Page 20 of Blind Side
At the hotel later that night, I sat down on the edge of the bed. Jamie was in the shower when my phone buzzed.
Marty.
"Denver's front office watched the game," he said. "They're extremely interested. The offer is formalizing. We're talking about two years, three point five per. Starter guaranteed."
Three and a half million per year. Starter guaranteed. It was a number that someone like me, a career backup, was never supposed to hear.
"I'll call you tomorrow," I said.
"Clay. This is the one."
"I know. I'll call you tomorrow."
I hung up. The shower in the bathroom turned off. Jamie came out in shorts, toweling his hair. He was still buzzing from the win and the momentum of a road trip that was going well.
"Thirty-one saves," he said, dropping onto the bed. "Thirty-one. You know what Kieran averages on a thirty-plus save night? His save percentage drops in the third period on high-shot games. You were better in the third than the first."
He knew Kieran's third-period save percentage on high-shot games. He knew mine would be different.
"You should be a starter somewhere," Jamie said, not for the first time. But tonight, after what he'd said in the locker room, after the way he'd looked at me, his comment landed in a place that was already raw.
"Maybe," I said.
He looked at me. His expression sharpened for a fraction of a second—he'd noticed something—and then softened back. He didn't push. He was learning not to push me on this trip. He'd figured out that what he was sensing was bigger than contract anxiety.
"Goodnight, Abbott."
"Goodnight, Hayes."
I lay in the dark beside him and thought about three and a half million dollars and a starting net. I remembered his voice across the locker room.That's what you are.
I had known for a while, but it was getting louder. No number and no net in any city in the world was going to outweigh the sound of Jamie Hayes believing in me like that.
10
Jamie
Something had changed.
It bothered me that I couldn't place it. It's what I did. I read rooms. I identified dynamics. I tracked the social temperature of any space and adjusted accordingly. But something had changed between Abbott and me on this road trip.
It was day nine and the second-to-last game of the trip, the last city, and the team had settled into the rhythm of a long road stretch. The bus rides and hotel rooms and morning skates all blurred together.
We were winning—two of three so far. The mood was good and the energy high. I was doing my job keeping the room warm, keeping Mikkola connected, and making sure Morrison was included in conversations without making it obvious.
I was on the ice during warm-ups, going through the pre-game routine of stretching and light skating. It was the ritual of reacquainting yourself with a different sheet of ice. The arena here was older and smaller, with boards that were slightly softerand ice that ran a fraction warmer than what we were used to at home.
I was stretching at center ice when I felt it.
Abbott was on the bench, backup again. Kieran was back in. Abbott was in full gear and helmet off. He was watching me.
I knew Abbott, through a sense I couldn't have described to anyone else. I'd been tuned to his frequency without realizing it. His attention felt different when it was directed at me, as if I was the only moving object on a surface full of twenty-four other men in motion.
I knew, the way you know the sun is on your back without seeing it. I went through warm-ups, knowing his eyes were on me. It felt warm—and impossible to ignore.
The game was good. I made two assists, one primary, one secondary. The primary was a backdoor feed to Luca that required me to hold the puck through three strides of heavy traffic, absorb a cross-check from their defenseman, and release the pass at the exact moment the lane opened. The secondary was a broken play that I salvaged by reading the rebound off the end boards and putting it on Theo's tape before the defense could recover. Both plays came from the same skill—seeing the pattern before anyone else did.
My line with Luca hummed. We ran plays that felt less like coordination and more like shared consciousness. The puck moved between us as if it knew its job. There was a moment in the second period, a cycle play we'd run a hundred times, where I looked up and Luca was already moving to the spot I needed him to be. I released the pass without looking. The sound of his one-timer hitting the back of the net was pure joy.
