Page 2 of Catch Me
My nostrils flared, and I couldn’t stop more tears from escaping. “You don’t want me to change?”
“I don’t know how to feel about you being...” He shook his head. “But I love you, Trav. If we have to see someone and work through things, we’ll do that. You’re not staying in this godforsaken place.”
“My friend. He’s not okay.”
He studied me for a minute. “I can’t do anything about that.”
“We have to. Please, Dad.”
“I can talk to Mr. Taylor, but what they do with their kid isn’t up to me.”
Even though I hated it, I nodded. He stood and offered me his hand, then headed back the way we’d come.
I didn’t stop thinking about Sen for a long time. He’d still pop into my head once in a while. Eventually, though, it faded, just a memory of a whole different time in my life.
My life went on. But so did his. Dumont said that I killed myself rather than telling Sen the truth—that my dad did what all the other kids there prayed to God for. Somedidkill themselves, seeing no light when they peered into an imagined version of the future. Dumont turned me into an unwilling martyr for their holy mission, and in the process, they used me to fuck Sen up more than I’d managed to in my short time there.
It was a horrifying story, but weren’t they all? None of us came out unscathed.
I’d moved on with my life, but thousands of others hadn’t. And that didn’t sit well with me.
Chapter 1
Travis
Today
It always sucked when my team didn’t make it to the World Series, but a bunch of other teams didn’t either, so I tried not to bitch about it. This was only my third season, and I was notoriously impatient. Maybe we’d get there next year.
Even though we weren’t playing, I wasn’t a poor sport, and I liked to watch the other teams fight for the title. After Sen reappeared in my life five months ago, I’d started getting him and his boyfriend, Kai, tickets to games. Not all of them, but quite a few. More than once, I wondered if he’d made sacrifices to Satan in order to find Kai. They were perfect together, and I knew that he was the reason Sen was able to heal from his past as much as he had.
I was often busy, and I spent a god-awful amount of time living out of a suitcase, so I didn’t really have close friends anymore. Aside from the occasional meetup with people back home and hanging out with the guys on the team, I didn’t have much of a social life. Not off of social media, at least.
Today was the first game in the World Series, which was why I’d rented a suite above the field. It was big, with multiple tables, aprivate bar, and its own bathroom. The giant glass window across the front of it gave us a great view of the field.
Sen looked around the space with his mouth open. “This is insane. How much was this?”
“Classified.” My lips quirked as I took a drink of my beer.
Kai was at the window, staring down at the field. He looked perfectly content like that, and it made me laugh.
“Your other friends are coming, right?” I asked.
Sen nodded. “They’re on their way up. I told West there was food in here, but he still wanted to buy a hotdog because he’s a fat ass.”
I couldn’t disagree. West was extremely fit, but every time I saw him, he ate an entire day’s worth of calories at once. He was also...spirited. His boyfriend, Linc, was way more levelheaded, and one might think they’d balance out, but West just did what he was gonna do while everyone else tried their damndest to keep up.
Looking at Sen again, I tapped my thumb on the bottle absently. “How’s work going?”
“It’s good. Still getting into the swing of it.” He laughed a little. “Swing.”
Kai came up and wrapped his arms around Sen from behind. “Are we doing puns? I hit a home run when I met you.”
I snorted a laugh and shook my head. “That’s so cheesy.”
“That’s the point. Learn some puns and you’ll make someone fall in love with you too.”
“Thanks for the advice, kid.”
