By the third match, Ethan had killed Jake's character for the third time in a row and was leaning back in his chair with the easy satisfaction of a man who had absolutely nothing to prove.
"Say it," Ethan said.
"I got lagged out," Jake said, staring at the screen.
"Jake."
"My mouse was sticking."
"Jacob."
"I'm just saying the conditions weren't—"
"We agreed. Two out of three. I gave you a fourth game out of generosity, and you lost that one too." Ethan folded his arms. "Say it."
Jake Mercer — six feet tall, starting forward on the Jefferson varsity soccer team, genuinely one of the most confidently wrong people Ethan had ever known across two lifetimes — turned a spectacular shade of red.
"...Father," he muttered.
"I cannot hear you."
"Father, oh my god—"
"Thank you." Ethan spun his chair back to the screen. "Now go get me a Snapple from the vending machine. You owe me a drink."
Jake shoved back from his station and slouched toward the machine, grumbling the entire way. He came back with two bottles — Snapple for Ethan, a Mountain Dew for himself — and they took them outside and sat on the curb in front of LAN Zone like they'd been doing since seventh grade.
The Sunday afternoon was warm and unhurried. A couple of kids were riding bikes across the parking lot. Someone nearby was cutting grass.
Ethan cracked the Snapple and drank half of it in one go.
"Man," Jake said, pulling at his Mountain Dew. "When did you get that good? You were never that good."
"I've been practicing."
"At what, you don't even play that much—"
"Different kind of practice," Ethan said.
Jake squinted at him. Then let it go, because Jake Mercer had the attention span of a golden retriever and something across the street had already caught his eye.
They sat on the curb for a while without talking, which was the specific comfort of a friendship that didn't need to fill silence.
Ethan looked at the side of Jake's face and felt something pull quietly in his chest.
In the previous life, Jake had stayed in Columbus. Married his college girlfriend — Emma, who Ethan had always liked — had a son named Caleb around age twenty-six. When Ethan had been at his lowest point, twenty-three years old with a bad lease and a worse job prospect, Jake had shown up at his apartment with a six-pack and five hundred dollars in cash and said I know it's not much, but it's yours, no timeline on paying it back.
He'd paid it back six months later, with interest, which Jake had refused and then lost the argument about.
After Ethan's company cleared its first million, he'd called Jake before anyone else.
...
"Hey," Ethan said.
"What."
"You're a good friend, man."
Jake turned and looked at him with profound suspicion. "Did you take something."
"I'm being sincere."
"You're being weird." Jake pointed the Mountain Dew at him. "You've been weird all weekend. Emma said you seemed off at lunch on Friday too."
"I'm fine. I'm just—" Ethan looked out at the parking lot. "The exams are coming up. Makes you think about stuff."
"Yeah." Jake was quiet for a moment. "Yeah, I get that."
They finished their drinks on the curb. A group of older ladies had set up a little dance exercise situation in the park across the street — a Bluetooth speaker going, some line-dance routine that was apparently synchronized by muscle memory alone. Ethan watched them for a minute.
He recognized the song — some pop track that had been everywhere in 2014. In a few years it would turn up in a viral video and get a second life on the internet.
"Alright, I'm heading home," Jake said, crumpling his bottle. "Mom wants me to do something productive with the afternoon, which I'm going to interpret as loosely as possible."
"Same." Ethan stood and stretched.
They lived four blocks apart — had since elementary school. They walked the same direction for three of those blocks, talking about nothing in particular: the World Cup draw, whether Jefferson's new AP Physics teacher was as bad as advertised, what Jake was going to do if Georgetown actually waitlisted him.
At the corner of Henderson and Park, they split off.
"Come over later if you want," Jake said, walking backward. "My mom made that chicken thing you like."
"Maybe," Ethan said.
Jake gave him a two-finger salute and turned the corner.
Ethan got home, went straight to the fridge, pulled out a Gatorade, and drank half of it standing at the kitchen counter.
The house was quiet. His parents were at the hardware store doing weekend inventory. Rachel was at Ohio State.
He leaned against the counter and looked out the window at the backyard — the same oak tree, the same rusted bird feeder his dad had put up and never refilled, the same patch of garden his mom kept threatening to actually plant something in.
This life must not be wasted.
He'd already sketched the outline last night. Short term: finals, then the World Cup. Medium term: first real capital, first investments. He knew which companies to watch. He knew exactly which seeds were about to become forests.
But plans only held until reality showed up.
He thought about last night — Diana Whitmore in the car.
In life, things happen that you don't plan for.
Even with a full memory of the future, you couldn't account for everything. You just had to stay ready.
He pushed off the counter, went upstairs, dug around in his closet until he found what he was looking for pushed against the back wall behind a box of old cleats.
The acoustic guitar. A Fender CD-60S, sunburst finish, bought new in 2013 when he'd gone through a brief and sincere conviction that he was going to learn to play. He'd managed three chords before Madden season started and the guitar had been in the closet ever since.
He brought it downstairs, sat on the couch, and spent twenty minutes retuning it from memory — in the previous life he'd actually learned, properly, during a slow stretch in his late twenties when the company was running itself and he'd needed something to do with his hands.
He pulled up the chords on his phone and started playing.
The song was an old one — Tom Petty, Wildflowers. Slow enough to be forgiving, pretty enough to be worth playing. He found the chord progression after a minute of fumbling and settled into it.
You belong somewhere you feel free—
"DUDE."
Ethan startled hard enough to nearly drop the guitar.
Jake Mercer's face was filling the window beside the front porch, nose practically pressed against the glass, eyes wide.
Ethan put a hand on his chest. "What is wrong with you—"
"When did you learn guitar?!" Jake's voice was muffled through the window. "You literally cannot play guitar, I've known you since second grade—"
"Go to the door like a normal person!"
Jake disappeared from the window and reappeared at the front door ten seconds later, slightly out of breath.
"My mom sent over some of that banana bread you like," he said, holding up a foil-wrapped loaf, already walking in like he lived there. He set it on the coffee table and pointed at the guitar. "Explain."
"I've been practicing," Ethan said.
"You said that about the game too." Jake dropped onto the armchair across from him. "What song was that?"
"Tom Petty."
"It actually sounded good." Jake said this with genuine bewilderment, like a man watching a dog do calculus. "Play it again."
Ethan settled the guitar back in his lap, found the chord, and started again.
Jake leaned back in the armchair with his arms crossed and listened with the specific expression of someone revising their understanding of a person they thought they knew completely.
Outside, the Sunday afternoon went on being warm and ordinary.
Ethan played through the verse once, and for a few minutes the only sound in the house was the guitar and the oak tree moving slightly in the wind outside.
It was, he thought, a pretty good way to spend a Sunday.
There are some advance chapters ahead in my Patreon. If you are interested can check it out.
patreon.com/B_A_3439