His heart sinks. He thought Trey was better than this, more like him. Adaptable to the point of mimicry, flexible into the realm of acrobatics. But still composed of the kind of fortitude that would keep him from ever looking so desperate, so vulnerable, as the center fielder does in this instant. To be like Stephen, you have to be strong, stronger than everyone else. You go out and get—take—what you need. Never ask, unless you know the answer will be yes. Never plead. You’re not going in? The boy steps out of his pants, revealing short boxer briefs and long, lean legs. Even as Trey crumples, Stephen can see: this boy is fierce.

Stephen knows what he has to do.

As Corey steps down the ladder into the pool’s deep end, as Trey sulks back behind a potted aloe with the last puffs of his cigar, as Mona dives below the surface, kicking hard, Stephen marches around the pool to where Dorsey Paine is guffawing in the shallow end.

“Where’s Woody?” Stephen looks around the pool patio; he doesn’t see the general manager anywhere.

“Headed home early. Said he has a call with New York in the morning.” Dorsey shrugs and reaches for a sweating bottle of Corona on the pool’s ledge, but Stephen pushes the bottle with his foot. It slips into the water and begins to sink.

“Hey!” Dorsey complains. The lime floats loose from the neck and bobs back to the surface of the water. Jason, still silent, grabs it and sets it back on the lip of the pool. He retrieves the bottle, too. “What gives?” Dorsey asks.

Stephen, crouched next to the men, looks at the left fielder, at his chest. “Jason, will you give us a minute?”

When he’s out of earshot, Stephen starts, his voice a whisper. “Trey Townsend.”

“What about Trey?”

“He has, what, three years left on his contract?” Corey climbs out of the pool, dripping wet, Adonis-meets-Venus under the desert moon.

“I’d have to check with Woody, but that sounds right.” Could Trey not see that they are all the same? That the three of them are a continuum, not an either/or? One arc proceeds Corey, Trey, Stephen, if they are going by age. By net worth: Corey, Stephen, Trey. Or by potential: Stephen, Trey, Corey. Even as the order of each progression changes, as the trajectory shifts, they are all strung together. Or, they should be.

Stephen had not asked too much of Trey. Just his appreciation, his loyalty. Instead, he’d folded so easily toward this new one, this washboard-stomached, rough-edged boy. And, as quickly as that, Stephen has lost him. He has lost his favorite. Trey comes forward with a towel, but the boy bats it away.

Stephen crosses his arms. “I want him gone by opening day.”

“Really?” Dorsey says.

“Tell Woody to make it happen.”