasn’t mine to ask about yet.

Ryan was at the grill with Cole’s tongs and the focused expression he brought to anything that required precision, which included, apparently, steak temperature. He’d taken over from Cole twenty minutes ago on the basis that Cole had been “aggressively incorrect” about medium-rare, and Cole had surrendered cheerfully and gone back to the pool.

Ryan caught my eye across the yard.

I smiled and looked away before Paige could photograph it.

Too late.

“Going on my wall,” Paige said.

“Paige—”

“Large format. Already decided.”

Theo appeared at the table and sat down without being invited, which was entirely Theo. He refilled his glass and set the bottle where we could both reach it, which was as close as Theo got to an invitation.

“Your boyfriend,” Theo said, “has opinions about grill temperature that are, I will admit, not wrong.”

“He has opinions about everything.”

“It’s a good quality.” Theo said it flatly, but there was something underneath it. He was watching the pool, where Griffin had just launched Iris off his shoulders and into the water to a shriek of delight. Something moved across Theo’s face—brief, unguarded—before he pulled it back. “She’s good,” he said. “The kid.”

“She really is.”

A beat. Theo turned his wine glass in his hands. Whatever he’d read on his phone was still sitting somewhere behind his eyes.

“You okay?” I asked.

He glanced at me. The flat look that meant he’d registered the question and was deciding what to do with it. “Fine,” he said. Then, quieter, like he hadn’t intended to say it. “There was a piece written, a journalist—” He stopped. His jaw moved. “It doesn’t matter.”

It clearly mattered. But Theo wasn’t someone you pushed. I nodded and left it there.

Across the yard, Ryan laughed at something Cole said from the pool—brief, real, the full version—and I felt it from twenty feet away. He’d been laughing more this spring. The careful, contained version of him was still there, still the captain, still the man who held the room without trying. But there was something looser underneath it now. Something that hadn’t been there in September.

He found me at the table a few minutes later, dropping into the chair beside me and taking my hand without making anything of it, a habit now, unremarked on by either of us. Like it was just a thing his hand did when I was near.