Page 16 of Blind Side
"Yeah." He yawned and stretched. The shirt pulled taut across his chest. I looked at the ceiling. "But you don't watch everyone the same way."
I couldn't respond to that. What was I going to say?You're right, I don't. I watch you the way I've watched you for years. You got hit tonight, and I was so afraid for four seconds. That told me everything.
"You're falling asleep," I said instead.
"I'm not falling asleep."
He was falling asleep. His eyes were closing and his head tilted back against the headboard. His breathing evened out.
I sat in the desk chair and watched him sleep for five minutes. Ten. The room was quiet except for the distant sound of the city and the steady rhythm of Jamie's breathing.
He looked different, asleep. The social side of him shut down, and what was left was just the man—broad shoulders, a strong jaw, and a softness around his mouth that appeared when he stopped smiling and let his face rest. He was beautiful. Jamie Hayes was beautiful.
I let myself look for thirty more seconds, then I stood up and crossed to the bed. I put my hand on his shoulder.
"Hayes."
He startled, the jolt of being dragged back from the edge of sleep. His eyes opened and for one unguarded second, they focused on my face.
"Get under the covers," I said. "I'll take the chair for a while."
"Don't be stupid." He grabbed my wrist. His grip was warm. His thumb rested against my pulse point. I knew he could feel my heart rate, which was racing. "The bed's big enough. We're adults."
"You said that yesterday."
"Still true today." He let go of my wrist. I felt his absence immediately. "Come to bed, Abbott."
I turned off the lamp and lay down beside him in the dark on the right side—which was my side because the left side was his side.
Because we had sides of the bed.
He was asleep again within minutes.
I lay in the dark and thought about those four seconds of terror.
And I thought about the feeling of his thumb against my pulse and the devastating, casual way he'd said,Come to bed, Abbott.
As if that sentence didn't contain the entire shape of everything I'd ever wanted and had never asked for.
Denver was offering me a starting position with my name on the back of a jersey that mattered.
Jamie Hayes was asleep beside me, his hand resting on the mattress between us.
I thought about Kieran's question.What are you waiting for him to do?
I knew the answer. I was waiting for him to ask me to stay.
The problem was that Jamie Hayes had never, in his entire life, asked anyone for anything.
8
Jamie
The diner was called Rosie's. It had red vinyl booths and a counter with chrome stools. The coffee machine looked older than both of us combined. The menu was laminated and sticky.
The pancakes were exactly as mediocre as Theo had promised.
Abbott and I sat across from each other in a corner booth at 10 AM on a day off, in yet another unfamiliar city. The displacement and the absence of every familiar structure we used to navigate each other took our conversation somewhere it hadn't gone before.
