summer stained blue

chapter six - phone calls

"Maybe you should talk to Ashton," Dylan cut in.

Finn's brow furrowed, images of the pretty blue-eyed boy instantly flashing to the front of his mind. "Ashton?"

"Yeah, he was apparently some sort of high school prodigy. He played for Kentucky in college and everyone expected him to go overseas and play professionally, but he retired right after he graduated."

"Seriously? And no one thought to mention this to me before?"

"I'm not the one who's best friends with him," Dylan responded, a pointed jab at Liam disguised as a defensive deflection.

"Cut it out," Finn quipped.

"He's right," Liam agreed. "Ashton is the guy to talk to about soccer. He can be a bit, um . . . hard to talk to? About soccer, I mean. He gets kind of intense and serious about it."

"Sounds like someone I know," Finn said, thinking of his father.

"Yeah. Maybe it's just a soccer player thing. The more you know the game, the more it haunts you."

"Christ," Dylan replied. "Dramatic, Liam. Yeah, that's exactly what he needs right now."

"Well, one of us needs to be serious."

"Alright, alright. Thanks for the advice," Finn cut them off before they could really get into it. "Text me Ashton's number, Li, and I'll give him a call. Hopefully he can save my ass."

"I'll send it now. Glad to help."

"Remember that it was my idea," Dylan interjected. "Bye, bitches! Especially you, Liam."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Finn muttered, rushing to end the call before Liam could spit out a reply.

He tossed his phone into the passenger seat, still rolling his eyes at his friends. They were civil, but Dylan especially had no qualms about "jokingly" poking at Liam to make his distaste known.

They had been best friends for years. They still had a group chat (mostly where Finn messaged embarrassing stories about himself), but it had been a long time since Dylan and Liam were really friends. In college, Liam supposedly betrayed Dylan's trust; as much as Finn begged them to talk it out, Dylan deemed his actions unforgivable. His friends were two of the most childish people he had ever met, yet they both managed to keep him on track when he started to go off the rails.

By the time he pulled into the driveway, he had a text from Liam with Ashton's number (and a side note of why is Dylan such a dick? with two angry emojis). He turned off the car and dialled the number immediately, before he lost his courage. There was a pretty good chance that Ashton was still at work, so he probably wouldn't even answer --

"Hello?"

That accent. Finn's heart leapt up into the back of his throat.

"Hey, um. It's Finn. Liam's friend, Finn. We, uh, met at the bar, and we met before, I mean, if you remember. I think I was a little bit naked -- not completely naked, obviously, but a bit more naked than I normally would be --"

"I know who you are, Finn." He could hear the smile in Ashton's voice, the subtle curl of his lips as they formed the thickly-inflected words. "But thanks for the details. Nice mental image. How can I help you?"

"Oh, well, I got your number from Liam. I'm sort of coaching a high school soccer team for the summer, and well, I actually don't know that much about soccer."

A stiff moment of silence ticked past. "That sounds like an unfortunate situation."

"Yeah, it definitely is. I'm just calling because . . . well, because Liam said that you used to play, and I'm absolutely hopeless, so I thought you might want to --"