Page 230 of Wrath

I feel buoyant that he’s holding my hand in thehallway, even though his door is just a few feet from the elevator. He doesn’t seem scared or in a hurry as he opens his door.

The place smells like him. Just…like Ezra…in a way I can’t quite explain. It’s not as empty as I thought it might be, nor as sterile. The walls are medium blue—the color of the sky around dusk—and there’s crown molding around the top and bottom of them, plus a nice-looking faux hardwood floor and a rug he tells me came new with the room. He’s got a bookshelf filled with paperbacks, an oil painting hanging near his bed, a wall-mounted flatscreen, and a few plants perched near his two windows. There’s a dresser on one wall, a night stand on one side of the bed, and a gray armchair with a floor lamp near the bookshelf.

“This is pretty nice,” I tell him.

“Athlete bonus.” He rolls his eyes.

I sit in the armchair. “I think athletes deserve good cribs.”

He snorts. “So does everybody else.”

“Are you a college socialist?” I tease.

“I don’t know,” Ez says. “Which way do you lean?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I lean the way of moving to a private island where there’s nobody but us, and we live in a hut right by the stream.”

“I’m feeling that vibe.”

We end up in his bed, both lying on our sides, turned toward each other. He’s tracing my freckles and I’m running a finger over a little bruise below his left eye.

“I swear, I don’t remember getting it.” He smiles softly.

I kiss his eye. And then his cheek. “You gotta take care of you out there for me. I’ll start sitting close to the field.”

That makes him grin. “If I get hurt, you gonna take care of me?” The smile fades from his face, probably as he considers what would happen if he did get hurt. “Could you, sometimes—sit close?” he asks. “If you’re ever there?”

“Of course. Like at the Rose Bowl?”

A slow smile spreads over his face. “How do you know that’s our bowl?”

“I was keeping up with you, Ez.”

“Wish I would have known,” he murmurs. He presses his forehead against my chest, and I stroke his back as he tells me about some of the hazy memories he had of us that same night he took the Xanax. He says they didn’t feel like memories. More like a fever dream, but based on what they were, theyare—dim memories. Which leads us back around to his wild trip to San Francisco.

“I was such a wreck. It was a fucking miracle they didn’t call the cops, have me committed or some shit.”

“A miracle?” I smile, and Ez props his head in his palm, looking a little dreamy.

“They’re good people. Luke McDowell hooked me up with the therapist I’m seeing here. A trauma specialist. I’m supposed to start doing some stuff with them this week. More stuff.”

“Yeah?”

He nods, looking down as he bites his cheek. “We said we’d wait on harder stuff till after the season was over.”

My stomach does a quick flip at the thought of Ezra doing “harder stuff,” but I know I should be supportive. “It’s so good you’re doing that. You deserve to heal from that shit.”

“Thanks. Josh.” He gives me this small smile. Sad smile? Maybe not sad—just thoughtful.

“You’re my person,” I tell him.

“You’re my person too.”

I kiss his cheeks and we do our side-lying sixty-nine, and after that, we get a bath together.

He winks as he sinks down into the tub, in the back.

“That thing is roomy,” I say.

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